Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, NOV. 9, 1899. Deadly Weapons.

Manawatu Herald, 9 November 1899, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, NOV. 9, 1899. Deadly Weapons.

Everything concerning war at the present juncture is interesting, and it may have been noted that General Joubert has objected, as inhuman, the use of Lyddite by the British, though he v overlooked the tact that he was Using Melinite, which is as equally as terrible an explosive. What the Boer general probably objects to is that the British cannon carry further than those he has, and Lyddite shells being fired from them are so effective that his batteries are continually being silenced. The ajithor of " The future of war " has given some statistics concerning arms and armies which are very much to the point and from which he argues that nations soon will never fight at all owing to the weapons being so deadly. Rudyard Kipling has expressed the opinion that when a machine had been invented that would slay fifty per cent of the combatants the military authorities would consider that they had had enough. This precision has almost arrived as the forces of the Khalifa suffered almost this percentage at the battle of Omdurman, and they do not care for very much more. The weapons like the magazine rifle and the breechloading cannon were the advance guard, added to which must be the smokeless powder. The range of the rifle is now so great that though smokeless powder is used and it has a report, the sound does not carry more than goo yards, and a volley at more than a mile, so that an army on th. inarch will suddenly become aware o r the comparative proximity of an enemy by seeing men drop killed and wounded. This must be trying on the nerves. Artillery has much more improved than the rifle, and competent authorities consider it to be at least 116 times more deadly than the batteries in the Franco- Prussian war. The increased improvements has been obtained in many ways. By the use of rangefinders it is possible now to avoid much firing into space which formerly prevailed. An instrument, weighing about 60 pounds, will in three minutes give the range of any distance up to four miles. Higher explosives are used, the range has been increased. A battery of artillery is from twelve to fifteen times as potent an instrument of destruction as it was thirty years ago. It is estimated that if a body of 10,000 men, advancing to the attack, had to traverse a distance of a mile and a half under the fire of a single battery, they would be exposed to 1450 rounds before they crossed the zone of fire, and the bursting of shells fired by that battery would scatter 270,000 bullets in fragments over the mile and a half across which they would have to march. An ordinary shell to-day bursts into 240 pieces. Shrapnel fire now scatters 340 pieces. A bomb, when it is charged with peroxilene, breaks into 1200 pieces, each of which is hurled with much greater velocity than the larger lump which were scattered by gunpowder explosion. IMs estimated that such a bomb would effectively destroy all life withm a range of 200 yards of the point of explosion. The statement of this author has been borne out by our experience in South Africa when he says it would not be many weeks after a war began before the majority of the officers had been killed off. He explains that the cause is very simple. The officers are compelled to expose themselves much more than the men under their orders. They have to be up and about and moving, while the men are lying in shelter. This is so well recognised that every Continental army pays special attention to the training of sharp-shooters, whose word of command is that they should never waste a shot upon anyone but an officer. In Germany the general conviction on the part of the officers is that if a great war broke out they would never survive to see the conclusion of peace. As the author appears to thoroughly understand the question he writes about, it is satisfactory to read, having the position of the British forces in Ladysmith in view, that a small company can hold its own against a superior attacking force long enough to permit of bringing up of reinforcements. To attack any position successfully, it is estimated that the attacking force ought to outnumber the assailed at least by eight to one. It is calculated that 100 men in a trench would be able to put out of

action 336 out of 400 who attacked them, while they were crossing a firezone only 300 yards wide.