Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/157

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AEROPLANE AND SUBMARINE.
§ 76

protection at the risk of almost certain destruction. Or they will require to confine their activities to raiding by night—a form of activity in which their radius of action is essentially limited, and, save under exceptional circumstances, of doubtful promise. It must not be assumed, however, that the service necessary for the effective patrolling of the seas by aeroplane will prove at all a simple or easy matter. The provision of the needed bases, coastal and floating, alone will be a formidable matter, and as the radius of action of the submarine is increased, and the field of operations is thereby widened, the work will become more and more arduous. Again, the enemy's aircraft will always have to be reckoned with.

Thus, although the air service may be looked to to provide an effective limit to the power of the submarine, we can never expect or anticipate that the value or utility of the latter will be by any means nullified.

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