WHAT TO EXPECT IN NEXT WAR

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 64, 17 March 1937, Page 8

WHAT TO EXPECT IN NEXT WAR

PLANES spitting fire and death will decide the iesue for the next war, writes Max Seydewitz and Kurt Doberer iu Death Kays and other Weapons. Therefore the question of efficacious means of defence against aerial attacks figures at the head of the agenda of all armaments discussions. During the world war the Italian General Staff protected the city of Venice, which was the favourite goal of the Austrian raiders, with aerial wire screens. At the first alarm, numerous captive balloons equipped with wire screens rose to a certain height around the city, forming a barrier. At first the Austrians laughed at what they called medieval tactics, but when their planes began to get caught in the iron meshes like flies in a cobweb, and crashed to tlie ground, they ceased laughing. Soon the method was adopted by all the belligerents. Modern military technique has devised a much more murderous cobweb for raiding aeroplanes. Its meshes are so narrow that no plane can dodge them. It chokes their motors and makes them crash instantly. Naturally, this secret w not easily divulged. Its guardians prefer to divert public attention from it by letting the papers publish fantastic Teports about electric dcathrays and similar mythical weapons. Nevertheless, even a jealously guarded secret is bound to leak out in the long run. Like an invisible metal fence, this new weapon, metallic dust, floats in tho air. But unlike the wire it does not wind itself around the screws and the sensitive steering organs. It aims at the heart of the plane, namely its motor. Nothing could be more simple than the banic principle of the invention. If you throw a handful of emery into the cylinder of an explosion motor, it is clogged right away. Naturally, it is not quite so simple to use this method against raiding planes, for even if we succeeded in projecting sufficient quanquantities of coarse emery to a certain height, it would not float In the air but drop to tlie ground and never reach tho motor. However science has established that there is volcanic dust in the higher atmosphere strata. These particles, eject-

ed by fire-spitting mountains, f# .t above and with tho clouds during many weeks, forming a mixture of air ancl dust, a so-called aersol. This waa tho point of departure of the inventors who set out to find a very coarse emery and a means of processing it in such a way that it would float in the air for a long time and drop very, very* slowly. Theso particles would have to be very light and specially shaped. A piece of thinly rolled aluminium foil drops much more slowly than an aluminium ball of the same weight. Therefore neither the shape of the volcanic particles nor that of the emery grains seemed suiti able for the invisible smoke. Its diminutive particles had to be given a shape superior to that of the natural product, physically speaking, perhaps of steel-foil, hard as glass, perhaps of microscopic flat corundum crystals, perhaps .... but here is where, the mystery, so jealously guarded by tho big powers, begins. ’We know, however, that numerous experiments have been conducted with this smoke. Already in 1934 the Lon don Daily Herald published an interview with a specialist, who had just returned from attending such experiments abroad and was in a position to make positive statements. / It appears that the invisible smoko is suspended in the clouds where it remains floating for some time, stopping the motors of all approaching planes.

INVISIBLE SMOKE Cobweb for Planes

As for its composition, the formulas are the most important military secret of all countries, and no wonder, for this new iveapon may revolutionise aerial warfare. When the floating dust is absorbed by the motor, the piano must stop and no manoeuvre, however skilful, can take it out of the infested zone. It mast land immediately, the motor must be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned, unless more complicated repairs are required. There are two possibilities of projecting tlie smoke into the air. It may be projected upward from tho ground. At the present stand of technique it is possible to time the explosion of any projectile, so that tho shells carrying this dust could bo made to explode at the desired altitude, either as soon 'as a raid is signalled or during the attack. Their effect would naturally be much more violent than that of ordinary shells.

A second possibility would seem to consist in strewing the dust out from planes at a certain altitude. A few squadrons woald suffice to erect an invisible but impenetrable barrier around the most exposed and vulnerable points of a centre. No plane with explosion motor-s could pass through it, unless tho pilot know the exact height of the screen and managed to keep above it, which, however, is not an easy manoeuvre for a heavy bomber. Naturally the method holds tho same

i« Many women have fcecomo drunk on business; they love tho 8 feeling of authority and importance that it gives them, says To-day, g New York. They prize seeing their names on lettering on the office 8 doors and owning a vice-president’s title as very few men would do* & After all, men have had all their lives to get used to the idea of 8 I being paid for their day’s work. The woman who is a happy slave 8 to her career is jealous of its least prerogatives. She gloats over 8 minor triumphs like a boy rejoicing over the ability to shave. § Women are in the odolescent stage of business success—and while S they are still naive enough to enjoy it, men are very generous In o giving them a large share of the committee jobs and trade-associa- 8 tion-office titles which the busy man considers frankly a nuisance. 0

dangers for those who apply it, who must keep out of the cloud themselves.

At the same interview it was stated that seven out of the nine planes for these experiments were forced to land immediately when they attempted to fly through the smoke barrier. Two years later Mr. Baldwin was asked in the House of Commons whether he had something to say regarding this newest defence weapon. He regretted that he was unable to answer the question, but added that he wished to advise the members not to swallow fantastic reports without a grain of salt. He further added that such methods of defence were the object of constant research and that valuable progress had been achieved, but that it would not be in the public interest to divulge the lines along which this research proceeded. Translated from the diplomatic into plain language, he said that the invisible smoke was a concrete fact, that it could bo hung up like a curtain around tho island, but that nobody could say whether the attacking force would not ultimately be able to protect itself against it.

This weapon is equally destructive to all internal combustion motors in which a mixture of fuel and air is burned in the cylinders. In this respect all types of engines resemble one another, even though some of them are proof against electric disturbances. There is only one engine that does not inhale the outside air and would therefore seem to be immune from such dangers, and that is tlie good old steam engine. Its cylinders work on steam in a closed circuit, so that the outer air is prevented from reaching the heart of the motor. But modern technique has discarded the steam engine as obsolete for aeroplanes. Only quite leccntly has the necessity of devising effective means of protection against tho metallic smoke made them turn their attention once more to steam.

Several projects for such engines have already been worked out. Germany knows the secret of invisible smoko and has for some time past devoted special attention to the problem of steam engines for aeroplanes. People who read about it in the newspapers have considered tho idea absurd or misunderstood its significance. But those who are aware of the importance of tV* now weapon in a future war will appreciate Germany’s efforts in this direction.