Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 191. AIR SUPERIORITY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14647, 3 July 1918, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 191. AIR SUPERIORITY.

General Maurice's . comments on tho subject of aerial warfare, published in' our 'fabl.e. news to-day, are well worth reading. He shows that the constitution! of an independent air force, which; makes frequent raids' into Germany, has. caused the Germans. . to ; send' many guns back, from their ..-military; lines, m response to public clamor fori protection, to defend the cities of Germany. . The military expert warns us against framing bver-sattguine estimates of. the situation, pointing out that the peak-line of British ascendancy was at tho Battle of the Somnie, and since then it has only been maintained by a strenuous struggle, but is now gradually increasing. and with American help yet to come should eventually form a big factor m the attainment of victory. The British output of machines has riot yet reached its maximum, we are told, and ; America., it is well known; is only just getting into, her stride^ The immense factories m tho United States that have been given over to aircraft construction shouldi before very, long develop a huge output, and wo have little doubt that m the next few months we shall see: such an expansion of the Allied air services as will have a very importantinfluence andi bearing on the issue of the! war, At the same £imo, ; it is well to remember that 'Germany realises the im- 1 portanqe of this sphere and is making most vigorous efforts tp keep pace with Allied deyelopijie'ntgv' : Aji . tho London Daily Mail pointed out m a, reoent jjhsup, over half a million young Germans. come of military age every ' yeaiv Germany; has still . plenty, of -young blood to, di'avv upon. Morcovpy, the qollapsp of Russia given her advantages that are not yet; understood by our people. Russia had made, both before^ and during t<he . war, great strides iri aircraft. Tho Russian^ aeroplanes befpru tho war were I'egiirded, m Berlin as iJih best m "Europe. They, \vero used as models by the German manufacturers, and l , even as late as 1915 ; ; the Kaiser m one 'of his orders of the day declared : "I desire my aviators shall be on the. same high. level {is the Russians." Russia's defection, therefore, x'emoves a formidable; antagonist m the air. fi£ does mope r than that. It enables G'er.m^ny/tp.flxplpi(t;.and to. turn > to, her own ; iise,alVilift ta^tpries an^ aero,- < cjroines that exist m Raissia 4«d as many

more as Russian labor, which is now hungrily looking round for any job that will bring, m food nml clothing, can be induced to construct. Factories for he numufauturc ol' certain types of machines are springing up from Petrograd tti Moscow, not to mention the factories and aerodrome^ already m existence, sue!* as the- Russo-lJaltic Wagon Works; t'*e Central Aviation School for Officers, which. possessesraTi up-to-date ab'rodVoihe, workshops, and. laboratories; the Eaibushinsky, Laboratorium (of Moscow) ; the- First Ilussian Aviation Company ,- the Imperial All-Russia Aero Club ; the Gutchinw Aerodrome; the "Korpusnoi' (Petrograd), the largest, aerodrome .n Kurope (live miles long and two mile.? wide) ; and the Sebastopol School 01 Aviation. Luckily one of the most perfect aviation organisations m the world, that of Libau, has long been destroyed, but the others either are or soon will ' c m German bauds. "We may be perfectly sure," says the Daily Mail, "that Germany is not missing her chance and thsv alt the Russia n workshops and labor -rs $he Huns can lay hands on ' are being used to build a succession of aerial fleets. The only ijeply we can make is to keep on adding to our own output week by week." Mr. Grahame White, the wellknown aeronautical authority, m accent review of the position gives a hopeful view. We know from, recent fighting, lie says, that the best British machines exceed m speed and m the height they attain,' anything the Germans send against them; while our best fighting airmen, and those pi' our gallant ally, France, continue to prove that, man for man, they are superiors of the enemy. From what may be called the first round of this final struggle one may indeed say ...„ truthfully that we ■ have emerged quite 'well, and that the punishment we nave already inflicted on the enemy will be all to our advantage when we reach those periods of even more intense fighting which sliould come. I must not be forgotten, however, that the Germans reahse now very clearly the grave peril m which they will find themselves if they are beaten decisively by air. It may be taken' for, granted, thereifore, ■ that they are redoubling their efforts;' and that they are on the lookout specially for any new and better type fighting craft. . It is here, indeed, that we must exercise constant vigilan;e. Surprises m design are, much more likely to be' encountered, with aircraft than with other weapons of Avar, seeing that the -aircraft' is .so new; and this means that we must never, at any one moment, rest content with the machines we have, but must strive always for something that is faster and better aimed. Grant' ed -that the enemy does not spring any surprises on us m design — and he should find it difficult to do this if_we are sufficiently oil the alert— theii it is by sheer weight of numbers and by fierce and bitter fighting that the' Allies will strike for a full command/of the air. What we have to do, if we can, is to deal, the Germans a real knock-out blow, and this means;. that we must not only drive them put of the .air, but keep them on the ground' once we have' forced them there— a task impossible of achievement unless we can outnumber them, say, by something like three or four to one. And m this matter of production, of outbuilding the enemy till we overr whelm him; the chief factors are now pilots and engines. *yith America coming to our aid, and sending us streams oi young men who make admirable flyers, a great increase m the number oi oiir pilots should present no insuperable difficulties. \Vhat is a far more troublesome matter is to increase with sufficient rapidity the outpute of "high-powered aeromotors. The engine is the heart of the aeroplane, and it is vital for us, again with the, help, of America, to produce these high-powered motors m greater quantities than is the' case to-day, £io artillery, and, indeed, ho other weapon of war, can wield anything like the poTver that bomb-dropping aircraft havt now begun, wield— the power, that la to say, of cuttifag off at their very source the munitions on which the armies of the enemy depend. Not only do aircraft attack supply trains, while these are on their way , to the front, but .they now fly . on till they reach the cities where these supplies are being made, dropping bombs through factory roofs and destroying, the luiichinery and stores which they contain, besides speading consternation,among the workers. It is obvious that bombing aircraft could end the war m ai week; if r raider could l be made ceaselessly and by a sufficiently large number ofv (machines... If; for example, ;;■ thia communications., of : an enemy could Die broken , and their, restoration prevented, and his munition areas bombed so violently that they ceased to be productive, then his" armies would soon fro withoit food or. a,mmunition. _: ', .'That , J/hia Btage has not yet been reached, is due. to A\e fact that 110116 of' the great countries which are at war were sufficiently confident, m aircraft as a weapon for attacking land positions £o begin .early ehou^ii m the war anything like an adequate programme of construction. Instead of these powers, of the. aeroplanes being anticipated, as they might have been, rit was left for the machine *tself, by .opeated raids,' to prove whai it could do, and literally to force action to be taken; and even then' such action was, until recently, far from being adequate. So far as* Great Britain .. is concerned, the position is that we are producing aircraft m sufficient,: numbers. to : giv,e us a margin over and above the requirements on the batUe. fronts ; and with this margin we are how able to decide what results, anoral and? material, can be obtained from? raiding which can be made systematic instead of spasmodic. The crux of the question is whether, ye shall be able, SP % "to profit by, this, growing power that we shall hot merely disorganise temporarily, the. enemy's war work behind" the lines, but attack him so frequently r arid "destructively ; that this disorganisation becomes permanent. It is N . necessary to envisage the whole of the operations "by* air, rather than, any specific phase of them; The" more machines we .can bring, down on the. .battle front, the fewer he will be able to s.et aside to defend, his munition centres; while the more widespread we can majke our raids into ithe territory beliind his lilies, the more difficult will 'be his pjrpblem m allocating. defending craft,, seeing that there will be so many places whim are ci'ying .fox\; protection. Viewed m light the air fighting of the, ]'asj>. k ieijr months cannot be regarded as otherwise tha.n most .satisfactory. Tlie number of enemy machines, brbugh.t, down is invariably much greater than ; our own, and the reports , from day to ; day, gjhow 1 clearly that our airmen have the.initiative. It is a truisto' that the aide which loses defim'tely the ''initiative yinv m war, and [is forced hito defensive fighting, fe well, on the way to defeat; and if thiß is so on land and sea it is very much more, i the case m the air. r . ,. a