WARSHIPS AS TARGETS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 195, 5 August 1940, Page 7

WARSHIPS AS TARGETS

DIFFICULT FOR BOMBERS The successful defence of modern warships against bombing attacks has been one of the notable demonstrations of the present war. The Navy has always recognised that a swiftmoving, zig-zagging ship was going to prove a much more difficult target than the air-minded school had ever calculated in their warnings as to the decadence of sea power in face of the menace from the sky. But till the point was put to the acid test of war it necessarily remained one of the imponderable elements of the next conflict. One thing is quite certain: wlien the present war broke out the tftne for any such devastation from the air had definitely passed. The primary explanation for this satisfactory conclusion—justified by experience—• is the amazing development of antiaircraft armament in the Fleet. Nobody will deny that a capital ship is a big mark for an enemy bomber. But when such- a capital ship can greet the bomber with, something like three dozen high-angle weapons one feels for the aircraft much as George Stephenson felt for the cow wh.cn asked what would happen if it got in the way of his locomotive.. —Sir Herbert Russell, the well-known writer on naval affairs, in "Sea Warfare To-day."