My recent posts about the reality of space warfare – as imagined in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939 – present articles by Malcolm R. Jameson and Willy Ley, and, readers’ responses. That Willy Ley would figure so prominently in this topic is hardly surprising, for by profession he was a science writer with a lifelong focus in rocketry and space exploration, though his interests did extend further, encompassing the pseudoscience of – *ahem* – cryptozoology. The true scope of his enormous output can be fully appreciated by even the quickest glance at his biographical profile at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. He body of work was quite multi-faceted, for it comprised a novel, letters, book reviews, interior art (primarily in 1948 issues of Astounding), twenty-two perhaps-more-better-known non-fiction books, as well as – well, primarily! – essays and articles for mid-twentieth-century science fiction pulps. An example of the latter is his oeuvre for Galaxy Science Fiction, whichbetween 1952 and 1969 published over 150 of his articles under the heading “For Your Information”.
His straightforward science journalism was accompanied by four (or five, depending on how you count?!) works of fiction. The “first” four are…
“At the Perihelion” (1937) “Orbit XXIII-H” (1938) “Fog” (1940) “The Invasion” (1940)
…the first three of these having been published in Astounding, and “The Invasion” in Super Science Stories.
Having read “Fog” (while preparing this post, and my posts about Space Warfare), I have to confess that I found it to be utterly underwhelming. Except for being placed in a metropolitan setting in post-1940s America, it’s much more a tale of totalitarian surveillance (hmmm…!) and political chaos (hmmm…?) in a dystopian future, I think inspired by Ley’s own experiences in Nazi Germany, from which he fled in early 1935. So, the simple title – it is apropos! – connotes the constant sense of uncertainty that pervades daily life in such a situation. (Once again, hmmm…!!) Otherwise, Charles Schneeman’s two illustrations for the story were better than the mere story itself!
Given Willy Ley’s huge body of work and influence in popularizing rocketry and space exploration, the abundance of information about him is entirely unsurprising. However, while delving into his biography amidst my posts on space warfare, I came across the following poignant news item by New York Times science writer Walter Sullivan: It’s Willy Ley’s obituary, published after his passing on June 24, 1969. While the obit doesn’t necessarily present information not already known and available elsewhere, it’s still of historical interest in terms of the details of Ley’s personal life, and, how a figure so significant in the worlds of science and journalism (like Walter Sullivan, himself!) was perceived in the popular press.
Here it is:
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Willy Ley, Prolific Science Writer, Is Dead at 62
Prophesied Travel in Space in Book Issued in 1926 Fled Germany in ‘35 – Tested Rockets in Westchester
By WALTER SULLIVAN
The New York Times June 25, 1969
Willy Ley, who helped usher in the age of rocketry and then became perhaps its chief popularizer, died yesterday morning at his home In Jackson Heights, Queens. His age was 62.
Mr. Ley, the author of more than 30 books in English and German, was a frequent lecturer as well as teacher and industrial consultant.
His death, apparently from a heart attack, came suddenly. About a week ago a medical checkup had disclosed a circulatory disorder and he was taking digitalis.
Earlier in the day, in a telephone conversation with a book publisher, Mr. Ley spoke of the possibility that he might have to follow man’s first flight to the moon by television from his home, instead of from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Texas. It was a disappointing prospect, for Mr. Ley had been one of the earliest protagonists of such a flight.
He was born in Berlin in 1906 and his early studies, at the Universities of Berlin and Konigsberg, were in astronomy, physics, zoology and paleontology (the study of fossils). Some of his most successful books were on exotic beasts of fact and myth.
However, in 1927 he and his German colleagues were inspired by the writings of Hermann Oberth to found the Society for Space Travel. A punctilious registrar in Breslau at first refused to permit the group to incorporate under the title Verein fur Raumschiffahrt because, he said, the last word of the title (meaning “space travel”) did not exist in the German language.
Collaborated on Films
Mr. Ley’s first book on space travel appeared in 1926 and during that period he collaborated with Fritz Lang in several German science-fiction films, including one entitled “Frau im Mond” (“Woman in the Moon”).
(Here’s “Frau im Mond”, from Daily Motion.)
(And, a sort-of-counterpart to Lang’s film, from a decade later: Vasili Zhuravlov’s “Cosmic Voyage” (Космический Рейс – Kosmicheskiy reys) from 1936.
Among those whom he recruited into the Society for Space Travel was a young man named Werner Von Braun who ultimately became a leader in German military rocket development. After World War I, when Dr. Von Braun had begun working with the American rocket program, he and Mr. Ley collaborated on several books including “The Exploration of Mars.”
As the Nazis rose to power they were determined to take over rocket research from the society. The latter, through a series of flights with primitive liquid-fueled rockets from an abandoned ammunition dump on the outskirts of Berlin, had shown that rockets could be used to circumvent provisions in the Versailles Treaty forbidding German development of artillery.
In 1935, Mr. Ley got word to Dutch and British friends that he was in trouble with the Gestapo. He had been ordered to cease writing on rocketry for foreign publications and did so, but some of his earlier articles being held in reserve by British newspapers appeared after this edict.
Mr. Ley left for Britain and then was brought to the United States under the auspices of the American Interplanetary Society (which about this time changed its name to the American Rocket Society). Members of this group put up bond to permit his entry into the country.
Built Test Stand
Mr. Ley lived for half a year with G. Edward Pendray, head of the American Rocket Society, and the two men built a test stand for small rockets near Mr. Pendray’s home in Crestwood, N.Y. It was in a swamp between Scarsdale and Bronxville.
Mr. Pendray recalled yesterday the alarm of neighbors at the roaring of rockets on their test stand. However Mr. Ley’s activities as an experimenter gave way to concentration on writing.
He turned out a steady stream of books and articles. Interest in rocketry and space travel was low at the time and his titles ran to such subjects as “Salamanders and Other Wonders,” “Dragons in Amber” and “The Lungfish, The Dodo and the Unicorn.”
However when the rockets developed by his former colleagues in Germany began flying across the English Channel, there was a dramatic change. The demand for expert writing on rocketry became insatiable.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ley in 1940 joined the newspaper PM as science editor and soon met a Russian-born ballet dancer, Olga Feldman [Feldmann], who was writing a column on physical fitness for the newspaper. They were married in 1941.
Soon afterward, Mrs. Ley was doing research for her husband at a public library and read to him, over the phone, certain information on rockets that she had uncovered there. Someone in the next phone booth overheard transmission of this information in a Russian accent and reportedly notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It took a certain amount of explaining to convince the Federal authorities that nothing untoward was going on.
In 1944 he became a United States citizen and left PM. He became further identified with space travel with such books as “Watchers of the Skies,” “Conquest of Space” and “Rockets, Missiles and Men in Space.” He also developed a powerful lecture style.
One close acquaintance noted yesterday that Mr. Ley’s big frame and German accent conspired to give him an impressively authoritative manner. Perhaps, he suggested, that was why Mr. Ley unconsciously retained the accent, even though he became fluent in his spoken and written English.
One of those who knew him well said he was a natural lecturer, “not only on the platform, but in private.”
“If you asked him a question you got a lecture,” he said, adding that Mr. Ley’s knowledge was “encyclopedic.”
Mr. Ley enjoyed good food, good drink and good conversation and belonged to a small convivial group of writers and scholars known as the “Trap Door Spiders,” who met once a month. The name, members say, is based on the practice of such spiders in closing a trap door to escape their mates.
He was a great admirer of Wagner operas and could accompany himself on the piano as he sang- Wagnerian arias.
Publishing associates said yesterday that Mr. Ley had at least six books under contract. He had told Scribners that next Monday he would deliver the final section of “Man and the Moon,” a major work, in preparation for five years. It deals with the role of the moon in music and literature.
Mr. Ley, one of his book editors said, was “like those 19th-century natural scientists who were up on every field of science.” He had been on the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University for many years.
While Mr. Ley was an ardent promoter of trips to Mars and other distant bodies, his earliest passion was for the moon.
“The moon is still silvery in the night sky,” he wrote in The New York Times last year, “but it is no longer unreachable.”
“In 1930 I introduced a number of aeronautical engineers in Berlin to the first liquid fuel rocket they had ever seen,” he said. “It stood about 5 feet tall and, even when fueled, was light enough to be lifted with one hand. It could climb about 1500 feet and was brought back by parachute.
“What, the engineers wanted to know, was the aim of all this? Eventually, I replied, rockets of this type will carry men to the moon.”
Mr. Ley lived to within one month of the scheduled fulfillment of his prophecy.
Besides his widow, he is survived by two daughters, Sandra Ley and Mrs. Xenia Parker of 252 East 61st Street. Since World War II Mr. Ley had lived at 37-26 77th Street in Jackson Heights
The funeral will take place ‘tomorrow at 1 P.M. at the Walter B. Cooke funeral home, 1504 Third Avenue.
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Despite Willy Ley’s prominence in the history of science journalism, oddly, no information is available about his place of burial. However (!), if we’re talking biographical details, here’s the Declaration of Intention for American citizenship that he filed on June 22, 1937, five months after he reached Miami – from Havana – on February 2 of that year. Note that, appropriate to his current and future career, he listed his profession as “Scientific Research Writer”. (This document’s from Ancestry.com.)
A Reference or Two, or Three, and More, for Willy O.O. (Otto Oskar) Ley, at…
…Archive.org – Publications (262 scanned works – includes monographs, but primarily comprised of issues of science-fiction pulps featuring his articles.)
…Project Gutenberg (7 books. These appear to be juvenile or young adult fiction, all authored by Carey Rockwell, with Willy Ley as “Technical Advisor”.)
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.
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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.
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.
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.
The two in combination made a notable appearance in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939, in the form of two articles (and letters in reply) concerning the technology and tactics of war in space. This material is fascinating from the perspectives of culture and history, and a few years back, I posted transcripts of and commentary about these articles at one of my brother blogs, thepastpresented.
Though that blog isn’t presently “up and running” (oh, well!) I’m recreating these posts here at WordsEnvisioned, because they so nicely compliment the themes of this blog, which include science fiction, pulp magazines, and – to a greater or lesser or uncertain extent! – technology and military history, as displayed in book and magazine art.
So, “this” is the first of these three posts: Covering Willy Ley’s article “Space War” in the August, 1939, issue of Astounding. Enjoy!
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So.
…lately, I’ve been perusing my collection of science-fiction pulps – Astounding Science Fiction; Analog; Galaxy Science Fiction; The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; Startling Stories; Beyond Fantasy-Fiction, and more – admiring cover and interior art; admiring the primacy of pigment on paper versus the stale purity of pixels; and especially appreciating the contrast between the first time I read “such and such” story in a paperback anthology; say, Fredric Brown’s “Arena“, in Volume I of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame – versus that tale in its original incarnation in the June, 1944 issue of Astounding.
It seems.
…that the very contrast between things; events; images – as we remember them – and as they actually are, can be of deeper impact that those very “things” themselves.
And.
…that “contrast” can easily extend to the taken-for-granted realms of ideas or technology. In the realm of science fiction, striking examples of this – in juxtaposition to the “world” of the 2020s – appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in August and November of 1939, in the form of articles by Willy Ley and Malcolm Jameson. Respectively entitled “Space War” and “Space War Tactics”, both authors presented analyses of how battles between spacecraft (specifically, ship-versus-ship combat) would actually be conducted. It’s particularly fascinating to read these articles in the context of science and technology of the late 1930s, versus how such combat would be imagined in subsequent decades.
Well.
…I enjoyed reading these articles. And, in light of contemporary and ongoing news about “space” having become a realm of military activity, at a level even beyond what’s transpired since the early 1960s, I thought you’d appreciate them, too.
Anyway.
….what I’ve done is fully transcribe both articles as separate posts, as they originally appeared in Astounding. The posts include the illustrations and captions that appeared in the original articles, to which I’ve tossed in some videos, links to additional sources of information, and biographical information about one author – Malcolm Jameson – in particular. In the latter article (in the next post), velocities listed in the text have been recalculated as miles (statue miles) and kilometers per hour.
Purposefully.
…These posts aren’t intended to critique the technological validity of the analyses and conclusions arrived at by Ley and Jameson. Rather, they’re instead to open a window upon the intellectual, scientific, and even social “flavor” of the times. While some of the authors’ analyses and conclusions will be incorrect, quaint, or passe in light of scientific and technological developments that have occurred in the eight decades since their publication, I can’t help but wonder about the relevance and validity of at least some of their insights, in terms of general concepts about kinetic (projectile) weapons versus “rays”, “beams”, or, aspects of identification, tracking, and aiming by opposing spacecraft. So, each article is preceded by a summary of its central points, with the most notable passages of the text being italicized and in dark red text, like these last fourteen words in this sentence.Both posts conclude with links to videos covering spacecraft-versus-spacecraft battles, and “space war”, in greater detail.
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Here’s Willy Ley’s “Space War” from August of 1939.
Some general “take-aways” from his article are:
1) The technology needed for spacecraft already exists, even in rudimentary form.
2) The possibility exists that civilization will progress to such a point where war will become outlawed. But, given human nature, in the more likely alternative, the potential and impetus for human conflict that’s always existed on earth will continue as man explores space.
3) By definition, the nature of space conflict will parallel aerial combat between warplanes, by occurring in three dimensions.
4) In literary depictions of space warfare, a common plot element has been the use of directed energy weapons, like infrared projectors.
However, a weapon far more mundane and less dramatic, yet more effective, practical, and solidly within the realm of technological development and practical use is some variant of “the gun”: “Well, I still believe that there is no better, more efficient and more deadly weapon for space warfare than an accurate gun with high muzzle velocity. And I believe that an intelligent being from another planet, that is advanced enough to build or at least to understand spaceships, will look like a man – at least to somebody who does not see very well and cannot find his glasses.”
5) The technology envisioned for energy or beam weapons – “ray projectors” – even if these can successfully be developed – is prohibitively heavy and bulky for use in spacecraft.
6) Assuming that some form of “gun” is used in space warfare, the projectiles fired by such weapons would be analogous to those used in conventional, “earth-bound” conflicts, albeit specifically relevant to spacecraft-versus-spacecraft battles. These would be: 1) High explosive thin-walled shells, and 2) Shells containing large numbers of individual non-explosive projectiles.
7) Some science fiction depictions of space warfare rely on the concept of defensive “screens” (analogous to the use of deflector shields in Star Trek?). But, can “screens” of whatever nature – “gravity screens” in particular – even be developed, n light of current and future knowledge about the nature of gravity?
8) Rockets would be a possible weapon in space battles, albeit this being 1939, Ley is discussing unguided rockets. The disadvantages of such weapons are that they could be (relatively) easily spotted, it would be impractical and dangerous to store a large quantity of combustible and explosive material aboard a spacecraft, and, the size and mass of such weapons.
9) Space battles would be characterized by craft camouflaged “night-black”, using any possible measures to reduce their thermal signatures.
10) Ammunition would be used “sparingly” due to the danger of intact ordnance remaining in orbit around the Sun. (Or, any old sun.)
11) It would be essential to compensate for the recoil effects of any weapon – or more likely combination of weapons – located at scattered points on a spacecraft’s hull (think of an analogue to the five gun turrets (four remote-control) of a WW II B-29 Superfortress), on the spacecraft’s trajectory, by the craft’s main engine, or, maneuvering thrusters.
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Oh, before we start with Ley’s article, a comment about this issue’s cover art: This is the only issue of Astounding Science Fiction for which the cover illustration – for which any illustration, really – was created by Virgil Finlay. Given Finlay’s superb – sometimes astonishing; almost preternatural; in my opinion quite unparalleled – artistic skill, I’d long wondered why an artist of his caliber had no other association with Astounding, given the magazine’s centrality to the development of science fiction as a literary genre.
The answer to this question – excerpted this from this post – follows:
Except for an unfortunate experience Finlay might have become a regular illustrator for Astounding Science-Fiction, then the field leader.
Street & Smith had launched a companion titled Unknown, to deal predominantly in fantasy. Finlay had been commissioned to do several interior drawings for a novelette The Wisdom of the Ass, which finally appeared in the February, 1940 Unknown as the second in a series of tales based on modern Arabian mythology, written by the erudite wrestler and inventor, Silaki Ali Hassan.
John W. Campbell had come into considerable criticism for the unsatisfactory cover work of Graves Gladney on Astounding Science-Fiction during early 1939. So it was with a note of triumph, in projecting the features of the August, 1939 issue, he announced to his detractors:
“The cover, incidentally, should please some few of you. It’s being done by Virgil Finlay, and illustrates the engine room of a spaceship. Gentlemen, we try to please!”
The cover proved a shocking disappointment. Illustrating Lester del Rey’s The Luck of Ignatz, its crudely drawn wooden human figures depicted operating an uninspired machine would have drawn rebukes from the readers of an amateur science-fiction fan magazine. The infinite detail and photographic intensity which trademarked Finlay was entirely missing.
No one was more sickened than Virgil Finlay. He had been asked to paint a gigantic engine room, in which awesome machinery dwarfed the men with implications of illimitable power. He had done just that; but the art director had taken a couple of square inches of his painting, blown it up to a full-size cover and discarded the rest. The result was horrendous. A repetition of it would have seriously damaged his reputation, so Finlay refused to draw for Street and Smith again.
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And so, now on to Willy Ley’s article…
SPACE WAR
Suggesting that rays, ray screens, and all super-potent weapons of science-fiction aren’t half as deadly as a weapon we already have.
By Willy Ley
Illustrated by Willy Ley Astounding Science Fiction August, 1939
ABOUT ten years ago, Professor Hermann Oberth, the famous rocket expert, made an interesting experiment which, although having to do with rockets, required neither laboratory nor proving ground. It was a legal experiment. Professor Oberth submitted to the German Patent Office a complete description, with drawings, of a “Space Rocket.” It was, virtually, a spaceship with all the details he had been able to think of in many years of study.
After the usual acknowledgment, there was complete silence for some time. Then one day a bulky letter arrived from the patent office, containing the expected rejection. But it was more than just a rejection. Patent offices do not reject things without explaining why. And the staff of the patent office did explain. They had pried the plans apart and patiently and expertly examined every part of them. And after really tremendous research and labor they had arrived at the conclusion that Professor Oberth’s plans could not be patented because every part and device was known to engineering science and had been patented before in some country by somebody else. (1)
The decision, or rather the explanation given, was in a way more valuable than the granting of a patent would have been. It proved that spaceships arc not so far beyond the horizon as most people think – the very conservative and very careful staff of a patent office had found that they existed already – only in parts scattered all over and throughout civilization. Periscopes, air purifiers, air-proof hulls, automatic devices and instruments of all kinds, water regenerators, et cetera, et cetera – they all exist and not even the much-discussed rocket motors are really novel. Devices very similar to those needed on a tremendous scale for spaceships have already been built on a small scale for gas turbines.
It is, of course, true that, in spite of the decision of the patent office, space-ships arc still to be invented. Every one of the thousand and one parts needs special adaptation, re-designing and re-research. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, and much has to be “invented.” Point is, however, that there is nothing new in principle that is needed for space travel. It was almost the same story with airplanes forty years ago. Everything needed to build an airplane existed. There was steel tubing and the art of welding it. There were sheet aluminum and rubber. There were wheels and propellers, wings were known and gasoline engines could be bought. The invention of the airplane was delayed because those engines were too weak – it is exactly the same with rocket motors.
With more powerful engines came airplanes. And with airplanes came thoughts of military application. At first only observing was contemplated. Even in actual war – 1914 – airplanes did not combat each other at first. They observed enemy movements were fired at from the ground and retaliated with primitive bombs. But the pilots of two airplanes meeting in the air are said to have saluted each other – flying alone was dangerous enough. Then one day somebody began to shoot with a pistol and soon planes were having machine- gun combats.
It is only logical to assume that space war will follow the advent of the spaceship as aerial warfare followed in the wake of the airplane. Not from the very outset, probably, because the first space-ships will entail sufficient risk of life in themselves. But later spaceships will have means to combat each other in space and one day somebody will find, or create, a reason to use these means. It is possible, though not any too likely, that mankind will have progressed beyond the use of brute force when space travel has advanced to a fair degree of perfection. And if by then war has already been successfully outlawed, there will be space police and blockade runners. There will be combat, even if not war.
So much for the likeliness of battles in space – even without the famous invasion from an alien solar system. How will these battles be fought? New means of transportation bring new kinds of battle tactics. Roman chariots fought in another manner than the horsemen of Dshingis Khan. Byzantine galleys employed other tactics than Sir Francis Drake, and he had other ideas of naval battle than the commander of the U.S.S. Washington.
IN AERIAL BATTLE a new element became important, the maneuverability in three dimensions. It was not the better gun or the faster plane that decided many single engagements, but the Immelmann turn. Evidently space war will develop its own tactics – but tactics depend also to a very great extent on the type of armament in use. That, of course, does not present any question to the science-fiction fan. He knows it by heart from hundreds of stories, the authors of which neither overexerted their imagination nor perceive a need for too much originality. Traditionally spaceships attack each other with heat-ray projectors of incredible temperature and tremendous capacity; they probe into each other’s vitals with searing needle rays. They bombard each other’s screens with proton guns and barytron blasters. They waste energy in appalling quantities, they do anything but shoot.
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Figure 1. Pressure curves the barrels of guns.
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To pull the lanyard of a shiny 75-millimeter nickel-steel gun would be too trivial a thing to do. Just about as trivial, in fact, as to picture a race of bearded men in white silk dresses armed with crossbows on a planet of Beta Draconis. The beings that live there must be walking octopi, waving heat guns and disintegrator pistols in their tentacles. Normal human-looking people would not be hostile enough to the visitors from Terra, and spaceships with simple guns would certainly be ridiculous and puny. Besides, guns would be to no avail against the ultrarefractory super alloys of the spaceships, and the shells would simply be deflected by force fields.
Well, I still believe that there is no better, more efficient and more deadly weapon for space warfare than an accurate gun with high muzzle velocity. And I believe that an intelligent being from another planet, that is advanced enough to build or at least to understand spaceships, will look like a man – at least to somebody who does not see very well and cannot find his glasses.
Before going into detail about the advantages of guns it is advisable to contemplate the relative merits of ray projectors. That they do not exist now is immaterial; science-fiction is not only concerned with things that are but also with those that might be. How would they look if they did exist? They would consist of two main parts, the mechanism that produces and projects the rays and the power plant that feeds said mechanism.
Power plants are notoriously heavyand, even if we assume atomic power, the power generator will not be just a vest-pocket affair. It would probably need a lot of insulation and a powerful cooling device. We can say with certainty that it would be heavy and bulky. Also, it will probably be sensitive against shaking and jarring, and it would be unpleasant indeed to see all the atomic converters go out of action in the middle of a battle. The ray generator itself would most certainly be sensitive since we have to assume tubes of some kind. And these sensitive ray projectors would have to be in the outer hull of the ship – or even outside the outer hull – so that they do not damage the wrong hull.
So much for the “merits” of ray generators. Now the rays themselves. Even the most powerful and most fantastically destructive ray will need some time to inflict damage. Which implies the need for complicated sighting and focusing devices. How well the rays will focus is another question. Almost invariably the beams will spread out with distance. The farther the target is away the weaker the radiation becomes. The weaker it becomes the longer it has to strike. But holding a ray on a fast-moving distant target, that might be practically invisible with black paint against the background of black space, is no small job.
Besides, those rays are supposed to be more than mere searchlights. They are supposed to have unpleasant destructive qualities, being twelve thousand degrees hot, for example. Naturally the generator has to be able to endure its own heat. But, 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 hull of the ship that is being rayed – especially since the energy concentration at the receiving end is only a fraction of that at the giving end.
John W. Campbell evaded all these troublesome questions nicely in his “Mightiest Machine” by introducing the transpon beams. These rays are fairly innocent in themselves, but they have the ability of carrying a large variety and an enormous quantity of vicious radiations originating elsewhere and not touching the projectors. It is possible that something like this might be accomplished one day, but ordinary rays, as they are usually featured in science-fiction stories, have no place in actual future space war. Even if they could be generated they would not have any practical military value.
A GUN is a much nicer instrument. It is compact and sturdy, cannot be damaged by anything less potent than a direct hit from another gun, and does not require a special power plant. Compared to what one would have to carry around to produce even feeble rays the weight of a gun is small. Besides, a gun is something we do know how to handle. More than six centuries of continuous use have taught us how to take advantage of the fact that certain mixtures of chemicals burn with utmost rapidity and produce large quantities of gases while doing so.
That fact permits three main types of possible application, every one of them in use in ordinary warfare and fit to be used in space war, too. The large volume of gas that is generated suddenly can either he used to destroy its container and whatever happens to be around – that’s the principle of the bomb. Or it might be discharged comparatively slowly through a hole in the container so that the recoil moves the container – the principle of the rocket. Finally it might be discharged suddenly through a tube which is blocked by a solid movable object that is then blown out vehemently at high speed just like a dart from a blow gun – the principle of the firearm. All three, bomb, rocket and gun, were invented in rapid succession soon after the discovery of gunpowder.
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Figure 2. Three types of explosive shells. Type A is a light, bursting shell, for surface damage. B, heavily cased with armor, is designed to penetrate steel and concrete armor before bursting. C is a sort of “flying machine-gun,” a shrapnel shell to scatter hundreds of deadly pellets as bursting.
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Figure 3. Antirecoil device for gases. The explosion gasses, turned backward, tend to kick the rifle forward as hard as the bullet’s recoil kicks it backward.
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The latter was found in China around the year 1200 A.D., certainly not much earlier – the statements of old encyclopedias notwithstanding. Bombs and powder rochets were used for the first time in 1232 during the bottle of Pien-king. They were then “newly invented.” As to guns we think that we even know the exact year of their invention. The Memoriebook (chronicle) of the city of Ghent contains under the year 1313 the entry:
“Item, in dit jaer was aldereerst gevonden in Duitschland het gebruik der bussen van eenen mueninck.” Translation: “By the way, during this year the use of bussen was discovered for the first time by a monk in Germany.”
“Bussen” meaning portable guns. The oldest picture of a gun can be found in an Oxford manuscript, De Officiis Regum, from the year 1326. Eighty years later guns were known in all civilized countries.
[Note: I believe that Willy Ley made an error in the manuscript’s title – De Officiis Regum – which should actually be De nobilitatibus, sapientiis, et prudentiis regum, which translates as “Of the Nobilities of Wise and Prudent Kings“. Indeed penned Walter de Milemete in 1326, the book was, “…commissioned by Queen Isabella of France [as a] treatise on kingship for her son, the young prince Edward, later king Edward III of England.” The book’s now available atArchive.org, where it’s described as having been “Reproduced in facsimile from the unique manuscript preserved at Christ Church, Oxford [1913], together with a selection of pages from the companion manuscript of the treatise De secretis secretorum Aristotelis, preserved in the library of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham hall.”
The illustration referred to by Willy Ley can be found on page 140 (248 of the digitized book), where it appears at the bottom of the page…
Though the digital version of the the Oxford edition appears in black & white, the specific illustration in question – the oldest known visual representation of a gun (actually, a cannon) – is found in the Wikipedia entry forWalter de Milemete. Here is is…]
But it took more than four centuries until the science of ballistics came into being. A great many other sciences, especially mathematics, had to be developed first before the performance of a gun could be predicted to a certain extent.
Ballistics arc extremely complicated, and it is hard to tell whether interior or exterior ballistics present fewer or lesser headaches. The term “exterior ballistics” applies to the movement of the projectile from the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun until it hits the target. “Interior ballistics,” consequently means the movement of the projectile within the gun barrel. The principles are simple in both cases.
The distance reached by a projectile is determined by its muzzle velocity that should be as high as possible and by the angle of elevation where 45 degrees represents the optimum. High muzzle velocity is, therefore, the main goal, and the laws of interior ballistics tell how it can best be attained. There are only a few forces at work. The expanding gases that result from the explosion of the driving charge push the projectile ahead of them, the higher the pressure, the faster. And the longer the barrel the more time to push. Counteracting forces are the inertia of the projectile and its friction against the walls of the barrel. It seems, therefore, that the barrel should he very long and very smooth, the pressure very high and the projectile very light.
Unfortunately it is not quite as simple as becomes apparent if we follow the events in a more detailed form. The shot begins with the ignition of the driving charge. It is here where things look most beautiful. One kilogram of ordinary black gunpowder produces 285 liters of gas at the temperature of zero degrees centigrade, the freezing point of water. One kilogram of TNT develops 592 liters, one kilogram of nitroglycerin 713 liters, and one kilogram of nitro-cellulose powder even 990 liters. Now these volumes are valid for zero degrees centigrade. But the gases are hot, their volume increases by about one third of the zero degree volume for each 100° C. rise. And the temperature of combustion is high, about 2000° C. for black powder, 2600° C. for TNT, 3100° C. for nitroglycerin and 2200° C. for nitro-cellulose powder. There is a limit as to what the barrel can stand and don’t forget that it is supposed to have a service life, too. Things are a little easier if the powder burns rapidly but not instantaneously; the reason, incidentally, why only a very few known explosives can be used as driving charges. A short moment after complete combustion of the driving charge the internal pressure reaches its highest point, afterward expansion alone works.
THE LENGTH of a barrel is usually expressed not in inches or centimeters, but in calibers, a word which came from the Arab, where it means “model” (standard). Very short stubby mortar barrels are 12-15 calibers long, heavy naval gun 40-50 calibers and infantry rifles even 90 calibers. They are not smooth but “rifled”, having a spiral groove which forces the projectiles to spin around their longitudinal axes. Artillery shells fit the barrel loosely – the rifle effect and the gas tight fit are accomplished by copper rings laid around the shell.
We have arrived at the point where the gases drive the shell by their expansion only. The speed of the projectile is still increasing then, but not for very long. The infantry rifle 98 [referring to theGerman Gewehr 98 bolt action rifle?] that was and is in use in a number of European armies and has been investigated very thoroughly, may now serve as an example, its bore is 0.3 inches, the “bullet” weighs 10 grams, the driving charge 3.2 grams. The barrel is 29.1 inches, or about 90 calibers long.
The bullet leaves the muzzle with a velocity of 2936 feet per second, involving a small loss of energy since the muzzle velocity could be 66 feet higher if the barrel were 45-4 inches or 150 calibers long. These figures show how much the friction in the barrel retards the bullet. To attain a speed of 2936 feet per second a barrel length of 90 calibers is required. But an additional length of 60 calibers would increase the muzzle velocity by only 66 feet. No wonder the designers preferred to save these 66 feet, and save weight and material. If the barrel was much longer, the bullet would not leave it. That’s what would happen in the case of rifle 98 if the length of the barrel surpassed 23 feet.
In special cases longer barrels were built: The 80-mile gun that fired at Paris from the forest of Crepy in March, 1918 (2) had a barrel that was 118 feet or 170 calibers long. However, only three quarters of that barrel were rifled, the last 45 calibers of length were smooth. Another retarding factor, not often mentioned and apparently not yet fully determined is the air above the shell in the barrel. Since the projectile acquires supersonic speeds, that air cannot escape but has to be compressed, which might mean a considerable loss in the case of a long gun of large caliber. Point one in favor of guns in space war: they do not have to spend that energy.
When the projectile leaves the muzzle the trouble really starts. Older books say that the trajectory is a parabola – it is elliptical with the center of the Earth as one of the focal points of the ellipse. The trajectory is influenced by the rotation of the Earth, by the attraction of large mountains, by barometric pressure and by the humidity of the air and by a number of other factors that might be avoided by careful design. Incidentally, streamlining would be useless; we deal with supersonic velocities. While the shell rises the velocity decreases until the peak of the flight is reached. Then the velocity increases again, due to gravitational attraction, and decreases with mounting speed due to increasing air resistance.*
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*Most of these factors become noticeable only in long trajectories. The changes in velocity are beautifully shown in the following table, calculated by Max Valler for the trajectory of the Paris Gun – authentic data are still secret.
angle
distance (km)
altitude (km)
velocity (km/sec)
time (sec)
54
0
0
1.5
0
53
3.45
4.67
1.3
4.2
50
10.83
14.00
1.06
14.3
45
19.70
23.72
.93
27.3
40
26.80
30.33
.86
38.2
25
43.07
41.04
.72
62.1
0
63.34
46.20
.65
94.5
25
83.55
41.60
.71
120.0
40
99.06
31.20
.84
150.5
50
115.99
16.60
.95
173.3
53
122.00
6.12
.94
191.0
58
126.00
0
0.86
199.0
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The main factors are therefore, gravity and resistance – two more points in favor of the use of guns in space. There is no air resistance and the gravitational fields are weak where spaceships usually travel.
That bullet from infantry rifle 98 has near its muzzle 3000 foot pounds of kinetic energy. When it hits a target 3280 feet (1 kilometer) from the muzzle its kinetic energy is only 336 foot pounds, and at 2 kilometers a mere 88 foot pounds. The extreme range of that rifle is about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles), but if there were no air it would carry more than 70 kilometers (43.5 miles). Rifles do not attain more than 5% of their vacuum range under normal surface conditions, field artillery pieces attain about 20%, heavy artillery shells about 25%, long naval rifles of large caliber 30%, and long-range guns up to 50%, because the longer part of their trajectory is situated in the near- vacuum of the stratosphere.
In space in a weak gravitational field, the infantry rifle bullet would arrive at a target 20 miles distant – you could hardly aim without a telescope at something farther away – with about 3020 foot pounds of kinetic energy. No, “3020” is not a printing error, because the muzzle velocity would be higher, due to the lack of air resistance in the barrel!
AFTER being pleased so much with the performance of a portable rifle we’ll have a look at “real” guns. There exists an especially nice field piece, La Soixante-quinze, the famous French 75 millimeter gun. It has a 20-caliber barrel, about 7 feet 4 inches long. Its shell weighs 14.3 pounds, the muzzle velocity in air is 1970 feet per second, the kinetic energy at the muzzle about 2,800,000 foot pounds. [!?]
From Copper Range Productions, here’s an interesting video about the history, design, and use of the French 75 gun.
The barrel of the .75 weighs about 680 pounds, each cartridge about 22 pounds, so that gun, additional equipment and 150 rounds of ammunition amount to about two tons – not excessive a weight for a ship that does not have to carry passengers or cargo – say a Patrol cruiser – but very impressive an armament for a spaceship. Of course, the gun would not be a three-inch field piece. In a French paper on Avions de gros bombardement it was very recently pointed out that guns are much heavier than necessary.
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Figure 4. English war-rocket. This rocket shell is listed in the official British tables of war equipment – a modern, practical rocket shell.
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Designers simply did not pay much attention to weight as long as the gun did not become too heavy for land transport, or if – in case it was too heavy – could be divided into easy loads. Besides, military experts have their ideas about service life. One of my closest friends once designed a new type of compass for a firm working for one of the large European navies. After exhaustive tests that compass was rejectedbecause it was too light! It was later redesigned with parts and casings that were not stronger than the original parts, but multiplied the weight. The weight of gun barrels, to get back to the topic, could be reduced to about half without visibly shortening of service life and it could be reduced to a quarter if a shorter service life would be accepted. That brings even a six-inch long-range gun within reach for large cruisers that do patrol duty; for example, in circling planets. “Six-inch long range,” incidentally, means just that in space, it could shoot at enemies farther away than a portable telescope could show.
So there is certain no need for a special weapon. How about special shells? On Earth three main types are in use: One that dumps as much high explosive as a thin-walled shell will hold on the enemy; one that has to pierce armor and has, therefore, thicker walls and a very strong tip, and one that contains little explosive and many lead balls to scatter around against living targets.
Your first guess is probably that the armor-piercing type is the given projectile for space war. Which raises the question how much armor is to be pierced. Terrestrial field guns are equipped with a shield supposed to protect the gun crew against rifle and machine-gun fire and smaller splinters. Before the World War a shell of 3 millimeters was considered sufficient, but direct rifle fire from distances of a thousand feet or less penetrated them.
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Figure 5. Cross-section of proposed space rocket shell. To get striking power in a rocket equivalent to a 75 shell, the driving charge of the rocket would be inordinately heavy.
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Light battle cruisers on the seas carry a six-inch armor around; it would afford protection against hits from fairly distant 75 mm. guns. However, a six-inch armor is considered light; most warships carry ten-inch armor plate, and the heaviest battle wagons show up to 30 inches of armor. Now a battleship has only an armor belt, protecting the sides where hits are most likely, and protecting those spots where hits would be most destructive. A large section of the ship is protected by the water in which it floats. Spaceships are not so lucky as to have vulnerable points: they are vulnerable all around. Therefore, they need armor plate all over the hull.
The weight of such an armor is a nice example for mathematical enjoyment at breakfast or during a subway ride. We’ll say that a fair-sized spaceship is 90 yards [82.3 meters; 270 feet] long and 20 yards [18.3 meters; 60 feet] in diameter. To make matters easier we shall assume that the shape is cylindrical, to make up for the difference in surface between cylinder and cigar shape we’ll forget about top and bottom of the cylinder and restrict ourselves to the curved surface. That surface is equal to the length of the cylinder, multiplied by the diameter, times pi which makes 5070 square yards. One square yard of six-inch armor plate weighs not quite a ton. Multiplied by the number oi square yards we arrive at, roughly, twelve million pounds!
You can cut down for the thickness of the armor as much as you want. It will always be too heavy, until you arrive at plates of a thickness the outer hull would haw to have anyhow.
In short, a Spaceship cannot be protected by plate armor. Its only defense is its offensive power, since it can always carry guns hundreds of times as powerful as the heaviest possible armor. So we don’t need armor piercing projectiles, any projectile will penetrate the hull – even rifle bullets.
The important difference is that a spaceship cannot be sunk either – a fact not stressed enough by science-fiction authors. When a battleship gets a few really serious holes, it is soon out of action and it is relatively unimportant whether the crew abandons ship or sinks with it firing as long as they are above water. A few bad hits that struck a spaceship may disable it as a means of transportation, but it still does not disappear. If every man wears a spacesuit the loss of air can be temporarily disregarded. The various gun posts can and will continue firing until every man on board is disabled. (3)
Space war, therefore, calls for shells that either blast the enemy to smell pieces at once or for shells that quickly disable every man on board. Which means that either high-explosive shells with thin walls and much H-E are used, or else those shells that contain large numbers of individual bullets should be steel balls and not lead balls, as in terrestrial warfare If the range is short – as “short” ranges in space go – machine guns are not bad at all, or else that nice contraption that goes under the name of “Chicago Piano,” consisting of eight one-pounder rapid-fire guns mounted on one beam, each firing 200 rounds per minute. [QF 2-pounder Mk VIII naval gun, a.k.a. “multiple pom-pom”.] If a spaceship were subjected to the concert of a Chicago Piano for only one minute it would certainly look even worse than after a treatment with heat and disintegrator rays, especially since those rays are usually blocked in stories by adequate screens.
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“An eight gun 2-pounder QF Mk VIII anti-aircraft ‘Pom Pom’ gun installation.” (From History of War.)
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“If a spaceship were subjected to the concert of a Chicago Piano for only one minute it would certainly look even worse than after a treatment with heat and disintegrator rays…”
THOSE screens deserve a short discussion, too. As far as ray screens against hostile rays are concerned, we do not need to worry for long. Without effective rays there is no need for ray screens. But it is another story with those fictive screens that are supposed to offer protection against flying pieces of matter charged with kinetic energy. Could those force fields, or meteorite detectors, or whatever you like to call them be made to actually protect a spaceship? Strong electric or magnetic fields can deflect material bodies, but the influence is much too weak to avail against bullets with supersonic speeds. To create a field of such power and range would require equipment of such a ponderous mass and weight – even assuming atomic power – that nickel-steel armor might be lighter. Only gravity screens would really afford protection.
A gravity screen is supposed to set up a difference in gravity potential and to create what might be called a gravity shadow. A projectile that were to enter a gravity shadow would need as much kinetic energy as is normally required to overcome the difference of gravity potential in question. Since it is also usually assumed that the power of gravity screens can be made to vary, the commander of the ship could “adjust” his screens according to enemy fire.
The trouble with gravity screens is not that we do not know how to make them, but that they cannot be made at all. Devices that “shield off” gravity belong to the category of “permanent impossibilities,” things that cannot be done just as you cannot construct a seven-cornered polygon or trisect a given angle. The problem of the gravity screen has to be regarded as having been solved just as the problem of the perpetuum mobile has been solved: negatively, it cannot be done.
All this applies, however, only to “gravity screens” of the cavorite type and similar marvelous compounds. It does not hold true for what may be termed a “counter field.” Unfortunately we do not know what gravity really is – but it is certainly a force of some kind. If, one day, somebody discovers the truth about gravity he might also find a way to create gravity fields artificially. Now we can conceive of a magnetic field that could eliminate the influence of Earth’s field if the latter were magnetic instead of gravitational. (I am not speaking about Earth’s real magnetic field.) Similarly we can conceive of a counter field eliminating the effects of the natural gravity fields. To build up a field of the required strength needs lots of power, to be sure, but one might assume that the initial supply could be furnished by a stationary power plant. Such a counter field would, of course, have most of the features of cavorite – among them the protection against projectiles of less kinetic energy than the difference of gravity potentials in question.
With this vague hope for possible protection of spaceships we may safely return to the original topic: means of destruction. Guns and machine guns were found to do nicely – and rocket shells?
Rockets began as weapons of war, they were revived for this purpose by Sir William Congreve in 1804 when there was no other competition for them than smooth-barreled guns of tremendous weight that carried a mile without any accuracy worth mentioning. In fact, Congreve’s rockets and Hale’s later stickless rockets were more accurate than the contemporary guns; hard to believe, but stated in many of the old reports on rocket tests.
And, contrary to popular belief, war rockets were retained in the Service by Great Britain even in the beginning of the twentieth century. The “Treatise on Ammunition,” issued in 1905 [see 1915 edition at Archive.org] by the (British) War Office, still stated: “Rockets are employed in the service for signaling, for display,as weapons of war, and in conjunction with the life-saving apparatus.” The war rocket officially termed, “Rocket, War, 24-pr., Mark VII, (C). painted red,” was described as being made of steel tubing and cast iron. The average range given was 1800 yards, they had no guiding stick but a device to make them rotate in flight. If these rockets were still used in 1905 or later, they were probably used in colonial service. Despite very many attempts made just at that time to revive war rockets, no army introduced them. Rocket shells behaved, in all the tests that were made, even more erratically in the air than ordinary shells.
It would be different in space. No air resistance would disturb the flight of a rocket-driven shell. And instead of a heavy steel barrel only a thin-walled launched tube would be needed that could even be made of aluminum or magnesium alloys.
The first military objection against rocket shells would be that they could be more easily seen. This, however, could be overcome in using a very high acceleration with short burning period. The driving charge, incidentally, should be powder, not liquids. Powder it not as powerful and not as adaptable as liquid fuel, to be sure, but easier to handle and less expensive because it eliminates the need for mechanisms like combustion chambers, injection nozzles, pressure devices and a host of valves. Powder has the further advantage of having a natural tendency for shorter combustion periods and higher accelerations.
But guns are still superior, this time because of lesser weight!
If the shell part of the rocket shell shall be the same as that of a 75 mm. gun. and if the final velocity of the rocket shell, after complete combustion of the driving charge, shall be equal to that of a gun projectile the comparison of weights looks as follows:
GUN
weight of the gun – 880 pounds weight of 100 cartridges – 2200 pounds total weight – 3080 pounds\
ROCKETS
launching tube, etc. – 45 pounds 100 shell heads – 1430 pounds 100 rockets with sufficient driving charge – 4300 pounds total weight – 5775 pounds
Thin, of course, does not mean that rocket shells will not be built. For patrol cruisers guns are better, but other ships will not carry 100 rounds of ammunition all the time, as soon as less than twenty rounds are carried, the rockets are lighter. (There are a few story plots hidden in this statement.) One might conceive of heavy space torpedoes built along the lines of rocket shells, 10 feet long and weighing 1 1/2 tons. But I simply won’t like so much powder in one piece on board – and the construction of such a torpedo with present-day methods of manufacture is, by the way, impossible.
SPACE WAR certainly has its peculiar features, quite different from those pictured in stories, but peculiar just the same. The story picture of shining ships that battle with searing rays and flaming screens is so highly improbable that it can simply be termed wrong. There won’t be any rays and there won’t be screens, especially not the latter because you would be unable to shoot while you had them working.
Instead there would be ships painted night-black, the camouflage of space, carrying guns of incredible range and immensely destructive power. The ships would be extremely vulnerable, but at the same time they could not sink and would be capable of inflicting fatal damage as long as a soul on board is alive.
They would not steam into battle with flying colors, but try to approach unseen with all lights extinguished, avoiding the light background of the Milky Way. If the battle is finally opened ammunition would be used very sparingly, not only because the supply is limited, but because missing is almost as bad as being hit. The 2000-3000 feet per second of muzzle velocity do not count very much as compared with the orbital speed of the planets and all the shells that missed show up again at the point of battle after one or two or three years when they have completed their full orbit around the Sun.
That their own fire throws them off course is another reason for few shots. Each 75 mm. shell, weighing 14.3 pounds and leaving in space the muzzle with a velocity of say 2300 feet per second, produces a recoil of 1000 pounds. And the powder charge, weighing, say, 6.5 pounds, and leaving the muzzle with approximately 6600 feet per second produces another 1300 pounds of recoil. A single shot would naturally not influence the course of a 3000-ton patrol cruiser very much, but during a prolonged battle there will be deflections to be corrected by the rocket motors.
On second thought I take that back. The guns do not have to have a recoil that influences the ship. Several years ago Schneider in Creuzot (France) announced a recoil eliminator, based on the difference in speed between shell and driving gases. Since the gases are between two and three times as fast as the shell, they overtake it as soon as it clears the muzzle. The Schneider-Creuzot device was intended to catch these gases and to deflect them by 180 degrees so that their recoil counteracts that of the shell. The example of the 75 mm. gun has shown that the gases, weighing only 6.5 pounds, produce theoretically 1300 pounds recoil, because they are about three times as fast as the 14.3-pound shell that produces only 1000 pounds of recoil. If all the gases could be caught and deflected a full 180 degrees, the gun barrel would actually jerk forward with each shot. Naturally some of the gas simply follows the shell – but tests have shown that the remaining recoil is very low.
There is one remark I wanted to make all through this article, but up to now 1 did not have an opportunity to do so. What I wanted to say was that there was no talk of armament in Professor Oberth’s patent application.
(1) This decision was entirely in accordance with German patent laws. In other countries a patent might have been granted under the same circumstances. (2) Usually miscalled “Rig Bertha”: the official name was “Kaiser Wilhelm Gun,” the common name “Paris Gun.” “Big Bertha” was the tame of the mobile 17-inch mortar of Krupps. Both guns were designed by Professor Rausenberger [Fritz Rausenberger]. (3) I recall only one story where this point was stressed. Campbell’s “Mightiest Machine.” The fact is also hinted at in Dr. E.E. Smith’s “Skylark III” during the first encounter with the Fenachrome, but it is not especially emphasized.
