LOSS OF 1000 GUNS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 186, 15 July 1940, Page 7

LOSS OF 1000 GUNS

I ; o*—l A MATTER CF PROPORTION FIGURES OF THE LAST WAll We lost a thousand guns. What' does that statement mean to the man in the street? asked a cori espondent of the Stan Some say, "What a quantity! 11 Some say, "Pooh, nothing! The ioss is obviously serious.-13ut.it can be put in the best perspective, peihaps, by recalling the figures of the last war. The guns and ammunition used on both sides in every battle, were computed after the war, and a unique and simple analysis occurs in Captain Liddell Hart's classic work, 'A History of the World AVar.'" He shows that in the Somme Battle of 1910, a subsidiary attack round Gommecourt by I,wo British divisions (one tenth of the attacking troops on the Somme) used 1537 guns, or one to every 20 yards of front. In starting our Arras "push" ot April, 1917, we fired 2879 guns,for five days—one gun to every nine 3'ards of front. When we blew up Messines Ridge and. advanced Ave had 2338 guns on a nine-mile front, or one to every seven yards, or 240 to a mile (and Ave fired five and a half tons of ammunition for each yard of front, in the course of a week). Cough's Fifth Army Battle at Passchendaele involved 3091 guns or one to every six yards.' Plumer's push soon after had' a gun to every five yards. In the German's break through of March 21, 1918, they had 6000 guns oA r er 40 miles. In their next frightful break through to the Marne, from May 27 to June 1, 1918 (five months before the Armistice), they used only 3719 guns over 38 miles. On the "black day of the German Army," August 8, 1918, when Cap•fiin Liddell Hart finds that the Allied fortunes turned for good, our surprise tank attack by Rawlinson's Fourth Army was supported by 2000 guns. And Avhen. in the closing stages of the war; the Americans launched an attack bj r nine divisions in the Meuse-Argonne, they used 2700 guns on a 25-mile front. .So our 1000 lost guns is all a matter of proportion. j