"GASSED" TANKS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 70, 22 March 1919, Page 19

"GASSED" TANKS.

j AN AMERICAN YARN. An Ingenious defence against tank attacks, wl trl momentarily ,iil an end ro :h--'r usefulness, was used by the Germans some time ago. according to Paul S. Haley, an American writer, in the New York 'Illustrated World." Tbe German method of knocking ou f the tnoks. says Mr. Raiey. was by th™ an o' gas—employed not against the pilots and [gunners running the tanks, but against Hit 'motor-mechanism of the t.-inks thr-mse.ves. paralysing them and putting them out of action. Ir the neighbourhood of the advancing tnt.ks tons and tons of unwieldy projectiles wtrp dropped. These were apparcntl,- innocuons enough in their action. Each on" exploded with a noise no louder than that tr.r.de by a small calibred pistol. Nit jsi-spectin™ anything terribly dang, mns. the tatkr continued on their way methodically. Then they stopped. nn.l were battered to pieces by the enemy guns. Kach of the Impotent looking projec:i, was. a earhon-dioxld bomb, tired from r i I linml mortar. On bursting, ea. h p.-oj -ctile filled the atmosphere in that vicinity with a tremendous amount of gas. "Now. carbon-dloxid gas is not really dangerous to human life. It is only wien tho oxygen is vitiated In a stuffy room that it really has the ability to do much harm. "The gas did not Inconvenience the drivers or gunners Inside the tanks in the least. It simply stopped the engines! "How this was done nn be understood readily when it Is remembered that a tank l.s nothing but an armoured fort set down on top of a gasoline-truck chassis. As long as the gas-motor runs, the tank can move. When it stops, the- tank is Immovable. No gasoline engine can deliver an explosive mixture to the carburetor In an an atmosphere of c nr i,..n dioxld. When the air became tilled with this gas the tanks became useless." A'-cnrdlng to the writer, the fact that attacks were subsequently made by tanks could only mean one thing, and ilia: was that the Allies had evolved a gasmask rrn dering tanks immune from the new UerIman gas attacks.