HORSE REPLACED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 44, 22 February 1937, Page 5

HORSE REPLACED.

MECHANISED ARMY.

TRACTORS AND LORRIES.

RAPID TRANSPORT OF GUNS. No longer will the horse be the means of moving: field and other artillery. He has been replaced by a tractor or lorry engine. By using six-wheeled lorries and tractors the New Zealand Permanent Forces have solved the problem of the rapid transport of artillery, even over broken country. The modern bat-

tery will consist of the gun and limbers, a powerful six-wheeled lorry and a tracer.

A trial at Trentham Camp before Major-General Sir William SinclairBurgess. General Officer Commanding New Zealand Forces, demonstrated the speed at which a battery unit can be assembled on the lorry, rushed across rough country, and then reassembled for action (states the "Dominion"). The loading and unloading takes no more than a few minutes, and the travelling speed is considerably faster than that I made when horses are used for pulling.

With a specially constructed platform, the lorry carries a tractor and the gun, and the limbers are towed behind. The usual wheels on the limbers are not designed for hammering behind a lorry at high speeds, but they are adapted for the new conditions by being fitted with pneumatic tyres. With the full load of tractor and 18-pounder gun. an aver-

age s|>ecd on the road of 30 m.p.h. can be maintained indefinitely.

When the need arises, the gun and it« tractor are slid off, and can travel over the roughest ground and into the most restricted corners. Wooden ramps are used for getting the equipment on and off the carrier lorry, and they can also be utilised as an improvised bridge for crossing creeks or gaps up to 1 Oft in width. '

Tests with both the lorry and the tractor were carried out. In spite of the heavy load and encumbering limbers the lorry negotiated small mounds and ditches without much difficulty, although on one occasion the front wheels of the lorry bounced fully a foot in the air as a ridge of almost two feet was climbed. There was a momentary hesitation, and then the outfit continued as if nothing untoward had happened. It was not until the tractor had been brought into action that the true mobility of the battery was illustrated. With seeming indifference the tractor crawled up steep banks, turned and then slid down again, dragged the limbers over hole-pitted ground, and finally charged through thick gorse and undergrowth.

Combined, these make a formidable unit which can negotiate almost all obstacles in a fraction of the time that would be taken by a horse-drawn batterv.