When during the last war, the Germans bombarded Paris with "Big Bertha" from a. distance of 78 miles. it was thought that the limit of artillery range had been reached. Cig Bertha was a freak, and because of the enormous wear and tear represented by each shot, could only be fired at long intervals. Fur~ ther, in spite of camouflage it is not difficult for aeroplanes 10 truck down a gun of this size which is not easily moved.
Rockets loaded with high explo: sives or gas will be fired by a catapult. I have before me a design from America, for fixing a rocket catapult onto existing fifteen. inch naval guns. The rocket is propelled by Tong trough, and once in movement Proceeds under its own power. The propellant favoured at the moment is liquid oxygen and petrol, contain-fed in the lower halt of the shell, the nose being filed with the usual high explosive and detonator. The problem of making a rocket to carry 500 miles now may be considered solved. The rocket rises until the fuel is exhausted when it fails in a parabola, In travelling $92 miles, the distance from Paris to Berlin, the rocket, would reach a maximum heigh@ot 200 miles, and once having assed the atmosphere to the stratosphere, it would go faster and further owing to lessened air resistance, can be secured by the alteration of the size of the nozzle at the rear of the rocket through which the gases are expelled, the smaller the nozzle the greater' the pressure forward. The direction would be secured the alteration of the size of the nozzle at the rear of the rocket through which the gases are expelled, the smaller the nozzle the greater {the pressure forward, The direction would be secured, first by the cata bult, and later by stabilizing us on the rocket itself or a gyroscope, such as is used to control the rudders of torpedo. At the present moment, the control of direction and range are crude, and the facilities for prac-ce limited, but there is no doubt that the new "gunners" will develop the technique.
In America the menace of the rocket gun 1s fully realized. "Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore Jand Washington could be reduced by Jan enemy fleet resting safely in the Atlantic, far beyond the range of 20 mile coastal defence guns", says one writer, "Or our Pacife ports might fall without a serious blow being steel Increasing Velocity, The rocket as a projectile has all the advantages and none of the limltations of ordinary shells. Its ma) mum speed is not reached at commencement of its. journey, huge gun is required to fire it the projectiles could follow one other almost as quickly as shells from a Stoke's mortar of an approach of a flight of these Jdeadly missiles would be a long @rawh out whine, There would be no time to run for shelter, no. time for "lights out." Large cities would be completely at the mercy of gunners $00 miles away, "and there would probably be no attempt to find definite targets, With a huge target like London, twenty miles fauare, the gunners would hardly The experiments being conducted in Germany, Italy, France and Russia fare to discover the peace-time possibilities of rockets." But Professor Oberth, an authority on rockets, speaking to scientists in Vienni stated that he believed every war office was already at work perfect ing the rocket for future warfare, warned his audience that the rocket would probably be developed to the limit of its destructive powe Next year experts at the Naval Conference will discuss the limitation of the calibre of guns and other technical matters.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.