The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-09-06
BOMBING IS NOW BECOMING 4 MORE
 SCIENTIFIC CAME

Behind British Lines in France, Sept. 6-Correspondence of the Asso- ciated Press-Aerial bombing Is to- day far more of an exact science than was supposed possible a year and a half ago. In the early days of the war dropping bombs was largely matter of luck, and the straight eye of the aviator was the only factor re- lied upon for success.
 Today, however, matters are entire ly different. Accurate bombsights have been produced which, carefully used, are guarantee of the bomb fal- ling on the object aimed at, within very small margin of error. Of course, in the case of all such instru ments, the human element is some times responsible for errors of call culation and a small error on a bonn sight at 900 feet will send a bomb far out of its course. In the words of an American atrman who has done some splendid raiding work in France: Tt is wonderful what you can miss with a bomb"
 From this it must not be thought that the majority of Allied bombs do not reach their billets in German
 lines; for aerial photographs taken after raids have shown that they do but emphasis Is laid on the import ance of the personal factor in bomb ing. In the excitment of work of this kind-often in the midst of heavy shell fire-a very cool head is required to manipulate an instrument as deli cate as a bomb-sight British air
 men for example. receive very thor
 ough training in bombing before they | must obtain a certain number of hits before they can graduate.
 It is thought that quite lot of the | wanton and useless destruction of pri- vate property in England by German 1 raiders is due to sheer bad bombing. Undoubtedly the Central powers are be- hind the Allies in regard to bombing gear, for on a large German twin-en gined airplane recently captured was | found a crude copy of an English | bcmb-sight which was introduced
 more than two years ago.
 Aerial bombs range in size from 10
 
 weight and are roughly of two kinds | incendiary and high-eXplosive. They are generally laid on their sides in racks underneath the airplane ;but sometimes they are carried in cells | especially fitted in the fuelage Cor l body) of the machine. In either case | they are fused and released by levers | placed convenient to the pilot or ob- server, the bombs themselves being i far out of reach.
 When a bomb is released it does not
 fall directly downwards but takes a i forward path as it drops, in the di- | ling. This is due to the momentum imparted to 1t by the speed of the aircraft.
 A factor of great importance in
 bombing is the time-length of the
 fuse. For example, if a railway june
 tion was being attacked, bomb 1 which exploded on contact would do far more damage than one with a
 delay fuse; for the former would have | a wide, low radius of action-smash- l ing up the railway lines-while the latter would during the delay bury it. self in the ground and merely make a deep crater of small area.
 The reverse, however, would apply i in the case of a intuition factory. A
 bomb exploding on contact would go
 off as soon as it touched the roof
 doing little or no damage to the re-
 mainder of the building; but an ap-
 propriately timed delay fuse would
 given the bomb time to crash through
 to the middle or ground floors, where
 it would be infinitely more destruc' l tive.