February 20, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE FUTILITY OF AIR RAIDS 
THE EFFICIENCY OF AIR ATTACKS. 
SOME POINTS IN AERIAL TACTICS AND STRATEGY. 
By L. BLIN DESBLEDS. 
N tHe mind of the public there exists a great misconcep- 
tion about the meaning and the scope of an aerial 
offensive, and the plucky raid of Friday, the 12th 
inst., which was carried out with great skill and 
valour by our airmen over the districts of Bruges, 
Zeebrugge, Blankenberghe, and Ostend, has probably 
increased that misconception instead of clearing it up. This 
misapprehension, which appears to be shared by a great num- 
ber of military critics, is due to the fact that there has been, 
up to the present, a general failure to distinguish between an 
aerial attack and an aerial raid. It is, of course, no easy 
matter to draw a sharp distinction between an attack and a 
raid, so far as the new weapon of war is concerned. The 
attack and the raid are both offensive actions, which depend 
not only upon the aerial force taking part in them, but also 
on the relation which those offensive actions will bear to the 
carrying out of a pre-arranged plan of operations. In his last 
article the writer endeavoured to prove two propositions : 
■firstly, that so far as trench warfare is concerned, aerial raids 
can only lead to local and temporary embarrassments, and can 
have no important influence either on the character or the 
duration of that kind of warfare; and, secondly, that, in 
order to ensure the success of an aerial offensive at any place, 
the various vital points must be subjected to a simultaneous 
attack, and not simply raided. Additional confirmation of 
this reasoning has been acquired, once more, by tlie exploit 
of the 12th. That raid also affords us evidence thai those two 
conclusions as regards trench warfare can be extended and 
made to apply to other kinds of warfare as well. In fact, the 
announcement issued by the Admiralty opens as follows: — 
During the last twenty-four hours, combined aero- 
plane and seaplane operations have been carried out by 
the Naval Wing in the Bruges, Zeebrugge, Blanken- 
berghe, and Ostend districts, with a view to preventing the 
development of submarine bases and establishments. 
Here we have the object of the raid clearly set out. It 
was " with a view to preventing the development of submarine 
bases and establishments " that the raid was undertaken. Let 
U3 now see how far tliat object was achieved. The Secretary 
of the Admiralty's announcement gives the result of the raid 
in the following terms : — 
Great damage is reported to have been done to Ostend 
Railway Station, which, according to present information, 
has probably been burnt to the ground j the railway 
station at Blankenberghe was damaged and railway lines 
were torn up in many places. Bombs were dropped on gun 
positions at Middlekerke, also on the power station and 
German mine-sweeping vessels at Zeebrugge, but the dam- 
age done is unknown. . . ^ . No submarines were 
seen. 
Whether these results prove that the special object of the 
raid has been, or has not been, accomplished, the writer would 
not like to say in an article meant for publication. But there 
is one conclusion which can, with certainty, be drawn from 
the Admiralty repoi't, and which cannot be controrerted. It 
is that whatever may be the real amount of damage done by the 
raid, such damage can only cause local and temporary embar- 
rassments, which may delay, but will not prevent for ever, the 
development of those submarine bases and establishments. 
The Admiralty further states: — 
Thirty-four naval aeroplanes and seaplanes took 
part. 
Here we have the reason why Zeebrugge, Blankenberghe, 
'and Ostend are still available for the Germans to use as sub- 
marine bases. If these places had been aerially attacked in- 
stead of aerially raided, and if these attacks were constant and 
continuous, the German bases on the North Sea would be gone 
for ever. In his last article the writer has explained the 
meaning of the " n-square law," which establishes the fact 
that the fighting strength of any force varies as the square of 
its numerical strength. He now proposes to bring forward 
some other arguments which still furtlier prove the value of 
an aerial offensive on a comprehensive scale, and the necessity 
for a large number of aircraft. 
In Diagram 1, A B C D represent a vertical plane con- 
taining the line of flight M N of an aeroplane, and B E H C 
the horizontal plane, or ground. If there is no wind — an 
Atmospheric condition which hardly ever occurs — or if the 
srind, cither a head one or a following one, is exactly in the 
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line of flight M N of the aeroplane, a bomb, dropped from 
the aeroplane at the point A, will follow a course which lies 
entirely in the vertical plane and will strike the ground at 
some point lying in that plane. If, however, when tlie 
bomb was dropped there was a wind blowing in some crow 
direction W, the bomb would be driven by the wind out of 
the vertical plane, and strike the ground at some point ' out- 
side the vertical plane. In the same manner, if the wind blew 
in some direction W', the bomb would strike the ground on 
the other side of the vertical plane A B C D. Now, since 
at different altitudes, the wind may blow in different direc- 
tion, it follows that a bomb, dropped from an aeroplane, 
flying at a great height, may be swayed one way and then 
another, and that that process may be repeated several timea 
before the bomb actually strikes the ground. Several methods 
have been devised to steady the bomb in its downward course, 
and a number of inventions have been made with the object of 
reducing tie influence of the wind on the bomb to a minimum. 
The fact, however, remains that the influence of the wind on 
bomb-dropping cannot yet be ignored. 
The factor introduced by the wind, which can be easilv 
corrected by artillerymen on the earth, where the speed and 
direction of the wind can be easily estimated, leads, in the case 
of aircraft, to a difficulty arising from the fact that the force 
and direction of the wind cannot be easily gauged by th-; 
airman who creates his own speed relatively to the air. The 
conclusion to be drawn from the preceding remarks is that, in 
tbe present stage of development of aerial ballistics, bomht 
dropped from aircraft, at a great altitude, may fall either to 
the right or to the left of the vertical plane containing the 
machine, and that^ therefore, to ensure the efficiency of an 
aerial attack bombs should be dropped from aeroplanes not 
only in the vertical plane containing the target, but also in 
other vertical planet to the right and to the left of that 
target. 
TaiAcftAM TL 
