TANK IN WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1940, Page 6

TANK IN WAR

PROBLEM OF DEFENCE.

DESIGN, SPEED AND STRUCTURE. LONDON, December 1. Discussing the use of the tank in war a military correspondent of the "Times” says:— The methods used at Cambrai were utilised in many major offensive actions during the remaining year of the Great War, and proved completely successful in both French and British hands. There is, however, no justification for supposing that these methods could be used successfully in the present, war, even supposing that the defences of the “West Wall” were penetrated over a wide front. In recent years tanks have been used in Abyssinia, in Spain, and by the Germans for the murder of Poland. In Abyssinia the mobility of the Italian light tanks was very useful, but they did not encounter any serious anti-tank defence. Their cross-country performance was not good. In Spain the German and Italian light tanks did not give a very good account of themselves. They encountered strong defences, which the Nationalists had not sufficient artillery to neutralise. They were armed with machine-guns only and had little true hitting power.

The Russian light and medium tanks and the Spanish-built copies were more heavily armed and better armoured and proved useful fighting vehicles, in spite of the fact that, as one observer put it, “their stomachs are no better protected than a hedgehog.” They could be set on fire easily by flaming petrol cans rolled under them.

The modern armoured fighting vehicle as constructed for the British Army has a very good cross-country performance, and while shell-pounded ground is likely to be a serious obstacle, particularly in wet weather, it will not be so serious as in 1916-18. The chief preoccupation of designers and tactical experts at present is the problem of defeating the anti-tank defence. The light tank is easily defeated by a gun of the type of the Swiss Oerlickon, which fires its 'fin. calibre soz. armour-piercing shell at a rate of 300 rounds a minute and can penetrate ljin. armour at 500 yards. The present tendency in tank design is toward a “low freeboard” to 1 educe the target presented, heavier armour and therefore lower speed. The tactical tendency is toward all arms co-opration in the neutralising of antitank defences followed by attack on a modified “Cambrai” method. One thing only seems certain, and that is that victory in battle can be assured only by the very closest co-operation between tanks and infantry, with the artillery in support for both anti-tank defence neutralisation and counterbattery work.