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Title (Dublin Core)
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Mining the air against Zeppelins
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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Mining the Air Against Zeppelins
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caption : Hooks and flaming bombs as
a terror of the air for Zeppe-
lins and, indeed, for any den-
izens of the air. But is the
terror not as great for the
homses below?
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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THE failure of the English high-
angle anti-aircraft artillery to de-
stroy Zeppelins attacking London
has heen repeatedly demonstrated, and it
has stimulated many a scientific mind
to invent some more efficient means of
defense. At night the English aero-
planes are at a serious disadvantage,
since the glare of the ground search-
RE almost impossible to
drop bombs on the enemy with go
degree of accuracy. Instead, they fail
into London, causing explosion and con-
flagration, The an exists in
firing upward against the almost invis-
ible ind swiftly moving’ Zeppelins,
Joseph Steinmetz, al American in-
ventor, proposes to mihe the air with
bomi-carrying balloonst Small hydrogen
balloons, connected in pairs or groups by
piano wire (weighing “about ten pounds
to the mile) are to be set adrift when
the Zeppelins are over London, Accord-
ing to the inventor, they would rise
rapidly and enmesh the enemy's aircraft.
Attached to the balloon pnits are small
hook-trigger bombs of vy explosive
contact and incendiary, torches, which
are to be drawn into tHe Zeppelin's gas
bag with destructive ‘results, The
method is to be further elaborated by
a nets of very wide mesh, an idea
successfully applied in Submarine war.
fare. In the opinion of Mr. Steinmets,
even though the chance of a Zeppelin
fouling the balloon-connecting wires is
only one in a thousand, that one chance
is well worth the attempt and evnense
At first blush this scheme
the air as a defense agains
is attractively plausible. T
if the atmosphere above
full of floating air-mines, it would not
be so easy to bombard the town from
aloft. When it comes to making this
arrangement practical, however, serious
difficulties are immediately encountered,
Flotation in air is not like flotation in
water. A balloon left to itself invariably
goes up or comes down. It is generally
considered a wonderful accomplishment
if a balloonist knows the aerial ocean
well enough to keep his craft in regions
where sun, winds and vapors do not con.
tinually force it from its level, thus
causing him to use up gas and ballast
and shortening the trip. Over a great
city, this procedure would be extremely
hazardous. After the air has been
thoroughly sown with mine-balloons, it
may snow. Imagine the result! With
a wind blowing the balloons about dur-
ing a snow storm, and their bombs strik-
ing roofs right and left, the inhabitants
of London might prefer the attacks of
the Zeppelins. Think of the conflaga-
tion these clusters of balloons might
cause!
The whole plan harks back to the ex-
periment Fo in Austrian campaign
against Venice in 1849. Nothing was
done by halves at that time, No less
than two hundred small hydrogen bal-
loons, each carrying a twenty-five or
thirty pound bomb, were liberated, but
they refused to stay at the right level,
They continued to rise until an upper
current of oppesite direction found t' =
and returned them to the senders.
balloons must be many times larger than
the heaviest ote mines, "Rt short
range they would furnish ideal targets
to a Zeppelin’s machine-
guns. A Zeppelin may
easily shade its lights
and yet clearly illumin-
ate a near object
a good marksman
with a machine-
gun be stationed at each
side of the front car, and
before any balloon-mine
could do any harm, it
would be shot’ down and
fall into a city street.
Interconnecting cables
such as Mr. Rowe
’ , are more satis-
Foon in water than in
the air, where they are
liable to slip off upward
or downward. If caught
by airships below them,
the bate Wil be ran
together rmlessly be-
neath the level of the
hull. mL Hhajiess oe
that the Zeppelin wou
gather a trailing mass of
wires, empty balloons
and live bombs in its
wake, to be cut off for
the benefit of those be-
low. The steel propel-
Jers would cut the thin
wire, and since they are
as big and heavy, would
hardly be damaged. It
would also be easy to
shape a Zeppelin so that
single wire must slip off
wherever it strikes the
hull, simply by slanting
the outlines of all pro-
Vv ams.
Sweeping a Channel for Mines
THE operation of mine sweeping is
one of the most dangerous and
arduous of the
many tasks that
fall to the lot of
a navy. The dan-
gers of mine
sweeping are
rn in The Sort
ea and around the Brit-
ish Coasts, where there is
no active opposition,
These dangers are, of
course, greatly increased
when ‘the ships are con-
tinually under fire, as
they were in the Dardan-
elles.
A mine field consists
of a number. of mines
aid together. It will most
effectively block off any
particular area of water,
A certain number of
mines are generally laid
at intervals just deep
enough to render them
invisible to the look-out
on board the mine sweep-
ers, For such work shal-
low draught ships are al-
ways employed.
Mine sweepers work
generally in pairs, Each
ship tows over the stern
a wooden apparatus called
a kite, fitted with planes
which dive beneath the
water. The depth to
which it dives is regu-
lated by the speed of the
towing ship. Each of
these kites is fitted with
a pulley block. A wire
Tope is passed from the
stern of one ship through
the pulley on its own late
across the water through
the block on the second
kite and so up to the stern of the second
ad + "eit is fastened. Both ships
1 at the same speed, the kites
depth corresponding to the
“4, and the steel rope is
veen them. When the
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Contributor (Dublin Core)
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Carl Dienstbach (writer)
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Joseph A. Steinmetz (inventor)
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1916-02
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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163-164
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public Domain (Google digitized)
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References (Dublin Core)
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Venice
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Filippo Valle
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Alberto Bordignon (Supervisor)
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Spatial Coverage (Dublin Core)
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London
Popular Science Monthly, v. 88, n. 2, 1916
