Direct Hits

While the House of Representatives was conducting its own investigation into the use of aircraft, the General Board of the Navy had under way a voluminous report for the President, on the relative efficiency of airship and battleship, with a view to allotting appropriations to increase the Navy's strength. Last week, the Board, composed of seven Admirals and General Lejeune of the Marine Corps, made its report.

It summarized the limitations of aircraft as follows:

"Aircraft cannot operate from territory that is not controlled by the military or naval forces of their own country.

"Airplanes cannot occupy territory, nor can they exercise control of the sea.

"Airplanes cannot reach distant oversea areas under their own power with any effective military load, and therefore cannot operate there offensively or defensively until supplied with weapons and fuel.

"Airplanes cannot fulfil the functions of the service of supply for themselves or for other forces in distant oversea areas.

"Airplanes cannot fly across the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean to any point on our coasts or within our continental territory with bombs heavy enough to do any serious damage. The situation as to other continental or insular powers having potential enemies contiguous to their borders is wholly different and bears no analogy to ours.

It added:

"A properly constituted fleet consists of battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers, aircraft carriers, aircraft, destroyers, submarines, mine layers and auxiliaries.

"The battleship is the element of ultimate force in the fleet, and all other elements are contributory to the fulfilment of its function as the final arbiter in sea warfare. . . .

"Aviation has taken its place as an element of the fleet and cannot be separated from it.

"The separation of aviation from the Navy and its incorporation in a separate department of the Government would be most injurious to the continued efficiency of the fleet in the performance of its mission."

The report explained in detail why the Board did not regard the airplane as a serious menace to the battleship. Airplane bombs can damage ships in two ways: by direct hits or by bursting in the water alongside. At heights where there is reasonable immunity from anti-aircraft fire, direct hits are hard to obtain; and at lesser heights, bombs are not able to pierce modern deck armor. Explosions alongside are not seriously dangerous to ships with modern con- struction. Accounts of tests and their results were given in detail:

Anti-aircraft fire: Tests against cloth targets* towed behind airplanes at 4,500 feet, targets smaller than the area-bombing plane, showed that the anti-aircraft guns scored one or more direct hits in 75% of the trials. The Navy has a gun that fires 13-pound projectiles 24,000 feet in the air, and another that fires 50-pound projectiles 28,500 feet, both of which fire 14 shots a minute--so that a battery of eight projectiles can deliver 112 shots a minute; also, machine guns that will fire 400 half-inch projectiles a minute to a height of 8,000 feet.

Bombing Accuracy: A bomb dropped from 12,000 feet requires 28 seconds to fall, during which time a 21-knot ship travels almost 1,000 feet. Because of weight limitation, airplane sights are inaccurate; and yet an error of one-half degree will place the bomb 100 feet out in a 12,000-foot fall. So a zigzagging ship would be hard to hit.

Bombing Tests:

P: The battleship Iowa, steaming under radio control, was attacked by airplanes from only 4,000 feet; 80 dummy bombs were dropped and only two hits made, although there was no anti-aircraft fire to disturb the bombers.

P: The British conducted similar tests on their ship Agamemnon; 114 bombs were dropped from heights of 5,000 to 12,000 feet, and not one hit was scored.

P: The battleships Virginia and New Jersey were sunk by bombers, but they were obsolete, had no watertight subdivisions, nor anti-aircraft defense, no pumps to keep them afloat, were not in motion. In addition, the bombers had the best of weather and were allowed to make trial flights.

P: The German ship Ostfriesland (turned over to the U. S. after the War) was sunk by U. S. bombers. She was more modern. Airplanes dropped 69 bombs at altitudes of only 1,200 to 2,000 feet, making 16 direct hits, did not succeed in sinking her until the second day.

P: The German cruiser Frankfort was also sunk under similar conditions. She had light armor, thin decks, lay at anchor undefended and unrepaired during a seven-and-a-half-hours' bombardment in fine weather, with airplanes flying not over 2,000 feet in altitude.

P: The incompleted Washington, really just a hull of modern construction, was tested last fall. The tests were made by exploding bombs, simulating the largest bombs dropped by airplanes and the largest submarine torpedoes, in the water around her, to determine the resistance of her hull to external explosions. The result was to flood some of her "outboard explosion spaces" and "double bottom spaces"; her inner hull was not ruptured and the few leaks that were started could easily have been plugged up, or the water pumped out. At no time did she list more than five degrees. No material damage was done by the shock to such machinery as she contained. Candles left burning on the deck were not extinguished or knocked over. Unless persons on deck should be washed overboard by water thrown up by the explosions, no loss of life could possibly be caused by bombing of this sort. After these explosions, a three-days' gale came up; even after this the Washington was in such a condition that she could still be towed to port. Two airplanes tried to drop armor-piercing projectiles upon her from 4,000 feet. One plane, after eight trial flights, dropped its bomb in the water. The other plane, on its fourth flight, scored a hit. The bomb was a 1,440-pound armor-piercing shell, but without explosive. It did not pierce the deck armor, although it might have done so from a greater height (indicating that her deck armor should be heavier).

The report summarized:

"After suffering the explosion of three underwater bombs of the largest size and two torpedo explosions, also of the largest size, directly against the hull, with no repair of leaks and no pumps going, the Washington remained afloat four days and was finally sunk by 14 hits of 14-inch shell fired at very oblique impacts to obtain data with respect to penetration of armor. The ship sank two and three-quarters hours from the time the guns opened fire."

*Sleeves or funnels, 14 feet long and about 50 inches in diameter.