Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-09-05
GERMANY BUILDS
AERO DREADNAUGHT
New Craft Heavily Armored
and Travels at Slow
Speed.
ALLIES PLAN PLANES
TO MEET AIR MONSTER
Great Battle in the Clouds Now
Looked Upon as a Strong Prob
ability by Experts.
BY HERBERT COREY.
Copyright, 1851

of the upper ether is in being. The
dreams of Kipling and Wells and other
unregarded prophets are being proven
true Long before the soldiers stop
killing one another in the ironical
Christmas truce of 1915 fleets of arm
ored monsters may be fighting for the
supremacy of the air. There are mill
tary experts who hold that the mastery
of the earth may be thus decided. 1t
is worth remembering that most mill
tary experts are pessmists. They like
to cry wolf in a journalistic barrel.
The Germans have built an arm
ored plane that can drive any other
plane now in existence out of the air.
said one such expert.
If that is the case, such a plane can
lombard railroads, cut off lines of COM
munication, tear magazines. supply
depotS and headquarters to pieces and
@ake towns near the war zone quite
SSinha bitable for civilians. The army
S1provided with such machines would
Cork in utter blindness of Its enemy's
movements. The enemy would know
>Ach least movement it made.
THE new German plane said a French
officer, "is very large and is so heavily
hrmored as to be able to defy the
shrapnel tossing anti-aircraft gun of
today. 1t will carry from three to five
then and al least one if not two ma
chine guns. 1t will take on board fuel
enough to permit it to keep the air for
twenty hours, and a cargo of the big
7. N. T. bombs sufficient to blow
small town to pieces. Its weakness will
BE in its low speed On the other hand
t will be absolutely stable and as safe
IS a freight lorry to ride in. A fleet
ofmachines of this sort might decide
campaign"
france Also Building One.
If the Germans got the start on the
world in this matter, as they have in
most things from the laboratory or
workshop, the allies are not far be-
hind. France is having built a big
new armored plane which it is hoped
will be better air warship than the
German creation. The English have
with great reluctance decided to i'm
prove upon the type of plane they have
used with such great success in this
war 1t is understood they will con-
tinue to place reliance upon their
sturdy biplane, each of which carries
machine gun. But they will so far
bow to progress rs to build few big
planes by way of experiment..
I'VE had never fought in the air
before" said one aviator. I'VE were
at a new game. Now we find that the
underlying principles of war aviation
are precisely what they are in war on
the sea. The best plane must be like
the best battleship, and able to drive
the other ship out of the field"
So that aviation progress has become
a matter of arms and armor. The new
German plane is equipped with motors
ranging from $50 horsepower to $50.
1t is slow as wheelbarrow, but that
makes no difference at the moment
Speed was relied upon at first as a
protection against the marksmen on
the ground. 1t was thought that sharp
shooters would be able to bring planes
down they might pigeons 1t was
found that not in one case in fifty
is plane touched by bullet no mat
ter how many men are shooting at it.
The plane is protected by deceptive
angles and speeds. The gunner has
no background against which to reg
lister his hits and misses. The heavy
armor the new planes are to carry are
primarily for defense against the gun
ner in the attacking plane.
Later We must have speed as well
as guns and armor," said a French
expert. Il anticipate that the route
of progress followed in the navies of
the world will be taken by the airmen.
First gun supremacy, then armor su.
premacy, then speed supremacy
finally the ship which is supreme in all
three"
English Armed Their Fliers.
The Germans began the war with the
most and best planes. The French had
the second greatest hummer ana IN
comparably the best fiiers. The Eng
fish had comparatively few machines,
but they made up for their lack of
speed as compared with the others by
their extreme stability. They rambled
through the air like farmers buggies
Shortly after hostilities opened the
English began to mount guns on their
machines. That started the chain of
development that may end by the spec
tacle of huge fleets of steel-clad planes
fighting in the air. An unarmed plane
cannot keep the air against an armed
one. AS fast as the Germans mounted
they were forced to scuttle for shelter
I'VE established our ascendancy in
the air reported Gen. French before
the battle of Neuve Chapelle.
That ascendancy became lesson
which was not lost on any of the con-
tenders. Gen. French was able to con-
centrate upon an arc of 1000 yards
more than $50 guns of all calibers. No
such concentration OF guns was ever
known before in the worlds history
He built trenches by night IN which he
hid 10000 men In readiness for the as
sault The Germans were in utter ig-
norance Of what was being done. Not
a nier had SO much as hoped off the
upon them as complete surprise
French actually blasted their defenses
out of being. Had 1t not been for that
unfortunate mistake in orders which an
English leader made, the Germans at
Neuve Chapelle might have been OBJ
liberated. The English might have
taken Lille. Their plans were beauti-
fully made.
The Germans saw the point at once
Not only can a single fiier. If not inter-
fered with, survey the enemy's dispo-
sitions over approximately 500 square
miles. but the side which holds the
mastery of the air can dispose its
forces in such fashion as to make
eventual victory certain. If the forces
are otherwise evenly matched. They
began to build heavy. slow steel-clad
plane that cannot be worried by any of
todays anti-aircraft guns, and which
can shoot down any other of today's
planes The problem of cunning for
the man in a plane is much easier than
for the unfortunate guessing with
shrapnel from the ground. The new
German plane. so far as knowledge has
reached here
Carries three to Ave men:
Is heavily armored and motored;
Can carry fuel enough for twenty
hours fight-which is the extreme OF
human endurance even II the pilots
spell each other-and a great cargo of
bombs.
To send the little plane of today