ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNNERY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 30 March 1925, Page 5

ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNNERY.

A DISMAL FAILURE

TARGETS NOT HIT ONCE.

WA SUIN'GTON, Saturday

The institution by Mr. Cutler D. Wilbur, Secretary for the Navy, of an inquiry into the Navy’s failure to hit targets by anti-aircraft gunnery during the manoeuvres off San Pedro has reopened the air controversy, and stirred both the navy and army departments.

The reports indicate that 44 antiaircraft guns on eleven Dreadnoughts in twenty rounds fired, failed to make a single hit on eight sleeve targets towed by an aeroplane at an altitude of six thousand feet. The recent army tests held for the purpose of disproving Mitchell’s contentions concerning the inefficiency of anti-aircraft, guns, showed only one hit, and Messrs. J. W. Weeks ('Secretary for War) and C. D. Wilbur requested the departmental experts to study the entire question of anti-air-craft gunnery.

Further anti-aircraft tests will be made during the Hawaiian manoeuvres.

Congressmen have begun to comment on the gunnery inaccuracy, many of them claiming that Mitchell had been proved to be right, and that the available defence against aircraft is negligible. It is indicated that the entire question of the value of anti-aircraft gunnery will be re-opened and thoroughly threshed out, during the coming session of Congress. —Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn.