Evening star., 1934-07-08

y ton systems along their frontiers,
amass piles of munitions and supplies.
and organize the factories in their cities for
the rapid production of still more.
But those cities! What shall be done about
them?
Once the strength of nation at war, they
are now its weakness Until a few years ago,
if you could only keep an army between your,
enemy and your urban centers of production
and industry, the cities would feed and supply
your army and you were safe.
Now, however. the airplane has spoiled all
that Your enemy can fly over your head and
strike at the cities in your rear, or at the trans
port lines between, leaving your army hungry
and its guns without powder and shot
The nakedness of cities, their lack of
an effective shield overhead is the outstanding
worry of staff strategistS nowadays, especially
in Europe where there are dozens of national
tiles with conflicting ambitions and desires
crowded into the smallest of the continents. and
where even nearbankrupt governments have
their fleets of bomberS.
How shall our cities be protected against
air attack?
TO ANSWER that We must know what the
obiectives of such attack may be- Gener-
ally speaking air attack on the fighting
front is aimed at of two things either
to destroy such things artillery, truck trains,
supply and ammunition dumps, or to kill or
disable the soldiers themselves. Similarly. we
may expect planes attacking cities to aim either
at running factories, railway terminals, govern
ment buildings and other valuable concentrated
targets, or else at human targets. to kill
disable demoralize the workers.
Many the schemes proposed for armor-
ing the roofs of important buildings against
explosives for making their walls freproof
against incendiaries, gas-tight against chemi-
cal fumes.
One italian engineer would have us build
cities like battleships with direct frontal resist
ance to all blows that might be struck. He
would have all tall buildings crowned with
thick cupolas or domes at least the lower floors
wndowless, to foil splinters and infiltrating gas
and tall ventilator pipes projecting high above
any possible gas levels.
More conservative. a French engineer has
suggested leveling all the present buildings in
the heart of Paris and replacing them with
group of enormous skyscrapers built on cross
shaped ground plan
The upper floors he would make proof
against penetration, against even two-ton bombs
by thick concrete armor. totaling perhaps 16
feet of reinforced concrete for the top four or
five floors On beams projecting from the lower
floors he would hang sheets of flexible chain
armor, which would yield to the blast of explo
sions and yet stop SplinterS.
An English scheme would be similar to this,
but would set all the tall buildings pillars
leaving empty space beneath. through which ex-
plosion blasts, bomb splinters and poison gases
could drive with perfect freedom but without
material damage.
1t is interesting to note that in all three of
these schemes the skyscraper plays an essential
part. If the roof is to be armored in any way,
the smaller its area in proportion to the bulk
of the building the better both for military
efficiency and for economy in cost of con-
struction. Therefore a high building, concen-
trating many floors of industrial, business or
governmental activity under roof is pre-
ferred to low building with the same amount
of floor space under much broader roof.
Thus war or the fear Of war may speed the
adoption of the skyscraper in Europe.
QUT if this method of countering the afraid
- menace is adopted, it will probably be
used only for buildings housing vitality i'm
portant activities. This kind of construction
would be too expensive for dwelling purposes.
Protection for the of the population
must be sought by some other device.
Indeed, it may not need to be sought, at all;