New-York tribune., 1921-02-07
Test tt, Decide
Navy-Air'craft
Dispute Asked
Cen. Mitchell Wants Daniels
TO Furnish Craft So He
Can Prove Vuinerability
to Attacks From the Air
Old Warship May Be Used
Both Sides TO Controversy
Eager for Actual Attempt
10 Destroy Large VESSEL

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6.-The contro-
versy as to the relative superiority Of
battleships and aircraft, which recently
has stirred the Navy and War depart
ments and has bobbed up in Congress,
may be settled through actual tests,
high naval officials said tonight.
Brigadier General William Mitchell,
assistant chief of the air service, who
recently told Congressional commit
tee that developments in aircraft had
spelled the doom of the present-day
dreadnaught, and other air service
officers are understood to have issued
virtual challenge to the Navy Depart
ment to permit them to prove their
contentious. The Navy Department is
firm believer in the superiority of
the capital ship and, naval officers be-
lieve, will accept the challenge in the
hope of settling the controversy, at
least for the time being
General Mitchell has asked his supe-
riors in the War Department to send
a formal request to Secretary Daniels
that two torpedo boats, two supply ves-
sells and one battleship bedesignated
for the tests. Naval officers express
the belief that such a request, even if
made, would be refused because of the
large amount of material involved and
the cost Of fitting the five vessels with
distant radio control apparatus.
There is strong likelihood. how
ever, naval officers said to-day, that
the old batt!eship Iowa, already fitted
with radio control gear and capable of
a speed of more than ten knots and
of being maneuvered with no one on
board, will be used as a target for
aerial bombs after experiments now
being conducted on the control device
are completed.
Another suggestion going the rounds
of the Navy Department now is that
large lighters be towed at high speed
behind destroyers or cruisers and used
as targets. Many officers believe that
no test of the ability of the aviators
to hit naval vessels would be con-
elusive unless the target were moving
at least twenty knots an hour, point
ing out that all modern cruisers battle
cruisers, battleships and destroyers
and the proposed airplane carriers have
more speed than this. If the lighters
were used, it was said, a constructive
area equal to that of capital surface
ship would be allowed the aviators
around the lighter in which all hits
would be counted.
NO test event under these conditions
would be entirely conclusive, MANY
naval officers maintain, because all Of
the elements of defense would be lack
ing, including anti-aircra guns and
protective aircraft. 1t was generally
conceded, however, that such expert
ments as General Mitchell has pro-
posed would give. a good idea of the
ability Of Che aviators. to actually hit
vessel moving on the water
Il am so confident" said one high
naval officer to-day, ''that neither arny
nor navy aviators can hit the Iowa
when she is under way that would be
perfectly willing to be on board her
when s. they bomb her, providing that
eney were kept at the altitude they
would be compelled to maintain in
battle" AZ