THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1908. THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3009, 5 October 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1908. THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR.

The possibility of England being attacked by an enemy in airships is engaging the attention of writers at Home, and the newspapers have lately contained a good deal of correspondence on the subject. What we have to fear from the superiority of our possible enemies in the air may be set within exact enough limits. To begin with, there is no prospect of invasion by airships. Invasion requires transports; and stoerable balloons and heavier-than-air flying machines are not transports. They cannot conceivably carry thousands of men. Again, we cannot imagine airships tsking the place of ships upon the water. They would not have the habitability of warships, and they could not carry a comparable weight of guns. We imagine that aii-ships will never be able to carry guns—or weapons that discharge missiles horizontally—at all, but will have to rely upon accuracy in dropping explosives from a height. Their fire will be

vertical. It may be said that war will become too horrible to be tolerated; but we do not suppose for a moment that nations will shrink from war as such more than before or that airships will ever lack crews. Fighting in mid-air will be a nerveshaking business of course; but the total injury to life and property among those below would not be greater than we suffer from many older weapons, even if it should be as great. Accuracy in dropping things from a great height will be very difficult indeed; and, so far as we can see, airships will be forced higher and higher, "towering like falcons in their pride," in the attempt to occupy the only position from which "firing" upon a hostile airship will be possible. Apart from the tactics of the air, considerable height will be necessary to keep out of range of gunfire from the earth, not to sav out of vision. Rifle-fire till it becomes extraordinarily heavy has not much effect, and certainly no immediate effect, upon a balloon, as was proved by the experience of the American army in Cuba. Even a "pom-pom" shell is said to have pierced one of the balloons in South Africa without doing it much harm. But the men and the mechanism of the airship (unless the weight of armouring can be afforded) will always be vulnerable. The delicate parts and balance of heavier-than-air machines would, we suppose, be particularly vulnerable; they could be easily upset by a single wellaimed shot. Probably for some time the chief function of airships will be scouting. Their services in that respect may well bo inestimable; and if there were no other danger ahead of us than the possibility that foreign countries will excel ua in the range and skill of their scouting, that would in itself be a sufficient reason for making up our minds to the need of meeting competition on equal terms. An army, or a navy with bad scouts is Samson blinded.