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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1762.PDF
546 JUNE 20, 1940 The Republic XP-41, a develop-ment of the P-35, a fighter of Seversky design, used by theU.S. Army Air Corps. elude the Russo-Finnish war) has shown that the defensive armament possessed by bombing aircraft is terribly weak. Not only are the High Commands sending out machines on their tasks with- out any escort for defence, but they have failed to pro- vide them with a number of weapons of sufficient calibre to fight aeroplanes with the possibility of destroying them. Last summer I had an opportunity of inspecting the Heinkels, the German standard bombers; With the excep- tion of a weapen in front, I was surprised to find only two machine guns in this aeroplane : one, on the top of the fuse- lage, movable through a comparatively small arc, and one at the bottom, against attacks from the rear and from below. I found only one bomber in Europe with poorer protection in the way of weapons for air fighting, i.e., the Italian three-engined Savoia Marchetti. (The Savoia S.79 has one heavy machine gun on top of the fuselage and one below. There is a fixed gun forward.—ED.) A Messerscfimftt Mistake As regards defensive armament, I believe that the British bombers come first, the Americans second, with France and Germany third, together. (Major de Seversky may be overlooking the fact that, next to Great Britain, Italy is now making the most extensive use of power-driven turrets. The Fiat B.R.20, some hundreds of which are in service, is better armed than the Savoia.—ED.). But efforts are being made to correct such manifest errors in construction. The weapons must be placed differently. I believe that defensive armament should be adopted on certain types of bombers, even at the cost of a reduction in speed. Defects in construction on the one hand, and good designs on the other, have, I am convinced, an important part to play in the hard struggle in Europe for the mastery of the air. It is not necessary to point out, by the way, that an effective '' control " of the air exists only in the imagination of Sunday supplement writers. Notwithstand- ing the magnificent work done by the German air forces in Poland last September, the Polish pilots managed to get away in flight and escape over the frontiers. But superiority in the air is a different—and far more important—thing. On this many advantages rest for the side that possesses -it. Reconnaisance aircraft can accelerate the movement of troops and supplies. Attack by aeroplanes can demoralise troops worn out by war. Bombing forces can destroy lines of communication and ammunition dumps, as well as arms and munition fac- tories. A rumour has been circulated to the effect that the Messerschmitts are not manoeuvrable at high speed. I believe, on the contrary, that the single-seater Messer- schmitt fighter is the most manoeuvrable and the fastest chaser in Europe, with the exception of the British Super- marine Spitfire, which, by the way, I had occasion to pilot. The drawbacks of the Messerschmitt, now eliminated, furnished one of the most useful teachings of the war. The designers had placed the only fuel tank, of very large dimensions, immediately behind the pilot: a perfect target for an attack from the rear. Even if the tank failed to explode, a bullet through it would have flooded the cockpit with suffocating petrol. I discovered this defect in design when the German air forces favoured me with a demonstration of the characteristics of the Messer- schmitt last June at the Orlie works, near Leipzig. A simple technical error, this apparently was the cause of many losses. This error, I must point out, was solely an error from the military standpoint. The tank placed behind the pilot adapted itself perfectly, in the scheme of the designer hard at work on the drawing board, to the solution of such problems as the respective locations of the centre of gravity and of the centre of pressure on the wings. Importance of Fighters Good design means many things. It means speed, manoeuvrability and assurance of adequate, power. It means ease of control at critical moments. It means all the protection possible for the pilot, and—in the case of the larger machines—for. the entire crew. It means an aeroplane built within the.. compromise between the need for an instrument of'defence of high efficiency and the need for a machine of high aerodynamic perfection. Design determined superiority in the air in the first world war. The British Commander-in-Chief who promptly warned the- War Office that better pursuit machines were required, or else the war would be lost, was caused to make that request by a German pursuit aeroplane of new design. The course of the aerial battle swung backward and for- ward with the regularity of a clock pendulum as the men with their slide rules and their blue prints were completing the Albatros, the Roland, the Nieuport, the Spad and the Fokker, (and the Major de Seversky isvery critical regarding the armament of theSavoia bomber. There is a large-bore machinegun firing from the lower position, a similarweapon on top of the fuselage, firing rearward(this is concealed by a fairing in our photo-graph) , and one fixed gun.
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