THE TANK'S EVOLUTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1917, Page 6

THE TANK'S EVOLUTION.

GREAT FIGHTS PREDICTED. GERMANS BUILDING TYPE OF LAND MONSTER. Washington, Sept. 1". Herculean battles between droves of Allied and Teuton tanks will be "as common aB air fighting" on the Western front shortly. Colonel E. D. Swinton, commander of the first British tank squadron in Franco, predicted to-day. Colonel Swinton, who ir, here with Lord Readings' Commission, originated the now famous British fighting monsters. He believes the Germans are building these land cruisers, and the day is not far distant,, he thinks, when it will be a question of survival of the fittest between "Fritz" and "Teddy" tanks. 'He then drew a word picture of these future struggles between the steel monsters.

"There will be both male and female tanks—-Ho called," he salid. "We will have 'Mary' and 'Molly' tanks along with their lords and masters, the big 'Teddy' tanks. The males will lumber into battle surrounded by their harems. ''With the destruction of machineguns as his chief objective, the male tank starts across No Man's Land. Shell craters will be crossed, trenches and even small forests are no barrier. With his two six-pounders he blasts his way forward. Being bullet-proof, it is seldom that he is checked until he has accomplishe4 his mission—destroying machinegun emplacements. "However, he is more or less useless at close fighting, and often gets into a place where he cannot extricate himself. It is here that his halves' get into the game. "The female tanks—dubbed thus be-, cause of their man-killing propensities—tag along behind, in advance, and on all sides, fighting like mad. They beat off the enemy trying to stormi the big 'Teddy.'"

"Thus far tanks are the only means that have been devised in breaking the deadlock along strongly entrenched infantry fronts, Colonel'Swinton stated. Great improvements are being made iii their construction and defects remedied. The tank of the future will be a 'perfect' fighting machine, capable of feats more startling than heretofore dreamed of," j he s*vd.

Of the development of the crawling fortresses, which have changed modern warfare, Colonel Swinton said:

"During' that awful first year every soldier realised that something had to he devised to stop that carnage. The futility of a naked man attempting to cross No Man's Land was apparent to Allies and Boches alike. It was an impossibility to sweep that marked patch of Hell with men alone.

"I had seen one of your Yankee inventions—Holt's tractor. I remembered its feats in navigating rough country and simply applied the idea. About the same time someone else got a similar idea and wrote Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, Independently of each other, the war and navy branches began perfecting the same idea. Navy ollicials, unknown to me, worked on 'a land cruiser,' while we struggled with the 'tank.' Then we got together, with the result you have read about."