Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/89

Rh on the opposing force. Thus the enemy will concentrate on the one machine-gun operator the fire that would otherwise be distributed over four riflemen, and so on an average he will only last for one quarter the time, and at sixteen times the efficiency during his short life he will only be able to do the work of four riflemen in lieu of sixteen, as one might easily have supposed. This is in agreement with the equation. The conditions may be regarded as corresponding to those prevalent in the Boer War, when individual-aimed firing or sniping was the order of the day.

When, on the other hand, the circumstances are such as to preclude the possibility of such concentration, as when searching an area or ridge at long range, or volley firing at a position, or "into the brown," the basic conditions are violated, and the value of the individual machine-gun operator becomes more nearly that of the sixteen riflemen that the power of his weapon represents. The same applies when he is opposed by shrapnel fire or any other weapon which is directed at a position rather than the individual. It is well thus to call attention to the variations in the conditions and the nature of the resulting departure from the conclusions of theory; such variations are far less common in naval than in military warfare; the individual unit—the ship—is always the gunner's mark. When we come to deal with aircraft, we shall find the conditions in this respect more closely resemble those that obtain in the Navy than in the Army; the enemy's aircraft individually rather than collectively is the air-gunner's mark, and the law herein laid down will be applicable.

§ 30. The Hypothesis Varied. Apart from its connection with the main subject, the present line of treatment has a certain fascination, and leads to results which, though probably correct, are in some degree