Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-05-22
GERMANY's NEWEST
BREAD SUBSTITUTE
The Flying Tank May Be Expected to
Serve the Purpose Temporarily

CeTNe lnc purpose temporarily
livery time the German bread ration
- is cut down the Government at Berlin
manages to provide spiritual consolation
for the people with a new invention OF
supposed frightfulness.
When grain, meat and beer approached
the vanishing point they were replaced
in the popular mind by poison gas, flame
electors and the submarine. The Paris
gun w;I introduced to the world simul-
taneously with sweeping reduction OF
the bread issue to civilians. And now,
when Germany is shvering on the edge
of actual famine and groaning over
another reduction of the bread ration
flying tank has made its appearance over
the American lines.
1t is only in print that an armored
battleplane of the sort that killed Raoul
Lufbery appears really terrible or
potent 1t is exactly the sort Of thing
with which the Kaiser eases his endless
nightmare-a device nicely calculated to
pry up the courage of a Housekeeping
Hun who has grown dispirited on straw
tobacco. imitation food and an egg
year. Even a superficial knowledge OF
aviation and the requirements Of aerial
warfare shows that the armored battle
plane represents not an exclusive Ger
man achievement. but the beginning of
new phas, of aviation for which the
All G, h We long been ready.
The ucw air machine must be rCgnrded
not as confirmation to Aerial fighting,
bw as a uorcI rcnpon for use IN the
fighting on l0Hd.
The Allied Governments have been
awake to this trend in flying machines.
What they themselves have done in the
same direction no one may yet know 1t
is not to be supposed that they have been
idle The appearance of the first flying
tank in an air duel, therefore, was a
dramatic ge- ture r" tVt.aordlnIry vivid
ness and little more For such a ma
chine would inevitably be bear among
wolves. 1t would be virtually powerles7
in any offensive against the light, swift
and agile planes that pit filmy wings
against its steel. In air fighting under
ordinary circumstances 1t is suicidal to
fight a fast machine with slower one
Aerial warfare is a business of maneu-
ver To kill your man you have only to
get above him. Speed. the ability to
wing it butterfly fashion, to flash and
futter and careen is as essential to sue
cess and safety among battle aviators
as it has been since the beginning, when
the first insects tried their wings and
began their endless system of easy war
fare on the slower things of the air.
The flying tank of Toul, as it is de-
scribed in the cables, is slow and
cumbrous in the air. Its vitals are
armored. The gunners are in armor.
The pilot works in a steel turret. 1t is
supposed to have a speed of fifty miles
an hour-no more. Therefore it would
be as futile in an offensive against
othe: air machines as g COW might be
against rabbit.
Yet it has one important function long
predicted and doubtless provided for in
the Allied councils. Such machine
miqht lcork considerable destruction in
Ioic flights orcr maSsed infantry in
action. British planes of the conven-
tional type destroyed whole German
regiments in this fashion in recent
actions on the Ypres front But un-
armorcd airplanes are easy prey for anti
aircraft guns. They have even been
brought down by rihetire. Battleplanes
armored against rifle bullets and against
the flying fragments of steel sent out by
the exploding shells of anti-aircraft guns
might be supposed to work havoc amid
marching or entrenched troops in flights
at an evation of a few hundred feet
This doubtless is the purpose of the new
type of German machine.
1t would be folly to suppose that the
Allies, who recently introduced this lat
ter met lod of warfare, are unprepared
for it's elaboration in future actions. An
armored German battleplane was
brought down at one of the Somme bat
ties. 1t was double-motored machine,
with vastly less power than could be sup
piled with two Liberty motors. Two
Liberty motors would give the machine
equipped with them almost 1000 horse
power, power so far unknown to any
winged aircraft. The German armored
planes, so equipped, would be faster and
more efficient than they have seemed in
recent tests. And with the armored
machines as with those without armor,
the faster plane is usually the winner.
Great propusive power is needed for
the heavier armament that will be neces-
sary in combats between armored ma
chimes. There should be consolation for
everybody in the knowledge that the
Liberty motor is now admitted in France
and in England to be the most powerful
and efficient yet designed anywhere in
the world for the nurpose of aviation