FRIEND OR ENEMY?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 May 1940, Page 6

FRIEND OR ENEMY?

WAR AT SEVEN MILES A MINUTE PROBLEM OF IDENTIFICATION. CONFLICT IN THE AIR. Yesterday morning a flight of Spitfires passed over my house, flinging themselves across the sky with that air of purposeful haste that only those modern fighters seem to possess, wrote Carl Olsson in a London paper on February 20. While they were still in sight I noticed one new thing about them. On every machine the underside of one wing was painted black and the other onewhite." And I got to thinking how quickly ideas can be made to change in war. even such a static war as this. That magpie marking is the new standard colouring for all our fighter aircraft. Yet only four months ago. when I visited the Royal Air Force in France for the "Daily Herald.” the idea was to keep all aircraft as anonymous as possible in colouring. All surfaces were painted a uniform drab camouflage. And I remember the astonishment of some technical journalists when, last November, we called at an advanced fighter squadron and found them painting red, white, and blue stripes on their rudders.

That must have been the beginning of the changed attitude which has now emerged as this bold black and white pattern. The new idea is that it is far more important to be speedily recognised by your friends than to seek, by protective colouring, to deceive your enemy.

This problem of identification is a major headache for the air staffs of all countries. The reason is that aircraft designers, all working to ultimate performance specifications, are all tending to produce aeroplanes of much the same shape. That is particularly so with the smaller single-engine fighters, and at great heights and with the split-sec-ond glimpse which is all the speeds of modern aircraft will allow, it is very difficult for the best trained experts to pick out friend from foe. A LUCKY ACCIDENT. Do you remember the first big aerial battle of the war when nine French fighters attacked 27 Messerschmitts and downed nine of them? The real inside story of that triumph rested on a case of mistaken identity. Hero are the facts. One of our Hurricane pilots went up after a Dornier reconnaissance machine, chased it well into Naziland, and then lost it in a cloud. Returning home rather disgruntled, he happened to look up and saw ahead what he took to be a large patrol of our fighters, and at once starter to climb up and join the formation. A moment or two later he looked again and saw to his horror that they were Messerschmitts. At the same instant they recognised him. and were already forming line to attack. He banged his throttle wide open and, nose down, headed for home, with the Nazis on his tail. So engrossed wore they on downing this solitary pilot that they did not see the nine French Curtiss Hawks which had been sitting upstairs guarding some artillery spotters. Down came the Curtisses and down went the Messerschmitts. If a highly-trained pilot can make such a mistake in identification, how much more easily can ground spotters! WORK OF GROUND SPOTTERS. For a long time now the technical aviation journals of this country have been painting elaborate identification charts of Allied and enemy machines, and setting problems both in photograph and silhouette. Spotters in our Observer Corps and with our anti-aircraft batteries spend long hours studying these charts. So do our pilots and air gunners. Bedecking our fighters in th’eir new coloured plumage will be a help. The enemy is also trying to solve the problem for his own sake. He paints most of his aircraft a peculiar slate-blue colour on the underside, which at first seemed rather puzzling, since most plain colours look black against the sky.

But I here is a suggestion that his ground spotters wear polaroid glasses or some kind of tinted lenses through which their own aircraft, with this slaty hue. will appear another and distinctive colour.

Or lhe coloured searchlights which the Germans are reported to be using may reflect off those painted undersides in some special way.

ANALOGY OF SEA WARFARE. In the early days, navies had this same problem of recognition. They solved it by intensive study of silhouettes and by challenge codes. The naval fire-control officer. however. can always devote some minutes to making quite certain about that suspicious smudge on the horizon. Minutes are out of the question in the seven-mile-a-minute air war. Indeed, in the battle for air power we can see in many of the trends and developments how the history of the early sea struggle is repeating itself.

For instance, toughened armour plate brought about the armour-pierc-ini? shell and the heavier gun. As ar-

mour got thicker and tougher, guns got heavier. A vital spot in an aeroplane is the petrol tanks, and Germany has evolved a highly ingenious method for protecting these. They are self-sealing. We know about those tanks. One was recovered intact from the Heinkel bomber which was shot down in Scotland on October 28. And so we have, apparently, developed some counter-attack or new projectile. for last week three German bombers were brought down in one day. These self-sealing tanks are quite useless against the shell gun with which some of our aircraft arc now armed. So we get the armour plateheavy gun story all over again. You have heard of the devastating stream of bullets which can be poured out by our Hurricanes' and Spitfires' eight, guns. But all this huge fire power is of little use unless the bullets hit a vital spot. SMALLER BOMBERS—BIGGER FIGHTERS. The best protection for the bomber is speed, and that leads us to a final point which many air-wise people are now prophesying. Instead of the expected "(lying fortress" bomber, heavily armoured and gunned, we shall probably see smaller bombers and much bigger fighters as this war goes on. The reason is that many .modern fighters with their mass of guns can carry ammunition for only about 30 seconds continuous fire. To carry enough ammunition, especially when shell guns come into general use. for long-distance escort work involving much fighting, the lighters will almost certainly be made bigger.

Those are just a few of the problems which are confronting air stall's and designers. And though to us on the ground the air war may seem to be standing still, behind the scenes it is in the throes of constant, bewildering change