"John Redman" wrote in message om...
One would be if the technology behind it were so difficult for the
other participants to knock off that it became and remained dominant
for long enough to provide air supremacy. This assumes that air
supremacy would have been decisively useful, and I'm not sure it would
have been with anything built in 1914-18 (and given that you've used
your trump card to achieve the supremacy in the first place).

Getting the supremacy sounds like a job for a fighter, eg the Fokker
E-I in 1915. Using it decisively sounds like one for a bomber, and if
I think about bombers that have had a decisive effect on surface
campaigns, I struggle to think of any that did not rely on other
factors. Eg the Stuka was arguably a decisive weapon but only if you
had the Bf109 to clear its path, and I doubt if you could have built
one in 1914-8 anyway.

I don't think this is clear.

Lets assume that the Germans get something like a 1920's
fighter and that it will be a year before the allies can copy it.

A sudden decisive air domination means that the allies have
no arial recon ability. Just that alone could change battles.
A fighter from the 1920s can knock out railroad lines
and bridges, which is a large logistics problem.

Basically, a fighter form the 1920s means that the Germans can
mass for an attack without the Allies knowledge and
can reduce the Allies ability to reinforce the attacked spot.

Even if you think the French can overcome these problems, I doubt the
Russians and/or Serbs can. An early fall of Russia gives Germany the
war.

Sure, it's not the nuclear weapons of World War One, but the war
was such a close thing that the teeter-totter can be made to fall
the other way.

Talleyrand
Who is just as willing to argue for the Allies use of airplanes