THE AEROPLANE IN WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8737, 20 May 1914, Page 6

THE AEROPLANE IN WAR

At last the world has seen an encounter between a vessel of war and an aeroplane, and the victory went easily to the flyer. According to a recent cable message the flyer rained bombs on the . ship, destroyed the bridge, killed the men silenced the guns, and was playing such havoc generally with the structure that the remnant of the command hurried the broken ship to the open sea. Now this settles a crucial point. Scientific men have held from the first that bombs thrown from above would not do mortal damage to any structure, and practical men have insisted that bombs thrown from flyers must almost always not hit at all. Th© fat© of the Morelos gunboat is a startling answer of uncontradictahle facts. This aeroplane has, we are forced to the conclusion, made good as a formidable adversary of the lighting ship. It will be for the shipbuilder to devise adequate armour protection, and for the artillerists to perfect the guns designed to bring down the flyers before they become vertically dangerous. The latter of these projects has attained some degree of success, hut the former has not yet reached even the embryo stage. For the moment th© open sea is the safest place for a fleet. Any approach to the shore within say bombarding distance is sure to recall the story of the Morelos gunboat of Mexico. The formidable character of the aeroplane ns a shore defence being thus demonstrated, the 1 need for its immediate addition to the armaments of this Dominion —and all States weak in fighting power—is made prominent. But the windinees of this island country makes it imperative that aeroplanes to be of any use must have more stability and more power than they have at present attained. The defence authorities should carefully watch the progress of the stabilisers, the best of which is said to bo in the hands of the American flyer, Wilbur Wright. Th© moral for this Dominion of the story of the Morelos is that we must have war aeroplanes at the very earliest possible moment. Th© cost is relatively small, and thousands of young men are ready and willing to turn the new thing patriotically to the best account.