Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/233

Rh as a range-finder, the final corrections are made by firing salvos, each salvo being observed, and an appropriate correction given. When the range has been thus determined, firing by salvos may be discontinued and independent firing resorted to, the main advantage of the latter being an increased rapidity of fire. If it be observed that the firing is becoming wild, that is to say, if the range has been lost, firing by salvos may be resumed.

The objection to more than one battleship making a target of a single vessel of the enemy is that it is difficult to avoid uncertainty as to whose projectiles are going wild, and so when independent fire is the order of the day, it is impossible for the gunnery officer to tell whether his own gunners have lost the range or whether the bad shooting is from the co-operating vessel. It then becomes necessary for both ships in turn to resort to salvo firing, in order to check their range and correct their aim, and thus at the best the speed of fire is unavoidably reduced at intervals during an engagement.

The objection no doubt is valid, but, like other objections, the question is one of degree. The loss of speed of fire when salvo firing is adopted depends to a great extent upon the type of vessel, and more especially upon the armament. Thus if the vessel be one of the pre-dreadnought period having in its primary armament guns of various calibre and of different rapidity of fire, it is clear that in salvo firing the lighter guns (also the more rapid) -either will not be employed or will have their speed of fire regulated by that of the guns of heavier calibre. In the case however, of the all-big-gun ship—as dating from the original "Dreadnought"—the loss is not so great, and the objection of proportionately less weight.

It is to be remembered that at modern ranges,