Gunning for Aircraft How the Italians Do It 



The pieces must be fired at their targets point-blank, 

 just as a duck hunter fires at birds on the wing 



WHILE it is true that no European 

 strategist foresaw the important 

 part that aircraft were destined 

 to play in the present bloody conflict, it 

 was at least realized that a man in the air 

 had reconnoitering possibilities. Krupp 

 even developed anti-aircraft guns to be 

 carried on automobiles — weapons so clum- 

 sily mounted that they were of not much 

 avail against a swiftly moving flying- 

 machine. 

 One of Ger- 

 many's pio- 

 neer advo- 

 cates of the 

 military fly- 

 ing machine 

 was Colonel 

 Moedebeck. 

 As far back 

 as 1909, he 

 predicted 

 that only 

 shrapnel 

 could be ef- 

 f e c t i V e 1 y 

 used against 

 a prying air- 

 scout — a 

 prediction 

 which has 

 been amply 

 fulfilled in 

 the war. 

 How as- 



How They Gun for Airplanes in Italy 



Before the war no military engineer would have dreamt of mounting so 

 heavy a piece on an automobile. Indeed, it would have been considered 

 almost an engineering impossibility. But the necessity of attacking 

 pr\-ing air scouts from constantly changing locations has made it 

 absolutely necessarj' to achieve what seemed to be the impossible 



tonishingly 



anti-aircraft artillery has developed is 

 evidenced by the accompanying photo- 

 graph, taken on the Italian front. The 

 earlier anti-aircraft weapons were rather 

 small and were provided with elaborate 

 range-finding devices. In a few months it 

 was found that the pieces must be very 

 much hea\ier than had been anticipated, 

 and that they must fire at their targets, 

 point-blank, just as a duck hunter fires 

 at birds on the wing; there is no time for 

 range finding. 



As our photograph shows, the caliber 

 has been increased enormously. The 

 English and French have mounted heavy 



naval guns on field-carriages. Here we 

 see an Italian anti-aircraft gun heavier 

 than the piece which Krupp in 1910 de- 

 signed exclusively for naval use, boldly 

 mounted on an automobile truck. It is 

 evident the truck is built for speed — 

 evident because of the mud-guards. 



The heavy shell fired by this Italian 

 piece scatters a cloud of deadly 

 bullets. Because of its power, the 



velocity of 

 ^ the pro- 

 jectile is 

 maintained 

 better than 

 would have 

 been possi- 

 ble with the 

 feebler 

 pieces with 

 which Eu- 

 rope entered 

 the war. In- 

 deed, high 

 power is 

 necessary be- 

 cause of the 

 altitude at 

 which battle 

 planes now 

 fly for safety. 

 Such a 

 heavy gun 

 has a practi- 

 cally straight 



path at high 

 angle fire; the projectile reaches its target 

 quickly. It is hard at best to judge the 

 point at which an airplane will have 

 arrived to be annihilated by a shell fired 

 from below. Hence it is of paramount 

 importance to reach that point as quickly 

 as possible. 



A good pilot can avoid being hit by 

 suddenly turning and twisting as soon as 

 he sees an anti-aircraft battery open 

 on him. Establishsd batteries, whose 

 location can hardly escape detection, are 

 therefore at a disadvantage. But a gun 

 like that here shown, mounted as it is on a 

 swift automobile, has a better chance. 



419 



