It buries itself to a certain
depth before bursting so that the forces of the explosion become
somewhat muffled as it were. A huge deep hole--a miniature
volcano crater--is formed, while all the glass in the immediate
vicinity of the explosion may be shattered by the concussion, and
the walls of adjacent buildings be bespattered with shrapnel.
Although it is stated that an airship is able to drop a single
missile weighing one ton in weight, there has been no attempt to
prove the contention by practice. In all probability the
heaviest shell launched from a Zeppelin has not exceeded 300
pounds. There is one cogent reason for such a belief. A bomb
weighing one ton is equivalent to a similar weight of ballast.
If this were discarded suddenly the equilibrium of the dirigible
would be seriously disturbed--it would exert a tendency to fly
upwards at a rapid speed. It is doubtful whether the planes
controlling movement in the vertical plane would ever be able to
counteract this enormous vertical thrust. Something would have
to submit to the strain. Even if the dirigible displaced say 20
tons, and a bomb weighing one ton were discharged, the weight of
the balloon would be decreased suddenly by approximately five
per cent, so that it would shoot upwards at an alarming speed,
and some seconds would elapse before control was regained.
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