The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1916. AERIAL WARFARE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 43, 26 January 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1916. AERIAL WARFARE.

; The latest accounts cabled regarding i the increase in the number of Britain's airships and the general improvement of the Allies' aerial warships shows quite'clearly that Germany is not alone in the advances made in this direction, and the gloating over what horrors the new Fokker machine would be able to accomplish appears to have been somewhat premature. It is now certain that the Allies possess many highly-improved aircraft, including aeroplanes of much larger and heavier type than those employed at the beginning of the war. Advances have also been made in the strategy of aerial fighting. The "Fortnightly Review." discussing the disasters which befell so many of Germany's Zeppelins and other great airships suggests that the reason why so many Zeppelins have been destroyed—most of them by causes other than military action—is that the Germans are comparatively poor airmen, and the reason why they have not been more extensively employed is that they have been kept at home to a large extent, till a large fleet of them, embodying all the technical improvements which experience has .shown to b e desirable, can be used for some great action. The opinion was also given that if the British Government built large airships, not of the rigid, but of the semi-rigid type. British airmen would make far more use of the weapon than the enemy has yet done. The character and the mechanical training of the Germans are not suited to produce good airmen. It has been said that the winds cannot be drilled or the weather organised to suit either side, but given equal conditions real happenings have conclusively r?h«>wn that the German aviator i s left cold by his more daring Russian. French and British opponents. The Review also contends that the aeroplane, useful weapon as it lias proved, can no more do all that the large airship may accomplish than a submarine can take the place of a battleship. In dropping bombs both large and small aeroplanes are subject to the disadvantage that they must maintain their

speed. They cannot hover like an airship, and they cannot drop so many or such powerful bombs. Touching for a moment on the often-heard suggestion that thousands of mae- ■ hines. should be built to attack Es-

sen, the writer i s in a position to say, "on unimpeachable authority.''

that if Britain had possessed large airships Essen would have been bombed long ago. "We might drop five hundred bombs from aeroplanes

upon a city like Karlsruhe, ami do nothing of importance; but large airships over Essen—it would lie like 'firing into the brown' ; it would not be possible to mis s achieving something of real military value. Such attacks repeated could determine the issue of a campaign." To learn some fine morning that the airmen of France and Britain had accomplished this good work would "bo very welcome news indeed.