Direct Hits

While the House of Representatives was conducting its own investigation into the use of aircraft, the General Board of the Navy had under way a voluminous report for the President, on the relative efficiency of airship and battleship, with a view to allotting appropriations to increase the Navy's strength. Last week, the Board, composed of seven Admirals and General Lejeune of the Marine Corps, made its report.

It summarized the limitations of aircraft as follows:

"Aircraft cannot operate from territory that is not controlled by the military or naval forces of their own country.

"Airplanes cannot occupy territory, nor can they exercise control of the sea.

"Airplanes cannot reach distant oversea areas under their own power with any effective military load, and therefore cannot operate there offensively or defensively until supplied with weapons and fuel.

"Airplanes cannot fulfil the functions of the service of supply for themselves or for other forces in distant oversea areas.

"Airplanes cannot fly across the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean to any point on our coasts or within our continental territory with bombs heavy enough to do any serious damage. The situation as to other continental or insular powers having potential enemies contiguous to their borders is wholly different and bears no analogy to ours.

It added:

"A properly constituted fleet consists of battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers, aircraft carriers, aircraft, destroyers, submarines, mine layers and auxiliaries.

"The battleship is the element of ultimate force in the fleet, and all other elements are contributory to the fulfilment of its function as the final arbiter in sea warfare. . . .

"Aviation has taken its place as an element of the fleet and cannot be separated from it.

"The separation of aviation from the Navy and its incorporation in a separate department of the Government would be most injurious to the continued efficiency of the fleet in the performance of its mission."

The report explained in detail why the Board did not regard the airplane as a serious menace to the battleship. Airplane bombs can damage ships in two ways: by direct hits or by bursting in the water alongside. At heights where there is reasonable immunity from anti-aircraft fire, direct hits are hard to obtain; and at lesser heights, bombs are not able to pierce modern deck armor. Explosions alongside are not seriously dangerous to ships with modern con- struction. Accounts of tests and their results were given in detail:

Anti-aircraft fire: Tests against cloth targets* towed behind airplanes at 4,500 feet, targets smaller than the area-bombing plane, showed that the anti-aircraft guns scored one or more direct hits in 75% of the trials. The Navy has a gun that fires 13-pound projectiles 24,000 feet in the air, and another that fires 50-pound projectiles 28,500 feet, both of which fire 14 shots a minute—so that a battery of eight projectiles can deliver 112 shots a minute; also, machine guns that will fire 400 half-inch projectiles a minute to a height of 8,000 feet.