Word: targeted
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...Garden Hose" At Fort Tilden (near Manhattan) anti-aircraft gunners prepared to test a new "sightless" 50-caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun. Instead of aiming and firing at the target by the aid of sights, a gunner firing the new weapon simply turns it like a garden hose upon aircraft overhead and sprays them with a stream of 450 bullets per minute, every fifth bullet being a flaming "tracer bullet" which indicates...
...shots to a hit), remarked that the effectiveness of anti-aircraft artillery is not judged by the number of enemy planes it may bring down but by its effect upon the morale of the enemy, forcing him to fly so high that he loses his effectiveness against his own target. Since the targets were only one-quarter the size of actual airplanes, it was felt that the land batteries did well to hit them...
From the opposing school of thought (those who believe anti-aircraft guns to be impotent) poured billows of scorn. It was pointed out that the targets had been dangled and dandled within a mere eight or nine feet of the guns, while an enemy fleet would never think of attacking at less than 10,000 feet. It was recalled that enemy planes would be carefully disguised as to color, and that dark blue is said to possess the highest possible air-target visibility. Nineteen successes in 16,000 trials were contrasted unfavorably with the chances for a zero in roulette...
Subsequent continued tests at Fort Tilden resulted, after the firing of 180 rounds, in barely missing the towing plane of Lieut. William T. Atkinson, although the target trailed 2100 ft. behind it. Said he, after towing his target ten times across the firing area, "We could see the shells burst high to the right and in front of our plane." Said another flight lieutenant: "We're used to that...
Night gun tests, conducted with circling stabbing searchlights of 2,000,000 candle power, against targets lowered (by request of the land gunners) from 8000 to 5000 ft., resulted in the firing of 360 shells, in only two hits on one target...