Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/85

Rh application of mathematical theory, is as illogical and unintelligent as to accept broadly and indiscriminately the balance and the weighing-machine as instruments of precision, but to decline to permit in the latter case any allowance for the known inequality of leverage.

§ 25. Fighting Units not of Equal Strength. In the equations (1) and (2), two constants were given, c and k, which in the plotting of the figures 2 to 5b were taken as equal; the meaning of this is that the fighting strength of the individual units has been assumed equal. This condition is not necessarily fulfilled if the combatants be unequally trained, or of different morale. Neither is it fulfilled if their weapons are of unequal efficiency. The first two of these, together with a host of other factors too numerous to mention, cannot be accounted for in an equation any more than can the quality of wine or steel be estimated from the weight. The question of weapons is, however, eminently suited to theoretical discussion. It is also a matter that (as will be subsequently shown) requires consideration in relation to the main subject of the present articles.

§ 26. Influence of Efficiency of Weapons. Any difference in the efficiency of the weapons — for example, the accuracy or rapidity of rifle-fire — may be represented by a disparity in the constants c and k in equations (1) and (2), The case of the rifle or machine-gun is a simple example to take, inasmuch as comparative figures are easily obtained which may be said fairly to represent the fighting efficiency of the weapon. Now numerically equal forces will no longer be forces of equal strength; they will only be of equal strength if, when in combat, their losses result in no change in their numerical proportion. Thus, if a "Blue" force initially 500 strong, using a magazine rifle, attack a "Red" force of 1,000, armed with a single breech-loader, and after a certain