THE TANKS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 20 June 1917, Page 2

THE TANKS.

LIKE A LAND BATTLESHIP.

AN ENGINEER'S DESTROYER

The British Tanks have sot the engineers to thinking. 'ls there any limit in size to the motor-driven, armoured machine? One competent engineer, at least, thinks it possible to build motor-cars with wheels 200 ft in diameter which will travel 100 miles per hour. Such "land battleships" would need no guns; they could crush and demolish everything in their path.. If "war is hell," then the land battleship of the future is to be the head devil. Possibly a terror on paper, where this monster still remains, would not be worth a serious thought if it were not fathered by a reputable engineer; a man whose inventions have already brought him fame—Mr Frank Shuman. In the Popular Science Monthly, Mr. Shuman writes thus under the title "The Giant Destroyer of the Future": —

"There is no good engineering reason why an enormous wheeled structure, neavily armoured and capable of travelling at high speed, should not wage the battles of the. future. Technically, it is a far easier task to design and build a super-Dreadnought than a wheeled destroyer to run on solid ground. The ocean is a vast, level expanse. There are no hills and valleys. "Water is the same in density the hardest rock to softest quagmire. Here we have the reason why we still oppose armies against each other instead of machines. AN 100 MILES AN HOUR.

"Undeniable as these difficulties are, it seems to be that they could be overcome by boldly designing a machine of such dimensioris and of such energy that it could travel over ordinary land much as an automobile travels over a country road. A hill 50ft high would be to that machine what a 6in ridge of clay would be to an automibile; a swamp would no more hinder its course than half a foot of mud would stop a touring car. its speed would lie its destructive posan hour on the long, level, sandy beaches along our coasts. And even over rough inland country it would rush far more swiftly than any touring car on a peer road. Indeed, in it " •• >-?i would lie its destructive possibiVties. The impact of a heavy mass moving with the velocity of an express train would be irresistible. It could mow down everything before it with the rejentlessness of a steamroller. Guns would not be required to rout an enemy. An .army would be as helpless in offering resistance as a flock of geese n the path of an automoble.

'"lt is impossible within the limits of a short article to describe this machine which I have conceived in all its details. Picture to yourself, however, a self-propelled machine, comprising three wheels and a heavily armoured body or car. There are two wheels 150 ft to 200 ft in diameter in front, and a single smaller steering wheel in the rear. The entire structure is short, so that the turning radius will be small.

"No doubt you are familiar with the military masts of our American battleships. They are latticed towers not unlike cages. They are thus constructed so that whole sections of the latticework may be shot away but the remaining portions will still support the mast."