The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1894-03-02
BALLOONS AS BATTERIES.
AERoNAUTICS AS A FEATURE OF
MILITARY WARFARE
To Drop Bombs From the sky on an
Army or Fleet Balloons For Re
cOnnoitrlng.


corps as an adjunct of the
army. England, Germany, and es-
pecially France have been giving much
attention to the subject, though their
experiments have been in secret.
Within year the French have pro-
duced balloon that can be steered
and manoeuvred in the teeth of wind
blowing twenty miles an hour.
Cigar-shaped airships recently have
been run by propellers in France on
calm days at fourteen miles an hour,
and double this speed will be attained
before long. The Germans are said to
have produced balloon that can be
steered and which carries great weights,
but little is known aboutit. Arudder
will operate to direct an aerial machine
if the latter can be driven fast enough
to give it steerage-way. The notion
that an airship sustained by gases is
not to be relied on is another fallacy.
Within the last few years ballooning
has been revolutionized abroad and
reduced to science. Experts now
understand how to make balloons
tight, so that leakage is reduced al
most to nothing When one has q
gas-bag of gold-beater's skin that will
stay ahost thirty days, he has some
thing to start business with.
Against balloons no armed force, on
land or water, can have any means of
defense or retaliation. No fort on
land or ahoat can withstand high ex-
plosives dropped from aloft. An air
ship would be absolutely safe, because
no shot from gun will do damage
beyond 5000 feet above the surface of
the earth. The gssbag is practically
secure from serious hurt at an eleva-
ton of only 1900 feet. Besides, bull
lets discharged straight up in the air
might do harm in falling back, as they
would have the same velocity on
reaching the earth again as when dis
charged from the rife or cannon.
However, when the balloon is passing
away the line of sight is changed SO
slowly that sharpshooters could easily
pepper it with accuracy.
Even go, the balloon would not
suffer Importantly. A rifle bullet
puncturing a great gas-bag containing
40, 900 or 60, 900 cubic feet of hydro
gen makes only little hole, which is
partly closed again by the broken
edges of the fabric. Some gas escapes,
but not enough to be of any conse.
quence. But there is no reason fol
passing over hostile army or feet al
so low an elevation, inasmuch as
bombs can be dropped just as we'll and
as accurately from d point high enough
to be out of reach.
Besides, the instant that q bomb ii
thrown the balloon rises rapidly, be
ing relieved of that much weight. A
: night, or in a fog, it would be entirely
safe from observation. Or it is easy
enough for the air-ship TO come dow
into the lower part of cloud, whenc,
the crew can see the enemy below
while invisible to them. Thus tn
latter are entirely helpless.
During tho siege of Paris, in tht
Franco Prussian war, balloons wer,
sent up, passing over the besiegin!
armies. The aeronauts took with then
homing pigeons, which carried bacl
news to the beleagured metropolis
These balloons were constantly fire.
at, and Krupp, the gun-maker, at tn
request of Won Moltke, designed
"balloon musket" for the purpose O
attacking them. Nevertheless, thi
sort of rifle practice proved wholly in
effective, and only those balloons wer
captured which were low down throug
expended gas
If half a dozen aerial batteries c
, four balloons each were stationed a
= different points along the Atlanti
! coast no hostile fleet could come nea
j. our sea-board cities. The hostile yes
. sells could be sunk within a few min
A utes by dropping nitro-glycerine cart
L ridges upon their decks This coul
o be accomplished with the utmost &C
J, curacy and precision.
DIR. Myers, the aeronautical Ell
gineer, speaks of experiments mad
by him in killing ducks by droppin
= shot from an elevation of 1900 fee
}, upon the water below. Each splas
e showed where the last shot fell, unit
the fifth or sixth shot hit the bird an
D. killed it. Falling from so great
heighth the velocity of the leaden pc
- let was rs great as if fired from a CUR
The air currents at high elevatio
are always moving from west to cas-
Accordingly, it would be particular
easy for such war balloons to ascen
on the coast and float seaward over a
enemy's fleet, like 30 many birds ca,
rying in their claws dynamite boml
or torpedoes. Having wiped out IL
ships, it would be necessary for til
flying battery to return in the face
the wind, but this could be sccon
plished very easily by using the pr,