One-Hundred-Pound Bombs from an Aeroplane
LIEUTENANT RILEY E. SCOTT, formerly of the United States army, invented a device that was capable of throwing from an aeroplane, bombs weighing from 5 to 100 pounds, charged with the highest explosives known. He did not receive any encouragement from this government when his device was first presented, hence resigned his position and went abroad. While in France alone he received over $15,000 as prizes for successful bomb throwing. France, Russia, England, and Italy have purchased the rights to his invention for each of their countries. He is now preparing, under the direction of the War Department, to make extensive trials with his aerial bombs near San Diego, California. At altitudes varying from a half-mile to a mile in the air, he has made an average, out of fifteen shots, of placing twelve of the projectiles, thrown, within a circle twenty yards in circumference. Modern battle-ships, as well as modern fortifications, would not be very effective in the presence of such formidably equipped fighting ships of the air. One-hundred-pound bombs of nitroglycerin, or similar high explosives, discharged in forts, in cities, and on the decks of ships, would carry with them rapid and frightful destruction.