GUNS AT NEUVE CHAPELLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 249, 30 March 1915, Page 8

GUNS AT NEUVE CHAPELLE.

WONDERFUL ARTILLERY TACTICS.

WHAT VOLUME OF EIRE DOES,

AS DEADLY AS SEDAN.

It takes a long time and a great d"a! of ammunition to wreck trenches with high-angle fire, because it is not at all easy to hit the target; and : n the ordinary course of events this leismVv process goes on in such a way that the enemy, finding a particular section of trench made too hot to be comfortable, leave jt for a while and return liter (writes fife Wellington Post milaavv correspondent).

_ But the experience of Neuve Chapellc indicates a departure, at least from the practice indicated just now. Tn this ease 350 gun a were concentrated on fio section of trendies before Neuve Chapellc, firing shells at a rate winch may at times have reached 400 a minute, taking the front as a whole. Not -mly were the Germans effectually swamped by this fire, but it wa s so teriiW« m its tensity that the trenches were wrecked, barbed wire entanglements were swept away, and in the graphic words of a recent message, "the trenches w<ro reduced, to a pulp of earth, boirds, wire and equipment, intermingled with Herman dead." Perhaps the most remarkable concentration of artillerv against a single force was that mac'.' l>y the Germans at Sedan in 1870, when' ihey turned 000 guns against the French. But the French in that case were in the open. It is remarkable, too, that in that fearful battle the total of French killed and wounded was 17,000—almost exactly the same figure as is givjn bv Sir John French as the number of "Germans killed and wounded at Neauve Chapellc. The Germans, at Sedan, lost about WOO men; but the British lasses last week may have been much less than that large figure. This artillery operation at Neuve Chapelle i s extremely "interesting as an illustration of the value of weight of fire pure and simple. Here was a case, apparently, where an unarmed body might almost have occupied the trenches so efficiently prepared for the assault. The point that is to bo. remembered in connection with this affair and others like it, if there are any, i s that the Allies arc building up the artillery as fast an thev can, which is. according to every available indication, far quicker than Is the power of the enemy. It is apparent, too, that while men are essential, in the greatest numbers that can be trained and equipped, guns are just as necessary; and above all, there must be an ammunition supply lavish beyond realisation. It may be that in the use of such terrific storms from artillery will lie the success of the Allies, who, taking a section at a time, may literally scorch the enemy out of their extended strongholds in the west.