AERIAL WARFARE
In the present European War is being tested the enginery of destruction
and slaughter that has been building and accumulating for half a
century. It is the most stupendous experiment that the human race has
ever tried. The magnitude of it confounds the senses; the horror
obsesses the mind and stumps realization.
The influence of improvements in all kinds of weapons and machinery of
war is further and further to complicate strategics. The more that
invention, science, and discovery are employed in the development and
perfection of implements of war, the more the use of those implements
requires high inventive genius and high scientific skill.
Before the outbreak of the war there were many military engines awaiting
a practical trial in actual service, among them the dirigible balloon.
During a period of forty years the nations of the world have been
obliged to do a good deal of guessing, in spite of calculations based on
previous experience in wars whose mechanism was very simple and crude as
compared with the present engines of war. But the improvements in
weapons employed on terra firma did not constitute so far a step away
from experience as engines of aerial warfare. Those engines of war which
have been mainly the subjects of guess-work are the aeroplane and that
dreadnought of the air, the Zeppelin, especially the latter. The advent
of the aeroplane introduced an entirely new set of problems.
Before the advent of the aeroplane, the navigation of the air was
confined to the balloon. Contrary to expectation, the aeroplane, instead
of putting the balloon out of the race, served only to stimulate higher
development of the balloon, with the result that the dirigible balloon
and the aeroplane have been developed side by side.
From the outset, it was recognized that the chief desideratum in the
development of the aeroplane consisted in greater stability, and
especially in automatic equilibration.
The first aeroplanes were very imperfect. At the time of the early
exhibitions which I witnessed, it was necessary to plan them to take
place in the calm of the evening, just before sundown. The aeroplane
could not go up in a wind. No aeronaut would have undertaken to go up
except when there was no wind. Even a moderate breeze made them quite
unmanageable. Now, however, the aeroplane can rise in a gale of wind,
and fly right into the teeth of a hurricane.
The old-style balloon could only go with the wind. It could make no
headway against it, but had to float like a feather on the lightest
breeze. The modern dirigible, however, which has reached its highest
degree of perfection in the Zeppelin, can travel through still air at a
speed of sixty miles an hour, the speed of a gale of wind, and can brave
a fifty-mile gale at a speed of ten miles an hour. This is altogether
remarkable when we take into account the fact that the Zeppelin, with
all its load, must be lighter than air, and therefore, for its size,
lighter than the fluffiest eiderdown.
LIMITATIONS OF THE AERIAL BOMB
Aviation makes a strong appeal to the imagination, and this fact,
together with errors and misconceptions in the popular mind concerning
the use and power of high explosives, has led to many strange
predictions and weird conclusions about the destruction which dirigibles
and aeroplanes would be capable of doing by dropping bombs from the sky.
Since the advent of aviation, many inventors have directed their
energies to aerial bombs and bomb-dropping appliances. There have been,
from time to time, fearful forecasts of the destruction of warships,
coast fortifications, and large cities; for it was claimed that
air-craft would be able to drop explosive bombs capable of wrecking the
heaviest battleship and of blowing up coast fortifications and utterly
laying waste cities and towns. It was predicted that the aeroplane would
be able, with its bombs, to scatter armies like chaff before the
whirlwind.
The hopes of those who have believed in such dire destructiveness of
bomb-dropping from air-craft have been dashed to the ground, with the
bombs they have dropped. Of course, aviators may drop any form of
infernal machine which, on exploding, will mangle by-standers with
fragments of scrap iron, but the effect must necessarily be very local.
The most effective use aviators can make of bombs and infernal machines
is to destroy one another in the sky and to attack magazines and
storehouses, wireless stations, hangars, and balloon-sheds within the
enemy's lines, and beyond the reach of other means of attack. Also, in
connection with the attack of advancing troops, aerial bombs dropped
from aeroplanes may be used with effect, especially in disentrenching an
enemy. At sea, too, with the latest types of aeroplane, bombs of
sufficient size and weight and power of penetration may be used
destructively against unarmored or light-armored war-vessels. A more
efficient means, however, than has yet been adopted is needed to secure
the required accuracy. Naturally, such bombs are admirably adapted to
the destruction of dirigible balloons. The swift-winged aviator is able
to manoeuvre at will around and above a huge dirigible and to attack it
from any quarter.
There is probably no one subject about which there is more popular error
than concerning the use and destructive effects of high explosives.
An anarchist once attempted to blow up London Bridge with two small
sticks of dynamite, and succeeded merely in getting himself into
trouble. At another time, a dynamiter entered the Houses of Parliament
and exploded ten pounds of dynamite in one of the large corridors, with
the result that it only made a hole in the floor and smashed a few
windows.
As a matter of fact, airships are capable of working comparatively small
damage by dropping bombs, unless the bombs can be made to hit and
penetrate the object struck before exploding, for the reason that,
unless confined, explosives have but little effect.
When a mass of high explosive is detonated upon a firm, resisting body,
like the earth, or the deck of a battleship, or armor-plate, the effect
is to rebound from the resisting body with small result. For example,
when a mass of high explosive is set off on the earth's surface, the
ball of incandescent gases bounds upward, spreading out in the form of
an inverted cone. While it will blow a hole of considerable size into
the ground, still the effect in a horizontal plane is practically nil.
The windows of buildings standing in the vicinity of an explosion of
this character are not blown inward, but are blown outward in the
direction of the explosion by atmospheric reaction.
At Sandy Hook, several years ago, an experiment was tried with two
hundred pounds of guncotton exploded against a twelve-inch plate,
immediately back of which were placed a cage containing a rooster and a
hen, and another cage containing a dog. The guncotton was hung against
the plate and detonated. The effect upon the plate was nil. On
examination, it was found that the dog and the two fowl had been made
rather hard of hearing. That was the only noticeable effect upon the
animals.
We all remember the test of the big, eighteen-inch Gathmann gun at Sandy
Hook about twelve years ago, which threw a bomb containing six hundred
pounds of compressed guncotton that was exploded against the face of a
twelve-inch Kruppized plate. The first shot produced no visible effect
except a yellow smudge on the face of the plate. It took three shots
even to crack the plate and to shift it in its setting.
In competition with the Gathmann gun, a twelve-inch army rifle was fired
against another plate of the same size and thickness and mounted in the
same manner. The projectile contained only twenty-three pounds of
Maximite. Yet, as the projectile penetrated the plate before the
Maximite was exploded, a hole was blown through it a yard wide, and it
was broken into several pieces.
These tests proved the effectiveness of even a small quantity of high
explosive when properly confined, as by explosion after penetration, and
the utter ineffectiveness of a large mass of high explosive when not
confined or when exploded on the outside of a body.
Bombs carried by an airship and dropped upon the deck of a battleship
may damage the superstructure a little, but they can have no material
effect upon the ship itself, unless they are made heavy enough and
strong enough, with the proper armor-piercing shape, and are dropped
from a sufficient height to pierce the deck. Not unless the bomb can be
made to penetrate an object before exploding can it effect much
destruction.
At Santiago, the _Vesuvius_, with its pneumatic guns, threw several
six-hundred-pound bombs, and exploded them on the Spanish
fortifications, but the effect was wholly insignificant.
Several years ago, when the subway was being built, a dynamite magazine
accidentally exploded in front of the Murray Hill Hotel. The magazine
probably contained at least a ton of dynamite. A lot of windows were
broken in the vicinity, some persons were injured, and a multitude
badly scared, but the damage done even to the Murray Hill Hotel was
comparatively small.
It has been predicted that Germany would send across the Channel a large
fleet of airships and blow up British towns with the bombs that her
great gas-bags might drop out of the heavens.
Now, at last, the much-vaunted and long-anticipated Zeppelin invasion
has come, and what is the result? Four peaceful citizens killed, and
about ten thousand dollars' worth of property damage.
Let us suppose that the Germans should send a fleet of a hundred
airships to drop bombs upon the city of London, returning to Germany
each day for a new supply; and let us suppose that each airship should
carry explosives enough to destroy two houses every day, which would be
far more than they could actually average. Yet, if this aerial fleet
should be able to destroy two hundred houses a day, or say, roughly,
sixty thousand houses a year, it would succeed in destroying just about
the annual growth of London, for that city has, during the past ten
years, built sixty thousand new houses every year.
The dirigible balloon has one signal advantage over the aeroplane in the
matter of bomb-dropping. It can both carry bigger bombs and remain
stationary and hover while it drops them. With the aeroplane, however,
there is necessarily great difficulty in hitting underlying objects, on
account of the high speed at which it must travel to sustain flight. In
order to float, an aeroplane must travel about thirty miles an hour.
Even at this speed, it is moving forward at the rate of forty-four feet
a second, and as a bomb travels at the same speed as the aeroplane,
except for the retardation of the air, it moves forward forty-four feet
the first second, while dropping sixteen feet. The next second the bomb
falls sixty-four feet and moves forward forty-four feet, and so on.
Sixty miles an hour is a moderate speed for an aeroplane, however, and
at that speed the bomb travels forward eighty-eight feet per second when
it is dropped, so that, during the first second, while it descends but
sixteen feet, it moves forward eighty-eight feet. It falls sixty-four
feet the next second, and moves forward eighty-eight feet, and so on,
descending in a parabolic curve, so that, by the time it strikes the
earth, it may be several hundred feet from the place at which it is
aimed.
Although the dirigible balloon, a Zeppelin, for example, may hover in a
stationary position at will when dropping bombs, still it constitutes
such an enormous target that it must fly very high in order to keep out
of range of gun-fire. Guns are now made which can reach air-craft at the
height of two miles. At that height, or at half that height, there can
be but little accuracy in bomb-dropping, even from the stationary
Zeppelin.
The efficiency of a fighting machine is exactly proportionate to the
amount of life and property that it can destroy in a given time with the
minimum exposure of property and life in order to do the work. If a
fleet of a dozen Zeppelins should be able to attack and destroy an
entire British fortified town like Dover, it would be a good investment.
If, however, the loss that it would be able to inflict upon the enemy
were only equal to the loss that the British would inflict upon it, then
it would be a bad investment, or at least, an investment without profit,
for the reason that, in war, it is poor policy to risk the destruction
of a valuable war-engine merely for the destruction of what may be
termed non-belligerent property of an enemy, such as the dwellings of
the inhabitants of a city.
Suppose, for example, that a couple of Zeppelins should be able to
destroy houses in a British town having a value ten times as great as
the value of one of the Zeppelins, and, in the attack, should lose one
of the Zeppelins, it would not be a profitable raid, for a Zeppelin,
being useful for scouting purposes, is a potential factor in deciding
the issue of the war, whereas the houses have practically no bearing on
the issue of the war.
It is good policy to use both men and machinery of war only for the
destruction of men and machinery of an enemy, and not for the
destruction of non-combatant inhabitants and property.
Much has been said about gun-fire from air-craft upon underlying troops.
A man standing on the earth, being seen endwise, presents a much smaller
target to the vertical fire of the air-man than he presents when fired
at horizontally from the earth, because in the one case he is seen
end-to, and in the other case side-to. Besides, several other men may be
exposed to the horizontal fire. The air-man, however, is a conspicuous
target, and if his machine is hit and crippled the result is fatal to
him.
AEROPLANE AND DIRIGIBLE COMPARED
As I have for many years predicted, the chief use of air-craft, whether
aeroplane or dirigible balloon, is for purposes of reconnaissance.
This war has amply demonstrated the fact that air-craft are of enormous
value. They have rendered surprises in force practically impossible.
Each side has been able to keep itself fully aware of the numbers and
disposition of opposing troops.
The aeroplane costs but a fraction of what the Zeppelin costs, while the
Zeppelin presents a target enormously larger. It constitutes a target so
big as to make the broad side of a barn blush with envy.
As one effective hit will bring down either aeroplane or Zeppelin alike,
obviously, the aeroplane has the advantage over the Zeppelin, as a
target, equal to the difference in size multiplied by the difference in
cost. Furthermore, the aeroplane is far more mobile and more rapid in
flight than the Zeppelin.
In judging of the value of the Zeppelin for purposes of reconnaissance
on land, as compared with the aeroplane, we must take into account the
fact that a large number of aeroplanes can be built for the cost of a
single Zeppelin, and manned with the crew of a single Zeppelin, and that
these many aeroplanes, operating in concert, will be able to do much
more effective work than one Zeppelin.
If the Allies would be good enough not to shoot at them, Zeppelins might
be very efficient indeed, hovering along the battle-front. These
dirigibles have been very conspicuous for their absence from the
battle-front in the war.
The use of the Zeppelin as a troop-ship has yet to be proven, and its
value for the purpose will depend upon how it compares with the
aeroplane for the same purpose. Aeroplanes capable of carrying at least
a dozen soldiers each, with the arms and equipment of a raider's outfit,
can now be built. Obviously, as a large number of such aeroplanes can be
built at the cost of a single Zeppelin, and as the aeroplane can travel
even faster than the Zeppelin, the Zeppelin cannot for one moment
compare with the aeroplane, even for the purpose of carrying troops.
There is one purpose, however, for which the Zeppelin is admirably
adapted, where it is much superior to the aeroplane, and it is for
reconnaissance over sea. The Zeppelin can hang on the sky and scan the
sea as a hawk scans a field for its prey; and as it can carry a wireless
apparatus capable of transmitting messages to a distance of two hundred
miles or more, it can keep the German fleet constantly informed of the
positions of the British fleet in the near seas. It is thus able to
direct a sortie of ships when the numbers and disposition of the enemy's
ships are such as to insure success.
The Zeppelin has also a very important use in the detection of
submarines, for the reason that from a vertical position submarines,
under favorable conditions, can easily be seen at considerable depths
below the surface, and the Zeppelin, with its long-range wireless, is
able promptly to report such valuable information.
I am of the opinion that the Germans have planned and built their
Zeppelins mainly for oversea fighting against England, and for a
prospective invasion of England. I think they must have been
disappointed in the lack of destructiveness that their bombs have had
when dropped from Zeppelins, while the moral effect on England must also
have been disappointing.
From the point of German advantage, it would be a good plan to frighten
the British if it would take the fight out of them, but it is a very bad
plan to frighten the British if it puts more fight into them. The
Zeppelin raids have certainly had the effect of stimulating the British
fighting spirit.
It is especially regrettable that the United States Government did not
heartily co-operate with the Wright Brothers to lead the world in the
development of the aeroplane; but nothing of the sort was done. "We
have," as Congressman Gardner says, "been experimenting and expecting
and reporting and contracting and considering--in fact, we have been
doing everything except building aeroplanes."
The Wright Brothers, however, were received with glad foreign embrace.
They were generously encouraged abroad, both by co-operative and
competitive experiments and by liberal purchases. The result was that,
on the breaking out of the European War, France, for example, had 1,400
aeroplanes, while the United States had but twenty-three, mostly
obsolete. The United States Government has followed its time-honored
custom of allowing its naval and military inventions to be developed and
perfected abroad before adoption here.
Prior to the outbreak of the European War, this government ordered from
abroad an up-to-date French aeroplane with two Salmson motors, and one
of the latest German aeroplanes with two Mercedes motors, with the
intention of building a few of these machines. Then came the European
War. The American purchases were commandeered, and we were thereby
prevented from acquiring the much-desired air-craft.
The de Bange obturator, an indispensable part of the breech mechanism of
all large guns, was originally an American invention, but this
Government allowed it to be developed and perfected abroad and given a
foreign name.
Ericsson's _Monitor_ was taken up by Europeans, right where its private
builders left it, and it has been developed, mainly in England, into the
modern super-dreadnought.
The interchangeable system of manufacture of small arms was developed
and perfected in America, but received no encouragement from the
government. This system is now universally employed in the manufacture
of small arms, and also in the manufacture of all kinds of machinery. It
is for this reason that we are able to get a spare part for an
automobile that will fit in place perfectly without having it specially
made. Before the advent of the interchangeable system of manufacture of
firearms, a sportsman in England went to his gunsmith to be measured for
a shotgun just as he went to his tailor to be measured for a suit of
clothes. At that time, no two guns were made exactly alike, and no piece
of one gun would fit any other gun, while now all the parts of one gun
will fit in the places of corresponding parts in every other gun of the
same pattern.
The year the United States Government adopted multi-perforated smokeless
powder, Congress appropriated only $30,000 for smokeless powder, the
orders to be divided among the different manufacturers. This meant that
inventors, like myself, who had started in a small way, were driven out
of business. I went to England with my multi-perforated smokeless-powder
grain, which had been adopted by the United States Government, but found
it hard to get foreign manufacturers to recognize either the superiority
of the multi-perforated grain or of the pure nitro-cellulose powder. The
excessive erosion, however, of guns used in the present war, due to the
use of powders containing a high percentage of nitroglycerin, is already
making those countries using nitroglycerin powders look longingly to the
superior smokeless powder used in the United States.
The United States Government has as yet taken no steps worth considering
toward the obtainment of Zeppelins, or any other practical dirigible
balloon. At the present time, there is not one in the American service.
At the outbreak of hostilities abroad, France had 22 dirigibles and
1,400 aeroplanes; Russia, 18 dirigibles and 800 aeroplanes; Great
Britain, 9 dirigibles and 400 aeroplanes; Belgium, 2 dirigibles and 100
aeroplanes; Germany, 40 dirigibles and 1,000 aeroplanes; Austria, 8
dirigibles and 400 aeroplanes; while the United States had, as I have
mentioned, only 23 aeroplanes, mostly obsolete.
Last year, the Secretary of the Navy appointed a Board to investigate
the subject of aviation for the Navy, and to make recommendations. The
Board recommended the appropriation of $1,300,000 for that year, but
Congress cut off the first left-hand numeral and appropriated the sum of
$350,000 for the purpose.
The present war has demonstrated that air-craft are the eyes of both
armies and navies. If the Wright Brothers could have come to the
country's aid in the Spanish War, the American fleet would not have
remained in doubt outside Santiago Harbor. Before the advent of
aviation, one of the chief desiderata to a commanding officer was to
find out what the enemy was doing behind the hill. Without the
aeroplane, it is impossible to prevent surprises in force, and to avoid
the deadly ambuscade. The aeroplane is absolutely indispensable for the
location of masked batteries. It is impossible, without aeroplanes, even
to approximate the number and disposition of troops to which an army may
be opposed. It is necessary to have not only a sufficient number of
aeroplanes, especially designed and equipped for this purpose, but also
other aeroplanes, armed and equipped, to co-operate with them, and
defend them against attack from the aeroplanes of the enemy. Just as
dreadnoughts require battle-cruisers, and both require torpedo-boat
destroyers, and all require other scout-ships and submarines, for
co-operation against a fleet of an enemy, so do dirigibles and the
different types of aeroplanes, according to their purpose, require one
another for concert of action.
What we have already seen of battles fought in the sky leads us to
surmise that aerial battles of the future will be fought on a much
larger scale. It will be found that the commander who expects to conquer
the ground held by an enemy must first conquer the sky. Aviation carries
war into the third dimension.
Not only must the advance or retirement of troops be supported by
artillery thundering from hill to hill, but also the troops must be
supported and guided by pilots in the sky.
The last Congress appropriated $1,000,000 for the aviation purposes of
the Navy. It is the same million dollars that was cut from last year's
appropriation, which ought to have been expended for the purpose during
that period.
It is a strange paradox that America, which has led the world in
discovery and invention as applied to the industrial arts and sciences,
should follow the rest of the world in their adoption by the Army and
Navy. The trouble is not with the bureaus and boards of the Army and
Navy, which have merely the power to recommend such things, but it is
the fault of Congressional false economy. As long as we allow other
nations to lead us, both in the character and quantity of naval and
military equipment, we are destined always to be weaker than other
nations in that equipment; consequently, when war comes, we spend money
with the extravagance of frenzy to remedy the defect. We economized
before the War of 1812, and during that war we wasted ten times as much
as we had saved by our economy. We had disqualified ourselves by our
economies to such an extent before the outbreak of the great Civil War
that this conflict became one of the most deadly and most expensive in
the history of the world. What we saved by our economies, compared to
what we lost by them on that occasion is like a drop of water to a river
of water. But we failed to profit by the experience, and, when the
Spanish War broke out, we spent money with all the lavishness of
prodigal inefficiency.
If we could only be as wise as we have been lessoned by our sad
experience, we would immediately take adequate measures to forefend
ourselves against a repetition of such experiences; and one of those
measures would be the building of an aerial fleet commensurate with our
large needs.