THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1908. BULLET-PROOF ARMOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9183, 4 September 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1908. BULLET-PROOF ARMOUR.

A very sensational discovery is reported from France. In a recent number of "La France Militaire," under the heading of "New Cavalry Cuirasses," it is announced that the movement in favour of abolishing the lingering remnant of armour still in U3e in modern armies has received a sudden check by the discover} of an unnamed inventor, whose ingenuity promises to restore armour to the place which it formerly occupied in warfare. Every schoolboy knows, to borrow Macaiday's familiar jest, that the practice of arraying fighting men in coats of armour, which had culminated in the fifteenth century by covering both horse* and rider with armour, received what wa3 believed to be its deathblow by the general introduction of gunpowder. Coats of mail which turned arrows were easily pierced by musket balls, and although the practice of covering the breast with iron plates lingered through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was recognised as an"J|anachronism by all military authorities. At pre-

sent the showy cuirass which lingers in the British army is purely spectacular, a showy ingredient of the circus side of warfare. Soldiers constantly assert that cuirasses will never be used again in actii'al fighing They weigh 71b or Sib, they cost £2 or £3, and they are not even | roof against a revolver bullet, while, as against modern rifles, they might as well be made of brown paper. Hence, as "La France Militaire" tells us, there was a strong movement in the French army in favour of abolishing cuirasses both for cuirassiers and dragoons. But General de Gallifet offered strong resistance to this revolutionary reform, and the cuirass was saved. It is doubtful whether even General de Gallifet would have been able to have arrested the abolition of the cuirass had it not been for the discovery referred to. This was a discovery rather than an invention. Although its precise nature is still buried in mystery, enough is known to give.rise to very interesting speculation as to whether, instead ofr gett ing rid of armour altogether, we are not destined in the next few years to see the reappearance of mail-clad men in the ranks of war. The French Government has for some months past been making an exhaustive series of experiments as to the value of the new composition, and it is interesting to hear they have practically decided that the inventor has made good his claims, and that in the warfare of the future this new kind of armour is destined to play a very important part. This is not surprising, if the claims of the inventor are really substantiated. It is asserted that the new material possesses four or live times as much resistance as chilled steel; that it is practically invulnerable to rifle bullets; that it does not weigh any more than the existing cuirass; that it can be manufactured at half the price, and even if it should be pierced it can be made as good as new almost without any expenditure of time or material.