Proneness to Damage of Plant through Enemy Action

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to draw attention to the facts which underlie the rapid approximate estimation of damage to plant through enemy action. Different items of plant will be affected to a greater or lesser extent depending upon their type and the conditions to which they have been exposed. Thus, a smith's anvil, at the one extreme, would be but slightly damaged by blast, fire, collapse of the building, falling debris, or flooding, if a direct hit or persistent fire was excluded. At the other extreme, delicate electrical apparatus would suffer severely if exposed to any of these conditions. In the case of the anvil the “damage proneness number” (d.p.n.) is likely to be between the limits of 0 and 5, whilst that of the latter may be between 80 and 100 in “average” cases where a direct hit or persistent fire did not take place. Thus all plant can be classified and given probable limits beforehand of the extent of damage, and it would remain for the trained observer to fix the damage proneness number which in exceptional cases might be outside the average limits. Expressed as a percentage of the value of the item, the damage proneness number would indicate the amount of the loss involved; the sum of the amounts of the individual losses would give the total approximate loss. The extent of the damage is affected also by the protection given by the building, the position of the item within the building, and by the type of bomb and its point of impact in relation to the item.