The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1916. THE VALUE OF ZEPPELINS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1916. THE VALUE OF ZEPPELINS.

For the cause that lack* assistant*. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can do.

By 'thie time it is generally acknowledged everywhere, ,except in Germany, that the Zeppelin as a weapon of offence is a failure. In spite of the remarkable amount of ingenuity expended by then inventor and his colleagues, t"hey have been entirely unable to carry out their original programme of destroying London or hailing flame and ruin from the clouds upon our naval bases and our fleets. These intentions are still advertised by the Germans in characteristic magniloquent style; but the fact remains that nothing -material in this direction has yet been achieved. And we may go further, and claim that the experience of Zeppelins and their ways which our naval and military authorities have accumulated of late ren-

ders such a consummation of Germany's hope far less probable than it was two years ago. In the % first place, the desperate efforts made by the Zeppelins to carry out their plans has proved that it is practically impossible for thesa airships to distinguish and to hit a mark with any accuracy from the distance above the earth at which they are compelled to hover. Of course if a Ze3pelin crosses the North Sea and drops a bomb in the latitude of 'England the law of gravitation will ensure that the misfiile will hit the British Isles. And we must also admit that if by any accident a bomb should strike Buckingham Palace or the British Museum or the Xower, it would probably do irreparable damage. But the idea of these engines of death aiming deliberately and successfully at a mark is now altogether exploded. Before the fixet naval fight in which Zeppelins appeared, the Germans pictured these winged mon&tera sailing over our super-iDreadnoughts and dropping bombs down the funnels. But the experiences of the Navy . from the battle of' Heligoland Bight to the battle of Jutland has shown thai these threats and perils are quite illusory, and that, though accidentally the Zeppelin may da some harm to ships or to cities, its calcnlatei and capacity for evil is disproportionately small and unreliable.

. Moreover, it must be remembered that we have not gone through two years of aerial warfare; including a large number of Zeppelin' raids, without learning a great deal about the possibility Of neutralising and defeating the Zeppelin menace. The recent tragic fate of several raiding Zeppelins shows that the British measures of defence against aircraft, especially in the vicinity of London, are far more complete and effective than they were in the early stages of the war. Further, the absolute immunity that our naval centres have enjoyed from serious attack by Zeppelins » proof positive of the impotence of the airship as a weapon of defence against them. "If the Germans," writes Mr. Pereival Hislam, " were keen, as they most assurredly were, and are, on striking a blow at our seapower, the first and most obvious course that suggests itself so far as aircraft is concerned is an attack on our naval bases." Out of the six most important of our dockyards four are well within range of Zeppelins operating from bases in Germany or Belgium. " A successful attack on one of these establishments might very well demolish a vast quantity of shipbuilding and re-

pairing plant and naval stores of all descriptions, besides damaging, perhaps beyond repair, such ships as happened to be in hand at the time." Yet, after two years of war, during which Zeppelins have many times crossed our frontiers, not a single bomb has been dropped in these highly important areas. The only possible inference is that the Germans, whatever they may say for the benefit of the world at large, have been forced to acknowledge to themselves that their threats are, to a large extent, futile, and that their bom* baetic assertions of the overwhelming might of this new instrument of warfare are like so much else that has emanated from German sources of late, " full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

But though the Germane have been quite unable to make good their threats and boasts in this direction, it would be a grave mistake to imagine that the Zeppelin is altogether a negligible quantity. More especially in naval -warfare it already playe a very important part. Indeed, we may agree at once with the distinguished naval expert already

quoted that in all probability, "longrange airships are exercising a deeper influence on the progress of the naval war than the more dramatic and highly advertised submarine." For in naval war-

fare- more especially an essential con-

dition of success is a full knowledge of the enemy's 6trength, ite disposition, and

its movements; and thie the Zeppelins can to a large extent supply. The lookout at the masthead of a battleship can see barely 20 miles; but a Zeppelin flying at 5,000 feet can see in dear weather at least 80 miles in all directions. Under favourable conditions, allowing for the range of the airship's outlook, it is calculated that five Zeppe-

line, communicating by wireless, could

keep watch at once over the whole of the east coast of Britain and the whole

of the North Sea from "Belgium.'to"Norway. Naturally, if the ZeppeUna are

allowed thus to "ride the Ripper air", unmolested, they will always be able, in favourable weather, to warn the German High Sea Fleet of the movements of the British naval forces long before Admiral Jellicoe or Admiral Beatty can get within striking distance; and no doubt this superiority in aerial scouting has had something to do with the immunity from absolute destruction that the German fleet has so far enjoyed. Airships that can cruise for over 2,000 miles at a speed of over 60 mile 3 an hour are clearly of immense value as scouts, and this it would appear is the true function of the Zeppelin, at least for naval purposes. The natural inference is that till our aerial service hae been developed so successfully that it can drive the Zeppelins from their posts of vantage over the North Sea, the enemy may be able to evade for a Ion? time the disastrous and crushing defeat which (should be at last his inevitable fate. And the moral of this is that the Admiralty will need to secure for us the same ascendancy over the North Sea as the admirable air service of the Allies has already secured on the Western front for our armies. "Not only our success in the war, but our very existence as a nation depends upon the unfettered and unrestricted use of the Fleet, and unchallenged Zeppeline place us under a far greater handicap than all the U boats Germany is likely to build. The successful wielding of sea power is contingent upon the command Of the air, and we shall never get anything like 100 per cent of value from the Navy so long as the enemy is permitted to prowl about overhead Without serious let or hindrance."