\

\

-26—
damage done by these missiles equalled the expenditure which the Germans put

into their development, production, and use,

At any rate, the side enjoying

command of the air had in the airplane a much more economical and longer-range

instrument for inflicting damage on enemy industry than was available in the
rocket,

The capacity of the rocket-type projectile to strike without warning

in all kinds of weather with complete immunity from all known types of defenses
guaranteed to it a supplementary though suoordinate role to bomber=-tyve aircraft,
But its inherent limitations, so long as it carried only chemical explosives,
were sufficient to warrant considerable reserve in predictions of its future

Manners

LE,

“
=

tere a

me
ja

cevelopment,

However, the power of the new bomb completelyalters the considerations
which previously governed the choice of vehicles and the manner of using them,
A rocket far more elaborate and expensive than the V-2 used by the Germans is
still an exceptionally cheap means of bombarding a country if it can carry in
its nose an atomic bomb,

The relative inaccuracy of aime-which continued

research will no doubt reduce--is of much diminished consequence when the radius
of destruction is measured in miles rather than yards.

And even with existing

fuels such as were used in the German V-2, it istheoretically feasible to
produce rockets capable of several thousands of miles of range, thyough the
problem of controlling the flisht of rockets over such distances is greater
than is generally assumed.
Of more immediate concern than the possibilities of rocket development,

however, is the enormous increase in

effective bombing range which the atomic

bomb gives to existing types of aircraft.

That it has this effect becomes

evident when one examines the various factors which determine under ordinary-that is, non-atomic bomb-—~conditions whether a bombing campaign is returning
military dividends.

First, the campaign shows profit only if a large proportion

att

Select target paragraph3