AEROPLANES IN COMBAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 12

AEROPLANES IN COMBAT

The war in the air has now been in progress for four months, and has been proceeding at a very fair tempo considering the impediments of winter weather. The lessons of these four months are now being pondered and they are very heartening to Britain. British defensive operations have been very successful, and German bombers have been shot down very swiftly without loss of fighters, a tribute to the effectiveness of our fighter armament of eight guns. There is no doubt that the armament, of the modern aeroplane has made combat more deadly. German aeroplanes which have been hit by the concentrated fire of the eight-gun fighters have been almost cut in two, and there is at least some evidence that such armament is almost as good as cannon for defensive purposes. It is still open to doubt, however, whether it will be so when larger enemyformations have to be attacked. The German single-seater fighters have not been successful, arid some of them have been handicapped byhaving only four guns. The new twinengined fighters, which our bombers met at Heligoland, are more formidable. They appear to carry a group of 20-millimetre cannon. It is expected that there will gradually' be an increase in the hitting power of the planes on both sides, with consequent provision of more extensive armour for gunners. Allied planes have definitely proved themselves of better technical standard than the German. They have higher speed, climb faster, carry heavier armament, and are better equipped. Germany is obviously making an effort to close this technii cal gap. Allied methods of plane control are also superior to those of _ the Nazis, and the defensive actions around Britain have shown how hard it is for an enemy plane to- get far unobserved and without being attacked. In some measure, the recent policy of attacking fishing boats is evidence of the difficulty of proceeding to objectives further from Germany.