MYSTERY MONSTERS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 43, 15 November 1926, Page 9

MYSTERY MONSTERS

BRITAIN’S NEW WAR MACHINES A BEWILDERING ARRAY UNCANNY GLIMPSE OF FUTURE CONFLICT Bt Telegbaph.— PßESS ASSOCIATION Copyright. (Rec. November 34, 5.5 p.m.) Loudon, November 13. A sea of Flanders mud and for realism and 1916 types of war-scarred tanks as anachronism, amid a bewildering array of modern mystery monsters was a scene which the Dominion Prime Ministers witnessed on the bracken covered hills of Camberley in a demonstration of present day mechanised warfare. Three marquees sheltered the guests from driving rain—it was the year’s worst day—yet discomfort was forgotten in wonderment at the uncanny glimpse of what future war will be like Some contraptions crawled like tortoises while they spat destruction, but a new twenty-mile-an-hour tank with five gun turrets swished <nd slithered over the practice ground with hideous agility. This is Britain’s hush-hush wonder, and journalists were not permitted a closer approach than twenty yards. In striking fontrast were oneman tanks, one minute doing thirty miles per hour on tiny scooter wheels and then, with the movement of a lever, dropping on to caterpillar belt to turn in their own length, while the driver with the other hand cut a swathe with machine-gun bullets. This new idea has been adapted to a fearsome looking light tank, whose four-wheel truck drops like a flash into the sockets of a caterpillar drive to whisk it where wheeled vehicles would merely court disaster. The degree of mobility of this type in reaching threatened points made old soldiers remark, i"Tf we had only had a few of these, Passchendale would not have happened.”

the parade of progressive types of war machines was impressive enough, but when the whole make up of mischief was let loose to gambol over a 25acre plot,' crossing aind recrossing, all the while blurting out shells from the ground level to the anti-aircraft angle, it was veritably dumbfounding. Afterwards came caterpillar howitzers, long "Lizzies,” and ordinary field guns vieing with the tanks in mobility, with men scarcely visible till the firing point was reached. Then in less than a minute the guns were unlimbered and roaring salvos over the marquees. Finally, at ten miles an hour a tank sped by, exhaling a white smoke screen which hid the countryside, while' all the mechanical monsters disappeared like magic. It was little wonder that everybody seemed constrained to remark : “What an unspeakably terrible thing the next war wilt be.” As the piece de resistance,- the spectators looked over a V-shaped rift, in the hills, in which tanks almost joyously hopped over great log obstructions and playfully pushed over brick walls and majestic pine trees, while behind came tractor-hauled batteries to drive home the thrust. A fleet of Mark 1 light tanks flashed down the hillside and toppled over growing pine trees as if they were toys out of a Noah’s Ark.

Four tanks of this type are being shipped shortly to Australia, ..where thev will be used for field training. One visitor suggested .that such tanks would pay for themselves in a month clearing bush for new settlers.

Aecompanving Mr. Coates was Major Jennings, who sliortlv will be commissioned to partly mechanize the New Zealand artillery on the knowledge gained from to-day’s lessons.