Warships versus Aeroplanes The Air Force has to work here
with the Army, there with the Navy, and sometimes independently. It has tasks to perform which have scarcely been put to the test before this war. In one sphere in particular its functions were problematical. It was known from the war in Spain that in certain circumstances it can damage ships and ports— but can aircraft be successfully used against ships-of-war, and especially capital ships? Up to now there has only been one occasion on which they have been so used with success—in the early brilliant raid on Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, where at least one effective direct hit was registered upon a German batttleship. This feat has not been success- fully repeated by our own aeroplanes, and the German aero- plane attacks on British warships have been complete failures. Aeroplanes attacking capital ships can seldom fly low without courting certain destruction. If they fly very high, their target is relatively small and hard to hit ; nothing but a direct hit will have any effect on a battleship, but a few splinters from the barrage of shells which the ship can direct at an aeroplane may be enough to destroy it. There is not sufficient data available yet for any dogmatic conclusions, but nothing that has happened so far justifies alarmist views about the danger of air-attacks on our warships or convoys.
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