Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-02-15
Experiment in Preparation for
War on Aeroplanes.
NAVY DEPARTMENTS PLAN
Quiet Investigation Under Way for
the Solution of Problems.
BIG GUNS OF SPECIAL DESIGN
New Sighting Arrangement Also
Necessary, Probably on Lines of
the Periscope.

Preparations are being made by the
Navy Department for shooting at box
Kites as the nearest approach the de-
partment can get to aeroplanes, against
which naval officers expect they will
have to operate should another war
develop
The Navy Department has been
carrying on its aerial investigations as
quietly and unobtrusively as possible.
but has managed to do a good deal.
Most of the flights of the Curtiss aero
planes to and from ships and over wa
ter nave been made in cooperation
with the Navy Department
| For practical work the department
would like to be able to shoot at real
! aeroplanes. but the fact that an aero
plane carries an operator who would
object to being shot at is a handicap,
and the department is, therefore, de-
voting its attention to box kites.
Test by British Admiralty.
Some experiments in this line were
tried by the English admiralty Office
last year, and out of a dozen or more
kites that were flown and several hun
dred shots fired at them the navy sue
ceeded in hitting a kite once This
did not bring the kite down, but it was
| q hit
1t is not thought that a box kite can
be flown more than $500 feet from
the deck OF a ship. though a height of
| several miles has been reached from a
lana station. AS the box kite is small
er than an aeroplane, a lower eleva-
ton would make the target apparently
the same size as real aeroplane. This
would be something on the principle
OF the reduced sized targets used in
gallery practice in the armories.
Experiments have been tried shooting
| at moving captive balloons in the Ger
man army. and as the nearest approach
! to moving dirigible these balloons have
been towed behind fast cruisers. The
best speed that could be made was
/ twenty miles an hour, and it was found
possible at this rate to bring down the
balloons with artillery Whether equally
good practice can be made on box kites
towed by fast vessels is one Of the things
the navy is aiming to find out.
Problems for Solution.
The whole problem SO far is one of
| speculation. The War and Navy de-
| partments know almost as little of shoot
| ing at aeroplanes as the world at large
I knew about flying aeroplanes ten years
ago. One of the officers interested in the
| coming tests said:
There are a number of problems in
volved. OF course the range of a gun
| that is good for two miles over the sur
face of the water is less for vertical fire
! because the shot has to fight the attrac-
ton of gravitation that is always pulling
it down. Tables for these differences at
varying angles can be worked out, OF
course, but you have the problem Of a
constantly decreasing range from the hor-
! lion to the zenith
The question of elevating sights is also
to be considered A sight at high
angle Of fire will not be the same as at
a low angle. and the matter probably
Shooting at moving aeroplane promises
| to be much like wing shooting at birds.
Probably some men will develop into
| much better aerial gunners than others.
| snap-shooting than in firing at targets on
| the water.
Guns Not Adapted.
AS matter of fact there is no gun
| in the navy now adapted to aeroplane
practice. The most that the navy guns
will elevate is fifteen degrees, and this
of course is not enough for effective
shooting at aeroplanes. Guns will have
to be designed that can be trained di-
rectly overhead. This will not be me-
chanically very difficult. though the re-
coil will have to be seriously considered
There will have to be some sighting
| arrangement more or less on the lines OF
| the perjscope, by which submarines are
steered. There are guns made in Ger
many now that are adapted to use against
dirigibles and aeroplanes, but it will take
considerable practice and experiment to
find out, first, what we need to know, and
then to find how we are going to get the
apparatus for accomplishing At"