WHEN THE HUN FLEET COMES OUT.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 April 1916, Page 5

WHEN THE HUN FLEET COMES OUT.

THE DAY THE BRITISH NAVS • WANTS. New York, January 26. Mr. Thomas R. Maomechea, aeronaut tical engineer and president of the Aeronautical Society of America, said 'that he believes reports of a coming attack on England by a German fleet are well founded, says the New York Syn. In his opinion,, the attack will be carried out by a battleship fleet armed with. 17-inch guns, escorted by a fleet qf Fokker aeroplanes and Zeppelins armed with a new pneumatic gun capable oil firing armor-piercing projectiles. Mr. Macmechen said he based hi» prediction on sources of authoritative in* formation in Germany. The time of the German navy's <dash from the Kiel Canal will be fixed mainly by the results of the testing of the new engine of destruction from the air—the new pneumatic gun or torpedo .tube,' Mr. Macmechen asserted. He says he believes the weapon will be tried within two or tlirqe weeks in a great- raid by; Zepn pelins on London. "The pievious raids on London," he said, ."have been fruitless from a military standpoint on account; of the impossibility of hitting any object aimed at with a bomb thrown from an altitude of more than two miles—ll,ooo or 12,000 feet.

"For the past four years the Krupp Company experts have been working on the aerial torpedo, which, according to* my information, is now perfected. Briefly, the torpedo tube or pneumatic gun launching thfi projectile is about eight feet long. Air pressure is used because of the danger of using powder for n gun' of that calibre in an airship. The projeetile has an initial velocity of 050 feet a second. This great velocity overcome* all the cross currents and the motion of the airship, which makes the bomb so useless as a missile. The projectile goes straight to its mark with an ever increasing rate of speed, and strikes within a few seconds, even from so great a height as 15,000 feet.