Malcolm R. Jameson – Literary Art and Illustration

War in Space, 1939 – III: “Space War Tactics” in Astounding Science Fiction, by Malcolm Jameson and Willy Ley (1939) – Readers Respond!

And now, we come to the third of three posts about space warfare, as seen in 1939. This comprises readers’ letters to Astounding, in response, praise, and criticism, of Willy Ley’s and Macolm Jameson’s articles.

________________________________________

The appearance of Willy Ley and Malcolm Jameson’s articles about warfare in space, in the August and November issues of Astounding Science Fiction of 1939, generated – unsurprisingly – a small fusillade of laudatory comment in the magazine’s issues of October and December, 1939, and, May of 1940. The contributors were Thomas S. Gardner of Kingsport, Tennessee; A. Arthur Smith of Ontario, Canada; J.M. Cripps of Manhattan, Kansas; James S. Avery of Skowhegan, Maine, as well as Jameson and Ley themselves, in the October and May issues, respectively.

In the October issue, reader Gardner gives his evaluation of the literary merits of the August, 1939 issue, and follows with agreement about Ley’s article, albeit suggesting that “rays” might be safer weapons than projectiles, albeit not explaining how.

In the same issue, Malcolm Jameson’s letter provides insight into his career in the Navy. Then, he segues into the “core” of his own article, which pertained to locating, tracking, and aiming at an enemy spacecraft. He also addresses the technology of guns, or more accurately, cannon, in terms of the weight (mass) of the gun itself, qualifying this with the realization that his comments pertain to guns in terrestrial conditions, not space.

Reader Cripps, in the December Astounding, turns out to be an advocate of “rays”, under the proviso that, “if you [Willy ley] admit-their scientifictional credibility, it won’t strain you too much to realize that there is just a possibility that those same projectors might not be either so weak or so sensitive to shaking or jarring as you seem to think.” He premises this on the assumption that spacecraft can be propelled – be powered and reach escape velocity; leave a planet’s gravity well – solely by means of “ray projectors”, rather than, “the sort of chemical rocket that can he designed today.” In this context, he suggests that energy released from a cyclotron could be transformed into electricity and then projected into space via a “ray generator” or “refractory projector”, without (!) expanding onto how said generator or projector is specifically to function.

Okaaaayyyy.

Well, feasible or not, it’s something!

As for addressing Willy Ley as “Herr Ley”? Is that a sign of respect, sarcasm, or an ethnic dig? Who knows!

In the issue of May, 1940, reader Avery’s comments parallel those of Gardner in 1939, addressing the magazine’s literary content, and positing a question concerning Jameson’s analysis of a spacecraft versus spacecraft battle. Then, Willy Ley explains his advocacy of guns versus “torpedoes”, by focusing on the suitability of 37 and 75mm cannon, specifically in terms of the weight of the former. As for the “37”, “…that they are effective enough has meantime been demonstrated by the new 37-millimeter anti-tank guns of the U.S. army that “disintegrated” 1 ½-inch steel armor plate at a thousand yards without a moment’s hesitation. That 1,000 yard range means, of course, in air – for space conditions it might safely be multiplied by a hundred or even more.” Perhaps as much for space warfare?

However, in terms of (terrestrial!) anti-tank combat, while the 37mm (M3) gun was a suitable weapon against pre-war tank designs, Japanese tanks throughout the war (in a general sense), and light (including German) German armored vehicles, it was not an effective weapon against the Panzer IV and later German tanks. Emphatically not.

Anyway, to liven things up a little bit, included are images of the covers of the relevant issues of Astounding, those for October, 1939 and May, 1940, having been found on the Internet. There’s also a lovely piece of black & white interior art, I’m certain by Henry Richard Van Dongen.

Astounding Science Fiction
October, 1939 (pp. 154-160)

Malcolm Jameson plans to expand on Ley’s ballistics!

Dear Mr. Campbell:

I regret to have to give Astounding Stories a very good rating for the August, 1939, issue. I repeat, I regret, because it is very difficult to keep up such a high standard as Astounding has been setting for the past six months. I am afraid that I will be disappointed one of these issues — although I know that you will do every-thing to prevent such a catastrophe. Now to business:

Cover – good. It strikes a note of action and force. I like the contrasting reds and darker colors.

Your little editorials are quite Interesting – in spite of the fact that sometimes I do not always agree. However, this month we agree.

“General Swamp, C.I.C.” Quite a good and logical story – parallels the American Revolution. Your characters are well drawn, and I am glad to see the individualism shown, for it is passing out in America now. Of course, it is harder to fight a war with people who are free individuals – as we found out in 1776.

“The Luck of Ignatz” – A good character, I should like to see more of this character.

“The Blue Giraffe” – Humor can be used well in s-f. and de Camp handles it best of any that I have seen.

“Pleasure Trove” – The type of story that made old Astounding under Clayton liked – scientales with a punch. Thanks for the breathing spell from the heavy stuff.

“Heavy Planet” – Good. A logical and well-handled situation.

“Life-Line” – Very plausible and better on the second reading. The doctor didn’t completely believe his own theory and proof until he failed to save the young couple – then he knew that his own time was about up and he couldn’t change the future. That was cleverly put in the story.

“Stowaway” – Fairly good story and a good poke of fun at Earthlings.

“An Ultimatum from Mars” – The best of Cummings that I have seen in a long time.

“Space War” – Fine. Willy Ley sure knows his engineering and some ballistics. The article was the best of its type for some time. He is dead right – guns are going to be really tough to handle in free space. The trouble is in hitting the object – a whole new science of ballistics will have to be worked out – something like the multiple body problem on a small scale.

Tell Ley that rays might be safer – it they are developed on a large scale due to their spreading – for space around a battle will be uninhabitable for long distances due to unexploded bombs, et cetera. Of course, the h.e. shells will travel far away if they don’t hit.

Inside Illustrations – I still like them O.K.

General make-up was O.K. So you see why I regret to have to give it such a good rating – for can yon repeat next month? I hope so. – Thomas S. Gardner, P.O. Box 802, Kingsport, Tennessee.

SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS

Malcolm Jameson is one of the country’s few real experts on really heavy guns.

Dear Mr. Campbell:

Up to now I have been one of the most inarticulate of your contributors, but Willy Ley’s “Space War” in the August Astounding, is like smoke in the nostrils of an old fire-horse – it starts me itching to hop into the ring with him for an unlimited bout where we can hurl back and forth the fascinating facts of ballistics – both interior and exterior – and drag in that other science that utilizes both of them and some other things – Fire-Control. Ordinarily, I approach your science articles with a good deal of deference and with appropriate modesty, but when anybody starts writing about ordnance he is on ground where I think I know my way around. It happens that I spent eight or nine of the best years of my life where ordnance was being designed, manufactured, tested and used – in gun factory and laboratory, at proving grounds and on warships, both in peace and war, and in the field with troops. So if I make bold to comment: on Mr. Ley’s article, it is because I feel that I am competent to do so.

Not that I mean to imply I have fault to find with it. On the contrary, I am all for him – barring a few minor points. I like his demolition of the heat-gun and ray-screen doctrines, and the way he sails into other fantastic gadgets. I am in thorough accord with his choice of propelled explosives as the most probably final weapon of future warfare. My chief criticism is that he did not go far enough. He tells us what projectiles will do to the hostile ship, but not how to find it and hit it. The problem of finding the enemy and maintaining contact long enough to hit him, considering the stupendous reaches of the void and the colossal speeds involved, seems to me to transcend all other considerations. But then, that is the subject matter for another article entirely.

It occurs to me, however, that readers of Astounding may be interested in some expansion of several of the things Mr. Ley mentions; and also I would like to take issue with him as to one or two of his statements. Merely to list and briefly describe the many known factors that enter into gunnery would require pages, so I will confine myself to a few of those touched on in the article.

He spoke of the retarding effect of the air in the rifle bore ahead of the projectile. I can cite an instance that illustrates that beautifully and it won’t be necessary to swamp you with graphs, formulae or statistics. When the battleship Mississippi went into commission, Dr. Curtis of the physics department of the Bureau of Standards was one of the experts who went with us to Cuba to hold her experimental battery tests. Among other things, he desired to measure muzzle velocity under shipboard conditions. M.V. determination up to that time had been done only at the Proving Ground where it was possible to fire the shell through two successive screens hung in front of the gun.

Dr. Curtis rigged two metallic fingers at the muzzle of the gun, protruding slightly above the bottom of the rifling grooves, and also stretched a wire across the bore opening. These were parts of two electrical circuits, each hooked up to oscillographs. The idea was that the nose of the emerging shell would break the wire, thus interrupting one current, and that the bourrelet, or rotating hand, would wipe the fingers and complete the circuit of the other, thus producing two wiggles on the oscillograph tracing. He knew, of course, the exact distance from the shell-top to the lending edge of the bourrelet.

The first readings were absurdly low and Dr. Curtis correctly guessed that it was because the outrushing air had broken his wire before the shell got there. He put in heavier wire. Then a steel rod. Believe It or not, it was not until he had worked up to an iron bar, of something like 3/8 of an inch by a couple of inches, set edgewise like a girder across the opening, that he found something that would stay there until the projectile emerged. Even at that he had trouble with its fastenings. Some breeze!

I note Mr. Ley’s complaint that designers simply do not pay attention to weight unless the question of transport is involved. I assure him he Is quite mistaken. If the guns of a battleship could be reduced in weight by so little as five per cent, it would mean the saving of many tons which could well be utilized for other purposes. Actually, other characteristics of the gun being equal, gun weights have steadily declined – due chiefly to improvements In steel-making processes, notably heat treatment. Presumably, the trend will continue as better methods and stronger alloys are found.

The reason for the present weight of guns is stark necessity. It takes a lot of metal to withstand a suddenly applied force of upward of twenty tons to the square inch. When he says that reducing the thickness of gun barrels shortens their service life, he is dead right. It shortens it all right – is likely to cut it down to one terrific and fatal blast. If he had had the opportunity as I had, of seeing many ruptured field guns lying on Southampton dock during 1917, he would not think the factor of safety overstressed.

As to the difference in thickness between a worn-out gun and a new one, it is almost imperceptible to the untrained eye. Gunners keep a careful record of the number of rounds fired and star-gauge their guns often, for that is the only way they can keep track of the erosion. A worn bore, and the wear may not exceed the thickness of this sheet of paper, permits the powder gases to escape past the projectile, thereby seriously reducing its velocity. It also fends to promote wobble in flight.

In the vicinity of the breech not only are the pressures greater, but the temperatures are terrifically high, and I suspect that the lining of the powder chamber and the face of the breech-plug is for a moment In a virtually molten condition. I witnessed a blowback once, through an infinitesimal hairline scratch on the seat of the gas-check seal. It was a brand-new 14” gun under proof and the breech of it was ruined. The gases escaping through that little hole blew I the metal out in a line spray, like butter under a blow torch. Of course, the speed of the leaking gases added vastly to the damage, but it must be hot in there.

I doubt very much whether a strictly non-recoiling gun is possible. The recoil begins much earlier than most people Imagine – shortly after the projectile has started moving within the barrel.

In regard to the “optimum” elevation of 45 degrees, I might say that that is the elevation that theoretically gives the maximum range. I have seen heavy guns fired all the way up to fifty degrees, but there is little gain in range after the upper thirties, and a progressively greater loss of control. The famous German long-range gun could only be effective against a target as large as the city of Paris. Hitting somewhere within a ten-mile circle is not an artilleryman’s notion of marksmanship.

As to streamlining, that has been tried but is not practicable for several reasons. However, that does not mean that the shape of the shell is unimportant. The “coefficient of form” is an important one; long-pointed shells travel farther than short blunt ones. Armor-piercing projectiles that have to be stubby are equipped with false noses for that reason.

Of course, I realize that all this quibbling is about Earthly conditions and is not very applicable to what happens in the void. I am writing only because It may be of interest to our fans. As to the extension of Space Warfare to take in such matters as scouting, range finding, tracking and spotting, I am very much tempted to break out as an article writer myself. Then Mr. Ley can slip in a new ribbon and do a little sniping of his own. – Malcolm Jameson, 519 West 147th Street, New York, N.Y.

Maybe you can use rays, at that!

Dear Mr. Campbell:

I want to make a few comments about the August number of Astounding.

First point is Willy Ley’s article on the weapons of space combat. Frankly, I’ll still stick to the flaming rays and scintillating screens; Mr. Ley’s argument against them starts off with a bit of a self-contradiction. On page 74 he states: “That they (ray projectors) do not exist now is immaterial; science-fiction is not only concerned with things that are, but also with things that might be.” And forthwith proceeds to argue them out of existence on the grounds that the equipment necessary to produce them would be so ponderous compared with present-day artillery as to make them impracticable. Come, come, Mr. Ley! Surely, if you admit-their scientifictional credibility, it won’t strain you too much to realize that there is just a possibility that those same projectors might not be either so weak or so sensitive to shaking or jarring as you seem to think.

You say the projector would need a power plant, and “power plants are notoriously heavy.” O.K. But it also appears to me that even an unarmed ship might need a fair-sized set of generators just to lift it into space; unless, of course, you insist on limiting the poor writer to the sort of chemical rocket that can he designed today.

You say that the ray generator would be sensitive, “since we have to assume tubes of some kind.” Do we, now? Let’s try a spot of assuming, and see what sort of power plant and ray projector we can dream up, even without going too far beyond our present scientific knowledge.

Power plant first. Suppose we make it an atomic energy set-up, using the fission of uranium 235 under neutron bombardment. We’ll need a source of neutrons to start off that reaction. Cyclotron, perhaps, since you seem to like a heavy power plant; though I think that with U-235 a simple, light, insensitive radioactive source might work as well. A cyclotron would have tubes to go out during an engagement, all right, but we needn’t worry about that; we’ll just use it to touch off the process at the start, and keep steam up afterward, since the reaction is self-perpetuating. Probably need a direct hit now to put that job out of action.

Ray projector? Well, I suppose we could turn the released energy into electricity, to be later transformed into some deadly radiation In a delicate ray generator. It seems to me that a stream of those 200-million-volt atomic nuclei given off by disintegrating uranium, and released in the general direction of the enemy through refractory projectors would be just as deadly and a lot simpler. That question of refractories Is a delicate one, I admit; but we’ll need them, anyway, for the power plant, so let’s not strain at gnats while swallowing camels.

Do I hear an objection from Mr. Ley? “If there is an insulating material that holds out against the energies released at the giving end, it is hard to understand why the same insulator should not be usable to safeguard the bull of the ship that is being rayed.”

Same answer as to the question : Why not armor-plate the ship against solid and explosive projectiles from Mr. Ley’s heavy artillery? Too heavy; and, perhaps, a whole lot more expensive than even the best nickel-steel armor. But if you insist, I’ll make my ship invulnerable to ray attack; only you’ve got to reciprocate, and turn yours into a flying fort, complete with 30-inch plate all round.

This begins to look like stalemate. So let’s compromise; fit out our warships of space with both rays and guns, ray screens, insulation, and armor-plate, and see what new forms of deviltry the boys can think up with that equipment.

It should be interesting. – A. Arthur Smith, 131 Aqueduct Street, Welland, Ontario, Canada.

Astounding Science Fiction
December, 1939 (p. 108)

To the defense of rays.

Dear Sir:

As a rule, your stories are good and your articles better; the article entitled “Space War,” by Wily Ley, is however, the exception that proves the rule.

Before I attempt to back up the above statement, perhaps I had better give my qualifications. I have some sixty-odd hours of college chemistry, twenty-two hours of college physics, and thirty-four hours of college math. I spent three years in the National Guard attached to a battery of 155 mm guns.

I am too lazy to attempt to check Herr Ley on his statements of armor weight, gun weight, et cetera, but they seem reasonable, so I will allow them to stand without argument – they would probably stand, anyway.

Taking up Herr Ley’s arguments in order, I wonder if it ever occurred to him that it would require quite a good power plant to lift a “fair-sized spaceship, about ninety yards long and twenty yards in diameter,” from the surface of the earth and then set it gently down again? It seems to me that the weight of the mechanism required to divert part of this power from drive to ray generator would not be prohibitive.

Vacuum-tubes are delicate, but could be made stronger if necessary, and, if not, I believe would rather risk having a tube blow during the course of a battle and leave me without effective weapons than to have an enemy shell land in the ship’s magazine.

He kindly granted the possibility of dangerous rays and then stated that he did not believe they could be developed in the near future. Micro-waves – radio – from 30 cm. down in wave length would be quite disconcerting if there were some 50,000 watts being fed into them. You see, they are picked up by a metallic conductor as heat. They may not be what the science-fiction author has in mind when he refers to heat rays, but they’ll work quite nicely, I believe, and they focus into the neatest tight beam. As for ray shields, there is always heterodyning.

As to the impossibility of “holding a ray on a fast-moving distant target, that might be practically invisible with black paint against the background of black space,” just how many men could hit a black disk twenty yards in diameter on a dark night such a range and moving with such a velocity that a searchlight – just another ray – could not hold it?

In space a heat ray is an accumulative affair in that heat is dissipated only by radiation, which is a notoriously slow process at ordinary – 0-200 C-temperatures. This would mean that the heat ray would not have to be held on the target.

As for the disadvantages of guns, Herr Ley has neglected to mention that in warfare on earth, when a heavy gun is firing at a target the gun is relatively motionless with respect to the target. This simplifies aiming considerably. Dog fights between planes are never long-range affairs because of their relative velocities. Going back to ground fighting, however, a miss of twenty yards or so is as good as a hit because of the bursting range of the shell. A miss of one cm. in space is as good as if the shell had not been fired.

When Herr Ley advocates the use of 75s in space, it is obvious that he has never been around them when they were fired. I have, and I wouldn’t care to be in a closed room – even if it were evacuated – with one firing several rounds to the minute.

During the World War gas was used frequently so as to force the men to don gas masks. The masks cut down the firing efficiency noticeably. I wonder when effect a space suit would have on accuracy?

The science of exterior and interior ballistics is built around the presence of air and a fairly strong gravitational field. It would take some time to develop a science of vacuum ballistics.

Reading this over it appears that I have laid the foundations – or destroyed them – for a good way – right here on earth between Herr Ley and me. I’ll try to prepare myself for his counter-attack, because I don’t believe I destroyed him entirely. – J.M. Cripps, Manhattan, Kansas

Astounding Science Fiction
May, 1940 (pp. 159-161)

Yes, but who’s going to use a slow spaceship if the enemy has fast ones?

Dear Mr. Campbell:

It seems now that the latest vogue in science-fiction stories is that of rocket-racing, and it is only natural that you should secure the best of that type yet published. By this, I refer to the clever and well-written “Habit” by Lester del Rey in the November issue. This excellent little piece has that “certain something” that sets it off as a typically Astounding story. I honestly believe that were I given an armful of untitled, anonymous, and as yet unpublished manuscripts, I could tell within ninety percent or better which would find refuge in Astounding and which would go to your umpteen competitors. It’s style, not plot, that makes Astounding the “class magazine” that it is.

May I add a line or two to the rumpus stirred up over the merits of the “General Swamp” serial. To my mind it ranks with the best of any two-part serial yet published. Its handling was so uniquely different that it captivated me from the very start. It was realistic to the point of having me half believe I was reading actual reports and military accounts! Kick on the hard-to-pronounce names? Not me! surrounded as I am by left-over handles of the Indian period – Skowhegan, Messalonskee, Norridgewock, Kennebec, Mooselookmeguntick, Cobbseecontee, et cetera. How does Arkgonactl and Golubhammon compare with these?

Space war articles and letters by Ley and Jameson appeal greatly to me, despite the fact that they hopelessly destroy – and quite logically, too – my pet dreams of flashing ray battles In the void. But wouldn’t two ships traveling a parallel course at equal or near equal speeds be visible lo one another? Jameson seems to think not. Also comes up again the slow-speed spaceship theory that blasts the seven-mile-per-second principle – page 70 of “Space War Tactics” – off the records. Still, Jameson accepts that, too, … – James S. Avery, 50 Middle Street, Skowhegan, Maine.

SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS

Experts transposed?

Dear. Mr. Campbell:

That the problems of spate war and space war tattles are infested with wide gaps of knowledge and with difficulties of all kinds is proven by one fact: I recommend guns, while an old gunnery expert like Malcolm Jameson prefers rocket torpedoes! If it were the other way round, nobody would be surprised.

My reasons for recommending guns were already stated in my article “Space War,” the principal one being that guns with ammunition are lighter and less bulky than rocket torpedoes, provided that an appreciable number of rounds is to be carried. And since my comparison was based on rocket’ torpedoes capable of attaining the same velocity as gun projectiles, I think that the argument is still valid, if the torpedoes were to attain higher speeds they would he still heavier and still bulkier.

Answering first to Mr. Jameson’s letter I hasten to assert that I do not think that the weight of large caliber guns could he reduced very much, unless by the use of new alloys. I was speaking of small guns, 75 millimeter and less, and I still hold that I am right. The new anti-tank guns in all armies prove that point; they are much lighter than anything built so far. (I may add that those of the Swiss army are also equipped with a recoil eliminator.) And that they are effective enough has meantime been demonstrated by the new 37-millimeter anti-tank guns of the U.S. army that “disintegrated” 1 ½-inch steel armor plate at a thousand yards without a moment’s hesitation. That 1,000 yard range means, of course, in air – for space conditions it might safely be multiplied by a hundred or even more.

As far as tactics of combat are concerned, I, having neither experience nor theoretical training, have to be quiet. I cannot help but feel, however, that the tactics of sea or aerial combat do not apply to a very great extent. We always have to hear in mind that an orbit in space and a course in air or on the high seas are not exactly the same. Spaceships are not steamers that travel at will, but rather canoes in swift and powerful currents. These canoes have paddled that permit some movement at will and some steering, and If the “currents” were not as regular and ad calculable as they are the case would be hopeless.

Spaceships, therefore, will either pass each other in opposite directions and at such relative speeds that hardly anything could be done, or else they will follow about the same course and by necessity have about the same velocity. It is the latter condition I had in mind, and it is in that condition where guns will he advantageous. Mine laying is, of course, a nice idea, but again I do not quite see why mines should be superior to guns, generally speaking. Mr. Jameson is trying to do something that is very hard to do when he proposes that the space mines, or iron pellets, should be “shot out of mine-laying tubes clustered about the main drive jets. They would be shot out at right angles – and given a velocity exactly equal to the ship’s speed, so that they would hang motionless where they were dropped.

The latter does not hold true exactly; the pellets would at once start moving in the general direction of the Sun – If they are exactly motionless it would be the exact direction toward the Sun – but since that movement would he very slow at first and the enemy ship reaches the area of the mine field In a few seconds, that factor can he disregarded. What bothers me is the problem how the mines could be shot out with a velocity exactly equal to the ship’s speed.

That speed is assumed to be about 20 – 25 miles per second. Muzzle velocities of guns will be between one and – possibly – one and a half miles per second. And even the gas molecules in the rocket exhaust do not travel faster than, say, three miles per second. If a method could be found to shoot the space mines away from the ship with 20-25 miles per second, that method should be applied to throw shells.

Since I have started criticizing other people’s Ideas, I might as well say a few words about Robert Heinlein’s enjoyable story “Misfit.” Generally speaking, I think that moving an asteroid for the purpose of using it as a station in space is a very wasteful business. It would take much less fuel to transport building material to the chosen spot in space from Earth or Mars. An asteroid possesses an awful amount of useless mass that has to be transported, and each pound of mass requires so and so much fuel. It Is somewhat like moving a large mountain from one continent to another because there is a forest growing on top of the mountain and the larger trees of that forest are to be used to build a raft.

But even if we concede lo the waste of fuel to move the asteroid, there Is no reason to waste more than half of that fuel in giving “88” “a series of gentle pats, always on the side farthest from the Sun.” What has to be accomplished is to slow down the orbital velocity of the asteroid so that the gravitational attraction of the Sun gets the upper hand and draws it closer. Which is done most effectively in setting off the rocket charges in such a way that they point “ahead,” at right angles to the line drawn from the asteroid to the Sun. The resulting movement would be along an elliptical curve – somewhat distorted, to be sure – but not a hyperbolic curve. And there is no need for such unnecessary accuracy. If the asteroid should finally possess a few hundred feet of orbital velocity more or less, is really unimportant. It would make a difference of ten or twenty miles – or even fifty or a hundred – in the average distance from the Sun. There is no reason why that should matter, just as it does not matter whether an island in the Atlantic Ocean is half a mile farther west or not; it only matters that captains know where It is. Besides, the orbit of the asteroid could be corrected at any time, if desired. But I wouldn’t move asteroids at all.

I wish to say “thank you” to Mr. E. Franklin of Jamaica Plain for his nice and interesting letter in the October issue. The real trouble with articles is that they have to be shorter than the “Gray Lensman.” – Willey Ley, 35-33 20th St., Long Island City, N.Y.

War In Space, 1939 – II: “Space War Tactics” by Malcolm Jameson, in Astounding Science Fiction, November, 1939

Here’s the second of three posts about war in space – circa 1939 – covering Malcom Jameson’s article “Space War Tactics” in the November issue of Astounding.

________________________________________

Three months after the appearance of Willy Ley’s article “Space War” in the August, 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, Malcolm Jameson penned (well, in all probability, he typed – remember typewriters?) an article of similar length and concept, but focused on a different aspect of spacecraft-to-spacecraft combat: The actual tactics of battle. Thus, Jameson – perhaps reflective of his background as a naval officer – accorded attention to the maneuvers utilized by opposing spacecraft, only later in his article discussing weapons, and unlike Ley, being an advocate of “rocket torpedoes”.

Jameson’s article is supplemented by two diagrams which illustrate the trajectories of opposing spacecraft engaged in combat. (You can see his signature at the lower right in each.) In both diagrams – here limited to two dimensions, and viewed from “below” – the track of “our” spacecraft is on the left, and the enemy ship to the right.
In the first diagram, our craft is on a straight trajectory, with the enemy ship taking an abrupt “right” turn at position “7”, the weapons employed by our spacecraft presumably being rocket-torpedoes.

In the second diagram, the pair of spacecraft are on a converging trajectory, the weapons being mines as well as rocket-torpedoes.

Paralleling my post about Willy Ley’s article about space war, here are some general “take-aways” from Jameson’s article:

1) Military conflicts, regardless of the era or the nature of weapons employed, can be expected to follow the same general principles. Thus, though “space” is ostensibly different from traditional battle settings, traditional concepts and assumptions about warfare can be expected to hold there, as well.

However (!) two primary differences stand out: “Space” differs from taken-for-granted terrestrial settings (any planetary setting, really) in terms of its (apparently limitless) extent, and, the speed of the craft involved. The implications and challenges of the latter, in terms of maneuver, as well as locating, tracking, aiming, and firing at enemy craft, cannot be underestimated.

2) Given the speed of combat between spacecraft, gunnery computations will demand the use of a “differentia calculator”. (Like Willy Ley’s August article, Jameson’s analysis is based on the assumption that spacecraft armament will comprise some form of weaponry firing either simple mass weapons or explosive projectiles, rather than an energy weapon of unknown design and function.) Though he doesn’t elaborate, Jameson seems to have been conceptualizing such a device as ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the existence of which was announced to the public ten months after his death.

3) The spacecraft’s armament is simple, whether by the standards of the late 1930s or the 2020s: The craft shoots projectiles comprised of “a simple sphere of meteoric iron”. Due to the velocities involved, explosives are entirely unnecessary: The momentum of such a projectile is entirely adequate to damage or destroy an enemy spacecraft.

4) A substantial portion of Jameson’s text – specifically pertaining to Figure 1 – pertains to the manner in which “our” spacecraft will locate, identify, and track the enemy vessel, and, plot a firing trajectory for its weapons. Here, Jameson description of the craft’s “plotting room,” the “most vital spot in the ship,” seems (unsurprisingly, given his naval background) akin to a description of a battleship or aircraft carrier’s combat information center, “the counterpart of the brain”.

Then, his essay gets really interesting, for – in the context of describing the tracks of two spacecraft engaged in combat, as diagrammed in Figure 2 – he postulates the nature of space-borne rangefinders and target-bearing transmitters, suggesting for the former determining distance – “sounding” by radio waves – and the latter something akin to a thermoscope, or simply put, a device showing changes in temperature, against a given background.

In other words, he seems to have been respectively anticipating both radar, and, what is now known as IRST: Infrared Search and Track.

5) Interestingly, unlike Willy Ley, Jameson’s also an advocate of the use a form of what he dubs “rocket torpedoes” rather than shells, due to the latter’s “advantage of auto-acceleration” and the “ability to build up speed to any desired value after having been launched,” versus the delay inherent to the sequence of events involved in the the actual firing and movement of a shell from a gun. Of course, even assuming the enemy vessel is attacked with “rocket torpedoes”, such devices – in the context and era of Jameson’s article – would have no internal guidance or tracking system of their own, their “flight” path being entirely dependent on course adjustments of the firing platform – “our” spacecraft – itself.

6) Where mentioned, I’ve included conversions of given velocities (“miles per second”) to velocities per hour, in both English and Metric systems, the former in statue miles. These are denoted by brackets. (e.g., [90,000 mph / 144,840 kph]).

As in the post covering Ley’s article, the most notable passages of the text are italicized and in dark red, like these last thirteen words in this sentence. The post concludes with links to a variety of excellent videos covering spacecraft-versus-spacecraft battles, and “space war”, in greater detail, in light of (quite obviously!) contemporary knowledge.

__________

You can read the Wikipedia article about Malcolm Jameson here, while the Internet Speculative Fiction Database compilation of his writing can be found here.

Jameson’s memorial tribute (I guess penned by John W. Campbell, Jr.?) from the July 1945 issue of Astounding, follows:

MALCOLM JAMESON

December 21, 1891 – April 16, 1945

Malcolm Jameson, a man possessed of more shear courage than most of us will ever understand, died April 16, 1945, after an eight-year writing career, initiated when cancer of the throat forced him to give up the more active life he wanted. Any author can tell you that you can’t write good stuff when you’re feeling sick. Jamie never quite understood that – perhaps because he began when he did. X-ray and radium treatment controlled the cancer for a time, but only at a price of permanent severely bad health.

He sold his first story to Astounding in 1938. [“Eviction by Isotherm“, August, 1938.] That was followed by such memorable and sparklingly light stories as “Admiral’s Inspection,” the whole Commander Bullard series, and his many other stories in UNKNOWN WORLDS.

The man who could accomplish that under the conditions imposed on him was not of ordinary mold.

The Commander Bullard series grew out of Jameson’s own experiences as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1916 till his retirement in 1927. He had much to do with the development of modern naval ordnance; his work is fighting in this war, though he himself was not permitted to do so.

He is survived by his wife, his daughter, Corporal Vida Jameson, of the WAC, his son, Major Malcolm Jameson, in the Infantry and now overseas, and his brother, House Jameson, better known as “Mr. Aldrich” of the “Aldrich Family” program.

The Editor.

____________________

You’ll notice that Hubert Rogers’ iconic depiction of a space fleet control center (for E.E. Smith’s “Gray Lensman”) as the cover of the November, 1939 issue of Astounding, appears below. Further down in the post are two interior illustrations – from the November, 1941, and February, 1948 issues of Astounding – in which Rogers created views of the same scene for Smith’s “Second Stage Lensman” and “Children of the Lens”, respectively. (The image of the control center in the 1948 issue was scanned from an original copy, and photoshopifically “niced up” to bring out the details, for this post.)

____________________

And so, on to Malcolm Jameson’s “Space War Tactics” from the month of November, in the year 1939…

SPACE WAR TACTICS

Expanding on Willy Ley’s recent article, Jameson brings out some important details – not the least of which is that a space battle fleet gets one shot at the enemy in months of maneuvering!

By Malcolm Jameson
Illustrated by Malcolm Jameson
Astounding Science Fiction
November, 1939

Ship to Ship Engagement

A working knowledge of the game of chess is a useful adjunct in understanding the art of war. War is not a series of haphazard encounters hut a definite understanding governed by principles that never change, however much the weapons and uniforms and the colors of the flags may. Like chess it is a continuing struggle between two opponents, each trying to estimate the strength of the other and to divine his purposes and most probable objective, and what his next move will be. It is a marauding and movement of forces, a series of threats and feints, of advances and withdrawals, punctuated by sharp conflict as one or the other forces the issue.

As the rules of chess govern the movement of each piece, so does the field of operations in war, whether it is rocky terrain or swampy, the open sea or the cloud-streaked skies, or the vast reaches of space itself. Tactics, and in a measure the weapons, are rigidly determined by the controlling environment.

We can, therefore predict with some assurance the general nature of space warfare, for we already know something of the properties of the void and what characteristics ships that traverse it arc likely to have. With such ships and in such a theater of operations, we have only to apply the principles of warfare developed by men through centuries of strife to arrive at an approximation of the tactics they will use. We can be fairly certain of the kind of weapons and instruments they will have, for the very advent of spaceships is presumptive of continued advance in science along much the same lines we have already come.

There are two great factors in space warfare that will set it off sharply from anything else in human experience, and those two factors will modify fighting-ship types, strategy and tactics profoundly. They are: (a) the extent of space, and (b) the tremendous speed of the vessels.

At the risk of boring those who have already read and thought a good deal about travel in space and who feel that they long ago formed a satisfactory idea of what the limitless reaches of the void are like, I want to dwell a moment on the subject of the vastness of space. It deserves all the emphasis we can give it.

Psychologists assert that it is beyond the capacity of the human mind to conceive of quantities, extents or durations beyond rather close limits. We may nod understandingly at hearing mention of a billion-dollar appropriation, but we grasp the idea solely because we are thinking of those billion dollars as a unit sum of money.

If we tried to visualize them as coins we would fail utterly. The mind cannot picture ten hundred thousands of thousands of silver disks. “Many” is the best it can do – there are too many dollars there for one mindful. And so it is with distance.

It has been my good fortune to have traveled extensively; I have crossed oceans as navigator, stepping off the miles made good each day or watching them slide by under the counter. Thus I have a hazy notion of the size of the Earth – it is oppressively huge. What, then, of the two or three million-mile straightaway covered in a single day’s run of a rocket-ship – represented by a quarter-inch pencil mark on the astragator’s chart of the ecliptic? The Earth he left but yesterday had already dwindled to a small bright disk and before the week is over it will be seen only as a brilliant blue star. In that incredibly vast celestial sphere in which lie is floating – stretching as it does without limit before, behind and to every side, above and below – where and how can we hope to find his enemy?

For even if he passed another ship close aboard, he would not so much as glimpse it. Speeds in space are as stupendous as the spaces they traverse. Needing seven miles per second to escape the Earth and another twenty to make any reasonable progress between the planets, even the slowest vessels will have speeds of twenty-five miles per second [90,000 mph / 144,840 kph]. Warships. presumably. according to type, will have correspondingly higher speeds – perhaps as high as fifty miles per second [180,000 mph / 289,682 kph … or, 0.000268 c] for the faster scouts.

Speeds of that order are as baffling to the imagination as the depths of the void. When we recall that the fastest thing most of us are familiar with is the rifle bullet, whizzing along at a lazy half-mile per second [1,800 mph / 2,897 kph], we see that we do have a yardstick. The ships mentioned above proceed at from fifty to one hundred times that fast – invisible, except under very special circumstances. It is barely possible, we know, for a quick eye to pick up twelve-inch shells in flight if he knows just where, when and how to look, but a momentary glimpse is all he gets.\

When we talk of gunfire or any other means of offense, we have to bear these dizzy speeds firmly in mind. The conclusion is irresistible that scouting, tracking, range finding and relative bearings will all be observed otherwise than visually. Even on the assumption of attack from the quarter, the most obvious approach – and for the same reason that aviators “get on the tail” – the overtaking vessel must necessarily have such an excess of speed that the visual contact can last but a few seconds.

Each of the combatants must compute the other’s course from blind bearings and ranges and lay their guns or point their torpedo tubes by means of a differentia calculator.

However, in this blind tracking there is one peculiarity of these ships that while it is in one sense a source of danger to them, is of distinct assistance. In the fleeting minutes of their contact, neither can appreciably alter course or speed! This is a point that writers of fiction frequently ignore for the sake of vivid action, but nevertheless it is an unavoidable characteristic of the [e]ther-borne [?!] ship.

The human body can withstand only so much acceleration and the momentum these vessels carry has been built up, hour after hour, by piling increment of speed on top of what had been attained before. In space there is no resistance. Once the rockets are cut, the ship will soar on forever at whatever velocity she had at the moment of cutting. Her master may flip her end over end and reverse his acceleration, but his slowing will be as tedious and cautious as his working up to speed. Jets flung out at right angles merely add another slight component to the velocity, checking nothing.

Rocket experts have stated that an acceleration of one hundred feet per second per second can be withstood by a human being – perhaps one hundred and fifty in an emergency. The master of a vessel proceeding at forty miles per second [144,000 mph / 231,745 kph] applying such an acceleration at right angles would succeed in deflecting his flight about one hundred miles by the end of the first minute, during which he will have run twenty-four hundred – a negligible turn, if under fire. Applied as a direct brake, that hundred miles of decreased velocity would slow him by one twenty-fourth – obviously not worth the doing if the emergency is imminent.

With these conditions in mind, let us imagine a light cruiser of the future bowling along at forty miles per second on the trail of an enemy. The enemy is also a cruiser, one that has slipped through our screen and is approaching the earth for a fast raid on our cities. He is already decelerating for his prospective descent and is thought to be about one hundred and fifty thousand miles ahead, proceeding at about thirty-five miles per second [126,000 mph / 202,777 kph]. Our cruiser is closing on him from a little on his port quarter, and trying to pick him up with its direction finders.

So far we have not “seen” him. We only know from enciphered code messages received several days ago from our scouting force, now fifty millions astern of us, that he is up ahead. It would take too long here to explain how the scouts secured the information they sent us. The huge system of expanding spirals along which successive patrols searched the half billion cubic miles of dangerous space lying between us and the enemy planet is much too intricate for brief description. It is sufficient for our purposes that the scouts did detect the passage of the hostile cruiser through their web and that they kept their instruments trained on him long enough to identify his trajectory. Being neither in a position to attack advantageously nor well enough armed – for their function is the securing of information, and that only – they passed the enemy’s coordinates along to us. This information is vital to us, for without it the probability of contact in the void is so remote as to be nonexistent.

The ship in which we are rushing to battle is not a large one. She is a bare hundred meters [328 feet] in length, but highly powered. Her multiple rocket tubes, now cold and dead, are grouped in the stern. We have no desire for more speed, having all that is manageable already, for after the few seconds of our coming brush with the enemy our velocity is such that we will far overrun him and his destination as well. It will require days of maximum deceleration for us to check our flight and be in a position to return to base.

Our ship’s armament, judged by today’s standards, will at first sight appear strangely inadequate. Our most destructive weapon is the “mine,” a simple sphere of meteoric iron about the size of a billiard ball, containing no explosive and not fused. The effectiveness of such mines depends upon the speed with which they are struck by the target ship – no explosive could add much to the damage done by a small lump of iron striking at upward of thirty miles a second. Then there will he torpedo tubes amidships, and perhaps a few guns, but it may lie well to postpone a discussion of the armament until we have examined the conditions at the place of battle.

Although we know in a general way where the enemy is and where he is going, before we close with him we must determine his course and speed very accurately, for our ability to hit him at all is going to depend upon extremely nice calculations. Our speeds are such that angular errors of so much as a second of arc will be fatal, and times must be computed to within hundredths of seconds.

This falls within the province of fire-control, a subject seldom if ever mentioned by fiction writers. There is no blame to be attached to them for that, for the problems of fire-control are essentially those of pure mathematics, and mathematics is notoriously unthrilling to the majority of readers. Yet hitting with guns – or even arrows, though the archer solves his difficulties by intuition – requires the solution of intricate problems involving the future positions and movements of at least two bodies, and nothing more elementary than the differential calculus will do the trick. In these problems interior ballistics, for all its interesting physics, boils down to a single figure – the initial velocity of the projectile, while exterior ballistics evaporates for the most part the moment we propel our missile into a gravityless vacuum. In space we are to be concerned with the swiftly changing relationship of two rapidly moving vessels and the interchange of equally swift projectiles between them, the tracks of all of them being complicated curves and not necessarily lying in a plane.

In its simplest statement the problem of long-range gunnery is this: where will the enemy be when my salvo gets there? For we must remember that even in today’s battles the time the projectile spends en-route to its target is appreciable – fully a minute on occasion, at sea, during which the warship fired upon may move as much as half a mile. Under such circumstances the gunner does not fire directly at his target, but at the place it is going to be. That requires very accurate knowledge of where the enemy is headed and how fast he is moving.

At sea that is done by observing successive bearings and ranges and plotting them as polar coordinates, bearing in mind that the origin is continuously shifting due to the ship’s own motion. This work of tracking – the subsequent range-keeping and prediction of future ranges and bearings – is done in our times in the plotting room. This is the most vital spot in the ship, for if her weapons may be likened to fists and her motive power to legs, her optical and acoustical instruments to eyes and ears, then the plotting room is the counterpart of the brain. There all the information is received, corrected, digested, and distributed throughout the ship. Without that co-ordination and direction the ship would be as helpless as an idiot.

Well, hardly that helpless today. Our individual units, such as turret crews, can struggle on alone, after a fashion. But not so with the ship of the future. There the plotting room is everything, and when it is put out of commission, the ship is blind and paralyzed. It will, of course, be located within the center of the ship, surrounded by an armored shell of its own, and in there will also be the ship control stations.

The best way to approach the problems our descendants will have to face is to consider a simple problem in tracking that our own warships deal with daily. It is an absurdly simple one compared to the warped spirals to be handled in space warfare, but it will serve to illustrate the principle. In Fig. 1. it is shown graphically, but in actual practice the elements of the problem are set up on a motor-driven machine which thereupon continuously and correctly delivers the solutions of problems that would take an Einstein minutes to state. As the situation outside changes, corrections are cranked into the machine, which instantly and uncomplainingly alters its calculations.

In the figure we have the tracks of two ships, ours the left-hand one. For the sake of clarity and emphasis I have made the ratio of speeds three to one, but the same trends would be shown at the more usual ratio of, say, 20:19

At positions “1,” “2,” “3” and so on, we observe the range and hearing of the target, and plot them. By noting the differences between successive readings and the second differences between those, we soon have an idea of the type of curve the rates of changes would plot into. In a short time we can also note that the rates themselves are changing at a certain rate. This is a rough sort of differentiation – by inspection – and to one familiar with such curves these trends have a definite meaning.

For example, it is apparent that the series of observed angles “Beta” are steadily opening, signifying that we are drawing past the target. Any sudden alteration of the second differences, such as occurs at “8,” at once indicates a change of condition on the part of the enemy. He has either turned sharply away or slowed to half speed, for the bearing suddenly opens nearly two degrees more than the predicted beating. We learn which by consulting our ranges. It could be a combination of changed course and changed speed.

The ranges during the first seven lime-intervals have been steadily decreasing, although the rate of decrease has been slowing up, indicating we are approaching the minimum range. At “8,” though, the range not only fails to decrease, but the rate of change actually changes sign. We know without doubt that the enemy has turned away.

The importance of having the machine grind out predicted bearings and ranges, aside from the desirability of speed and accuracy, is that at any moment smoke, a rain squall, or intervening ships may obscure the target. In that event the gunners need never know the difference – their range and bearing indicators arc ticking away like taximeters, fed figures by the controlling range-keeper. It would not have mattered if sight had been lost of the enemy at “4”; the gun-fire would have been just as accurate up to the time he changed course as if they had the target in plain sight.

As a matter of fact, the guns are not pointed at the target at all, but in advance of it, as is shown in Fig. 1 (a), both range and bearing being altered to allow for the forward movements of the target while the shells are in the air. The projectiles may be regarded as moving objects bandied on a “collision course” with regard to the enemy vessel.

Speaking of collision courses, it is an interesting property of relative bearings that when the bearing remains constant – except in the special case of the vessels being on parallel courses at identical speeds – the vessels will eventually collide, regardless of what their actual courses and speeds are. Hence, from the time the shots of the salvo left their guns – Fig. 1 (a) – until they struck their target, the target bore a constant angle of thirteen degrees to the right of the nose of the shells. (This knowledge has some utility in estimating the penetration of armor at the destination.)

In the example above, all the movement can be regarded as taking place in a plane; the ships follow straight courses and they maintain constant speeds. Our terrestrial problems are in practice much complicated by zigzagging, slowing down and speeding up, but at that they are relatively child’s play compared to what the sky-warrior of the future must contend with.

His tracks are likely to be curved in three dimensions, like pieces of wire hacked out of a spiral bed spring, and whether or not they can be plotted in a plane, they will nowhere be straight. Moreover, whatever changes of speeds occur will be in the form of steady accelerations and not in a succession of flat steps linked by brief accelerations such as we know. Computing collision courses between two continually accelerating bodies is a much trickier piece of mathematical legerdemain than finding the unknown quantities in the family of plane trapeziums shown in Fig. I.

Yet projectiles must be given the course and speed necessary to insure collision.

The gunnery officer of the future is further handicapped by rarely ever being permitted a glimpse of his target, certainly not for the purpose of taking ranges and bearings. In the beginning of the approach the distances between the ships is much too great, and by the time they have closed, their relative speed will generally forbid vision.

Since optical instruments are useless except for astrogational purposes, his rangefinders and target-bearing transmitters will have to be something else. For bearings, his most accurate instrument will probably be the thermoscope – an improved heat-detector similar to those used by astronomers in comparing the heat emission of distant stars. It will have a spherical mounting with a delicate micro-vernier. A nearby spaceship is sure to radiate heat, for it is exposed constantly to full sunlight and must rid itself of the excess heat or its crew will die. Once such a source of heat is picked up and identified, it can be followed very closely as to direction, although little can be told of its distance unless something is known of its intrinsic heat radiation.

Ranges will probably be determined by sounding space with radio waves, measuring the time interval to the return of reflected waves. It is doubtful whether this means will have a high degree of accuracy much beyond ranges of one light-second on account of the movement of the two vessels while the wave is in transit both ways.

At long range the need for troublesome corrections is sure to enter.

Such observations, used in conjunction with one another, should give fairly accurate information as to the target’s trajectory and how he bears from us and how far he is away. This data will be fed into a tracking and range-keeping machine capable of handling the twisted three-dimensional curves involved, and which will at once indicate the time and distance of the closest point of approach. Both captains will at once begin planning the action. They may also attempt to adjust their courses slightly, but since the rockets evolve great heat, neither can hope to keep his action from the knowledge of the other owing to the sensitiveness of the thermoscopes.

The rangekeeping instrument suggested, while far surpassing in complexity anything we know of today, will represent a much smaller technical advance than the rockets which drive the ships that house them. We already have similar machines, so that their counterparts of the future would seem much less mysterious to us than, say, the Walschaert’s valve gear to Hero or Archimedes, or the Jacquard loom to the weavers of the Gobelin tapestries.

Assuming we have, by observation and plotting, full knowledge of the enemy’s path and have come almost into position to commence the engagement, we find ourselves confronted once more with the two overwhelming factors of space warfare – great distance and immense speeds – but this time in another aspect. We have come up close to our foe – in fact we are within twenty seconds of intersecting his trajectory – and our distance apart is a mere four hundred miles [643 km]. It is when we get to close quarters that the tremendous problems raised by these lightning-like speeds manifest themselves most vividly.

Look at Fig. 2.

The elapsed time from the commencement of the engagement until the end is less than twenty seconds. Our ship is making forty miles per second, the other fellow is doing thirty-three. We will never be closer than fifty miles, even if we regard the curves as drawn as being in the same plane. If one rides over or below the other, that minimum range will be greater. What kind of projectile can cross the two or three hundred miles separating the two converging vessels in time to collide with the enemy? Shooting cannon with velocities as low as a few miles per second would be like sending a squadron of snails out from the curb to intercept an oncoming motorcycle – it would be out of sight in the distance before they were well started.

Projectiles from guns, if they were to be given velocities in the same relation to ships’ speeds that prevail at present, would have to be stepped up to speeds of three to four thousand miles per second! A manifest impossibility. It would be difficult, indeed, to hurl any sort of projectile away from the ship at greater initial velocities than the ship’s own speed. Such impulses, eighty times stronger than the propelling charge of today’s cannon, would cause shocks of incredible violence. It follows from that that an overtaken ship is comparatively helpless – unless she is in a position to drop mines – for whatever missiles she fires have the forward inertia of the parent ship and will therefore be sluggish in their movement in any direction but ahead.

Another difficulty connected with gunfire is the slowness with which it comes into operation. This may seem to some to be a startling statement, but we are dealing here with astonishing speeds. When the firing key of a piece of modern artillery is closed, the gun promptly goes off with a bang. To us that seems to be a practically instantaneous action. Yet careful time studies show the following sequence of events: the primer fires, the powder is ignited and burns, the gases of combustion expand and start the shell moving down the tube. The elapsed time from the “will to fire” to the emergence of the projectile from the muzzle is about one tenth of a second. In Fig. 2 our target will have moved more than three miles while our shell is making its way to the mouth of the cannon! It looks as if guns wouldn’t do.

I come to that conclusion very reluctantly, for I am quite partial to guns as amazingly flexible and reliable weapons, but when we consider that both powders and primers vary somewhat in their time of burning, there is also a variable error of serious proportions added to the above slowness. It is more likely that the rocket-torpedoes suggested by Mr. Willy Ley in a recent article on space war will be the primary weapon of the future. They have the advantage of auto-acceleration and can therefore build up speed to any desired value after having been launched.

The exact moment of their firing would have to be computed by the tracking machine, as no human brain could solve such a problem in the time allowed. But even assuming machine accuracy, great delicacy in tube-laying and micro-timing, the chances of a direct hit cm the target with a single missile is virtually nil. For all their advanced instruments, it is probable that all such attacks will be made in salvos, or continuous barrages, following the time-honored shotgun principle. For the sake of simplicity, only two such salvos are shown on the diagram, but probably they would be as nearly continuous as the firing mechanisms of the tubes would permit. Any reader with a flair for mathematics is invited to compute the trajectories of the torpedoes. The ones shown were fired dead abeam in order to gain distance toward the enemy as rapidly as possible.

It is desirable that these torpedoes should vanish as soon as practicable after having overrun their target. To that end their cases are made of thin magnesium, and between the head and the fuel compartment is a space filled with compressed oxygen and a small bursting charge The tip of the head is loaded with liquid mercury.

Such a massive projectile would penetrate any spaceship with ease, but if it missed it would burst as soon as the fuel supply was spent and then consume itself in brilliant flame, thus avoiding littering the Spaceways with dangerous fragments.

Spotting, as we know it, would be impossible, for the target would be invisible. Hits would have to be registered by the thermoscope, utilizing the heat generated by the impact. The gunnery officer could watch the flight of his torpedoes by their fiery wakes, and see his duds burst; that might give him an idea on which side of the enemy they passed in the event the thermoscopes registered no hits.

If there were guns – and they might be carried for stratosphere use – they could be brought into action at about “15,” firing broad on the starboard quarter. The shells, also of self-destroying magnesium, would lose some of their forward velocity and drift along in the wake of the ship while at the same time making some distance toward the oncoming enemy. These guns would be mounted in twin turrets, one on the roof and the other on the keel, cross-connected so that they would be trained and fired together. It the ships center of gravity lay exactly between them, their being fired would not tend to put the ship into a spin in any direction. What little torque there might be, due to inequalities in the firing charge, would be taken care of by the ship’s gyro stabilizer, an instrument also needed on board to furnish a sphere of reference so that the master could keep track of his orientation.

If upon arriving at point “16” the enemy were still full of fight and desperate measures were called for, we could lay down mines. These hard little pellets would be shot out of mine-laying tubes clustered about the main driving jets. They would be shot out at slight angles from the fore-and-aft line, and given a velocity exactly equal to the ship’s speed, so that they would hang motionless where they were dropped. Being cheap and small, they could be laid so thickly that the enemy could not fail to encounter several of them. If she had survived up to this point, the end would come here.

The end, that is, of the cruiser as a fighting unit. Riddled and torn, perhaps a shapeless mass of tangled wreckage, she would go hurtling on by, forever bound to her marauding trajectory. The first duty of our cruiser would be to broadcast warnings to the System, reporting the location of its own mine-field, and giving the direction taken by the shattered derelict. Sweepers would be summoned to collect the mines with powerful electromagnets, while tugs would pursue and clear the sky of the remnants of the defeated Martian.

______________________________

Illustration by Hubert Rogers, for “Second Stage Lensman – Part I“, by Edward E. Smith, PhD., from Astounding Science Fiction, November, 1941, page 35. (Cover, below, also by Rogers.)

____________________

Illustration by Hubert Rogers, for “Children of the Lens – Conclusion“, by Edward E. Smith, PhD., from Astounding Science Fiction, February, 1948, page 122. (Cover, below, by Alejandro Canedo)

______________________________