TROOPS BY AIR.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18228, 12 November 1924, Page 13

TROOPS BY AIR.

Wonderful aeroplanes, capable of transporting 50 fully armed soldiers—approximately a platoou of infantryarc being built for the Air Ministry. Even these, however, are not believed by experts to represent the last word in troop-carrying machines. They talk with confidence of flying troop trains able to carry 200 or 300 soldiers with equipment, who can be whirled through the sky at a speed of 100 miles an hour, says the "Daily Express." The new aerial troop-transport machines are being constructed eiftirely of steel. In the roomy fuselage will be tipup seats. Forced marches will be a thing of the past. All- the discomfort and all the hardships of movement over arid and possibly enemy infested coun : try will bo unknown in the future. The troop-carriers of the air will add a new and important factor to warfare. It will become possible for a small but highly trained body of troops to cause damage out of all proportion to their numbers—to destroy railways, bridges, roads at important junctions, and military works, and then return as rapidly as they went. Lines of communication will therefore have to be guarded over an infinitely wider area than at present, for places far from the actual scene of battle -will be drawn within -the scope of operations. The first of the larger tvpes of troop-carrying 'planes will be ready for practical tests early next year.