Overview

"Buying Aircraft: Matériel Procurement for the Army Air Forces" offers the reader a liberal education in military procurement. It examines in depth, and with judicious understanding, the following: procurement of aircraft; budgeting and budgetary changes; contracting; design changes; the nature and development of the aircraft industry; manufacturing techniques, especially in the introduction of mass production into the aircraft industry, and problems in the use of automobile assembly plants for making aircraft; and the War Department's relations with Congress and the Comptroller. Professor Holley recognizes the broad sweep and interrelationship of political, economic, legal, and military problems, and stresses the importance of organization within both government and industry. The volume focuses upon problems inherent in procurement, but does not concern itself with air or ground force doctrine. Its subject matter is the procurement, not the employment, of air power. Because Professor Holley's volume offers concrete examples of problems involved in the design and purchase of complicated and expensive items of military equipment over a period of years, the experiences described should profit the officer engaged in procurement of missiles and aircraft today as well as the student of logistics, and will add immeasurably to the thoughtful citizen's understanding of national defense.