Imperial Valley press., 1944-02-25
Ry PETER EDSON

Speaking of the horrors of fu-
ture wars in a strictly Sunday sup
plement sense, preview of future
aerial warfare might be obtained
today by staging duel between a
German Me er S C h m It plane
equipped with their new and much
touted rocket guns, and an Amerl-
can BIS Mitchell medium bomber
equipped with the new 75-mm.
aerial cannon.
A good, speculative guess by
army, air force, artillery and ord
nance men familiar with both
weapons is that two opposing
planes SO armed might make lot
of noise and tear some terrible
holes in the air, but that they would
both miss their targets at long
range, then. close in and shoot 1t out
with their machine guns. For the
sad fact seems to be that while
both these weapons sound potent
to read about, they are still so far
from perfection that today both
would have difficulty in hitting the
broad side of blimp hangar door
AIMING DIFFICULT
AT HIGH SPEEDS
This is not the fault of the
weapons themselves. The difficulty
is that instead of being mounted
on fixed positions, the weapons arc
mounted on airplanes travelling at
from 200 to 400 miles an hour, and
any deviation in the course of the
plane, any movement in rough air
or any unCalculated or uncompen-
sated vibration throws off the aim.
This is the same difficulty eXpe-
rienced with the dive-bomber. The
necessity of holding the dive-bomb-
ing plane on a fixed course for
only Is seconds or SO before releas-
ing the bomb makes the plane itself
vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire.
The air force and ordnance de-
partmcnt have been experimenting
with both airborne rocket guns and
75-mm. aircraft guns for several
years. Col. Horace A. Quinn of the
army ordnance department was the
first man in the world to demon-
strate that a high-powered 75-mm.
field artillery gun could be fired
successfully from plane. The first
installation was completed in 1888.
Col. Quinn supervised ground tests
on a Bib Douglas medium bomber
at Aberdeen proving grounds. In
extended tests before air corps
board at Elgin field, Florida, in
1910, he operated the range finder
Later, when the recoil mechanism
was perfected and the new gun
assembly was mounted in a BPS
Col. Quinn acted as gunner in tests
along the California coast in Octo-
Der, 1912. Development Of new
lightweight rs and new gun mounts
for airplanes permitted final tests
with pilot models in August, 1943
when manufacture of the BPS was
begun.
ROCKET HAS LIMITED RANGE
The shortcomings of the German
rocket guns mounted in pairs be-
meath the wings of German combat
! I)ldliCo dlC pClildlJo CNtii Sitoeci
than those of the IS. United States
ordnance men have been expert
menting with rockets, too, as borne
out by their development of the
American anti-tank bazooka, Sc
they know about the characteristics
of these weapons.
German plane-mounted rocket
guns carry a shell with an eXplo'
sive charge equivalent to five.
inch rojcctile-larger than the Is
which is about three inches. Blu
the range of the rocket is limited
The Germans claim 1900 yards, bu
United States airmen say it is les
than 1000 yards. Its trajectory i
extremely high, Its velocity is a
first slow, but it gains speed as tn
rocket discharge delivers more mo
mentum 1t is therefore not as accu
rate as a high velocity shell.
A rocket shell lobbed into TIL
center of a close formation o
bombers at short range is, how
ever, nothing to laugh off. Its higl