The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, AUGUST 13,1915. MACHINE GUNS WANTED.
.That the Allies have not made greater progress against the enemy on hind is undoubtedly in some degree, due to the fact of the superiority of Germany's high explosive shells and machine-guns. Against the elaborate equipment with which the German armies first took the field, the outcome of many years of careful forethought and preparation, the Allies could only set the skill and courage of smaller numbers of troops, armed in a fashion that German ingenuity fiad largely rendered obsolete. A writer in the Auckland Star discussing this aspect says that in no single respect was this relative inferiority on the side of the Allies more strongly marked, than in the matter of mach-ine-guns. The Germans remembered that they beat the Austrians in 1866 because their needle-gun was superior to the old muzzle-loader, .and that they beat the French in 1870 because their
breech-loading artillery outclassed the French field guns; and they anticipated that their high explosives and maohine-gmis would give them the same sort of superiority over the Allied armies, even if their first onslaught failed, and the war prolonged itself into a test of endurance. In the light of the experience gained in this past year of warfare, it is easy to understand the supreme self-confi-dence with which Gennadiy entered upon this titanic struggle. It is stated now that when the Germans invaded Belgium they had fully fifty thousand machine-guns, weapons which in competent hands are accurate with deadly accuracy. F/nglish reports of tests against picked shots have shown that one machine-gun will make more hits than fifty marksmen. As there are rarely fifty marksmen in any battalion of a thousand men, it is computed that, as a target hitter, a machine-gun is almost equal to a thousand men. Nothing can live in its stream of lead. And it can he handled hy two men. At the beginning the Allies’ armies were at a terihle disadvantage, hut recognising the deadly efficacy of the mach-ine-gun. they increased their stock. The Germans did the same; and today .they are holding their lines in I*'ranee and Flanders for the most part with a comparatively small body of .men, armed with a disproportionately large supply of machine-guns. The lesson of all this is that every effort must he made io provide more mach-ine-guns and to provide them as quickly as possible. The greater our powers of destruction the sooner this terrible war will end. i
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Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 88, 13 August 1915, Page 4
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420The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, AUGUST 13,1915. MACHINE GUNS WANTED. Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 88, 13 August 1915, Page 4
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