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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Freiherr_von_Richthofen
He also served as part of the Condor Legion which supported the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. During this time, he recognised the need for close air support in military campaigns and championed the dive bomber, particularly the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka. He also believed in improving ground-air communications, which was put into effect in the Second World War, after his experiences in Spain and Poland. The combination of effective air-ground communications and powerful concentration of dive bombers would lead to personal success for Wolfram in the first half of the war. By 1941, a high standard of air to ground communications became a uniform facility in the Luftwaffe.

The most difficult aspect of close support was communication. Air-ground liaison officers had been used since 1935, when the Luftwaffe first set up a training program for this purpose. By 1937, precise procedures had yet to be worked through for air to ground coordination. Staff officers were trained to solve operational problems, and the lack of doctrine and reluctance of the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL = High Command of the Air Force) to micromanage gave Sperrle and Richthofen a free hand to devise solutions. Aircraft could not communicate with the frontline. Instead they could communicate via radio with each other and their home base. One of the first innovations was to prepare signals staff on the frontline in the region of any planned air strikes, and equip them with telephones. The forward officers could telephone the base with updates, who in turn could radio the aircraft. It became an important standard operational practice. Liaison officers were attached to the Nationalist Army, and improved coordination continued in the second half of 1937 despite occasional friendly-fire incidents. In the Second World War, the Luftwaffe air units and liaison officers at the front could communicate directly with updated radios.[25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support#Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe matched its material acquisitions with advances in the air-ground coordination. General Wolfram von Richthofen organized a limited number of air liaison detachments that were attached to ground units of the main effort. These detachments existed to pass requests from the ground to the air, and receive reconnaissance reports, but they were not trained to guide aircraft onto targets. These preparations did not prove fruitful in the invasion of Poland, where the Luftwaffe focused on interdiction and dedicated few assets to close air support. But the value of CAS was demonstrated at the crossing of the Meuse River during the Invasion of France in 1940.

How important was Richthofen to the development of Close Air Support doctrine? Couldn't someone else have done the same if they were in the same position in Spain and then Poland to work out the details? Richthofen certainly was a highly intelligent and energetic commander who was able to make things happen, but it doesn't seem like what he did was rocket science that only a special individual could have achieved. Perhaps it was his stature in the Luftwaffe that enabled him to make the adaptations he wanted, but really it does not seem to me that he was critical to the development of CAS with Stukas.

Assuming then that Richthofen stayed in the LW's Development Branch rather than getting his transfer to Spain that he requested, what do you think would become of the LW's CAS doctrine? Would it develop roughly as per OTL or was Richthofen crucial to making it happen? Could someone like Hermann Polcher (Richthofen's OTL replacement in Spain) or Bruno Lörzer have done it anyway?
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