WAR INVENTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 81, 5 April 1940, Page 5

WAR INVENTIONS.

GENIUS IN FLOOD. THE STEEL "CROCODILE." Scientists attached to the Ministry of Supply and branches of the Admiralty and Air Ministry examine daily devices which, their inventors claim, would assist to bring the war to a speedy and successful end. All wars stimulate the inventive brain, but not all the inventions or suggestions are practicable. An Italian designed a box like a barrel-organ. The turn of a handle projected a stream of disc grenades, which were ignited, like matches, by friction against a roughened surface as they were released. *" Another ingenious device was a steel "crocodile" which was guaranteed to find its way through wire entanglements, but was not considered suitable as a weapon of war.

Some of the suggestions do not require much examination or discussion. The provision of suits of armour for infantrymen can be dismissed immediately. It could not have occurred to the originator of the idea that there is a definite limit to the weight a man can carry. German refugees, some of them scientists of high repute, are also contributing valuable ideas. Some proposals forwarded to the Ministry have been previously suggested and successfully, developed, but it is not always permissible to make this admission because of the risk of information reaching the enemy. ° Wirelessly controlled tanks, the use of chain shot against aeroplanes and decoy lighting to deceive aircraft attacking at night are among a few of the ideas reaching the Ministry. Some contain the germs of inventions which might be adapted to purposes of defence or dertiuctioß.