A MUSEUM-SCHOOL

OBJECT-LESSONS IN WAR EVOLUTION OF WEAPONS i UNFINISHED HISTORY OF SMALL ARMS. {Written for The Post.) Protruding through the roof of one of the Trentham Camp hutments is a tall tapering projection, a little too stout for a flag-pole, and too slender for a chimney or a ventilator. It is the periscope of a German U boat, the only periscope of its kind in New Zealand. Its excellent German lens and workmanship provide a wonderfully detailed view of the camp precincts and the surrounding hills. Members of training units have reason to know that, by the use of the periscope, the chief instructor, himself unseen, can observe all that goes on in the ranks of distant squads; and, incidentally, he could, if he liked, watch the horse-racing from the wrong side of the fence. . This periscope is unique in New Zealand, and it marks the home of a collection of war-appliances similarly unique. For the hutment distinguished by the U boat periscope houses the 'frentham Museum. THE INSTRUCTIONAL SIDE. The word "museum" only partly describes what is within. The older weapons and other exhibits would do credit to any collection of the obsolete and the antique, but ■ the up-to-date armament and the diagrams on the walls proclaim that the purpose is instructional in the art of war riot only as it was but as it is to-day. Here are found the Vickers, Lewis, and Hotchkiss machineguns, with all appurtenances for demonstration and for training in the use of them. The visitor soon becomes aware that he is in a museum that is also a class-room, containing, among other thingu, targets and aiming-devices, the ranges Being scaled down scientifically from the actual to the miniature. (For instance, there is a small model aeroplane, which forms a practical target, in conjunction with anti-aircraft sights, at ten yards range.) These, and other equipment too detailed to be particularised, are used by the instructional staff of the General Headquarters School of Instruction in order to teach the art of war, as practised to-day, to Cadets, Territorials, and others. Just at present, the instructional classes are suspended as a measure of Governmental economy, and the instructors are engaged on other work of an administrative nature, but meanwhile the equipment is being maintained, and in some respects improved. For the better teaching of the Hotchkiss gun, Sergeant-Major Tustin (Instructor in Musketry and Machine Guns) has drawn a ten times magnified diagram of the gun and its parts. This drawing, on which infinite pains have be^n expended, is now approaching completion. The- young student of war not only qualifies in up-to-date weapons in the classroom, but sees before him in the museum a realistic presentation of the evolution of the art of firearms. Andi as this e-Wution is as interesting to th« non-soldier as to the soldier, tet vs for a moment glance at it. SLOW DEVELOPMENT OF RIFLE. Start with the rifle exhibits. The evolution from smooth bore to rifling, from flintlock and percussion ■■ cap to breeoh-loader, and thence to magazines, in plainly shown. Rifling—that is, special grooving cut on the inner surface of the barrel, so as to cause the projectile to revolve while passing to the muzzle—was known in the 16th century, perhaps in th© 15th, but centuries elapsed- before Mre rifle ousted the smooth bore in wai1, and its general adoption for military purposes, does not date back beyond the middle of last century. One authority states :— The practical difficulties attending the use of the rifle for service purposes were great.". It required a ball, fully as large as the bore, and this had to be forcibly inserted into the muzzle, and rammed down. Th© powder left much fouling in the bore, and this added much to the difficulty of loading. In the smooth bore harquebus or musket, on the other hand, it was customary to use a ball considerably smaller than the bore, so that the arm could be loaded without difficulty even when foul. The losses of velocity and accuracy due to this method were not YWy material at the short distance at which the smooth, bore was ' effective. Rapidity of fire, then, being_ incompatible with the /use of the rifle, the attempt to make use of it in the hands of regular troops seems to have been abandoned during the greater part of the 18th century." ■ BREEOH-LOADING AND THE MAGAZINE. . The rifle, however, was the weapon of th© hunter, and, as auch, tie American hunters made use of it in the American War of Independence, 1775-1783. A few years later it was tried for some of the French troops by Napoleon, an experiment that was dropped in 1793. But in 1800, in the British Army, the 95th Regiment, now the Rifle Brigade, was armed with the Baker 20-bore muzzle-loading- rifle, sighted for 100 and 200 yards, andi having a flint lock. (The flint lock did not go quite out of use in the British, Army till about 1840.) Meanwhile, efforts to secure rapidity of fire were moving along the lines of breech-loading, which had been known, in a- more or less crude form, in the first half of the 16thi century, but whioh, like rifling, took a long time to prove its superiority for general use in war service. In 1841 Prussia set the example by adopting the needle gun, invented by Dreyse in 1838. Notwithstanding it? defects, the success of this German breecfo-loader against the Austrians in 1956 caused the British Army to convert, in 1867, the Enfield muzzleloader into the Snider .breech-loader, while the French Army adopted the Chassepot. (All three are found in their respective sections, in the Museum.) In tile femco-German Wai of 1870 the ohassepot was considered to be superior to the needle gun. The magazine was a further milestone along the road to rapidity of fire.1 One of "the first really successful rifles that contained a reserve of cartridges" was the Spencer, extensively used in the American Civil War, 1860-64. The Winchester repeater appeared in 1867, and was successfully used by the Turks in tho Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, particularly at Plevna. Germany, in 1884, was the first Great Power to completely provide- its army with a magazine rifle. Germany", in 1888, was also the first Power to adopt a small bore rifle, that was a multiple loader, firing smokeless j powder. A MACHINE PISTOL. The above remarks are not intended to be a considered review of the subject, but merely to give some idea of the object-lessons so richly provided by the arms, ancient and modern, in the Trentham Museum. The German section shows in a convincing manner the German military genius and its struggle' to keep iv the lead. \ot least- in this section is a new machine jr-islol, a novel weapon winch, it is thought, may prove very deadly in the crises of a fight. For it is a mistake to believe that either

German military inventiveness or German fighting efficiency is a vpent force.

The American section includes an early Colt gun with a, short barrel and a revolving action. There is a cylinder loaded from the front end with powder and bullets, fired by' caps on nipples. (Colonel Colt's invention is dated 1840. The first double-action revolver was pro- j duced by the English maker Adams in 1855.) Turkish rifles are represented from the Peabody of 1862 (Martini i principle) down to their modern German- j made weapons. The Belgian, of course, can make guns, and they have a feature unique among service rifles—a steel case placed round the bore in order to allow for expansion. PROM ASIA—THE OLD AND THE , NEW. . Asia still has some strange firearms to offer. It is not so long since the NorthWest frontier tribes were using a firearm equipped with a piece of tow or string, which the gunner would light, and then, by a rude mechanical device, he would advance it to the powder pan. | A feature of the Trentham Museum is a Bedouin firearm that constitutes a strange mixture of past and present. Its maker anticipated the aperture sight, by using as a near sight a piece of metal perforated with three holes, one above the other. A unique point in modernity is supplied by the Japanese, whose latest carbine has a bayonet working on a hinge. No country has contributed to the Trentham Museum so complete, extensive, and valuable an exhibit as China. It is an exhibit that would need an article to itself. All the component parts of the Chinese service rifle are on view. The barrel is showu in all its stages, from the unbored metal to the finished article, and this barrel exhibit alone comprises 33 lengths of metal. Then the manufacture of the stock is also shown from the unworked wood to the stock complete. There are two samples of Chinese automatic pistols, made in Shanghai arsenal, which are qs good a a any yet produced. The visitor will come away with a deep respect for Chinese technical skill and military understanding. He may form a new idea of the pbtentialities of the 400 million people included in what is at present the most inert nationality in the world. The pleasure and profit of this visit to the Museum arose largely from the fact that the writer had as his mentor Major Henderson, D.5.0., Officer-in-Charge of Trentbam Camp. The Museum is not an institution closed to civilians. It may be seen if application is made in ad- ! vance to the authorities. And it han far more attractions than can be set down in the space at the writer's command.