FIGHTER AND BOMBER

Evening Star, Issue 22460, 3 October 1936, Page 29

FIGHTER AND BOMBER

END OF THE COG FIGHT An article written recently by u wellknown English airman, Captain -Norman Macmillan, who has had a long and continuous experience in military aviation, as a pilot in France and Italy and latterly as a test pilot, in which he contends that dog fighting in the air is over and that entirely different tactics must bo employed in future warfare, has started a lively controversy in British aviation circles. Not much more than 100 years ago, he wrote, it was naval practice to sail close alongside the enemy, firing grapeshot and solid ball ammunition from low-velocity cannon which could throw a projectile only a short distance. That might be compared with air fighting in the early days of the war. Then pilots flew alongside each other’s machines and discharged revolvers or rifles at close range. With the development of steam engines and higher velocity guns and explosive shells, the conditions of sea warfare changed. Aerial dog fighting was the outcome of equipment and circumstances. The work of the Flying Corps in the war on the European front was not Air Force work at all, for everything pilots did was related to the needs of army commanders on the ground—reconnaissance, photography, artillery co-opera-tion, and bombing were conducted in accordance with the needs of ground strategy, and fighting in the air was incidental to the main army requirements. Essentially it was the type of war that brought about the dog fight in the air and made it as much a part of the- war of attrition as the diggingin under ground level of the infantry. The assumption that the dog fight is the standard form of aerial fighting can only hold good in circumstances which bear a similarity to those of the western front, and it is_ problematical if such circumstances will arise. In the war the fighter was queen of the air, because it enabled army work to be carried out by machines of other categories. To-day the relative position of the fighter in the scheme of strategy no longer holds. Long before ground forces could come to grips, and therefore long before any war of attrition could commence, the issue might be decided by_ the respective air forces of warring nations. Speed mobility and load-carrying capacity of modern bombing forces may reorientate geography without major actions being fought on ground or sea. The primary weapon to-day is indeed the bomber; with high-explosive and incendiary bombs it can carry war conditions into whichever area it can penetrate. The bomber is queen of the air to-day. Range, speed, and carrying capacity have forged ahead. All-metal construction renders the modem bomber more difficult to destroy. Developments in the art of flying and the use of blind flying instruments and automatic pilots make the bomber able to operate under weather conditions that would have prevented flight even less than 18 years ago. Under these changed conditions what is the role of the fighter?_ From being a flying spearhead of aerial attack to clear the way for the dromes that did duty for the ground forces, the fighter has become a defensive weapon charged with the duty of attempting to prevent the bomber from reaching its objective. LITTLE MARGIN OF SPEED. If the relative speeds of the two machines are about the same, but with the fighter possessing great climbing power, unless he has already advantage in height to enable him to overhaul the bomber, he will not be able to prevent its attack. Thus the old adage of tremendous climb at the expense of high forward speed cannot possibly hold to-day. Excess speed must come first so that the fighter can overhaul the bomber. Let us assume that the fighter is faster than the bomber. Here is no case of opposing aircraft mutually bent upon the destruction of each other. The bomber has a definite plan to carry out, and when fighting craft are seen the pilot will increase his speed to the utmost to reach his destination. There is no scope for the dog-fight, for it takes two dogs to make a fight. If the difference in speed is not greater it may not be possible for tho fighter to do more than engage tho bomber by firing from behind. Tho bomber class preponderates in every modern air force. Captain Macmillan holds that new tactics must be created to meet the changed conditions —the air weapon as a weapon in itself and not an auxiliary to surface forces, and the tremendous increase in range and speed of machines. He considers it probable that just as naval tactics were changed with tho development of high-velocity guns and explosive shells, higher projectile velocities will be developed for fighting aircraft, which will no longer bo tiny large multi-coloured machines, in which everything is sacrificed to speed except the power of hitting. The tactics of such a type would not he the tactics of the past. It would dive in a single line ahead, and when it reached the rear of the enemy formation it would pass to one side and fire a broadside of high velocity shell, infinitely more deadly than the present hose-pipe method of firing large numbers of standard bullets. The strides made in bombing design have not been made by the fighter except in relation to speed and climb, Captain Macmillan maintains. The armament of tho fighter is out of date, and its method of employment as things stand to-day is open to question.