Ace (military)

Ace, when used in the context of military propaganda, denotes a successful military professional who has accumulated a meaningfully measurable statistic such as aircraft kills, tank kills, tonnage sunk, or number of successful sniper shots. In a manner analogous to sport statistics, such as List of National Football League passing touchdowns leaders, some military roles can be measured in terms of a quantifiable metric. Once said metric is established, different military personnel (whether within the same force, in different forces, or in different eras) may be quantified versus the designated metric and compared in a tabular fashion. Such metrics may be used as a basis for military merit awards, such as Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by setting an arbitrary threshold. Likewise, a designation of "ace" (and "double ace", "triple ace", etc.) may be applied based on an arbitrary threshold, such as 5 aircraft shoot downs, in a manner similar to sport statistics as basketball's double-double.

The ace achieved success with "skill and luck, and if victorious won the accolades of the patriotic public". The usage of the term in popular culture evolved to include "tank aces" ("Panzer aces") and "submarine aces".

The term is most commonly applied to military aviators, especially fighter pilots, who are often described as "flying aces". The term "ace" in relation to individual military success originated with French military propaganda of World War I. The as de l'aviation (the flying ace) was used for fighter pilots who had shot down a certain number of enemy aircraft, usually five or more. It has been picked up particularly by the United States Army Air Service and its propaganda.

The emergence of the solo "flying ace" can be traced to the introduction of the single-seater fighter airplane in 1915. The image created by the state propaganda was that of "chevalier of the skies", the successor of the medieval knight at a joust. According to Nicole-Melanie Goll, the popular perception of one-on-one duels was divorced from reality, however, as planes rarely broke formation.

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