Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/249

Rh direct injury is sufficient to cause a general conflagration, as already laid down.

§ 125. The Question of Radius of Action. A point of great importance in the present connection is the radius of action of the aircraft by which attacks such as under discussion will be carried out. Evidently it is the aeroplane or flying machine which chiefly concerns us, and due allowance for possible improvement over existing performance must be admitted.

When we are discussing the range or radius of action of a battleship or cruiser we are dealing with something definite, such vessel can either reach a given destination with its power of aggression unimpaired, or it cannot get there at all; not so with the aeroplane. In the aeroplane the power of aggression and the range •r radius of action are alternative quantities, which, measured by the weight of bombs and the weight of fuel (i.e., petrol) respectively, represent a definite amount in sum. Thus if one-third of the maximum gross weight of the machine be taken to represent its combined petrol and bomb capacity, the maximum distance which can be flown by an aeroplane is about 1,200 miles, or 600 out and home, if the whole of the said capacity be devoted to petrol. When part of the capacity is devoted to the carrying of bombs the range of flight is proportionately lowered, so that the position of affairs may be represented as in Fig. 20, in which it will be seen that as the range of flight is increased the value of the machine for the purposes of attack is diminished till at a maximum out-and-home radius of 600 miles it falls to zero: the machine has ceased to be capable of offence.

It is not only in its power of offence that the longdistance aeroplane is at a military disadvantage; it is so in respect of all other attributes which are involved in the problem of weight. For example, any machine built