This perilous work done, there may come a clash between the lighter fighting craft--the machines which form the screens of outposts, as they move gradually nearer to each other. One or other may be forced to yield and fly, scattering in confusion; and after this there may be the aerial battle proper, in which the large, heavily-armed craft, and the giant airships with their batteries of guns, will come into action. The aeroplane, in fighting an airship, will have the advantage that it offers a smaller mark, and one also which is moving rapidly through the air. It may also be struck many times before it is crippled or put out of action. Shot passing through its planes will make little difference to it; and the occupants will sit in a hull which is armoured. But an accurately-placed shell, bursting in the heart of the machine--that is to say, among its machinery and crew--will no doubt prove disastrous; and the airship, with its long fragile hull, must prove vulnerable also. Well-aimed shots will pierce it; a bomb from above may set it on fire. In the case of the Zeppelin, though carrying its gas in a series of compartments, a number of hits may be sustained before the vessel is out of action. But, when all is said and done, both aeroplanes and airships are frail machines--the one with slender, lightly built planes, and the other with a hull which is protected by nothing stouter than a rubbered fabric. So if guns are well handled, craft must suffer. To reflect upon such fighting reminds one of a remark of Mr. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Commenting upon the growing power of a warship’s guns, and showing how the armour with which craft are protected has not grown in efficiency to keep pace with the striking force of a modern projectile, he said that the fighting between two heavily armed leviathans would be like “two egg-shells battering at each other with hammers.” So with armed aircraft; well-placed shells will rip and tear; and the destruction of a hard-fought engagement must undoubtedly be heavy.