The airship does not float safely in the cental blue, aside from attacks by flying foes. Guns pointing upward have been devised to attack the daring aviator from the ground and flying machines can thus be swiftly brought down, like war eagles shot in the sky. Several types of guns for this purpose are in use, some to be employed on warships or fortifications, others, mounted on automobile trucks, for use in the field.
The Ehrhardt gun, a German weapon, which is designed to be mounted on an auto-truck, weighs nearly 1700 pounds. The car carries 140 rounds of ammunition and the whole equipment in service condition weighs more than six tons. The gun has an extreme range at 45 degrees elevation of 12,029 yards, or more than six miles. The sights are telescopic, a moving object can be followed with ease, and the gun is capable of being fired very rapidly. The British are provided with the Vickers gun, which is mainly intended for naval use, but the military arm is also provided with anti-balloon guns, which have great range and can throw a three-pound shell at any high angle. Some of these guns use incendiary shells, intended to ignite the gas in dirigibles. There is another type that explodes shrapnel. In addition to these, rifle fire is apt to be effective, in case of airships coming within its range.
Jules Vedrines, a well-known French aviator, tells this story of his experience while doing scout duty for the French army:
“Those German gunners surely have tried their best to get me,” he wrote. “Each night when I come back to headquarters my machine looks more and more like a sieve because of the numerous bullet holes in the wings.
“I have been keeping tab on the number of new bullet holes in my machine each day, marking each with red chalk, so that I won’t include any of the old ones in the next day’s count. My best record so far for one day is thirty-seven holes. That shows how close the enemy has come to hitting me. My duties as scout require me to cover various distances each day. The best record so far in one day is 600 miles.”
THE SUBMARINE
The submarine is another type of war apparatus, one the utility of which promises to be very great. It is of recent origin. At the time of the Spanish-American War there were only five submarines in all the navies of the world, and of this number three were in the French navy, one in Italy and one in Portugal. The United States was building its first one, and had not decided what type to select. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War Great Britain had nine of the American (Holland) type of submarines and was building twenty more, while France had accumulated thirty-six of various types and of various grades of reported efficiency, while Germany had none. In 1914 there were nearly four hundred vessels of this type in the world’s navies, France standing first with 173.
It was believed that the moral effect of the submarine would be almost as important as its physical effect in dealing with an enemy’s warship, and this idea has been justified. Some persons maintained that fights of submarines with each other might take place, each, like the Kilkenny cats, devouring the other. But the fact is that when submerged the submarine is as blind as the traditional bat. Its crew cannot see any object under water, and is compelled to resort to the use of the periscope, which emerges unostentatiously above the water, in order to see its own course.
It is known that the periscope is the eye of the submarine, and naturally attention has been paid to the best way of destroying this vital part of such boats. Recently, grappling irons have been devised for use from dirigibles, which are expected to drag out the periscope as the dirigible flies above it. Careful plans for torpedoing submarines also have been made, but their effectiveness likewise remains to be demonstrated.
Submarine builders have naturally held the view that the submerged boat could not be seen. But it has been discovered that from a certain height an observer may trace the course of a submerged submarine with as great accuracy as if it were running on the surface. It is found that the submerged boat can readily be seen from the dirigible and the aeroplane. On the other hand an anti-balloon gun has been devised which can be raised from the submarine when it comes to the surface, and used against the hostile airship.