Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/138

§ 64 beneath the fuselage of the machine, with some mechanical device for its release, arranged either to let go a single bomb or to empty the magazine as required. It may be said that whereas the hand-grenade, in common with the machine-gun, is only suitable for injuring personnel, the legitimate objective of the bomb is materiel. Thus the depots, magazines, arsenals, oil stores, etc., of the enemy cannot be effectively destroyed by gun-fire, at least from present-day aircraft; but if attacked by a few squadrons of aeroplanes, each dropping some eight or ten 30-lb, or 40-lb, bombs, irreparable mischief might be effected in a very short space of time.

We may take it that in the future any such points will be duly protected by the fighting aeroplanes of the enemy. Consequently the bomb-dropping machine will need to be also a fighting machine itself, with a capacity for rapid fire sufficient to enable it to hold its own with the enemy. Or it will need to act in conjunction with a supporting fleet of fighting machines of sufficient strength to overpower, or at least hold, the enemy during the operation.

It is thus clear that the bomb differs from the hand grenade in not being a weapon suitable for casual employment by the reconnaissance machine. Further than this, it is a weapon which will in future warfare probably be found to possess comparatively little value, except when used in considerable numbers by machines acting in squadrons, or fleets several squadrons strong. The use of the incendiary bomb, or petrol bomb, as it is sometimes termed, is indicated where the objective is of a sufficiently inflammable character. But it is probable that in all cases in which an attack is made upon buildings of permanent character, such as in the destruction of an arms or ammunition factory, or of a dockyard, the petrol bomb will be used to complete the