Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/166

§ 82 § 82. Conditions to be fulfilled. The conditions which it is desirable that the air-service pontoon-ship shall fill are, briefly, as follow:—

(1) To act as storage and transport for a fleet of at least three squadrons, say fifty or sixty machines, complete with spares, fuel and oil supplies, and personnel, together with all guns, ammunition, bombs, torpedoes, etc., necessary for complete equipment.

(2) To carry a workshop fully equipped, together with the necessary mechanical staff to deal with repairs, etc., such as are reasonably required to maintain the said air fleet in fighting order.

(3) To provide an upper deck of sufficient area to act as an "alighting ground" completely free from obstruction—i.e., there may be no masts, funnels, ventilators, cranes, searchlight platform, or wireless apparatus such as would form a permanent projection above the flying-deck level. The conditions as to deck area, etc., must be such as to give ample room for alighting or getting off to a pilot of ordinary skill.

(4) It must have a speed exceeding 20 knots in order that it may be able to accompany a battle fleet at sea, or to render it able to save itself by flight from an enemy battle squadron.

(5) It must have a gun armament of sufficient power to protect it from attack by the light fast cruisers of the enemy.

(6) It must be of comparatively shallow draught, as light as is consistent with its sea-going qualities and other requirements, in order that it may be able to act in rivers, harbours, or estuary regions in support of land operations, and incidentally to enable it to evade pursuit and destruction by war vessels of heavy draught and gun power (such as the battle-cruiser) by taking refuge in shoal water.