The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-01-30
70 BRING poWN A BALLOON.
British Artillerists Esse5 to Cripple This
Implement of Warfare.

British Artinerists Ess=y to Cripple This
Implement of Warfare
Next to shooting the moon" taking
pot shots at a balloon would probably
be the most exciting kind of sport. At
all events, the inhabitants of Shoe
huryness had a distant opportunity OF
witnessing the successful attempts
made recently by the school of gunnery
to bring down a captive balloon an
chored on the sands ON the sea front Of
the batteries. The authorities at the
school regarded the experiments as
particularly confidential-though 6
balloon 4 couple of thousand feet high
over the sands at Shoeburyness is a
fairly conspicuous object-and all civil
ians were vigorously excluded from any
approach to the grounds. Special in
strustions were issued for the exclusion
of journalists, and possibly if one of
the inquisitive fraternity were discov-
cred near the firing point Col. Bally
would at once have him sent aloft as q
target for his gunners.
;; Ever since the siege of Paris military
AL-Ci Il DNh hCOlllN lLtGI CSACh III OlC
possibilities of ~balloouing. both as n
means Of maintaining communication
with beleagured cities or forts, and as
a very effectual way of making obser-
vations. 1t is in the latter direction
naturally that the greatest develop
'fnent Of the art of balIooning has taken
place. and every modern army now has
a properlyequipped train attached to
Il. A captive balloon floating 5000 or
1850 feet above the earth enables the
occupant OF the car attached to tito eH-
tend his gaze over a:wide field. while the
telephone and the Developments of pho
toEraphv furnish him with means by
which he can supply his chief with not
only verbal reports of the disposition
of the enemy, But with actual charts
of the, country showing the position
of the larger masses OF troops. The
British army.s not much behind in this
respect. A. very useful and Well
equipped school. of .~aeronauiics. exists
at Aldershots and has proved. 4 useful
auxiliary in some of the m
the neighborhood-of the camp. 1t is
hardly equal. however. TO similar estab-
lishments: maintained by France and
Germany. The former power, indeed.
has EXTENDED the use Of the balloon 10
its navy. and some remarkable expert
ments were recently carried on in the
channel. y captive balloon was sentup
from the wal ship Richelieu. the retain
ing cable being attached in such a
rer that the. car remained always YER
teal. and some very good results were
obtained. Not the least valuable was
ihe. disclosure of the fact that Il vessel
equipped with a balloon could explore
q sea area about four times rs great rs
could be covered from the masthead.
Having demonstrated the utility OF
balloons. military men set about see
ing how best to destroy them while in
the air. Specially-centrived mountings
were made so a to enable,guns to fire
at very high angles and extensive ex-
periments were made both in France
and Germany. Tt was found that up &c
5000 feet there was a fair chance of
hitting the balloon with %shrapnel. but
the small holes made by the bullets
were not sufficiently large to be rapid
" fatal. Common shell. the s~plinters
of which tore the covering. was more
effective when it got home. but the FER
centage OF hits at anything except a
very low elevation was so slight that
it was practically worthless. Modsrn
rife bullets appeared to pass through
the balloon in a perfectly harmless
manner. Altogether the result of the
experiments went to prove that unless
a balloon passed through a zone of fire
at an altitude less than 1900 feet it ran
but little risk. A further c~onsidera-
ton with regard I these experiments
was that they were carried out against
captive balloons. It is questionable
whether it would be at all possible TO
train 4 gun on a balloon travelling over
a fortress or army in the field at the
rate of Is Or 90 miles an hour, whilethe
difficulty of picking up the range" is
also very great.
The experiments at Shoeburyness
demonstrated nothing more than what
was already known-namelr. that It is
to hit a balloon at a compara-
lively low elevation where the range
can be fairly Appropriated. The bal
loon was anchored over the sands in
front of the brick battery at a range Of
about 1000 yards. Its height was about
800 feet. During the practice there
was a strong. gusty, southwest wind
across the range. and. taking
mis- into account. il is creditable to the
gunners that with the third round OF
time shrapnel they managed to dam.
age the balloon sufficiently to bringi i
10 earth.-Chicaco Chronicle.
Strange Things on Mars
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