Evening Star Newspaper, June 29, 1930, Page 77

BY NELL RAY CLARKE, HE next be war—could be ended in ideal ' fashion if airplanes could drép on invading armies and their civilian population bombs containing a gas which would put them' to sleep for a week or more wntil they could be overpowered and then put to work to pay for the eco- momic upheaval they had caused. Since no gas is known which will pro- duce such a Rip Van Winkle complex, the next most ideal treatment would be to sprinkle them with mustard gas or some similar gas which would burn them enough to put them out of fight- ing trim for six months, rendering them temporarily ineffectual, but as good as new when the burns had healed. Fighting unt’’ n-tion or so long that both sid p >nt their entire ecoromic resc 1 instruments of destruction mear. . _.eat for both sides, sinoe the conquered are so prostrate at the end of the contest that they lack means of paying for the destruction brought about as a result of the struggle. Suppose, for instance, that aviators of the allied armies in 1914 had flown over German territory dropping mus- tard-gas bombs on Potsdam, Berlin, Cologne, Munich and other cities. How quickly would the German army on the western front have been recalled from its purpose of death and destruction and the K2iser have b-en ousted from power! But since war condldons are never ideal, and talk of poison gas stirs up opposition and contention, scientific and mechanical instruments of devastation and destruction must be developed. The War Departm:nt has recently been making a motion picture film to show how. the various services of the Army will fall into line_to do their best in aoccordance with the newest of military tactics and with the most recent instru- ments of w~~ """ T the pruvu.g grounas at Aberdeen, Md., a film is being made to show the use of an anti-aircraft device which will be partially manned and operated by a robot, or m=chanical man. As yet it is not possible to divorce human con- trol from any type of warfare or other activity, but remarkable strides are be- ing made in the utilization of Pranken=- stein inventions for numerous mechani- cal calculations and observations in ac- tive warfare in the one-ation of guns and airplanes. The new film wiil slhiow Paris unde- fended as it was during the World War against the German air raids, all the warious stages of development in anti- aircraft guns, and finally the Ilatest 3-inch guns, with trailer mounts laid in azimuth and elevation with all correc- tions applied by the robot, a mechanical director which computes the firing data and froo-wits them slentrianlly to “.‘e gun: Th te 212 iwo lucn at the director and none at the gun itself. In addition, searchlights and sound locators can be seen moving into -action, the 37-mm. automatic gun firing a projectile which em- plodes on touching the fabric of an airplane wing: the .50 machine gun, capable of firing 2,400 rounds per minute at a range of 3 miles; the 3-inch mobile anti-aircraft gun, and the 105-mm. fixed cannon. The airman sees anti-aircraft defense as one of the startingly accurate and dependable links - im a chain of defense, but believes that the only real defense against aircraft is other air- craft; that the great battles of the future, if it i necessary to fight again, will be in the air. © “What the future may bring can be read in the light of recent developments in aviation and in mechanical aids to the fighter,” said F. Tru- bee Davis'n, Assictant Secretary of War for - Aviation “In Aptil, 1930, during the Air Corps field exercises at Mather Field, Sacramento, Calif., & whole peace-time squadron of 18 planes flew over the field at a height of 28,000 feet, or 5% miles up, at about 150 miles an hour. The flyers were using oxygen tanks, but the planes were efficient at that altitude without super- chargers. The temperature ranged from 72 de- grees Fahrenheit when they left the ground to 40 degrees below zero at that altitude. The moisture from their exhausts froze in streaks through the sky like sky writing. “THE plane of the flight commander was equipped with a recently developed radio set, weighing 25 pounds, which enabled him to talk to and to receive messages from the flight leaders operating under him. Communication has been maintained between ground control stations and planes in the air, and the direc- tion of an attack mission over enemy territory by means of radio b»acon sign~ls has interest- ing possibilities. “Marvelous s'rides have recently been made fn methods and means of communication and reconnaissance work. The Air Corps now pos- sesses a camera which can take pictures cover- ing a distance of 270 miles from an altitude of 21,000 feet. Though the detail in such a pho- tograph is necessarily small, the more reserve power there is in such cameras the more effi- cient they are at nearer distances. We have cameras which can detect camouflage and re- produce n'l details of terrain with the greatest accuracy “Recantly an auplane fiying over the Pacific simulated the discovery of two ‘Red’ submarines beneath the surface of the water in the vicinity of the Golden Gate. The observer quickly drew & crude map showing the location of the sub- marines and radioed that map within & few i THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 29, minutes tc Mather Field at Sacramento, more than 80 miles away. “The weakness of the pursuit or fighting planes in the past has been their vulnerability fram the rear. Now the development of the two-place pursuit plane is well under way. Not only does it carry a machine gun to shoot be- tween the blades of the propeller, but a gun at the rear operated by a gunner whose back is toward the pilot. We still have much to learn about the bi-place pursuit plane. The 1930. three-place observation plane is another recent development of importance. It will be equipped with twin motors, giving greater safety and higher cruising speed. making it capable of long-distance reconnaissance. “TACTICS are being developed which call for the employment of fast day bombers that fly below the tree tops, hedge-hopping along in much the same manner as attack planes, in addition to the night bombers, capable of car- Wireless room of a modern observing plane from which a map of the land or sea below may be radioed to headquarters, showing such details as ammuni- tion dumps or even enemy submarines waiting below the surface for their prey. FLYING Submarines in Another WAR F. 'I'R UBEE DAVISON, United States Assistant Secretary of War for Aviation, and Aides Foresee Conflict Fought Miles High in i b Sky, With Warriors Breathing Sea-Level Air in Sealed Compartments of Aircraft. : rying heavy loads at high eneugh alti- tudes to enable them to escape the searchlight defenses of the target ares, “One criticism of aircraft in the past has been that planes could not cerry their own supplies. This is no longer true. In the recent air exercises at Sac- ramento more than 100,000 pounds of equipment, including everything from engines and wing sections to such office paraphernalia as cerbon paper snd paper clips, were moved by airplane from the air depot at Rockwell Field to Sacramento, a round trip of more than J.000 miles, without delay or accident. The airplane is beginning to meet the requirements of the Napoleonic axiom that ‘an aimy crawls on its belly.’ “The development of the mechavie ator, or mechanical pilot, for airplanes has great significance in aerial ware fare. The skill in marksmanship of & pursuit pilot is his skill in pointing the nose of his plane at an enemy. By simply touching a button he can pug the direction of the plane in the handsg of the rokeot, while he turns his atten< tion to Liw: operation of a machine gun in the rear of the plane or to the operas tion of a bomb-control mechanism.” The developments mentioned above are realities, not dreams of the future, Maj” Carl Spatz, commanding officer of the 7th Bombardment group, one of the most brilllant technicians in- the Air Corps, recently made the following pre< diction: “Within a few years pursuit planes will be tighting at altitudes so high that human beings are not able to exis§ there because of the extreme low tem- peratures and utter absence of oxygen, “To overcome this, it is more than lizely that high-altitude pursuit planes will be developed. These planes will, for all practical purposes, be flying subs marines in that the pilots will be in- closed in compartments where they will breathe air of sea-level quality and be protected against cold. “The first step toward this ultimate fighting plane will be a pursuit ship with a heated cockpit. This would be & welcome departure from present high< altitude planes that compel pilots to put on 50 pounds or so of heavy and cumbersome clothing, which is not only uncomfortable, but also tends to make one’s movements awkward. The future will see-further- develop< ments of radio-controlled flight. I think that the day will come when an entire air force will be directed from a control plane occupied by the commanding officer of the organization.” 4 Every arm of the service would have important work to do if it became nec- essary for the United States to fight a * defensive war. Battleships would be necessary to prevent the establishing of air bases and the landing of troops, The submarines would operate againsé transportation of troops and supplies t¢ their bases on or near our coasts, back up the coast defenses and aid in the laying of mines and in mine control. - The chemical warfare service of the Army, in addition. to its research work upon poison gases, has reoently been paying considerable attention to the use of smoke in warfare—Just plain, every-day black chimney smoke—be- cause of its ability to obscure aircraft operations and important oenters en the ground Ll'l'-imumelcmtflrb-meolfln future. A certain well known city is to be attacked from the air. It has a well organized anti-aircraft unit, which is ready to go inte action at the moment of an alarm. Defense planes are ready to drop a smoke screen over the city. This screen must be broad enough and long enough to cover not only areas te be defended, but outlying areas, also. Otherwise the smoke screen merely makes the object it obscures a target for enemy bombers. An observation plane flies over to get phoe tographs of the city, hoping to locate importang buildings, spying out anti-aircraft emplacements, ammunition depots and other vulnerable spots, such as railway depots and bases of supplies, Such photographs would probably be obtaimed by surprise tactics. Once located, anti-aircraft batteries would probably be the first points of attack. A bomb dropped on one might destroy it or cripple the delicate machinery of its mechanical director. A smoke. bomb or curtain over it would obscure planes in flight and make its firing blind or wholly dependent upon the calculation of fne struments, sincé sight of the target would be impossible .even with the aid of searchlights, Attack planes, flying low, will war upon the anti-aircraft guns and make way for the bomb- ers to drop their death-dealing burden of proe- jectiles or gas upon the civilian population. Such a city would undoubtedly possess squad- rons of fighting planes to rise at the alarm and give battie to enemy aircraft. So any group of bombers would undoubtedly have its accome panying cohorts of fighting -planes to engage the enemy and thereby divert attention from the bombers. Such battles may take place many miles up in the air. To the holocaust of destruction wrought by enemy planes with their explosive charges and their gas bombs, there would be added falling missiles of the defending planes, the falling planes themselves and the falling shells of the defending anti-aircraft. Not alone upon come batant forces would such a war be waged. No less an authority than Marshal Foch bas said: “The potentialities of aircraft attack upom a large scale are almost incalculable, but it is clear that such attack, owing to its crushing moral effect on a nation, may impress public opinion to the point of disarming the goverm- ment and thus become decisive.” (Cooyright. 1930.)