File:The aeroplane in war (1912) (14577960977).jpg

Identifier: aeroplaneinwar00grah (find matches)
Title: The aeroplane in war
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Grahame-White, Claude, 1879- Harper, Harry, b.1880
Subjects: Airplanes Aeronautics, Military
Publisher: Toronto : Bell and Cockburn
Contributing Library: ASC - York University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Ontario Council of University Libraries and Member Libraries

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itedStates Navy was led to make the pronouncement thatno aeroplane could, with any degree of safety,approach nearer than 1000 yards of a positionprotected by rifle-fire. As opposed to this view, the opinion of experts atthe Hythe School of Musketry is that it would be moreor less a waste of ammunition to attempt to wing,with rifle-fire, an aeroplane 3000 feet high. In thepractical work of the aeroplane in Tripoli, machinesflying less than 2000 feet high were not damagedby rifle-fire. The point to bear in mind, in this connection, isthat an aeroplane flying 3000 feet high, and at aspeed greater than that of an express train, would,inevitably, prove a very difficult target. The air-man would appear suddenly, and quickly go out ofview again; and he would alter his height, and course,so that a perplexed gunner—needing to fire quickly,or not at all—would find the range constantlyvarying. Quite recently, a famous military expert has pro-nounced the opinion that high-angle gun-fire would
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i THE AEROPLANE IN WAR 193 have no great potentiality against fast-flying aero-planes. Amplifying some tests first carried out in France,have come a series of more recent experiments, inwhich the conditions imposed have been more dis-advantageous to the gunners. The result has beena striking testimony to the invulnerability of the aero-plane. For example, kites have been towed bymotor-cars at a speed actually representing the flightof fast monoplanes. Gunners, when firing under suchfairly realistic conditions, have failed to secure any-thing like a satisfactory percentage of hits. Tests on a somew^hat similar scale have, also, beencarried out in Germany; and, here again, the artilleryhas not distinguished itself. In Germany, also,small balloons have been used as targets. Thesehave been set free, and have been permitted toascend to a certain height, before being fired at. Inconnection with these experiments, a fairly-large per-centage of hits was recorded. This was due, nodoubt, to the

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