MESSAGES BY BOMB

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3194, 19 September 1917, Page 5

MESSAGES BY BOMB

WHEN TELEPHONES 'ABE CUT.

Among Tecent developments in th® science and materials of WOT . attack and defence, the following three, examples are, perhaps, the most interesting which have been devised by the enemy. The first has to do with the com. position and use of asphyxiating gases and gas shells. In order to exploit to the utmost this branch of offensive warfare, thTee special staffs have been formed of officers picked from the artillery in the field who travel from one army corps to another, staying a week to ten days with each, partly give instruction in the different ways of fighting with gas and partly- to study the local conditions affecting its H so -, J l l ; 0 ® officers receive a preliminary instruction for a month in tho laboratories of the chemical section of the War Office, the otnff of which is composed, besides artillery. officers, .of a large number of civilian chemists. . The second innovation is the nse of smoke-producing machines for hiding batteries, the positions ot which havo been spotted by our airmen To protect the guns and their crews from bombs and shells sites are prepared beforehand round a "battery not less than -/0 from it and about 10 yards apart. When need arises the smoke machines aro placed in sites to windward, so that the concealing cloud sweeps over tho guns Xlhides them from tho airmen. . The third device is an ingenious method Of establishing communication dnrin" an engagement by means of message projectiles when telephone wires have been cut by a heavy bombardment There are two forms of those message carriers—bombs for communication bete"en the front and tho battalion and regimental commanders fired "uns with a range of 500 to GSO jaifls, °nd li"ht shells for extending communication back from the infantry and artillery commanders to brigade headquarter* which are fired frpm mortars with a range of 1300 yards.