MECHANISED WARFARE

Taranaki Daily News, 15 November 1926, Page 9

MECHANISED WARFARE

GLIMPSE OF FUTURE WARS • NEW MYSTERY MONSTERS BRITISH HUSH HUSH TANK By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Nov. 14, 5.5 p.m. London, Nov. 13. A sea of Flanders mud for realism and some 1916 types of war-scarred tanks as anachronisms amid a bewildering array of modern mystery monsters, was the scene which the Dominion Prime Ministers witnessed on the bracken-covered hills of Camberley, in the deu.< ..stration of present day mechanises warfare. Three marquees sheltered the guests from the driving rain—the year’s worst day—yet discomfort was forgotten in wonderment at the uncanny glimpse of what future war will be like. The “Prime Minister” contraptions crawled like tortoises while they spat destruction, but the new 20-mile-an-hour tank, with five gun turrets, swished and slithered over the practice ground with hideous agility. This is Great Britain’s “hush hush” wonder, and journalists were not permitted a closer approach than 20 yards. In striking contrast were the oneman tanks, one minute machine doing 30 miles per hour on tiny scooter wheels, then with a movement of a lever dropping on to a caterpillar belt to turn in its own length While the driver, with the other hand, cuts a swathe with machine-gun bullets. This new idea has been adapted to a fearsome-looking light tank, whose four-wheel truck drops like a flash into sockets to whisk it where wheeled vehicles would merely court disaster.

The degree of mobility of this type in reaching threatened points made old soldiers remark: “If we had only had a few of these, Passchendaele would not have happened.” The parade of the progressive types of war machines was impressive enough, but when the whole make up of mischief was let loose to gambol over a 25-acre plot, crossing and re-crossing and all the w’hile blurting shells from ground level to an anti-aircraft angle, it was veritably dumfounding. Field guns were vieing with the tanks in mobility, with the men scarcely visible till the firing point was reached. Then, in less than a minute, the guns were unlimbered and roaring salvoes over the marquees. Finally, at ten miles an hour, the tank sped by, exhaling a white smoke screen, which hid the countryside, while all the mechanical monsters disappeared like magic. It was little wonder that everybody seemed constrained to remask: “What an unspeakably terrible thing the next war will be.” As the piece de resistance, the spectators overlooked a V shaped rift in the hills, wherein the tanks almost joyously hopped over great log obstructions and playfully pushed over brick walls and majestic pine trees, while behind came tractor-hauled batteries to drive home the thrust.

x. fleet of Mark One light tanks flashed down the hillside and toppled over growing pine trees as if they were toys out of Noah’s Ark. Four of this type are being shipped shortly to Australia, where they will be used for field training. One visitor suggested that such tanks would pay for themselves in a month in clearing the bush for new settlers. Accompanying Mr. Coates was Major Jennings, wlio shortly will be commissioned to partly mechanise the New Zealand artillery on the knowledge gained from to-day's lessons.