TANK WARFARE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 29, 28 October 1932, Page 7

TANK WARFARE

Recent Tactics Reveal Their Value USE AGAINST INFANTRY

(B.

W.D.H.)

Recent manoeuvres held in England have established the tank as an invaluable weapon in modern battle tactics. Mechanisation with its facilities for providing quick movement when light guns were required to be brought up in haste to a danger area helped the infantryman against slow tanks, but with the swift type no successful countering method has yet been found. Anti-tank mines are of some value, but their use iu open country would require the employment of too many lorries for the carriage of explosive. A line of these lorries would soon cause congestion on the roads and attract the attention of hostile aircraft. An illustration of the value of the tank was given in. the manoeuvres when 200 of them, carrying 650 men, made an attack against 2400 troops. The armour carried the day, despite elaborate defence measures. It was proved that mines, anti-tank guns, howitzers, and machines could not stem the advance, the position being such that the umpires were forced to call a halt, the tank brigade having secured an overwhelming victory. The hope was expressed by observers that British infantry would never, in actual warfare, be placed in a position that it had to bear the assault of a tank brigade. From these lessons learned it England it would pay the New Zealand Government if it provided facilities for the study of tank warfare, even at the expense of another arm of the service. Prominent tacticians are inclined to the belief that tanks will undergo such a development shortly that they will manoeuvre in battle in the same manner that warships do today, terrain offering no serious obstacle. The, army, which has the biggest tanks, they say, will win the next war.