Fighting Off Aviators with Shotguns 



The sawed-off shotgun of the under 

 world is gaining laurels in a new field 



UNCLE SAM has decided that the 

 shotgun is, under some conditions, 

 as deadly as the machine gun, and 

 his Chief Signal Officer has ordered that 

 instruction in the use of the shotgun be 

 given at every one 

 of the sixteen avia- 

 tion schools now 

 running, or about 

 to be established. 



When war 

 started, the avia- 

 tor used to go up 

 merely to scout. 

 He took along a 

 rifle and a revolver 

 or automatic pis- 

 tol. But he could 

 do no harm with 

 such weapons in 

 an aerial combat. 



Then came the 

 light machine gun, 

 and the start of 

 real aerial warfare. 

 Now the air fight 

 is merely part of 

 the game, nor is 

 the report of the 

 week's doings com- 

 plete without men- 

 tion of the fact 

 that the side mak- 

 ing the report lost 

 three planes and the other fellows thirty. 



Also, there is the fast increasing use of 

 the plane in sudden swoops over the 

 enemy trenches; the machines, although 

 they fly low, travel so fast that they can- 

 not be hit with any certainty. Here, at 

 short range, the five shots from the auto- 

 matic shotgun would prove more efficient 

 than charges from the machine gun, because 

 the machine gun fire is concentrated 

 while the buckshot scatters. And of 

 course, there is also the use of the shotgun 

 against the opposing plane at close 

 quarters, where the action is too fast for 

 swinging the machine gun to bear. 



Buckshot varies in size from the tiny 

 pellet running twenty-seven to the ounce 



What a Shotgim Will Do 



At ninety feet all but one of the pellets bunched 

 themselves well into the midriff section of a man-size 

 figure fired at. At one hundred and fifty feet, seven 

 out of tlie twelve hit the figure. At three hundred feet 

 one shot missed the figure, two other shots put two 

 pellets each into the figure, which is a disabling blow. 



of weight, to the sort running only nine to 

 the ounce. Usually but an ounce of shot 

 is loaded for the 12-bore gun, and the 

 powder charge is three and a fourth drams. 

 For use against men at short range — less 

 than fifty yards — 

 the small size 

 would be in- 

 dicated. While it 

 might not prove 

 fatal in most in- 

 stances, a few loads 

 of this sort of pill 

 would put the re- 

 cipients in the 

 hospital. 



Number One 

 Buck is just the 

 size of the army 

 bullet, .30 inch 

 across, and weighs 

 forty grains per 

 pellet. Twelve 

 pellets make an 

 ounce and there- 

 fore the load. 



The big, single, 

 round bullet used 

 in shotguns is an- 

 other sort of mis- 

 sile that might well 

 prove efficient in 

 the hands of our 

 aviators. Nothing 

 shot out of a military rifle — outside of the 

 rifle grenade — gives the tremendous shock 

 and blow of the big .70 calibre, five 

 hundred grain, round lead bullet that is 

 used in the 12-gage shotgun. More 

 than twice the size of the service rifle 

 .30 calibre bullet, more than three times 

 as heavy, and with a tendency to flatten 

 out and hit stifl harder, the single ball for 

 the shotgun, while not high in accuracy, 

 is capable of knocking a man flat on his 

 back if it hits him fairly. Five such huge 

 pills, slung rapidly into an opposing air- 

 craft, at a range of one hundred yards or 

 less, would be like throwing five half- 

 bricks into the machine with the velocity 

 a half-brick never attained in this world. 



365 



