MECHANISED ARMY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 310, 22 March 1928, Page 11

MECHANISED ARMY

UNDER SEPARATE CONTROL TANK CORPS AND CAVALRY British Wireless—Press Assn.—Copyright RUGBY, Tuesday. The Secretary of State for War, Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, introduced the Army Estimates in the House of Commons. In dealing with the tank corps he said it was the present intention that the Third Battalion of Tanks should have 52 tanks. The conception the War Office had of the development of tanks and of the mechanised force was not that they should replace the shock tactics of the cavalryThe men in the cavalry machine-gun squadron were being trained as cavalrymen. Should they be in country where vehicles could not carry guns, but where animals must do that work, the men so trained would be capable of functioning under those circumstances. With regard to the organisation of two cavalry regiments with armoured cars—namely, the 11th Hussars and the 12th Lancers—the Minister said they would each be counted in three squadrons of 34 armoured cars. The present estimates provided that in. the course of this year the 11th Hussars, which was a regiment at home, should have 34 armoured cars. The regiment in Egypt—the 12th Lancers—would have 11 armoured cars only, that one squadron would be mounted and the other two squadrons would be mounted in the succeeding year. He could not do it completely in Egypt this year. The War Office has set up a new body known as the Mechanical Warfare Board. It will act in an advisory capacity on technical problems in connection with mechanised transport of all types for army requirements. It will also secure a liaison with the mechanical engineering industry so that the army may be in close touch with engineering progress and commercial production. The president of the board is General Sir Webb Gillman, MasterGeneral of Ordnance. —A. and N.Z.