GERMAN TANKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1940, Page 6

GERMAN TANKS

SOME ASSAULT FEATURES. FAST AND'ARMOURED. There is great curiosity about ■ the German heavy tanks that are admitted to have been so powerful a factor in the German advance. No details are yet available, but one report puts their weight down as 80 tons, and their armour such that it takes a French “75” (the three-inch field gun) to pierce it. Both the French and the British have heavy tanks —the French is said to weigh 70 tons—but neither are fast and armour capable of withstanding the fire of all ordinary antitank guns is not mentioned in such reports as are available. Victor Wallace Germains in his book, “The Mechanisation of War,” discusses certain drawbacks of tanks in the following passage: “The tank floats by distributing her weight over a broad bearing surface, her caterpillar tracks, instead of concentrating it on four or more wheel points. She is a land-raft, not a land-ship. By comparison with the ship proper, she suffers serious disadvantages. .The whole of her body is raised above the land-and needs protection, whereas the. bulk of the ship is submerged and thus protected. The ship can concentrate armour on her vitals, leaving the rest of the structure unarmoured. The tank is a steel box crowded with men, guns and machinery. It is ’ impossible to use. from a tank instruments for fire control or directors, or to measure the rolling period as at sea. Thus fire from tanks is very inaccurate except at pointblank range. The size of the tank is limited by the need of being able to use roads, railways and bridges, besides the tactical consideration of keeping the size of the target down. The duel of tanks versus stationary infantry and guns partakes of the elements of a ship versus fort, and the tank largely shares the ship's, disadvantages.” How the Germans have got over these inherent disadvantages —if they have —one cannot say. Germains himself suggests a multi-track tank with multiple engines, “with a tortoise-shell-like shield, say, of 3in. steel, and a turret on top containing two short Gin. guns,” but his specifications, with a weight estimated at 500 tons, seems completely fantastic. Still the tank familiar in the pictures has features of similarity no matter what the nationality of the army. Other developments would seem at least possible, including an articulated tank with front and rear sets of tracks coupled to a central transversely cylindrical citadel, carrying a turret at the top and machinegun bulges at the side. Such a design was submitted to the British Tank Committee at the end of 1917. but had to be shelved because production was already in hand for standard tanks of the British improved type, which played a big part in the final victorious campaign. There was also the tank design submitted by a West Australian engineer actually before the Great War and turned down by a sceptical War I Office. It has since been stated that this was a better design than that ol\ any tanks used in the late war. In the present crisis we can be quite sure that once the military position becomes stabilised, the Allies will be quick to produce something better than the German monster. In any event, the German lank could hardly succeed without the support it gets from a multitude of aircraft. The job then is for the Allies, in Mr Churchill's words, to

“provide our men quickly with more aeroplanes, more tanks, more shells.” That is the surest road to victory.