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's Monitor was 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 fit any 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.