The Problems of Peacetime Innovation: The Development of US Army Antiaircraft Artillery During the Interwar Period -- A Case Study in Preparing the Army for the Future.

This monograph examines several external and internal factors that influence innovation as they apply to military organizations in general and to the development of the American antiaircraft artillery establishment between World War I and World War II specifically. A child of World War I, the antiaircraft artillery fought against external and internal post-war pressures to emerge as an accepted member of the family of arms by 1941. The emergence of the antiaircraft artillery during this period represented a shift within its parent branch, the Coast Artillery Corps, away from the traditional mission of seacoast defense. Over the course of this shift, the antiaircraft artillery fought against not only the purveyors of the status quo in the seacoast artillery who sought to shield their organization from technical and political obsolescence, but also the other combat arms within the Army, in particular the Air Corps, which disagreed with the Coast Artillery over the need for antiaircraft artillery. For these reasons, the history of the antiaircraft artillery is an excellent vehicle through which to examine the phenomenon of military innovation. MM