Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1911 — AEROPLANE IN BATTLE [ARTICLE]

AEROPLANE IN BATTLE

moms. DIFFICULTIES APPARENTLY IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERCOME. * RKnthuslaeta Do Not Differentiate Between the Wonder of the Invention and the Limitations of It* Applications. Those who regard the aeroplanes as Eanmlnable In warfare, far beyond its possibilities, are led to their concluMBma by two errors;, first, they do not -BHferentiate between the wonder of the Invention, per se, and the limits--., tkm of Its application. Second, that this conquest of the heavens has nottatng to do with the subjugation of man. It has not invented Into him new faculties; and jet it is man and not machines we have to deal with. While 4t has given new means of military obwervation, It does not follow that these observations will be more Intelligible nor his deductions more reliable nor his judgment and genius, his valor and endurance, superior to what it had been before. > The unreliable and diverse opinions of scouts on things that they have hem in actual contact with Is a wellknown military phenomenon, and one that is perfectly natural, since there are no two men whose perceptive faculties are Identical. A good •oout is one of the rarest elements ta an array, for be is good only because be has lived in an environment and followed a vocation that develops the faculties of observation and renders them accurate. An aerial scout, on the other hand, rarely shoots forward out of a vocation that has nothing to do with those elements that j would give reliability to his reports oven though he were Inspecting, on the ground itself, all things from an entirely different point of view, and there is but one single thing that he could make a report on that would he worthy of consideration, and that fs the actual movement of a body of troops on an open terrene. But his report as to the strength, its destination or rate of movement, could be accepted by no commander, and practically all the rest of his Information would be erroneohs. Peering down from a great height ft would be impossible for him to determine the depth of stream, their bottom or their currents or the thickness of tee. He could not ascertain the angle or height of declivities. Looking down from the perpendicular upon these lie could have no means of determining whether or not they belonged to a deep gorge or a shallow ravine. He could not ascertain the location of fords and whether in adjoining thickets they were defended l>y bodies of troops or by wired entanglements in the ford itself. It would be impossible for him, looking down upon woods, villages and forests to ascertain whether or not they contained troops, and if troops what kind of troops or the number. What would appear to him to be a gap In the enemy's lines might in all probability be their strongest position. —Gen. Homer Lea, in Harper’s Weekly.