AERIAL WARFARE[2]
Guns and bomb tubes--Launching a plane from a ship at
sea--Transporting troops by aeroplane--Battles in
the air.
Nations, in their preparations for war, make a succession of moves and
counter-moves. For instance, a torpedo-boat is perfected; immediately it
is launched, and ready for its deadly rôle, a larger and swifter craft
is built which may sink it or chase it off the seas. A huge battleship,
supreme in its might to-day, is eclipsed to-morrow and made to appear
obsolete.
[Illustration: _Photo_, “_Central News_.”
PLATE XII.--THE LONDON AERODROME FROM ABOVE.
This photograph, taken by a passenger in a Grahame-White biplane, gives
an excellent idea of the view that may be obtained from a machine in
flight. Another aeroplane is flying past the enclosures, and there is a
Midland railway train in the distance.]
As soon as they became reliable, and could be used in war, aeroplanes
and airships were pressed into service as scouts--their task being to
ascend, spy out the land below, and return with news to their
starting-points. That was the first conception of their use, and War
Departments looked no farther. But when machines were built in numbers,
and air fleets began to form, strategists saw the complications that
would ensue. If A has a fleet of aircraft and B also, and A and B are at
war, then the aim of each will be to hamper the other’s air-scouts, and
destroy them whenever possible. Here, again, is the theory of move and
counter-move. The air-scout, flying above an army, may see its secret at
a glance; therefore steps must be taken to keep him off, to drive him
away, to blow him to pieces and all of his kind.
This may be done with a cannon from the ground, but the method is not
certain. Special guns have been built which will point into the air, can
be sighted quickly, and will fire a shell to a great height. If an
aircraft comes within range of them, and the gunner has time to aim
correctly, a bursting shell may bring the machine to ground. But there
are the “ifs” to be remembered. The scout--favoured by a clear day and
using his own judgment--may be able to do his spying without venturing
within range of a land gun; and, even should he come into firing
distance, he may be shot at and missed. Such guns are valuable, of
course--mounted upon motor-cars for speedy transport from place to
place, and used also to guard fortifications, and against aerial foes by
a ship at sea.
Other guns are possible, besides those which fire shells. Attention has
been directed to the feasibility of using a form of vortex-gun. This is
a weapon rather like a huge air-gun. It compresses a charge of air and
discharges it at a high velocity in a whirling vortex or ring. This,
invisible but immensely destructive, strikes its target like a cyclone,
and has been known--even with the use of an experimental gun--to tear up
fences at a distance of several hundred yards. If such a gun was
discharged at an aircraft, and the aim was accurate, it is argued that
the machine would be hurled over and wrecked by the force of the
artificial hurricane.
But something more than a land gun is necessary to fight this new
foe--something more certain; it must, in a word, be sought and attacked
in its own element, the air. There are two ways at present in which
aircraft can engage each other; one machine may rise above its
adversary, and drop bombs upon it, or two craft may seek to cripple each
other by a fire from machine-guns. Other and more deadly methods are
discussed, and may even be employed. Attacking an airship, for instance,
a man might ascend in a fast monoplane and charge directly at his bulky
foe; then, just before the impact, he might spring from his machine and
descend by means of a parachute, leaving his empty craft to crash into
the airship and cut a gash through its hull. Many things may be done, in
fact, when aerial war is faced; but as tactics are now discussed, and
plans made, machine-guns and bombs are the weapons reckoned feasible.
When one imagines two craft manœuvring for position, and about to engage
in a duel in the air, speed would seem a vital need; and here, when
opposed to the airship, an aeroplane has advantage. But airships are
being built larger and faster in flight; and the speed of an aeroplane,
when it has to carry the burden of a gun, is lessened perceptibly; added
to which is the fact that, owing to its weight-lifting capacity, the
airship can raise a heavier type of gun. The airship may be likened to
the battleship of the sky, and the fighting aeroplane to a cruiser; and
it seems likely that, in actual warfare, several of the latter will be
detailed to attack an airship.
Already, anticipating war in the air, a fighting aeroplane has been
evolved; and a machine of this type is shown in Fig. 83. The body, in
which pilot and gunner sit, is armoured lightly with plates which will
resist the penetration of a bullet. Such armouring was found necessary
after the use of aeroplanes in Tripoli and the Balkans. When flying
unavoidably low in these campaigns, and when fired at from the ground,
the wooden bodies of machines were pierced by shot, and in several
instances their occupants wounded.
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--A Fighting Aeroplane (the Vickers’).
A. Machine-gun projecting from opening in bow; B. Gunner’s position; C.
Pilot’s seat; D.D. Side windows for observation; E. Engine and
propeller.]
[Illustration: FIG. 84.--Bomb-releasing mechanism.
A. Lower part of aeroplane’s hull; B. Revolving barrel to which bombs
are clipped; C. Bombs; D. Releasing mechanism operated by marksman in
machine.]
The fighting aeroplane sketched is an experimental machine--as are all
those built at present for aerial war. It carries no very powerful gun,
and is not the formidable craft the future will evolve; but it would
have, none the less, a definite value in time of war. When used with an
army in the field it would drive off an enemy’s scouts, attack armed and
hostile craft, and harass and cripple an airship should it chance to
meet one. It need not rely solely upon its gun. Bombs may be carried and
dropped when opportunity offers; and as an improvement upon the early
method, which was simply to throw these from the machine, there are
releasing mechanisms now devised which carry a number of projectiles and
drop them one by one as a lever is moved (see Fig. 84). The bombs, which
are long, pointed, and balanced so that they will fall head first, are
clipped round a barrel rather like that of a revolver, which is fixed
beneath the aeroplane’s hull just below the occupants’ seat. Mechanism
causes the carrying chamber to revolve and bring each bomb against a
releasing catch, which--at a movement of the marksman’s lever--throws it
outwards and downward.
Bomb-sighting instruments are now being tested, so that a pilot may drop
a missile with accuracy upon a given spot. In the early experiments,
when a pilot merely leaned forward as he flew, bomb in hand, and guessed
his aim, the majority went wide of their mark. Several factors enter
into this problem of aim. There is the speed of the machine, its height
above the ground, and the question whether a wind may affect the fall of
the bomb. Dropped haphazard, a bomb is unlikely to reach its mark. In
sighting instruments now provided the marksman finds his altitude,
estimates his speed by the time his craft takes to pass between two
points on the land below, and then makes an allowance for side-drifting
owing to the influence of the wind.
Bombs of many types are being made. Some weigh about 10 lbs., and are
filled with several pounds of an extremely high explosive. Others are
what is known as incendiary bombs; when they strike an object they burst
into flames, and are intended to cause fires on the roofs of buildings
or supply stores. A single aeroplane, dropping bombs in war, would not
be likely to have much effect; but the plan will be to equip squadrons
of these machines, their crews trained to sweep in unison over the point
attacked, and rain down bombs in a ceaseless and destructive stream.
There is a risk for airmen when they carry a load of explosives. Should
they make a bad landing, or fall to the ground and wreck their craft,
there is the probability that their bombs would explode from the impact
and blow them to pieces. This danger has been realized, and a form of
safety bomb is now being used in tests. Each bomb is fitted with a
safety catch, and unless this is released the bomb cannot explode, no
matter how hard it strikes the ground. The manner in which the catch
disengages itself is ingenious. Upon the rear of the bomb is a tiny
propeller, which spins in the air as the bomb drops from the machine;
and as it turns it uncoils a spring, which releases the safety catch and
makes the bomb operative--but not until after it has fallen about 100
feet.
Airships, like aeroplanes, are being armed with guns and bombs; and
their power of raising weights enables them to carry heavy weapons.
Large and highly destructive bombs have been tested in the German
airships, being released over the sea and aimed at targets in the form
of rafts. Latest-type airships also carry guns in their cars; and the
Zeppelins have a platform upon the tops of their hulls, reached by a
ladder through the middle of the ship, from which a machine-gun can be
fired upward. This is a very necessary precaution, and is intended to
frustrate the attack of an aeroplane. It would be the aim of the latter,
whenever possible, to manœuvre above its big enemy--as suggested in Fig.
85--and drop a bomb upon its hull. Hence the construction of the top
platform of the airship, from which her gunners can direct a vigorous
fire aloft.
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--Aeroplanes attacking an airship from above.]
The ability of an airship to navigate at night, and steal unobserved
above the land, gives it grim possibilities as a weapon of destruction.
It motors quiet, and no lights showing, it can drift with the wind over
a harbour or fortification, and drop bombs which will fall upon those
below out of an empty sky. Searchlights would be used, of course, from
the positions attacked, and artillery fired upward, but the airship
would be a silent, elusive shape--difficult to see and more difficult to
hit.
Here, though, would be work for land or sea planes. It would be the aim
of our Admiralty, upon the outbreak of war, to patrol the coast with a
service of armed aircraft. A number of air-stations, at which machines
are housed, are already in existence--mainly along the north-east coast.
Between station and station the craft would fly in war, providing a
continuous patrol, the aim being to shut out hostile craft, and attack a
squadron of the enemy, should it approach land.
The observer in a sea-plane, under favourable conditions, can also
detect the movements of a sub-marine, his height above the water
enabling him to see beneath its surface and discern the shape of the
vessel, even when it is submerged. This would be of value in war, as
proved in manœuvres with our fleets. A sea-plane, patrolling the
entrance to a harbour, can send a warning by wireless should hostile
submarines--invisible to all save the aerial watcher--seek to steal in
upon a destructive raid.
The air-patrol would play its part, too, if an enemy attempted to land
troops. Flying above transports as they neared the coast, the planes
would drop bombs upon them. Many of the patrols, also, would be equipped
with wireless, and would scout in search of an enemy’s fleet, reporting
constantly to the land stations as they flew.
[Illustration: FIG. 86.--Sea-plane to carry a crew of seven.
A. Hull upon which the machine floats when in the sea; B.B.B. Wheels
upon which it may move when on land, and which fold upward when it is on
the water; C. Pilot’s controlling wheel; D.D. Main sustaining planes; E.
Four-bladed propeller driven by chain-gearing from engine within the
hull.]
A coastal sea-plane, as now planned, is a craft having, say, two
engines, each devolving 120 h.p., with a wing span of some 80 feet, and
an accommodation in its hull for three men--the pilot, a combatant with
a machine-gun, and an observer with an installation of wireless. But
types are changing constantly, and the tendency is to build larger
craft. A machine weighing a couple of tons is shown in Fig. 86, and a
novelty in regard to it is that it has wheels upon either side of its
boat-shaped car, upon which it can move on land, and which fold upward
when it rests upon the water.
Long flights over-sea, in search, say, of the assembling point of an
enemy’s fleet, would be undertaken by the naval airships. They will be
relied upon, for example, to scour the North Sea by day and night; and,
poised high above the water, they would be able to locate an enemy’s
fleet when at an immense distance.
There is a type of aeroplane which will be carried to sea when a fleet
sails, stowed in sections within the hull of a transport ship. This
machine--a light, high-speed craft--will be assembled upon the deck of
its parent ship, and launched into the air by special mechanism, as
there is not room for a machine to run upon wheels, and leave the ship’s
deck as it might do upon land; the vessel, besides, might be rolling in
a high sea. In some cases a platform is built upon the deck, either at
the bow or stern, and along this the aircraft moves, so as to gain speed
for its planes to lift. In one device, seen in Fig. 87, the machine is
mounted upon a light wheeled cradle, and this is placed upon the
starting-rail. Then, driven by its propeller, the plane runs forward
upon the cradle till it reaches the end of the rail, when it glides into
the air, the cradle falling from it and dropping into the sea, from
which it is retrieved and drawn back on board the ship. By another
method, shown in Fig. 88, the sea-plane is launched from a cable
suspended between two masts, and can come to rest upon the cable again
after a flight has been made. The machine is hung upon the cable prior
to making an ascent; then the pilot starts his engine, and as his
machine glides forward along the cable he releases a catch and soars
into the air. Upon returning he flies beneath the cable, and makes his
craft rise until the “V”-shaped apparatus above his head is caught by
the cable and the catch becomes operative; then he stops his motor, and
his craft hangs from the cable as it did before.
[Illustration: FIG. 87.--Launching sea-planes from a ship’s deck.
The sea-plane (A.) is seen taking flight, having glided upon its cradle
along the platform (B.). The cradle (C.) is just falling away below the
aircraft’s hull.]
[Illustration: A. Sea-plane; B.B. Cable; C. The “V”-shaped apparatus
which guides the cable into the clip (D.) and so suspends the machine
from the wire.
FIG. 88.--Launching a sea-plane from a wire.]
A flying scout, operating with a fleet at sea and rising from the deck
of a ship, would be of very distinct value. When approaching an enemy he
would be sent aloft to reconnoitre, and would locate hostile craft
before men could see them from the ships below. The utility of such a
scout is proved by the lessons of history. On one occasion, for
instance--it was in 1805--Nelson was waiting to intercept a French fleet
at Toulon. But they managed to steal out unobserved, and Nelson chased
them to the West Indies before he caught them. If he had had an
aeroplane to send up and keep watch, he would not have missed his enemy.
The air-scouts of a fleet would note also the approach of airships, and
could spy upon harbours or fortifications when an attack was being made
upon them from the sea.
At present, it must be remembered, the possibilities of an air-fleet
are vague--all at least save one; and that is the utility of an airship
or plane for scouting. The value of aircraft in this direction has been
proved, not only in peace manœuvres but in war; but as to what
destructive work an aeroplane can accomplish, or how machines will fight
when they meet in mid-air, there is only theory for a guide. That an
aircraft may carry explosives, and drop them with accuracy, is now an
established fact; also that a machine-gun can be mounted upon a machine,
and fired successfully at a target while the craft is in flight. But no
country, as yet, has equipped itself with a squadron of fighting
aeroplanes. For one thing, owing to the fact that powerful aviation
motors are only just becoming available, craft are still small in size;
and this limits them to the carrying of a light gun. What is wanted, and
what will be built in time, is a large, armoured, high-speed craft,
having more than one engine, carrying a crew, and being able to bear the
load of a powerful gun. In war, had a Commander a squadron of such
machines, he would use them for attacking an enemy’s supply stores and
ammunition parks, for blowing up railway lines, and for harassing troops
when they were on the march; and he would launch them, of course, when
necessary against hostile aircraft which might approach his own lines.
In the first instance, in the case of a great war, there will be a
battle in the air; and how severe this will be must depend upon the
strengths of the air-fleets opposed to each other. Command of the
air, like command of the sea, will be all-important. If one
Commander-in-Chief can cripple and disorganise his opponent’s air-fleet,
it will be like blinding his enemy. He himself, still well served by
his air-scouts, will note all the movements of his enemy; but this
enemy, with an air fleet driven back, and most of its machines disabled,
will be enveloped in what has been called “the fog of war”; he will
glean no more as to his enemy’s tactics, that is to say, than can be
obtained by cavalry or foot scouts.
Not only the fighting aeroplanes, but the general equipment of the
air-fleet, will play a part in the aerial battles of the future.
Surprisingly intricate, and little known, is the organisation of a
squadron of war machines. There must be trained mechanics in large
numbers, and they must be driven from place to place in motors,
according to the movements of the machines they serve. Then the
aeroplanes, if necessary, must be packed on lorries and taken across
country by road; and there must be portable sheds upon the landing
grounds, in which they may be housed at night. There needs to be an
equipment of spare machines also; and a number of travelling workshops
with skilled engineers, which can be rushed from place to place for the
repair of damaged craft. A sketch of one of these workshops on wheels,
which are vital to the organisation, is seen in Fig. 89.
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--Travelling workshop for the repair of military
aeroplanes.]
It seems likely that the air-fleet of the future will be composed of
craft of many types. There will be the long-distance scout--a machine
capable of flying for many hours at moderate speed and surveying wide
tracts of country. Then there will be a flotilla of very fast,
single-seated machines, used for a dash above an enemy’s force. These
high-speed scouts will run the gauntlet of the enemy’s destroyers,
rushing into the danger zone and sweeping out again, rather like a
torpedo-boat in naval war. Then there will be the fighting
squadron--machines armoured and carrying powerful guns, which will fight
the enemy’s war-planes and give battle to hostile airships; and there
may be a further type of destructive plane for use against the forces on
land. This would be a machine well armoured, with its motors silenced,
and perhaps with transparent wings. It would steal upon ammunition parks
and supply trains, firing with its guns and raining down bombs; and such
a craft would be used, also, to seek and attack the aircraft stations of
the enemy. These would be protected, of course, by high-angle guns and
patrol planes. Immense damage might be wrought by bombs were hostile
craft to discover, and attack without resistance, a squadron of machines
in their sheds.
[Illustration: _Photo, Topical._
PLATE XIII.--AN AEROPLANE FACTORY.
In this picture, which shows one of the workshops at Hendon, the wooden
framework of a main-plane is seen in the foreground; and at the rear of
the shop is the hull and centre wing-section of a biplane.]
A machine which does not exist now, but which may be built before long,
is an aeroplane transport for troops. This would be a very large craft,
built entirely for weight-lifting. It would raise a load of say ten or
more men; and such machines would be held in readiness so that a relief
column could be embarked in them and carried at high speed to some
point, perhaps a number of miles distant, at which reinforcements were
needed urgently. Could such aeroplane transport be organised, and
handled with success, it might be of the highest value during a battle.
If a thousand machines were built, each carrying ten men, and they made
three flights to some given spot, a force of 30,000 men could be
transported by air; and even with a slow-flying, weight-carrying
machine, a distance of say 30 miles should be transversed in
half-an-hour. Battles have been won by virtue of forced marches, thus
bringing troops to some vantage-point before an enemy expects them.
Napoleon, for example, was a master of such quickly-delivered blows. Day
and night, on many occasions, he hurried his tired troops across
country; and what would he have given to embark a column upon
aeroplanes, and send them high over hills and forests at the speed of an
express train?
Experts do not care to prophesy what will happen, say in the next great
war, if flying machines fight in large numbers. That there will be such
fighting is agreed; but what form it will take, and what damage the
combatants will do each other, are problems time alone can solve. When
the tactics of fighting aircraft are studied there is one point always
to be remembered; and this is, that machines can steer not only to and
fro and from side to side, but can also move up and down; and this
introduces a confusion which does not exist in any other form of war. On
the land, and upon the sea, two machines fighting must move always on
the same plane; but in the air one may rise above the other, or dive
swiftly below it, in addition to the manœuvres possible by wheeling and
circling, and sweeping in suddenly to an attack.
Mr. H. G. Wells, in his novel _The War in the Air_, considers that
aerial battles will develop into a series of duels, fought between
isolated machines. By this he means that, although a squadron of
fighting craft may move into action in regular formation, the speed at
which they are able to fly, and the fact that they can rise or descend,
will soon scatter them in all directions; with the consequence that a
couple of machines, singling each other out for combat, will wheel and
circle away from the other craft and fight their duel alone. Such a
scattered, indecisive form of fighting would undoubtedly take place
to-day were aircraft called to meet in war, and for the reason that the
machines forming a squadron would have no satisfactory means of
communicating with each other. In a fleet of warships, when it fights,
the discipline is perfect, and the signals from the flagship instantly
obeyed. A number of units can in this way be made to fight as one. But
in the air, until wireless telegraphy is applied with greater certainty,
it will be difficult for a commander to guide the movements of his
craft. Flag-signalling would be slow; the flags might not be seen. What
would be needed is some almost instantaneous method of altering a battle
position, or of turning and sweeping suddenly upon an enemy. An ideal
communication, in the delivery of some swift blow, would be by wireless
telephone. Then a Commander, taking up his instrument as he flew high
above the contending craft, could speak an order in an easily-read
code, which would make the vessels of his fleet turn swiftly and
correctly upon any new course.
First of all, in aerial warfare, there will come a chase between the
light, fast-flying scouts and the armoured planes which will be on watch
for them. As two armies approach each other, upon the eve of battle,
there will be one definite question which a Commander-in-Chief will ask
of the officer who is in command of his aeroplanes. He will say: “Find
out for me how the enemy is massing his men.” This information will be
needed as quickly as it can be obtained; unless he knows, approximately,
the formation of his opponent’s troops, he will be unable to plan the
disposition of his own forces. To obtain this news, without a moment’s
waste of time, the officer in charge of the aeroplanes will send out
high-speed scouts--expert officers, mounted upon single-seated craft;
just as, in the days before flying, the Duke of Wellington would choose
special men, mount them upon picked horses, and send them out to obtain
news at all costs.
These high-speed scouts, flying at more than 100 miles an hour, will
sweep in towards the enemy, seeking the shelter of clouds or of banks of
mist, and making long detours when necessary so as to try and avoid the
patrols. It will be the same story in the air as was told formerly on
land; there will be the spy trying to creep through, and the chain of
flying outposts making it their business to stop him. Speedy in flight,
and yet carrying a formidable gun, these patrols will rush upon the
unarmed scout and strive to put him out of action. His only protection
will be his speed. He will wheel, dodge, and eventually turn tail. All
the time his aim will be to see what lies below him, to watch the
marchings of the troops which will look so tiny and remote, and form an
opinion in his mind as to what the battle line will be. These single
scouts will need to be picked men. A great responsibility will be
theirs, and a great risk also. They will, in fact, take their lives in
their hands, and nothing will save them from being sent crashing to
their death but their own wit and skill in the handling of their
machines.
This perilous work done, there may come a clash between the lighter
fighting craft--the machines which form the screens of outposts, as they
move gradually nearer to each other. One or other may be forced to yield
and fly, scattering in confusion; and after this there may be the aerial
battle proper, in which the large, heavily-armed craft, and the giant
airships with their batteries of guns, will come into action. The
aeroplane, in fighting an airship, will have the advantage that it
offers a smaller mark, and one also which is moving rapidly through the
air. It may also be struck many times before it is crippled or put out
of action. Shot passing through its planes will make little difference
to it; and the occupants will sit in a hull which is armoured. But an
accurately-placed shell, bursting in the heart of the machine--that is
to say, among its machinery and crew--will no doubt prove disastrous;
and the airship, with its long fragile hull, must prove vulnerable also.
Well-aimed shots will pierce it; a bomb from above may set it on fire.
In the case of the Zeppelin, though carrying its gas in a series of
compartments, a number of hits may be sustained before the vessel is
out of action. But, when all is said and done, both aeroplanes and
airships are frail machines--the one with slender, lightly built planes,
and the other with a hull which is protected by nothing stouter than a
rubbered fabric. So if guns are well handled, craft must suffer. To
reflect upon such fighting reminds one of a remark of Mr. Churchill,
First Lord of the Admiralty. Commenting upon the growing power of a
warship’s guns, and showing how the armour with which craft are
protected has not grown in efficiency to keep pace with the striking
force of a modern projectile, he said that the fighting between two
heavily armed leviathans would be like “two egg-shells battering at each
other with hammers.” So with armed aircraft; well-placed shells will rip
and tear; and the destruction of a hard-fought engagement must
undoubtedly be heavy.
Straight shooting, as in naval war, will be the vital need--that and a
cool, quick skill in the manœuvring of a machine. The airship gunners,
having a steady firing platform, will be at an advantage over aeroplane
crews; but the latter in their turn will have quick manœuvring power and
high speed. In the engagement between an airship and several planes,
such as is certain to take place, the latter will be in the position of
torpedo-boats when they attack a battleship. They will dash in, relying
upon speed and the suddenness of their onslaught; and the saving of the
craft attacked will rest upon the skill of her gunners. By a vicious,
accurate fire they will seek to check the rush; and one or more of their
assailants will crumple and fall headlong. The survivors, delivering
their fire point-blank into the hull and cars of their opponent, will
dive and swerve out of range; and while they are engaging the airship
upon either side, one or more of their consorts will climb to a higher
altitude, and endeavour to drop bombs upon the airship from above. To
prevent them swooping near, as they circle above, marksman will be busy
with machine-guns upon the top platform of the airship.
Before and after the meeting of the main air-fleets, there will be duels
and scattered fighting. Swift raids will be made by bomb-dropping craft,
which will sweep above the supply stores of their enemy, attack his
troops on the march, or seek to blow up the railway lines along which he
is bringing his reinforcements. To drive off these raiders there will be
the vigilant patrols; all vulnerable points being guarded by air as well
as by land.
This aerial fighting, which will wax and wane, dying down only to be
renewed with a greater fierceness, must precede the battles of land or
sea; and so, while the aerial armies are struggling for supremacy, those
moving upon the land, or the fleets steaming upon the water, will be
manœuvring for position and creeping stealthily nearer. A conquest in
the air, if it be decisive, may spell also a victory upon land and sea.
A nation which has its air-fleet destroyed or crippled will lie helpless
before the attacks of hostile craft, and will lose also the aid of its
aerial scouts and spies. It will fight, therefore, in the dark, assailed
by a foe against which it cannot defend itself.
All-important will be these aerial battles; granted a country wins
supremacy in the air, its blows by land or sea can be delivered with a
crushing force, unhampered either by attacks or spying from above. This
fact is realised by every War Department of Europe. Aerial warfare is
being studied closely; and the first armed craft, though they carry
small guns, will pave the way for a powerful, armoured, multi-engined
cruiser of the clouds.
[2] This chapter was written before the outbreak of the great war, and
was intended as a forecast of aerial warfare say five or ten years
hence. At the present time, seeing that gun-carrying and bomb-dropping
machines are still purely experimental, it is as flying scouts, and not
as instruments of destruction, that aircraft are doing their vital work.