THE EYES OF BATTLE.
AEROPLANES AND AIRSHIPS--THEY SPY THE MOVEMENTS OF FORCES ON LAND OR
SEA--LEAD DISASTROUS BOMB ATTACKS--VALUABLE IN "SPOTTING"
SUBMARINES--THE BOMBARDMENT AT MESSINES RIDGE.
Just as the submarine has revolutionized warfare on the seas and
presented new problems for the naval experts to solve, so the aircraft
of the last decade has had its effect upon the operation of land forces.
Probably the aeroplane and the dirigible balloon have had a greater
influence on the conduct of battles and military campaigns as a whole
than any other device utilized in connection with the war.
It is significant, too, that just as America produced the first
submarine, and then failed as a nation to develop it to its highest
state of efficiency for military use, so American inventors were
pioneers in the construction and successful operation of aeroplanes, or
airplanes, which were first developed to their greatest efficiency and
utility by the French and Germans.
Some of the most striking events of the war centre around the use of the
airplanes or dirigibles, and aside from the picturesqueness and
thrilling atmosphere that seem to surround their use, the operator of
the aircraft has proved himself one of the most valuable servants in
modern warfare. He has reduced the proudest cavalry to second place in
the matter of reconnoissance, and has rendered services which have
heretofore been impossible.
The airman sails out over the lines of battle, so far above the earth
when necessary as to be out of range of the most powerful guns, and with
glasses looks down upon the whole country. His machine, whether it be a
dirigible balloon or airplane, is equipped with a wireless telegraph
instrument with which he is able to send brief messages back to his own
line or military headquarters. He can and does mark the changed
positions of the contending forces, note the entrenchments and
reinforcements, follow movements, and last but not least, as was
noticeable in one of the desperate attacks upon the German position in
June, 1917, swoop down upon the enemy, attack the lines and forces with
bombs, and rain bullets upon them from rapid-fire guns.
No longer can the enemy mask its heavy batteries or conceal them beneath
earthen mounds, plant them in corners of the forests or in clumps of
bushes without their being located. The "eyes of the sky," as the planes
are now termed, can spy them out. And when the airman has communicated
to his military commanders the positions of the opposing batteries, he
acts as a director in instructing the friendly gunners in finding the
range and cleaning out the enemy.
THE AIR SCOUT'S USEFULNESS.
The air scout can detect the enemy's lines of communication and raid it
with bomb attacks. Even when the land forces cannot reach the enemy with
gunfire he can rain missiles of all sorts upon them. Sometimes the
airman flies over the enemy lines and drops glittering tinsel or bright
metal devices, which falling to the ground serve as marks for the
artillerymen in finding the range.
Where the cavalry scout or creeping scout of days gone by could never
have proved successful, the airman has easily accomplished his purpose.
He has carried messages from one frontier to another in hours, when it
would have taken days for a scout on horseback or on foot to have
rendered the service, if they could have accomplished it at all. He has
eliminated distance.
Trench warfare developed in the world-war in a way that has never before
been deemed necessary or possible, but the miles of trenches which
conceal the men from the fire of the enemy are plainly visible to the
airmen. And armed with cameras having powerful telescopic lenses they
can photograph the entire scene and send to their own military
headquarters not mere indicated plans of the battle lines, but exact
photographs.
The war has shown conclusively that once the formation of the battle
line has been decided upon it is, in a measure, a fixture. It may be
subject to rearrangement, but this is when the force of battle demands,
or for strategic purposes, but such an arrangement requires a great deal
of time and much work. The battle fronts on the borders of France and
Belgium have ranged from 100 to nearly 300 miles in length, with nearly
3,000,000 strung out in opposing lines along the entire distance.
LIKE AN IMMENSE GRIDIRON.
The ground has been dug up and trenched until the surface of the earth
looks like an immense gridiron. The soldiers almost live within the
trenches and dugouts beneath the ground. Telephone and telegraph wires
run through the trenches and even railroad tracks are laid so that small
engines go whirring through the ditches like "dinky" locomotives in a
coal mine.
And the "eyes in the skies" make it possible for the commanders to know
each other's strength and the disposition of the forces at all times.
Particularly has the air scout proved valuable in enabling commanders to
execute their final orders without grievous error. There is danger of
possible misjudgment because of the great length of the firing lines.
The airmen verify positions and make last minute reports, taking minutes
to perform services that cavalry forces or other scouting parties would
have taken hours or days to render.
Operated in conjunction with cavalry scouts, and motor and cycle squads,
the airplane is a destruction-directing and defensive force. And it was
the large fleet of aircraft that aided Germany in making such rapid
advance in its drive toward Paris in the early days of the war. The
scouts reconnoitering in the early dawn were able to report the
situation and give the commanders time to move their forces before the
Belgians and French were aware of what was being done.
Germany had probably the largest fleet of airplanes at the beginning of
the conflict and is said to have possessed upward of 500, of various
sorts, and this does not include the famous Zeppelins or dirigible
balloons. She also had something like two dozen factories which could
turn out flying machines, and had been at work on the development of her
aircraft long enough to have her patterns and methods of manufacture
somewhat, if not entirely standardized. During the third year of the war
it was estimated that she had more than quadrupled her force of flying
machines.
GERMANY'S PREPAREDNESS.
Germany's preparedness in this as well as in other directions was what
enabled her to obtain such a tremendous advantage in the beginning of
the war. Later England and France concentrated on the development of
aeroplane squads or corps, and when the United States entered the war
one of the first detachments sent into France consisted of 100 aviators.
How rapidly the aeroplane forces were developed is indicated by the
statement made in the beginning of 1916 that the air forces of the
Allies were represented by 3380 aeroplanes of various types and 64
dirigible balloons, while Austria and Germany had 2000 aeroplanes and 70
dirigibles.
The dirigibles--the type of airship commonly referred to as
Zeppelins--have the advantage over the heavier-than-air machines of
being almost silent in their operations, while at the same time they can
remain for a longer time suspended in air over a camp or battleground
without being detected. The Zeppelin is the development of the old
balloon, made, however, in a conical shape with a long basket or car
attached. They are driven by propellers similar to those used with
aeroplanes, but as the power generated by the engines is merely used to
drive the machines and has nothing to do with maintaining their position
in the air, the motors do not have to be so powerful. They are steered
by rudders.
Some of the largest Zeppelins which have been leading factors in night
raids conducted by the Germans on London and English coast resorts are
capable of maintaining a speed of 60 miles an hour. One of these immense
Zeppelins was reported to have covered 1300 miles in less than forty
hours, covering the German borders, and still keeping in touch with its
base. The Zeppelins, because of their large size, can carry large
quantities of bombs, wireless apparatus, signals and electric
searchlights. They can rise to a height that places them fairly beyond
the range of the aerial guns used for fighting the air forces of the
army.
MANY KINDS OF BOMBS.
The bombs used are as diversified as the crafts on which they are
carried. The French aviators at one time dropped long steel billets or
arrows which had swedged heads and sharpened points. These missiles,
dropped from the height of a thousand feet or more, attained a velocity
and force which made them dangerous weapons of the minor sort.
The bombs, in the main, however, consist of jacketed shells containing
high explosives, some of which are constructed on what is called the
delayed-action principle. Such bombs explode after penetrating the fort
or object which they strike, instead of going off by contact. Germany is
said to have developed some of these that were of such size and power as
to penetrate an armored ship. As much as 50 pounds of explosives or
chemicals is declared to have been carried in some of the larger ones.
The big dirigibles mount machine guns of superior range. Some of them
have been armored to an extent, and to make them less easily detected
they have been painted tints and colors to harmonize with the clouds and
sky. Special kinds of gas have been used to fill the envelopes or bags,
and instead of one large bag they consist of a series of bags enclosed
in an envelope or casing, so that if a bullet would penetrate the
envelope it would only destroy one of the gas bags, and not cause the
whole thing to collapse.
Besides having proved of great value in the land campaigns, the aircraft
has shown itself to be one of the most effective devices of warfare for
use against the submarine, and all manner of naval craft. From the
heavens they can see the submarine under the water, and as either the
dirigible or the aeroplane can develop a speed greater than that of any
battleship or cruiser, it is not difficult for it to soar over the
vessel and drop bombs upon it. Even gas bombs have been used in the
raids by the aircraft.
ACCURACY THE GREAT DIFFICULTY.
The difficulty in the use of bombs has been in accurately directing the
death-dealing devices when the airship or aeroplane is in motion. To
assist in this work aerial range finders have been devised. These are
constructed on the principle of the finder on a camera, with graded
scale markings to indicate the allowance that must be made for speed and
motion. Complete apparatus has been built up for launching the
projectiles from the large dirigibles, and to insure the missiles
traveling properly vanes have been attached to some of them.
In a test made under the auspices of the French Government and the
Aerial Club of France, a few years ago, one of the bomb-launching
machines on an aeroplane scored eleven bull's-eye shots in a target ten
yards in diameter, from an altitude of more than 2000 feet, while the
aeroplane was going at a speed of more than 65 miles an hour.
Though there has not been any widespread use of the plan the air has
been "mined" in an experimental way to protect certain sections against
night raids by the airmen. Mining the air consists of locating small
balloons over an area, each balloon being attached to the other with
wires. The small balloons have attached to them explosive bombs which
would destroy the larger aircraft if it was to run into this nest of air
vessels in the dark.
Reverting to the use of aircraft in naval warfare it may be said that to
the aeroplane the relatively fast fleet is virtually stationary. About
the only case parallel to the aeroplane looking over the hill and down
on concealed enemy positions would be in rising above the smoke screen
thrown out by destroyers.
THE SMOKE SCREEN.
The smoke screen, by the way, which has been used by the British with
marked success in many instances, is an American invention. The low,
swift craft are equipped with special oil burners which throw off dense
volumes of heavy smoke, which float low over the surface of the water,
concealing the maneuvers of the larger boats and protecting them from
the skill of enemy gunners. Its effectiveness, of course, is influenced
by the direction and strength of the wind. Used generously by small
craft convoying a ship through a submarine area, it should be of great
value.
A battleship can see about as far as it can shoot, anyhow. Except for
smoke screen, or the famous "low visibility," which means foggy weather
or darkness, no enemy within range can be concealed.
What the fleet commander wants to know is how those enemy vessels beyond
the horizon, which may be within range of his guns tomorrow, the day
after, or next week, may be distributed, and how many of them there are.
This is where the speed of the airplane comes in.
A machine which can travel 100 miles an hour covers a thousand miles in
10 hours. Locating an approaching enemy fleet this distance away, it
brings back the news of the approach in 10 hours. It takes the fleet,
traveling at 15 miles an hour, two days and 18 hours to cover this
distance. The aeroplane can beat it by two days and eight hours.
But the aeroplane flying high enough to give it the widest practical
range of vision is able to see only over a path 75 miles wide under the
most favorable weather conditions. Haze will cut this down considerably.
This means that for anything like complete scouting work a fleet must be
equipped with a large number of them.
PROPORTION OF FIGHTING PLANES.
Then, too, there must be a generous proportion of fighting planes to
spread out in a very wide circle beyond the fleet. It will be
appreciated that this circle must be a mighty wide one if the enemy
planes be kept far enough away to prevent their counting the number and
type of ships in the command. There is required also a large detail to
guard against the submarines. While an aeroplane can see quite deep in
the sea, this penetrating vision is limited to the water directly
beneath it. It can see straight down in the water, but not off to the
side at an angle.
If such a thing is possible, air control at sea is more important than
over the land, and of first value is the fighting plane. In this
connection there is an aeroplane gun which works well. It is a
double-ender. That is, there is a breech in the middle, and the two ends
are muzzles. In air fighting it is seconds and fractions of seconds that
count, and the advantage of this gun lies in that it can be fired in
opposite directions, thus cutting down the length of the arc through
which it has to be swung to be brought to bear on the enemy.
Of exceptional value to the United States navy is the super-American
type of planes which the Curtiss factories have developed and which have
done such wonderful service for the British. In this type the fuselage
is entirely enclosed, built with a hull much along the lines of the
motorboat or hydroplane. The 'plane may thus come to rest safely in the
open sea.
It weighs nearly 6000 pounds and can carry a useful load of more than
2000 pounds. The boat is slung well below the planes, eight feet below
the lower one, which has a span of 66 feet. Eight feet above this is the
upper plane, which overlaps the lower plane by 13 feet on each side. The
complete span of the upper plane is 92 feet. It can carry six to eight
men, if necessary, altogether a huge, sturdy, dependable machine with
two powerful motors.
And what was done to give America the equipment of 'planes which we
needed?
RESOURCES AT GOVERNMENT'S COMMAND.
Fifteen aeroplane manufacturers, with a combined capital of $30,000,000
and a total capacity of 175 machines a week, organized and placed all
their resources at the command of the government. The organization
provided for the interchange of ideas and plans and for the
standardization of manufacture, which resulted in a material increase in
output.
One hundred and seventy-five machines a week should give us, in a year,
9100. And there are other conditions which may modify the estimate both
favorably and unfavorably. There is, for instance, a limit to the amount
of seasoned lumber available in this country of the peculiar type and
quality needed for airplane construction. Provision must be made for the
future in this respect. All-steel machines have been made and used in
Europe to some extent, but no metal alloy has been developed which is
likely to take the place of wood in general construction. The
manufacturers developed some interesting things along these lines which
were not given to the public.
In the Spring of 1917 the fighting in the air took on an entirely new
interest abroad, because of the German policy of painting their machines
most grotesque patterns. They seemed to have taken this idea from the
old American Indian custom of painting their faces to frighten their
opponents, or else the fancies of the German airmen were allowed to run
riot with vivid color effects.
British pilots daily brought home from over the lines new reports of
fantastic creations encountered amid the clouds. The gayest feathered
songsters that came north with the Spring did not rival the variegated
hues of the harlequin birds that rose daily from the German airdromes.
The coming of this fantastic order of things in the air was first
heralded by a squadron of scarlet German planes. It then was noticed
that some of the enemy machines were striped about the body like
yellowjackets.
GAUDY TASTES OF AIRMEN.
Nothing appeared too gaudy to meet the tastes of the enemy airmen, who
seemed to have been given carte blanche with the paint brush. There were
green planes with yellow noses, silver planes with gold noses,
khaki-colored planes with greenish-gray wings, planes with red bodies,
green wings and yellow stripes, planes with red bodies and wings of
green on top of blue, planes with light blue bodies and red wings.
Virtually all the gaudiest machines were in red body effects, with every
possible combination of colors for their wings. Some had one green wing
and one white; some had green wings tipped with various colors.
One of the most fantastic met had a scarlet body, brown tail and
reddish-brown wings, with white maltese crosses against a bright green
background. One machine looked like a pear flying through the air. It
had a pear-shaped tail and was painted a ruddy brown, just like a large
ripe fruit. One of the piebald squadrons encountered was made up of
white, red and green machines. There still were others palpably painted
for what became known as "camouflage" purposes, as guns, wagons and
tents often are painted to blend with the landscape and thus avoid
detection.
This lavish use of paint, however, did not reduce the heavy daily loss
inflicted on the Germans by the British flyers. But it must not be
imagined that the Germans did not put up a stalwart fight. Just as their
resistance was strengthened on land, so it was increased in the air.
Just as the Germans threw in new divisions of infantry and new batteries
of artillery to check the Allies' offensive, so they sent aloft hundreds
of new machines to contest for the mastery of the air, an important
phase of modern war.
The manner in which the British flying corps dominated the air during
the battle of Messines Ridge in June, 1917, and completely smothered the
German aviation service for the time being is one of the most thrilling
and remarkable stories of the entire war.
Hundreds of British planes were well behind the German lines when the
battle broke into its fury at dawn. They had stolen over during the
darker intervals of the brief night when the moon was hidden by storm
clouds. Other hundreds went aloft with the first faint streaks of coming
day and, guided by the flashes of the guns, flew into the thick of the
fighting.
COMBED BY MACHINE GUNS.
During the night British machines combed enemy railway stations, trains,
ammunition dumps and troops coming up on the march. Others hovered above
German airdromes and circled low among airplane sheds and fired hundreds
of rounds from machine guns into them and prevented the enemy machines
from coming out. Later in the day, while the fighting was most intense,
British airmen dropped about three tons of bombs on the German flying
grounds as a further deterrent, which proved highly effective.
In addition to shutting the German airmen out of any early participation
in the battle, the British airplanes were in a large degree responsible
for the fact that the Germans could not launch a counter-attack of
appreciable strength until forty hours after the battle for the ridge
began and every bit of ground desired by the British in this particular
operation had been taken and secured.
Far back of the German lines the British planes searched out troops in
every hamlet, town and village. In several places they saw them
gathering or marching in the main streets, whereupon they flew down low
at times and opened a fire which scattered the gray-clad soldiers in all
directions. All pilots report that their accurate fire had a most
demoralizing effect upon the hostile troops. Convoys and ammunition and
supply columns were attacked while on the march and the disorganized men
left their teams and automobiles on the roads while they sought shelter
in nearby ditches.
AIRPLANES ATTACK TROOPS.
Airplanes attacked troops in the support trenches and sent them
scurrying to the cover of their dugouts. One pilot made so many of these
attacks that he finally ran out of ammunition, but he delivered his last
stroke by letting go his signal rockets at a platoon of soldiers who,
evidently mistaking this for some particularly horrible new style of war
frightfulness, fled in all directions.
German troops were fired upon in the more distant back areas as they
were entraining for the front. Many of the enemy retreating from the
British attack and hiding in shell holes were seen by the low-flying
airmen and pelted with bullets.
One British pilot patrolled a road for half an hour before he saw
anything to shoot at. Then a German military automobile with three
officers sitting in the back seat came along. The Britisher dived at
them from a height of three hundred feet, firing at them as they came.
He flew so low eventually that the wheels of his under carriage barely
missed the automobile, which swerved into a ditch while going at about
forty miles an hour and crashed into a tree.
This same pilot later came across an active field gun battery and
charged it, scattering the gun crew and hitting a number of them. Still
further along he attacked a column of Germans marching in fours. The
column broke when he opened fire, scattering to both sides of the road.
At no time during his stay inside the German lines was this pilot more
than 500 feet from the ground.
ON CONTACT PATROL WORK.
Large numbers of British machines were on contact patrol work, flying
low over the advancing lines of infantry, constantly watching their
movements, their progress, any temporary reverse, any attempt to form
counter-attacks and all the while sending detailed reports back to corps
and army headquarters.
Of the fourteen planes lost during the day of the battle, a majority
were those contact machines. They had to fly through a frightful storm
of their own as well as the enemy's artillery fire, and they succumbed
to chance blows from these exploding missiles.
Late on the day of the battle, when the enemy machines had finally
arrived from more distant airdromes, there was some good fighting in the
air, some of it at close quarters with collisions barely avoided. Twenty
enemy machines were accounted for in the fighting, some flopping about
until they broke up in the air and others being driven down on their
noses in yellow buttercup fields so far back of the fighting line that
no shell had ever marred the symmetry of the landscape.
Some of the most marvelous work was done by artillery airships. One
squadron of these alone, acting with several batteries of British
heavies, succeeded in silencing seventy-two German batteries before six
o'clock on the morning of the attack which began at 3.10 o'clock in the
morning. These planes also directed the firing on the enemy's guns en
route to the front, some of the big weapons being drawn by caterpillar
tractors. Wherever a thousand or more troops were observed forming for
possible counter-attacks the artillery planes directed "shoots" upon
them.
So complete was the British domination of the air along the front of
attack that not a single one of the British artillery observing
aeroplanes was lost during the week that the intense bombardment was
going on. During the battle British aeroplanes also attacked and
silenced a number of enemy machine-gun positions.
The growth of the aeroplane industry has developed as many makes of
machines as there are makes of automobiles, but in a general way
aeroplanes are divided into four classes--monoplanes, biplanes,
triplanes and hydroplanes. About 90 per cent of all designs are
monoplanes and biplanes, and the types are distinguished by their single
set of wings or planes or the double planes or wings. Both types have
their advantages in use, the biplane being regarded as more stable for
certain scouting purposes than the monoplane. It can carry heavier
weights--has greater lifting power--but is not capable of as great speed
or as easily maneuvered.
MACHINE ON PRACTICAL BASIS.
The War has placed the machine on an intensely practical basis. The
manufacturers have learned that machines constructed along certain lines
will travel at such and such a speed and have a certain lifting
capacity, will rise under a particular speed and may be expected to do
certain things under certain circumstances, but with all the advance
which has been made in the construction of the air machines, the
designers do not yet understand all the "factors" that enter into the
"why" of the case.
The makers have, however, succeeded in standardizing their machines to a
degree. The story of how the aeroplane flies is a highly technical and
scientific one, but the basic principle is the reaction of air and an
inclined surface in motion. It might be likened to a stone skipping
across the surface of a pond, if the imagination can conceive of the
water as being air. It is simplicity itself to drive an inclined plane
against the air with such force that the impact will produce a lifting
power. In raising an ordinary kite, for instance, the boy runs into the
teeth of the wind. His kite is so attached to a string as to stand at an
angle, and as he runs the pressure against the air drives the kite
upward. In the aeroplane the propellers drive the machine into the air
with such force that the planes, standing at an angle, guide the machine
upward.
There are innumerable problems to be solved--those of buoyancy, delicacy
of balance and many others--but the designers themselves have not been
able to determine upon a precise formula for their solution. It is
sufficient that the aeroplane has reached a degree of practicability in
construction and use which insures its permanent existence, and has
given the military and the naval forces one of the greatest agencies in
the world for protecting themselves and watching their enemies.