How the Fleet of an Enemy with fifteen-inch guns could Bombard and Destroy Forts Hancock, Hamilton and Wadsworth and also all of Brooklyn and part of Manhattan, from a position beyond the range of the Guns of those Forts; also showing how, after Fort Hancock is destroyed, the Fleet could move yet nearer for the Destruction of Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth, and still be out of range of those forts, and finally, after their Destruction, how it could Bombard New York, Jersey City and Brooklyn at Short Range.
The first improvements following the advent of armor-plate were made, as might be supposed, in the gun and in the projectile. The old smooth-bore, with spherical projectile, was replaced by the breech-loading rifle and the conical projectile having a copper driving ring and gas-check, by which a projectile possessing enormously greater mass for its caliber could be hurled at much higher velocity and kept point on.
Extraordinary improvements have been continuously made in armor-plate, to harden and toughen it and to give it greater powers of resistance, while battleships have been made larger and larger to support heavier and heavier armor-plate. Nevertheless, the first improvement in guns and projectiles that followed the advent of the armor-clad, gave the gun the lead, and the gun has kept the lead ever since.
Today, the long-range, high-power naval gun, charged with smokeless powder, and throwing a projectile made of tempered steel inconceivably tough and hard, and charged with high explosive, is the most powerful dynamic instrument ever produced by man. A 12-inch naval gun throws a projectile weighing half a ton, at a velocity nearly three times the speed of sound. A charge of three hundred and seventy-five pounds of smokeless powder, strong as dynamite, is employed for the projectile's propulsion.
It may be safely assumed that at fighting ranges the residual velocity of a 12-inch, armor-piercing, half-ton projectile, thrown from one of the mostpowerful 12-inch naval guns, develops heat enough upon impact to fuse its way through 12-inch plate.
When a solid body comes into collision with another solid body, the energy of motion is instantly converted into heat, except such portion of it as may be consumed in fragmentation, and retained in the motion of the flying pieces. If two armor-plates, twelve inches in thickness, could be brought together face to face, each with a velocity equal to that of a modern 12-inch projectile, the energy of the impact would be sufficient to melt both plates.
New suns are created by the occasional collision of great celestial bodies in their flight through space. The heat generated by such collisions is, however, vastly greater than that developed by the collision of a projectile against armor-plate, for the reason that the velocity of celestial bodies is so much greater, being commonly from thirty-five to fifty miles per second, and sometimes as high as two hundred miles per second, instead of but three-quarters of a mile per second. The heat developed by the collision of worlds is sufficient not only to fuse them, but also to gasefy them, and reduce them to their ultimate elements. All the suns that emblazon the evening sky have been created in this manner, and the heat generated by their natal impact is sufficient to maintain their radiant energy for hundreds of millions of years. Planets are born, some of themto become inhabited worlds, finally to grow old and die, with the extinguishment of all life upon them, while their parent sun is still blazing hot.
The earth is being constantly bombarded with meteorites, usually of very small size. But the earth is armor-plated with its envelope of air. The impact of meteorites upon this envelope, at the enormous speed at which they are traveling through space, is fatal to them, and they are dashed to pieces and consumed upon it, as though it were a solid shield of hardest tempered steel. It is seldom, indeed, that a meteorite has sufficient size and mass to penetrate through the atmosphere to the earth's surface. Were it not for the protection offered by the earth's envelope of air, every living thing upon its surface would be very soon destroyed by the meteoric bombardment from the heavens. A minute particle of meteoric dust, traveling at celestial velocity, would be more deadly than a bullet from a shoulder-rifle.
When a projectile is fired from a gun, it encounters the same atmospheric resistance, in proportion to its velocity and mass, as is encountered by a meteorite, the resistance increasing in a ratio something like the square of the velocity. When a battleship fires a 12-inch shot at another war-vessel ten miles away, the velocity is greatly reduced during flight, for an enormous amount of energy is consumed in punching a 12-inch hole ten miles long through the atmosphere. Gravitation,also, is drawing the projectile toward the earth with a constant pull of half a ton, to counteract which the trajectory must be made an upward curve. This makes the path longer, and consumes additional energy in raising the projectile to the top of the trajectory.
If a projectile could be thrown from a gun at a velocity equal to that of a meteor, it would blaze like the sun during flight, for the metal upon its surface would be fused and gasefied by the resistance and friction of the air. It would not make any difference whether it were made of the toughest, hardest tempered steel, or whether it were made of soft iron. The velocity would be so great that it would pass through the heaviest armor-plate without appreciable reduction of speed. If the projectile were of lead, it would require armor-plate of a greater thickness to stop it than if it were of steel, for the reason that its mass or weight for its bulk would be greater.
Distance and the intervening air are our most efficient protection. No armored defense now employed is wholly effectual, except the range be long. By consequence, then, future naval battles will be decided more and more by speed and size of guns, rather than by armored protection.
Were two modern dreadnoughts to battle at as close range as did theMonitorand theMerrimac, immediate destruction would be mutual. They would cripple each other more in four minutesthan did theMonitorand theMerrimacin the four long hours during which they pounded each other.
TheAlabamaandKearsargefought for more than an hour, within bowshot of each other, before theAlabamawas destroyed. Were two of the biggest and most heavily armored battleships in the world to fight today at as close range, one or the other of them would be destroyed in a very few minutes.
The projectiles fired from the monster naval guns now weigh many times as much as those thrown from the guns of either theMonitoror theMerrimac, and these huge projectiles have also a multiplied velocity. The total thickness of the armor of theMonitor'sturret was ten inches. An iron wall of the character used in Ericsson's turret, five feet in thickness, would not afford adequate protection against our modern, monster guns.
Of course, the character of armor-plate has been vastly improved since that time. Instead of being merely soft iron, as was that of theMonitor, armor-plate is now made of the hardest and toughest tempered steel that science can produce. So, also, is the projectile. The projectile has far more than held its own. It is necessary, therefore, that the most heavily armored ships, as well as those unarmored, must fight today at long range, depending mainly upon skilled marksmanship and power and range of guns, rather than uponarmored protection. A battle at close range between two huge modern dreadnoughts would be as deadly to both combatants as a duel between two men standing close together, face to face, holding pistols at each other's breast.
When a chemical engineer makes an invention, and needs money for its exploitation, he first interests capitalists by letting them see the invention practised on a laboratory scale, embodying essentially the same conditions as would be involved in the larger commercial application. Similarly, we may get a very just and dependable idea of the relative efficiency of guns and armor-plate on a naval-battle scale, by taking into consideration what would be the result of a lesser conflict, embodying essentially the same conditions.
Suppose two men were to fight a duel, one wearing armor capable of protecting him as efficiently against rifle balls as the heaviest armor carried by any warship today is capable of protecting it against modern cannon-fire; the other wearing no armor, and being thereby enabled to run much faster than his armor-clad opponent. Obviously, if the unarmored man had a gun of longer range than that carried by the protected man, he would be able to keep out of range of his enemy's gun, while still keeping him well within range. Thus he would be able to continue firing at him until he killed him, without in return being hit at all.
At the battle of Santiago, the American fleet made only about two per cent. of hits with its 12-inch guns. Since that time very great improvements have been made in fire-control, and the accuracy of gun-fire. Today, a battle-cruiser, going at the rate of thirty knots, will hit an object on the sky-line a tenth the size of a battleship with the accuracy that Buffalo Bill from horse-back would hit a man's hat at a distance of twenty paces.
In the naval battle between von Spee and Cradock, off the coast of Chili, they opened fire on each other with deadly effect at 12,000 yards. In the running fight off the Falkland Islands, most of the execution was done at a range of 15,000 yards.
In the North Sea fight, according to the report of Admiral Beatty, the British shots began to take effect on the enemy at ten miles, and the whole battle was fought at a range of over seven miles. The German guns, being mounted so that they could be elevated much more than the British, were able to shoot not only as far, but even farther. The British guns, however, were much more effective, because of the greater weight of metal thrown.
When projectiles are increased in size the atmospheric resistance at equal velocity increases as the square of the diameter, while the mass increases as the cube of the diameter. Consequently, large projectiles lose less velocity during flight, inproportion to their weight, due to the resistance of the air, than do smaller projectiles.
Only within the last few years has rapid-fire with very large guns become possible. Now, however, loading machinery has been so perfected that the limit is no longer that of hand-power. Wherever in nature forces are opposed, there is a tendency toward an equilibrium. There is now a tendency toward the establishment of an equilibrium between the power of offense and the power of defense—between gun-fire and armor-plate.
Nevertheless, the mean force of gun-fire remains still far superior to that of armored resistance. The mean armored resistance is now about on a par with that of the moderate caliber guns, as, for example, 6-and 8-inch guns. If there were no larger guns than those of 6-and 8-inch caliber, guns and armor-plate would be about neck and neck in the race. Consequently, we must look to the winning of naval victories by the employment of guns of more than 8-inch caliber.
Speed is of such supreme importance in naval engagements that its value should be especially emphasized. Superior speed enables the fleet possessing it to choose its own position, thus determining the range and the direction from which the attack shall be made. If the fleet happens to have guns of larger caliber and longer range than the enemy, it may be important, also, to choose its weather by keeping out of action until it can fight at the maximum range of its own guns. The slow fleet must always fight at a disadvantage.
Fig. 1.Fig. 1.--Two fleets, F and S, go into action in parallel lines, the range being chosen by the fleet, F, having ships of greatest speed and guns of longest range.
Fig. 2.Fig. 2.--The faster fleet, F, forges ahead, concentrating the fire of both its front ships on the van ship of the slow fleet, while the rear ship of flee S is thrown out of range and out of action.
Fig. 3..Fig. 3.--The faster fleet, F, bends its course in front of the slower fleet, S, with increased concentration of fire on the leading ships of the latter, throwing its two rear ships out of action.
Fig. 4.Fig. 4.--The faster fleet, F, doubles around and crumples the slower fleet, S, and pours into its foremost ships and overwhelming enfilading fire, while its four rear ships are thrown out of action.
Fig. 5.Fig. 5.--The slower fleet, S, is forced into a circular position and destroyed, while its rear ships are constantly kept out of action.
Let us picture two opposing fleets drawn up for battle. The fleet with fastest ships and guns of longest range, lining up at the maximum effective distance for its fire, steams at first in a line parallel with the enemy and in the same direction that the enemy is steaming. The faster fleet is soon able to run its van ships forward of the van ships of the enemy, turning in front of them, thereby bringing the front ship of the enemy's line under the combined fire of its own two foremost ships, while the rearmost ship in its line of battle gets out of range of the rearmost ship of the enemy, placing the latter entirely out of action. This movement is continued until the enemy's line is encircled, crumpled up, and destroyed. Therefore, we see that superior speed enables the fleet possessing it to put a portion of an enemy's fleet entirely out of action, while at the same time placing the remainder of the enemy's ships under the combined fire of a superior number.
In June, 1897, I delivered a lecture before the Royal United Service Institution of Great Britain, in which I illustrated and recommended the employment of a gun of very large caliber for use on fighting ships and in coast fortifications.
The United States government had, several years previously, adopted the multi-perforated smokeless cannon-powder invented by me. Thisform of grain rendered it possible to use a pure nitro-cellulose smokeless powder in large guns, because it greatly reduced the initial area of combustion in proportion to the mass, while as the combustion progressed this condition was reversed and a very large area was presented to the flame of combustion in proportion to the mass. Consequently, the initial pressure in the gun was much reduced, while greater pressure was maintained behind the projectile in its flight through the gun than could be obtained by any other form of grain. This made possible the attainment of a very high velocity, with a comparatively low initial pressure and, consequently, with comparatively small strain upon the gun. For this reason, and because of the low heat in the combustion of pure nitro-cellulose powder, the erosive action upon the gun was reduced to a minimum.
I invented another and a special form of multi-perforated grain by means of which a yet lower initial pressure for a given density of loading was secured, the rate of combustion being still more highly accelerated.
Believing that the advantages of projectiles of great size, carrying a very large bursting charge, could be better illustrated by a gun of extraordinary caliber, I designed a cannon having a caliber of twenty-four inches, but having a weight of only 43 tons, the weight and length of the gun being the same as the British 12-inch 43-tongun. This gun was designed to throw a semi-armor-piercing projectile weighing 1,700 pounds, and carrying an explosive charge of 1,000 pounds, the total weight of the projectile being 2,700 pounds. While the projectile was not designed to pierce heavy armor, it was capable of penetrating the decks and sides of light-armored cruisers and deep into earth or concrete for the destruction of forts. It was a veritable aërial torpedo. By means of the special form of multi-perforated smokeless powder designed for this gun, the huge projectile could be thrown to a distance of nine miles with the gun at maximum elevation, and still with a comparatively low chamber pressure.
The projectile was provided with a safety delay-action detonating fuse, designed to explode it after having penetrated the object struck, thereby securing the maximum destructive effects.
It is reported that the Germans have made a huge howitzer weighing 45 tons, having a caliber of 23-1/2 inches, which also is capable of throwing a projectile weighing more than a ton to a distance of nine miles.
The drawings used in my lecture were published in theJournal of the Royal United Service Institution, April, 1898, and re-published in many scientific and engineering magazines, and in newspapers both here and abroad. The descriptions of this gun and projectile were illustrated, as wasthe manner of its employment for the destruction of the kinds of forts destroyed by the Germans at Liège and Namur.
The use of high explosives in big armor-piercing projectiles is now universal, but on the publication of my lecture in 1897 I was subjected to much criticism, especially in some of the London newspapers, whose editors took issue with me as to the practicability of throwing large bursting charges of high explosives from high-power guns. Prior to that time the only success achieved in throwing large charges of high explosives was by use of the Zalinski pneumatic dynamite gun, a battery of which had been made and mounted at great expense at Sandy Hook. These air-guns imparted a maximum velocity of only about 600 feet per second to the projectile. The maximum charge was 600 pounds of nitro-gelatin. The projectile had no penetrating power whatsoever, and was designed to go off on impact.
My proposition to throw large charges of a high explosive from a big gun, at high velocity, using a propelling charge of gunpowder, appeared to many to be a very hare-brained intention indeed, to say nothing of shooting it through armor and exploding it behind the plate.
On my return to America in 1898, I laid the matter before General A. R. Buffington, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, United States Army, and Admiral Charles O'Neil, Chief of the Bureau ofOrdnance, United States Navy. General Buffington sent me to Sandy Hook, where my new explosive, Maximite, was subjected to a very thorough trial. The first 12-inch projectile charged with it was buried in sand in an armor-cased cellar, and exploded. More than seven thousand fragments of the projectile were recovered, being sifted out of the sand. Twelve-inch projectiles charged with Maximite were repeatedly fired through 12-inch armor-plate without exploding. Later, similar projectiles, armed with a fuse, were fired through the same plate and were exploded behind the plate. Although Maximite was fifty per cent. stronger than ordinary dynamite, yet it was so insensitive to shock as to be incapable of being exploded without the use of a very strong detonator. Maximite was the first high explosive successfully to be fired through heavy armor-plate, and exploded behind the plate, with a delay-action fuse. The fuse employed at that time was the invention of an army officer. Later, my fuse was subjected to a very long series of tests, and it was finally adopted in 1907 as the service detonating fuse by the United States Navy.
If Uncle Sam would listen with an understanding mind to the language of the big guns now speaking on land and sea, he would immediately build a large number of huge howitzers. He would build a large number of good roads, capable ofstanding the tread of these howitzers. He would build as well a goodly number of battle-cruisers, as big and as fast as any afloat in foreign seas, and armed with guns ranging as far as the guns of any foreign power.
In the present European War is being tested the enginery of destruction and slaughter that has been building and accumulating for half a century. It is the most stupendous experiment that the human race has ever tried. The magnitude of it confounds the senses; the horror obsesses the mind and stumps realization.
The influence of improvements in all kinds of weapons and machinery of war is further and further to complicate strategics. The more that invention, science, and discovery are employed in the development and perfection of implements of war, the more the use of those implements requires high inventive genius and high scientific skill.
Before the outbreak of the war there were many military engines awaiting a practical trial in actual service, among them the dirigible balloon. During a period of forty years the nations of the world have been obliged to do a good deal of guessing, in spite of calculations based on previous experience in wars whose mechanism was very simple and crude as compared with thepresent engines of war. But the improvements in weapons employed on terra firma did not constitute so far a step away from experience as engines of aërial warfare. Those engines of war which have been mainly the subjects of guess-work are the aëroplane and that dreadnought of the air, the Zeppelin, especially the latter. The advent of the aëroplane introduced an entirely new set of problems.
Before the advent of the aëroplane, the navigation of the air was confined to the balloon. Contrary to expectation, the aëroplane, instead of putting the balloon out of the race, served only to stimulate higher development of the balloon, with the result that the dirigible balloon and the aëroplane have been developed side by side.
From the outset, it was recognized that the chief desideratum in the development of the aëroplane consisted in greater stability, and especially in automatic equilibration.
The first aëroplanes were very imperfect. At the time of the early exhibitions which I witnessed, it was necessary to plan them to take place in the calm of the evening, just before sundown. The aëroplane could not go up in a wind. No aëronaut would have undertaken to go up except when there was no wind. Even a moderate breeze made them quite unmanageable. Now, however, the aëroplane can rise in a galeof wind, and fly right into the teeth of a hurricane.
The old-style balloon could only go with the wind. It could make no headway against it, but had to float like a feather on the lightest breeze. The modern dirigible, however, which has reached its highest degree of perfection in the Zeppelin, can travel through still air at a speed of sixty miles an hour, the speed of a gale of wind, and can brave a fifty-mile gale at a speed of ten miles an hour. This is altogether remarkable when we take into account the fact that the Zeppelin, with all its load, must be lighter than air, and therefore, for its size, lighter than the fluffiest eiderdown.
Limitations of the Aërial Bomb
Aviation makes a strong appeal to the imagination, and this fact, together with errors and misconceptions in the popular mind concerning the use and power of high explosives, has led to many strange predictions and weird conclusions about the destruction which dirigibles and aëroplanes would be capable of doing by dropping bombs from the sky.
Since the advent of aviation, many inventors have directed their energies to aërial bombs and bomb-dropping appliances. There have been, from time to time, fearful forecasts of the destruction of warships, coast fortifications, and large cities; for it was claimed that air-craft would be able to drop explosive bombs capable of wrecking the heaviest battleship and of blowing up coast fortifications and utterly laying waste cities and towns. It was predicted that the aëroplane would be able, with its bombs, to scatter armies like chaff before the whirlwind.
The hopes of those who have believed in such dire destructiveness of bomb-dropping from air-craft have been dashed to the ground, with the bombs they have dropped. Of course, aviators may drop any form of infernal machine which, on exploding, will mangle by-standers with fragments of scrap iron, but the effect must necessarily be very local.
The most effective use aviators can make of bombs and infernal machines is to destroy one another in the sky and to attack magazines and storehouses, wireless stations, hangars, and balloon-sheds within the enemy's lines, and beyond the reach of other means of attack. Also, in connection with the attack of advancing troops, aërial bombs dropped from aëroplanes may be used with effect, especially in disentrenching an enemy. At sea, too, with the latest types of aëroplane, bombs of sufficient size and weight and power of penetration may be used destructively against unarmored or light-armored war-vessels. A more efficient means, however, than has yet beenadopted is needed to secure the required accuracy. Naturally, such bombs are admirably adapted to the destruction of dirigible balloons. The swift-winged aviator is able to manœuvre at will around and above a huge dirigible and to attack it from any quarter.
There is probably no one subject about which there is more popular error than concerning the use and destructive effects of high explosives.
An anarchist once attempted to blow up London Bridge with two small sticks of dynamite, and succeeded merely in getting himself into trouble. At another time, a dynamiter entered the Houses of Parliament and exploded ten pounds of dynamite in one of the large corridors, with the result that it only made a hole in the floor and smashed a few windows.
As a matter of fact, airships are capable of working comparatively small damage by dropping bombs, unless the bombs can be made to hit and penetrate the object struck before exploding, for the reason that, unless confined, explosives have but little effect.
When a mass of high explosive is detonated upon a firm, resisting body, like the earth, or the deck of a battleship, or armor-plate, the effect is to rebound from the resisting body with small result. For example, when a mass of high explosive is set off on the earth's surface, the ball of incandescent gases bounds upward, spreadingout in the form of an inverted cone. While it will blow a hole of considerable size into the ground, still the effect in a horizontal plane is practically nil. The windows of buildings standing in the vicinity of an explosion of this character are not blown inward, but are blown outward in the direction of the explosion by atmospheric reaction.
At Sandy Hook, several years ago, an experiment was tried with two hundred pounds of guncotton exploded against a twelve-inch plate, immediately back of which were placed a cage containing a rooster and a hen, and another cage containing a dog. The guncotton was hung against the plate and detonated. The effect upon the plate was nil. On examination, it was found that the dog and the two fowl had been made rather hard of hearing. That was the only noticeable effect upon the animals.
We all remember the test of the big, eighteen-inch Gathmann gun at Sandy Hook about twelve years ago, which threw a bomb containing six hundred pounds of compressed guncotton that was exploded against the face of a twelve-inch Kruppized plate. The first shot produced no visible effect except a yellow smudge on the face of the plate. It took three shots even to crack the plate and to shift it in its setting.
In competition with the Gathmann gun, a twelve-inch army rifle was fired against anotherplate of the same size and thickness and mounted in the same manner. The projectile contained only twenty-three pounds of Maximite. Yet, as the projectile penetrated the plate before the Maximite was exploded, a hole was blown through it a yard wide, and it was broken into several pieces.
These tests proved the effectiveness of even a small quantity of high explosive when properly confined, as by explosion after penetration, and the utter ineffectiveness of a large mass of high explosive when not confined or when exploded on the outside of a body.
Bombs carried by an airship and dropped upon the deck of a battleship may damage the superstructure a little, but they can have no material effect upon the ship itself, unless they are made heavy enough and strong enough, with the proper armor-piercing shape, and are dropped from a sufficient height to pierce the deck. Not unless the bomb can be made to penetrate an object before exploding can it effect much destruction.
At Santiago, theVesuvius, with its pneumatic guns, threw several six-hundred-pound bombs, and exploded them on the Spanish fortifications, but the effect was wholly insignificant.
Several years ago, when the subway was being built, a dynamite magazine accidentally exploded in front of the Murray Hill Hotel. The magazine probably contained at least a ton of dynamite. A lot of windows were broken in the vicinity, somepersons were injured, and a multitude badly scared, but the damage done even to the Murray Hill Hotel was comparatively small.
It has been predicted that Germany would send across the Channel a large fleet of airships and blow up British towns with the bombs that her great gas-bags might drop out of the heavens.
Now, at last, the much-vaunted and long-anticipated Zeppelin invasion has come, and what is the result? Four peaceful citizens killed, and about ten thousand dollars' worth of property damage.
Let us suppose that the Germans should send a fleet of a hundred airships to drop bombs upon the city of London, returning to Germany each day for a new supply; and let us suppose that each airship should carry explosives enough to destroy two houses every day, which would be far more than they could actually average. Yet, if this aërial fleet should be able to destroy two hundred houses a day, or say, roughly, sixty thousand houses a year, it would succeed in destroying just about the annual growth of London, for that city has, during the past ten years, built sixty thousand new houses every year.
The dirigible balloon has one signal advantage over the aëroplane in the matter of bomb-dropping. It can both carry bigger bombs and remain stationary and hover while it drops them. With the aëroplane, however, there is necessarily great difficulty in hitting underlying objects, on accountof the high speed at which it must travel to sustain flight. In order to float, an aëroplane must travel about thirty miles an hour. Even at this speed, it is moving forward at the rate of forty-four feet a second, and as a bomb travels at the same speed as the aëroplane, except for the retardation of the air, it moves forward forty-four feet the first second, while dropping sixteen feet. The next second the bomb falls sixty-four feet and moves forward forty-four feet, and so on.
Sixty miles an hour is a moderate speed for an aëroplane, however, and at that speed the bomb travels forward eighty-eight feet per second when it is dropped, so that, during the first second, while it descends but sixteen feet, it moves forward eighty-eight feet. It falls sixty-four feet the next second, and moves forward eighty-eight feet, and so on, descending in a parabolic curve, so that, by the time it strikes the earth, it may be several hundred feet from the place at which it is aimed.
Although the dirigible balloon, a Zeppelin, for example, may hover in a stationary position at will when dropping bombs, still it constitutes such an enormous target that it must fly very high in order to keep out of range of gun-fire. Guns are now made which can reach air-craft at the height of two miles. At that height, or at half that height, there can be but little accuracy in bomb-dropping, even from the stationary Zeppelin.
The efficiency of a fighting machine is exactly proportionate to the amount of life and property that it can destroy in a given time with the minimum exposure of property and life in order to do the work. If a fleet of a dozen Zeppelins should be able to attack and destroy an entire British fortified town like Dover, it would be a good investment. If, however, the loss that it would be able to inflict upon the enemy were only equal to the loss that the British would inflict upon it, then it would be a bad investment, or at least, an investment without profit, for the reason that, in war, it is poor policy to risk the destruction of a valuable war-engine merely for the destruction of what may be termed non-belligerent property of an enemy, such as the dwellings of the inhabitants of a city.
Suppose, for example, that a couple of Zeppelins should be able to destroy houses in a British town having a value ten times as great as the value of one of the Zeppelins, and, in the attack, should lose one of the Zeppelins, it would not be a profitable raid, for a Zeppelin, being useful for scouting purposes, is a potential factor in deciding the issue of the war, whereas the houses have practically no bearing on the issue of the war.
It is good policy to use both men and machinery of war only for the destruction of men and machinery of an enemy, and not for the destruction of non-combatant inhabitants and property.
Much has been said about gun-fire from air-craft upon underlying troops. A man standing on the earth, being seen endwise, presents a much smaller target to the vertical fire of the air-man than he presents when fired at horizontally from the earth, because in the one case he is seen end-to, and in the other case side-to. Besides, several other men may be exposed to the horizontal fire. The air-man, however, is a conspicuous target, and if his machine is hit and crippled the result is fatal to him.
Aëroplane and Dirigible Compared
As I have for many years predicted, the chief use of air-craft, whether aëroplane or dirigible balloon, is for purposes of reconnaissance.
This war has amply demonstrated the fact that air-craft are of enormous value. They have rendered surprises in force practically impossible. Each side has been able to keep itself fully aware of the numbers and disposition of opposing troops.
The aëroplane costs but a fraction of what the Zeppelin costs, while the Zeppelin presents a target enormously larger. It constitutes a target so big as to make the broad side of a barn blush with envy.
As one effective hit will bring down either aëroplane or Zeppelin alike, obviously, the aëroplane has the advantage over the Zeppelin, as a target, equal to the difference in size multiplied by the difference in cost. Furthermore, the aëroplane is far more mobile and more rapid in flight than the Zeppelin.
In judging of the value of the Zeppelin for purposes of reconnaissance on land, as compared with the aëroplane, we must take into account the fact that a large number of aëroplanes can be built for the cost of a single Zeppelin, and manned with the crew of a single Zeppelin, and that these many aëroplanes, operating in concert, will be able to do much more effective work than one Zeppelin.
If the Allies would be good enough not to shoot at them, Zeppelins might be very efficient indeed, hovering along the battle-front. These dirigibles have been very conspicuous for their absence from the battle-front in the war.
The use of the Zeppelin as a troop-ship has yet to be proven, and its value for the purpose will depend upon how it compares with the aëroplane for the same purpose. Aëroplanes capable of carrying at least a dozen soldiers each, with the arms and equipment of a raider's outfit, can now be built. Obviously, as a large number of such aëroplanes can be built at the cost of a single Zeppelin, and as the aëroplane can travel even faster than the Zeppelin, the Zeppelin cannot for one momentcompare with the aëroplane, even for the purpose of carrying troops.
There is one purpose, however, for which the Zeppelin is admirably adapted, where it is much superior to the aëroplane, and it is for reconnaissance over sea. The Zeppelin can hang on the sky and scan the sea as a hawk scans a field for its prey; and as it can carry a wireless apparatus capable of transmitting messages to a distance of two hundred miles or more, it can keep the German fleet constantly informed of the positions of the British fleet in the near seas. It is thus able to direct a sortie of ships when the numbers and disposition of the enemy's ships are such as to insure success.
The Zeppelin has also a very important use in the detection of submarines, for the reason that from a vertical position submarines, under favorable conditions, can easily be seen at considerable depths below the surface, and the Zeppelin, with its long-range wireless, is able promptly to report such valuable information.
I am of the opinion that the Germans have planned and built their Zeppelins mainly for oversea fighting against England, and for a prospective invasion of England. I think they must have been disappointed in the lack of destructiveness that their bombs have had when dropped from Zeppelins, while the moral effect on England must also have been disappointing.
From the point of German advantage, it would be a good plan to frighten the British if it would take the fight out of them, but it is a very bad plan to frighten the British if it puts more fight into them. The Zeppelin raids have certainly had the effect of stimulating the British fighting spirit.
It is especially regrettable that the United States Government did not heartily co-operate with the Wright Brothers to lead the world in the development of the aëroplane; but nothing of the sort was done. "We have," as Congressman Gardner says, "been experimenting and expecting and reporting and contracting and considering—in fact, we have been doing everything except building aëroplanes."
The Wright Brothers, however, were received with glad foreign embrace. They were generously encouraged abroad, both by co-operative and competitive experiments and by liberal purchases. The result was that, on the breaking out of the European War, France, for example, had 1,400 aëroplanes, while the United States had but twenty-three, mostly obsolete. The United States Government has followed its time-honored custom of allowing its naval and military inventions to be developed and perfected abroad before adoption here.
Prior to the outbreak of the European War, this government ordered from abroad an up-to-date French aëroplane with two Salmson motors,and one of the latest German aëroplanes with two Mercedes motors, with the intention of building a few of these machines. Then came the European War. The American purchases were commandeered, and we were thereby prevented from acquiring the much-desired air-craft.
The de Bange obturator, an indispensable part of the breech mechanism of all large guns, was originally an American invention, but this Government allowed it to be developed and perfected abroad and given a foreign name.
Ericsson'sMonitorwas taken up by Europeans, right where its private builders left it, and it has been developed, mainly in England, into the modern super-dreadnought.
The interchangeable system of manufacture of small arms was developed and perfected in America, but received no encouragement from the government. This system is now universally employed in the manufacture of small arms, and also in the manufacture of all kinds of machinery. It is for this reason that we are able to get a spare part for an automobile that will fit in place perfectly without having it specially made. Before the advent of the interchangeable system of manufacture of firearms, a sportsman in England went to his gunsmith to be measured for a shotgun just as he went to his tailor to be measured for a suit of clothes. At that time, no two guns were made exactly alike, and no piece of one gun would fitany other gun, while now all the parts of one gun will fit in the places of corresponding parts in every other gun of the same pattern.
The year the United States Government adopted multi-perforated smokeless powder, Congress appropriated only $30,000 for smokeless powder, the orders to be divided among the different manufacturers. This meant that inventors, like myself, who had started in a small way, were driven out of business. I went to England with my multi-perforated smokeless-powder grain, which had been adopted by the United States Government, but found it hard to get foreign manufacturers to recognize either the superiority of the multi-perforated grain or of the pure nitro-cellulose powder. The excessive erosion, however, of guns used in the present war, due to the use of powders containing a high percentage of nitroglycerin, is already making those countries using nitroglycerin powders look longingly to the superior smokeless powder used in the United States.
The United States Government has as yet taken no steps worth considering toward the obtainment of Zeppelins, or any other practical dirigible balloon. At the present time, there is not one in the American service.
At the outbreak of hostilities abroad, France had 22 dirigibles and 1,400 aëroplanes; Russia, 18 dirigibles and 800 aëroplanes; Great Britain,9 dirigibles and 400 aëroplanes; Belgium, 2 dirigibles and 100 aëroplanes; Germany, 40 dirigibles and 1,000 aëroplanes; Austria, 8 dirigibles and 400 aëroplanes; while the United States had, as I have mentioned, only 23 aëroplanes, mostly obsolete.
Last year, the Secretary of the Navy appointed a Board to investigate the subject of aviation for the Navy, and to make recommendations. The Board recommended the appropriation of $1,300,000 for that year, but Congress cut off the first left-hand numeral and appropriated the sum of $350,000 for the purpose.
The present war has demonstrated that air-craft are the eyes of both armies and navies. If the Wright Brothers could have come to the country's aid in the Spanish War, the American fleet would not have remained in doubt outside Santiago Harbor. Before the advent of aviation, one of the chief desiderata to a commanding officer was to find out what the enemy was doing behind the hill. Without the aëroplane, it is impossible to prevent surprises in force, and to avoid the deadly ambuscade. The aëroplane is absolutely indispensable for the location of masked batteries. It is impossible, without aëroplanes, even to approximate the number and disposition of troops to which an army may be opposed. It is necessary to have not only a sufficient number of aëroplanes, especially designed and equipped for this purpose, but also other aëroplanes, armed and equipped, to co-operate with them, and defend them against attack from the aëroplanes of the enemy. Just as dreadnoughts require battle-cruisers, and both require torpedo-boat destroyers, and all require other scout-ships and submarines, for co-operation against a fleet of an enemy, so do dirigibles and the different types of aëroplanes, according to their purpose, require one another for concert of action.
What we have already seen of battles fought in the sky leads us to surmise that aërial battles of the future will be fought on a much larger scale. It will be found that the commander who expects to conquer the ground held by an enemy must first conquer the sky. Aviation carries war into the third dimension.
Not only must the advance or retirement of troops be supported by artillery thundering from hill to hill, but also the troops must be supported and guided by pilots in the sky.
The last Congress appropriated $1,000,000 for the aviation purposes of the Navy. It is the same million dollars that was cut from last year's appropriation, which ought to have been expended for the purpose during that period.
It is a strange paradox that America, which has led the world in discovery and invention as applied to the industrial arts and sciences, should follow the rest of the world in their adoption bythe Army and Navy. The trouble is not with the bureaus and boards of the Army and Navy, which have merely the power to recommend such things, but it is the fault of Congressional false economy. As long as we allow other nations to lead us, both in the character and quantity of naval and military equipment, we are destined always to be weaker than other nations in that equipment; consequently, when war comes, we spend money with the extravagance of frenzy to remedy the defect. We economized before the War of 1812, and during that war we wasted ten times as much as we had saved by our economy. We had disqualified ourselves by our economies to such an extent before the outbreak of the great Civil War that this conflict became one of the most deadly and most expensive in the history of the world. What we saved by our economies, compared to what we lost by them on that occasion is like a drop of water to a river of water. But we failed to profit by the experience, and, when the Spanish War broke out, we spent money with all the lavishness of prodigal inefficiency.
If we could only be as wise as we have been lessoned by our sad experience, we would immediately take adequate measures to forefend ourselves against a repetition of such experiences; and one of those measures would be the building of an aërial fleet commensurate with our large needs.
Life being a reaction between the individual and environing stimuli, it naturally follows that those stimuli not destructive are necessarily formative.
The health and development of nations are governed by the same law that governs the health and development of individuals. When an individual is subjected to a burden that does not break him, or to a trial that he is able to master, he is strengthened, not weakened, by the burden or the trial. Every individual is constantly being attacked by microbes of disease. So long as he possesses sufficient powers of resistance to repel invasion of disease, his ability to resist disease is strengthened, and his immunity to further attacks is increased. It is only when disease gets inside a man that it becomes a destroyer.
It is not a bad thing for a hen, but, on the contrary, it is a very good thing for a hen to lay eggs and sit on them and hunger for three weeks in order to hatch the chicks, and then to scratch for them and hunt for them until they are able to take care of themselves. She is stronger, healthier,more intelligent, more competent, and altogether a better hen because of her exertion and her sacrifice. The rearing of her chicks imposes no burden on the farmer, because she gets the wealth for their growth out of the ground.
The human mother who bears and rears sons and daughters is supremely rewarded for all the pain and the burden. The husband and wife who toil for each other and their children are able to arrive thereby, and only thereby, at most complete living and the goal of supreme happiness. Happiness is our sense of the normal exercise of faculty; consequently happiness is the feel of normal life; unhappiness the feel of abnormal life.
Just as we are strengthened by bearing all burdens that are not so heavy as to crush us beneath their weight, so the nation is enriched by the burdens it bears and the expenditures it makes for the general welfare of its people. We may help our understanding of this matter by recognizing the truth that everything primarily comes out of the ground, and that whatever comes out of the ground, whether from agriculture or mining, is newly-created wealth. Whatever stimulates a more active development of our natural resources produces accordingly a proportionate amount of new wealth.
The people have been taught, until the belief is now well-nigh universal, that the cost of establishing, equipping, maintaining, and supporting astanding army, the cost of building, manning, and supporting a large navy, and the expense of manufacturing and storing large supplies of ammunition and other war-materials, represent just so much dead loss to the taxpayers of the country.
It is necessary to correct this error, and to disseminate the truth that the building of battleships, the manufacture of arms and ammunition, the manufacture of supplies of food and clothing, require large numbers of laborers and skilled artisans, who become a great market for food and supplies of every description for their convenience and comfort, thereby giving employment to myriads of others, back to the farmer; while the money paid for wages and produce is kept constantly in circulation.
It is the difficulty of paying taxes from the pockets of poverty that makes taxes burdensome, and not their size. If the ability to pay a given amount in tax be tripled, the tax itself may be doubled, and the taxpayers still be the gainers.
Wealth is what labor gets out of the ground; and whatever stimulates labor, or creates a demand for labor, is a direct stimulus to prosperity, by increasing both the number of laborers and the hours of labor, and by affording a market for the products of labor.
If all of those thrown out of positions in a panic were to be put to work by the government in the production of war-materials, there would result no hard times, and the entire country would be better off.
The large standing army indispensable to Germany costs vast sums annually, but the standard of personal efficiency is raised so much by military training, and industry is so stimulated to meet government requirements, that the Germans have captured markets all over the world for the sale of their manufactured products in ever-increasing quantities.
According to statistics, we Americans spend every year on sensuous indulgence, on our hilarities—joy food, joy drink, joy dope, and night-outings—nine thousand million dollars, which, in gold, would weigh more than thirteen thousand tons—the weight of a good-sized battleship.
The biggest super-dreadnoughts cost $15,000,000 each, built in pairs; built a hundred at a time, they certainly would not cost over $12,000,000 each. We could build, for what we spend on sensuous indulgence, 750 super-dreadnoughts; we could build 160 super-dreadnoughts a year for what we spend on alcoholic beverages; 83 a year for what we spend on tobacco; three a year for what we spend on chewing-gum.
The total amount that we spend each year on our Army and Navy is about $250,000,000. Consequently, we spend more than twelve times as much on alcoholic drinks and tobacco as we do on our Army and Navy.
I do not mean to preach a temperance sermon, or to advise against the use of tobacco. Nevertheless, I do think that for every dollar we spend on indulgence, we might drop a couple of cents into the side-till just for insurance—for the safety of our country against war, in order that our joys of living may be continued.
The small burden of armaments in proportion to the burden of luxuries is very well stated in the following quotation from "Some Economic Aspects of War," by Professor C. Emery:—
"Certainly Bloch is not likely to minimize the extent of such expenditures, as he has been one of the leading writers to show the immensity of this burden, and yet he himself states that the military expenditures of different European countries vary from 2 per cent. to 3.8 per cent. of the total income. Even Germany, with her great organization, takes less than 3 per cent. of the actual income for its maintenance, both of army and navy; and when we think of the expenditures for luxuries, many of them harmful in themselves, the extent of military expenditures appears even less. In Germany, for instance, three times as much is spent for intoxicating drinks as for the support of military and naval establishments. One-third less consumption of beer and liquor on the part of the German people would take care of this part of the budget altogether."