CYCLING AND MOTOR NOTES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 11, 7 December 1916, Page 3

CYCLING AND MOTOR NOTES.

The successful participation of the now ai'monrod cars or “tanks” in tlie Somme offensive, .says tlio “Autocar” (England) is one that tlio motor world may certainly led great gratification over as it is not too much to say that these new armoured cars and the men handling them represent every phase of antoinohilism from the motor cycle to the heavy farm tractor. On to this automobile basis has been grafted the armour and armament of which we may say nothing, though any who have read the accounts of the behaviour of the machines in actual battle will be able to loim their own ideas as to what powers of offence and defence must be necessary. We believe that nothing in the war has created mgeh more widespread satisfaction, simply because we have something here which is not a copy of German methods. The whole idea is British from its 'inception to its actual completion and use in battle. As a peaceful nation our quick adaptations and followings of the enemy have been wonderful, yet necessarily we have often suffered terribly while working up to copy some device which he had introduced successfully. Xow it is felt that we have struck out on lines of our own, and by means of these automobile for tresses have enjoyed for once the full advantages of initiation and preparedness as compared with the previous experiences of copying and belatedness. Obviously the armoured car is but -a development of the armoured train, the use of which dates back more Ilian a quarter of a century. True, there is a vital difference between tin* train running on rails and the armoured machine working over fields, shell craters, trenches, and other obstacles. One runs on rails, and the otner has, in effect, to lay its railway as it goes. We mention the 'armoured train because we have noticed that discussions are already rife as to who origin! illy suggested the armoured ear, and it is slated in many quarters that Mr H. (!. Wells, the famous semi-seer novelist, was the first to suggest it in one of his tides. \ cry probably he was, though it appears to us that the most remarkable thing about the armoured car is not that it has been successful in its latest form, but that the land battleship had not been previously tried, more particularly by our enemies, as a few years ago Bernhard! in, one of Ids books dealing with the biological necessity for war, or some other congenial subject, specifically mentioned the battleship

as the ideal fighting machine, point-' nig out that it was far in advance of land battle tackle, inasmuch as it provided the maximum properties of

offence and defence with the minimum number ol men. 1 Ids, of course.

was quite right, as to a large extentthere is no getting away from the fact that modern warfare has largely developed into a question of the maximum of destruction with the minminm of man-power. However, this may be, there is no question that the automobile lias again shown its possibilities in warfare. We have

scarcely yet realised its importance iu the air service and the transport, and now there is a new form of usefulness for it in the battle line itself. One may well ask where is the tendency to stop? Are the present “tanks” to be succeeded by still greater moving fortresses, still more heavily armed and armoured? What, so to speak, is the laud limit as compared with the sea limit;'