MILITARY TRAINING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 60, 12 March 1926, Page 9

MILITARY TRAINING.

LIKE THt REAL THING. 2UACHXNE GUNS AND TANKS. MARCHING BY NIGHT. WORK FOR TERRITORIALS. t (Bj- Telegraph.— Special to "Sttr.") j WELLINGTON, this day. c During the Army rifle meeting , at Trentham a frequent visitor has been the General Officer the New s Zealand Forces, Major-General Young, f In an interview he made some interest- i ing remarks regarding possible develop- i ments in military training in the near c future. First of all Major-General £ Young expressed himself as being highly 1 pleased frith the result of the night firing t experiment made last night. Night- 1 firing and night movements, he said, were f coming into their own on account of the t activity of hostile aeroplanes, and there ■was no doubt that more attention would j have to be given to this-phase of train- s ing in the future. Although the experi- f jnent of last night had been quite satis- l factory, he did not think that the dieci- ] pline of our territorials had reached the \ etage where they could carry out such ( an experiment successfully under strict , service conditions. It was easy to have . an accident. The men, however, were "j very steady last night, and, to his idea, ' the only thing wrong was that they were over anxious. On the whole he had been ] more than pleased with the night firing, end there was no doubt it had come to i »tay. \ Later on they would also have to ex- c periment with tanks, as it was essential £ that they should keep up-to-date. Some ( territorials appeared to think that their t training consisted merely of "form $ fours," but the Department wanted to i teach them that there was something } more than that in it. There was no doubt that discipline in the territorial force had improved out of sight in recent years. Reverting to the question of night- t firing, Major-General Young said trainees t ■hould not look upon the thing in the a light of a picnic. It was not a picnic; { it was very difficult work. He indicated ( that the Department would be consider- j Ing the adoption of a higher standard of f military training in the near future, and s •aid that many of the Permanent men i had already received some instructions c in that direction. . \ Colonel Burgess (Chief of the General i Staff) said the territorials would not i only have to practise night-firing, but s inarching and movements by night. The 1 present night-firing was very elementary, ', but next year they hoped to have some- ' thing more advanced, such as indirect 1 firing with Vickers guns. They would j probably have also a tank attack, and probably make use of gas masks in one ' or two of their matches. He stressed - the fact that they must keep up with • the times.