The army cooperation aircraft was an inter-war concept of an aircraft capable of support of

ground units An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

in a variety of roles. Army cooperation planes combined the roles of artillery spotter aircraft,

liaison Liaison means communication between two or more groups, or co-operation or working together. Liaison or liaisons may refer to: General usage * Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship * Collaboration * Co-operation Arts and entertainment * Li ...

reconnaissance plane In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmishers, ...

and

close air support In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and moveme ...

Details

The concept of army cooperation units was invented in France at the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Numerous countries experimented with the idea of creating separate units tasked with close cooperation with ground units. However, in most cases the roles of observation, reconnaissance and liaison were kept separate, with each assigned to a more specialised unit. One of the few countries to actually implement the idea was Poland. By the end of the 1930s the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...

had 12

escadrille A flight is a small military unit within the larger structure of an air force, naval air service, or army air corps; and is usually subservient of a larger squadron. A military aircraft flight is typically composed of four aircraft, though ...

s of "assisting aircraft", usually operating as platoons of 3 to 6 aircraft attached to regiments of infantry or cavalry. Typical Polish army cooperation planes included

Lublin R-XIII The Lublin R-XIII was the Polish army cooperation plane (observation and liaison plane), designed in the early-1930s in the Plage i Laśkiewicz factory in Lublin. It was the main army cooperation plane in the Invasion of Poland. Its variant Lubli ...

PZL Ł.2 The PZL Ł.2 was the Polish Army cooperation and liaison aircraft, built in 1929 in the Polskie Zakłady Lotnicze (PZL) in Warsaw. Only a small series of 31 aircraft, including prototype, were made, and used by the Polish Air Force in the 193 ...

and

RWD-14 Czapla The RWD-14 Czapla (LWS Czapla) was a Polish army cooperation aircraft (observation, close reconnaissance and liaison aircraft), designed in the mid-1930s by the RWD team, and produced in the LWS factory from 1938. A series of 65 aircraft were b ...

. According to Polish specifications of the late 1920s, the army cooperation aircraft were capable of

STOL A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a conventional fixed-wing aircraft that has short runway requirements for takeoff and landing. Many STOL-designed aircraft also feature various arrangements for use on airstrips with harsh conditio ...

, had folding wings and relatively small dimensions to allow them to operate from improvised airfields and improvised hangars such as barns. The folding wings also allowed for the plane to be towed by a car or truck, which was essential for the planes to operate in cooperation with the land units.

References

Aircraft by type {{aviation-stub