Abstract
IT is announced that the committee set up in February 1935, under the chairmanship of Mr. H. T. Tizard, Rector of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, has been considering proposals from various sources for countering raids by enemy aircraft. The vast bulk of these suggestions are impracticable simply because of a lack of appreciation of the conditions. A certain number are workable up to a point, but depend upon the enemy being visible from the ground, or upon the defending aircraft being able to make contact with the attackers. Two factors in modern aeronautical development tend to militate these chances. Advances in navigation and blind flying enable raiders to remain continuously in clouds, with a reasonable chance of reaching their objective. If observed, owing to an unexpected breaking of the cloud curtain, the high speed of modern aircraft helps them to avoid any measures directed against them from the ground, and also to keep away from defending aircraft, unless the latter are already at the same height and of considerably greater speed. There are, however, schemes in hand which promise workable results. Wireless-controlled aircraft either carrying explosives or depending upon direct collision, aerial bombs moored by balloons or carried by parachutes forming a screen, mechanical damaging devices such as rams, hooks or wires carried in the same way, big calibre anti-aircraft guns firing shells sufficiently explosive to damage machines even without actually hitting them, are among the many suggestions put forward.
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Defence Against Air Raids. Nature 137, 571 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137571a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137571a0