AIRCRAFT IN THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2449, 30 April 1915, Page 7

AIRCRAFT IN THE WAR

GERMANY'S MISTAKES WHAT ZEPPELINS MIGHT HAVE DONE. Among Germany's miscalculations in a campaign embarked on at a time of her own choosing (writes Mr. 11. Massac Buist in the "Morning Post" of March 13) apparently we'have now to include th" fact that she did not appreciate precisely how important and extensive a pai;t aircraft would play in the war, aud that she did not work out the details of her aerial operations to synchronise with other features of lior scheme. Yet it is also a fact that no country had established resources ol aircraft production equal to those at Germany's command at the outbreak of War. Whore, then, arc tve_ to seek an explanation of the comparative failuro of her aerial arm? Not, as is popularly supposed, in any foolish gambling by Germany on the idea that her giant airships. could put aeroplanes to flight. Those stories have been for the popular and sensational Press of our enemy's country in peace time. Nor are they any more misleading of their kind than the sort of thing that has been printed in the sensational Press of these islands during the' same porjod when an aeroplane had eclipsed any previous performance. As far as preparation went, in the matter of /sources of production Germany embarked on this war with the biggest airship factories and tho greatest number of aeroplano shops of any nation engaged. Thus whethor the power-driven steerable balloon that is lighter than air or the aeroplane that is heavier than the atmosphere were to prove the more effective instrument should not have mattered to cur enemy, as she could have been in superior force in either event.

A Failure of Temperament. As we see, Saving regard to the total number of uses to which aircraft is being put in the war to date, the aeroplane and the hydro-aeroplane have proved themselves more generally effective instruments than airships. This is especially the case now that we can employ scores of machines in a single concerted operation, by which means yet another of the disadvantages under which'the heavier-than-air machine bad hitherto laboured has'been eliminated. A large flight of aeroplanes, numbering three or four dozen machines, can carry a quantity of ammunition equal to the maximum capacity of several of the largest airships built. The aeroplanes can carry out their work more expeditiously, presenting a (far less easy target, and being less dependent on weather than the .airship. In addition, they can execute their business in daylight, while we have already begun to use aeroplanes during tho hours of darkness, which were hitherto deemed to be the period at which the powerdriven balloons would have the freedom of the ocean of mid-air. Germany's failure to come out on top in spite of certain obvious initial advantages is due to the Teutonie temperament. As a mattor'of course British and French aeroplane fliers are able to handle machines in a way the average German flier cannot match. These things being so, obviously each nation has evolved that type" of machine with which its airmen can obtain the best results. This has meant a double drawback to Germany. Suppose the Allies had possessed Germany's aeroplanes at the outbreak of war and Germany ours, it would have been found that our airmen could not have done as good work by reason of the comparative sluggishness and kindred features of tho German aircraft. On the other hand, it is plain that tho German? would have been able to take tio advantage of possessing tho befcTer British machines, because or this same Teutonic temperamont, which continues to prevent tham profiting fully by quite a number of aerial lessons of file war.

Had Equipment Been Reversed. On the other hand, the Allies havo possessed no instrument at all comparable with Germany's latest Zeppolin airships. Allowing for the fact -that these have certainly done useful work on occasion, of which the nature has not yet become known to the public here, nevertheless official Germany must be seriously disappointed with the total results obtained. Yet, perchance, it may perceive, as we are able to do, that these gigantic power-driven machines have been used to forward the general scheme with an extreme lack of intelligence. Early in the war they were employed for bombarding in Belgium. But it soon became apparent that even at night time in the autumn the presence of such craft was very easily detected, so that as a weapon of offence they became of very little use. Aeronautical students nevertheless foresaw that, with several months of winter . ahead, during which wind conditions are appreciably more constant than at other seasons, Germany had also longer cover of darkness in which to make effective use of her long-range .airships in specially-picked circum'stances. All she is known to have done, however, is to have employed this craft for a certain amount of reconnaissance worlc in the North Sea and for a futile raid on the East Coast, which, judged as a rehearsal, has never been followed up effectively. Now the Spring is with us, with.high and treacherous winds, rain, and hail, and already notably shorter hours of darkness. Yet this is the very juncture at which the German scheme of offence, embracing tho paper blockade, has required Zeppelins to come out more or less continuously, despite the weather, and in force to supplement the work of the submarines, and in other connections, with the result that at least four of these monster aircraft seem to have been destroyed in the last month. I am firmly of opinion that had Britain, instead of Germany, had the Zeppelin fleet at the outbreak of war our crews would have made those vessels give an account of themselves vastly different from their record of achievement to date. In the meantime, eight months' development of the hydro-aeroplane since tho outbreak of war has led alike to ourselves and the Germans enormously increasing the effectiveness of that instrument, which will figure more and more prominently in the news wo shall lie receiviug from the operations in Turkey as well as in Europe.