To the contention that bombers are unlikely to raid at this height, because accuracy of bombing is reduced thereby, I would answer that there are likely to be two type raiding in the next war; mass raids on cities at a great height with no more object than the disorganization of social and business routine, and separate raids by one or two machines at a-time flying at a low altitude with the object of destroying individual targets such as power stations and arsenals. In the recent The odds are so big, the weapons so diverse. Which, for instance, is right, France, which for its fighter planes relies on the heavy moter. canon, which fires a comparatively mall number of explosive shells, or Great Britain, which favours six or eight machine-guns' firing non-explosive bullets? The majority of French fighters are fitted with one or at the most two of these heavy guns Great Britain has none. One country is wrong. Only war can decide which. exercises the former type of raid was completely neglected. The efficacy of our defences was proved only in'regerd to the latter. Can such a policy be justified?
For obvious reasons, the balloon barrage system of defences played no material part in the exercises. For purposes of assessment, raiding bombers which flew through the Positions at which the balloon barrage was supposed to be in place were deemed to have lost one out of every four machines. This was War by bombers attacking y aerodromes near to the front It is, being done frequently it Spain today. The raiders fly as low they possibly cen, so that the defenders have no warning of their approach. Suddenly, over the aero-rome boundary the bombers Appear They fly over the hangars, drop their bombs, and are gone.
The recent exercises showed that iderable success favours a single flying at 250 miles an hour above the tree tops. It can reach its objective sixty miles inland with less chance of being molested than if it were flying at 10,000 feet. The reason being thet accurate warning of its approach and passage is almost impossible to give. If it is flying really low, it is only seen by observers who may be stationed in its Girect ' path.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.