NEW PROBLEMS IN AERIAL WAR

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 302, 22 December 1939, Page 9

NEW PROBLEMS IN AERIAL WAR

Unexpected Attack Is Least Wasteful 1914 METHOD AGAIN Although the opening stages of the air rsar seem to falsify most expert predictions as to what would happen, they give no reaon for supposing that independent air action will not become an important part of the operations in the future, says the Air Correspondent of the London Observer. Up to the present the air forces on both sides have been mainly concerned with co-operative work with the other services. The German Air Force has undertaken a certain amount of independent bombing of towns and villages in Poland, but it has not concentrated on this kind of work. The French Air Force has been working in co-operation with the French Army on the Western Front, and the British Air Force has been mainly concerned with co-operating with the British Navy. Even though the. Kiel raid on September 4 and the Heligoland , Bight raid were to some extent independent operations, they were closely linked with naval needs, and the fine work of the Coastal Command in dealing with submarines must be looked on mainly as co-operative work. Independent air action—if the leafletdropping raids are excluded—on the lines adopted by Lord Trenchard’s Independent Air Force in the war of 1914 has not yet developed. Yet it was this kind of action, according to the theories propounded by some experts, that was expected to predominate. Independent air action does not imply the bombing of open towns and non-military objectives. It may be entirely devoted to military obectives such as factories making war material, docks, power stations, and the like. Most obervers expected that this kind of air action against German military objectives would be begun by the Royal Air Force instantly on the outbreak of war while a proportion of the German air force was still engaged on the Polish frontier. For some reason as yet known only to the Air Staff, that course was not adopted, and the main body of the German air force has moved from Poland and is massing at landing grounds from which it might be possible to conduc. intensive attacks on Britain and on France. The possibility that it may be reinforced by Russian squadrons cannot now be entirely neglected. There is little reason therefore for the complacency of those who have lately been arguing that the Air Raid Precautions services in British cities are excessive. We have not yet felt the German air arm, but there is no indication that we shall not feel it in the future. Unknown Element It is this independent use of air power that will be the unknown element in this war. On the Western Front it already appears that the cooperative use of air power is taking a form almost identical with that which it took in the war of 1914. There are the same sort of photographic and reconnaissance patrols; the same kind of low flying attacks on troops; the same clashes between air-craft; even the same rows of observation balloons. But independent actions by large bombing formations are the actions whose effect on the progress of the war is not precisely known. They are the actions which would be likely to lead to great aerial battles and to the real test of the qualities of opposing air forces. In the few instances where the Germans use£ independent air action in Poland, they used it against open towns and have not been required to pierce any very strong protective screens. When they seek to use it against France and Britain, as they almdst certainly will, the conditions will be different. Many students of air war hold that an average casualty rate of 15 per cent, in bomber formations would be sufficient to put an end to raiding within a fairly short period, and that a casualty rate of 25 per cent, would stop it almost at once. These, however, are theoretical calculations which take no count of the extraordinary feats of courage and ingenuity which war provokes. Surprise Attack It was in the devising of novel and surprising forms of attack that the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service excelled in the war of 1914. The low flying attacks on aerodromes by individual raiders were a good example of the British Service’s powers of bold extemporisation. There is no reason to suppose that the possibilities for novel forms of action in the air are exhausted or tha’t they have even begun to be exhausted. And it remains as true today as it ever was that the direct an! obvious attack is apt to be the most wasteful in men and aircraft, and the unexpected and indirect attack the least wasteful. Tactics can hardly be treated unde* the present conditions of censorship, but it is perhaps permissible to point out that the performance of the German aeroplanes —even including the new Messerschmitt 110 according to report—is not superior to that of allied machines and that aerial engagements have already thrown doubt upon the powers of the free gun. The free gun—or group of guns—mounted on a rotatable mounting and worked by a gunner seems to be no better match now than 25 years ago for the fixed gun or group of guns mounted in a fighting aeroplane and firing forward in the line of flight. The gunner with a-free gun is unprotected and cannot handle more than a pair of guns. The pilot with fixed guns is protected by the engine in front of him which is effective armour, and he can handle a group of up to eight guns. Moreover, line of flight fire is generally more accurate than fire across the line of flight.