Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/190

§ 99 range is, roughly speaking, the ultimate effective range of the weapon employed. Thus in air warfare the craft carrying the heavier guns will in nowise possess the advantage that accrues in the corresponding case in the Navy. To a certain degree the larger aeroplane (or airship) will be penalised by the fact that it offers a target of greater area, and hence it will be more vulnerable. It may therefore be anticipated that the trend of design in the fighting machine will not be in the direction of very heavy units analogous to the battleship, but rather in the construction of machines of moderate size and weight, with the maximum possible rate of fire. As pointed out in one of the earlier articles, this rate of fire will be measured by the number of projectiles per second, rather than by their weight or striking energy. Whilst pointing out that the large aeroplane does not possess the marked advantage over the smaller, which, in the Navy, has led to the development of the Dreadnought and the super-Dreadnought, the author does not wish it to be inferred that his opinion is against the reasonable development and growth in the weight and dimensions of the fighting-machine. It may, indeed, be found when the size of air fleet becomes great, that, owing to the numbers becoming unwieldy, the only way in which the fighting strength can be increased will be by increasing the power of the individual unit—i.e., by employing larger machines, mounting more guns.

Again, the larger machine, owing to its less relative body resistance and other well-understood causes, has a lower coefficient of traction, and so, where the speed is important (as we may always assume to be more or less the case), the advantage is with the larger machine. Alternatively, the larger machine, speed for speed, will, with equally good design, be the better climber; these points have already been discussed to some extent; it is