RAPIDITY OF ME

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 11

RAPIDITY OF ME

AN AGE-OLD &UEST PROGRESS OF MACHINE RIFLES AUTOMATICS PLUS TACTICAL SKILL. (Written for, "The Post.") The soldier's quest lor rapidity of fire is at least as old as Archimedes. Archimedes' invented a machine for showering stones on the Roman, ships. He also taught his men not to merely pick up a stone and thTow it,' but to gather together a heap, and then at a given signal to throw hard and all together. It is recorded that at, the Battle of Hastings, 1066, there was some.'sort of a bow which was designed to fire more than one arrow. At the battle of Cressy^ 26th August, 1346, the English long-bow, men beat the French cross-bowmen. STONES. ARROWS, GUNPOWDER. The firearm eclipsed, the bow as the bow had eclipsed stone-throwing,. and still the quest for rapidity of fire continued. Early in the history of smooth bores—as " early !w the 14th centurymultiple barrelled firearms were produced' in England, but failed owing to their weight and slowness of re-loading.. Still, the idea of the machine-gun had been- born. In 1661 a man named William Drommond tied a number of barrels together with the idea,of increasing the rate of fire. Considerations of expediency caused the same idea to be resurrected during the South African War (1899-1902), when, in' the- block-house lines, six to eight rifles-were laid so as to be fired at once, by pulling a string. . ■ . Although the idea is so old, the first / r^sUly; I practical', machin^gun, the Oatlingiwaa';not invented till. IEJ6^ only a litOe, over." half-arbeiitury .ago. •' .Among :t^>|3|^^J4m]>rp^«^tifiul^^ v «*libre. jJ^*W.;'iKrWcl^l^^ii^ftß;:;:S:(witJi whi^Gi^anym^e the first big" hit in i^p^i^t^UjfjfliAiito. irmy until- 188B); 'ana^^i^'^t^tt^^^l^eisiA^^^'maT! f.byv (B^jHiito^f»iijn--in,^fflßs:', v - Wy- : nße^^^ :1w i^ih the der«lopmrtt of m«hii^ |«ni; o! rifl. calibre:;' The pracUc*! pewd of leyer-aqUiated or fiandWwork-. Ed nuchrneignni may be Mid to have opened i^Wie Gftling and the French mitrwUew^and ? to^haie^losed when armies •m.ihiag b*«errThe period of i tJ»; *nt<)m>tic machin^ftm^isx«tiU cur- : 'riii^-b^UM>;.t^^iclm,!'i?m>chin«-suii. used in the Britiih 'Army tord«y is simply a UgnW' and imprDT«d Mucim. But macmn'e;gM'''deTera^neßt^'i)ui(, divided into two branch«e--*ntomiitjc ■ machine-, guns of the Vickew kM^iMid^lighteif weapon* th»t, are in effect automatic rifles: An eximpla of the latter is the Lewis gun. A, sttll lighter automatic rifle is the Madmri'gun. '■ 7V'v^ ■ X;; '■;',, \- In the Lewis gtin the British -Army sacrifice* water-cooling in order to save weight:' -The air-cooled; :and lighter. Lewis' cannot sustain . rapid; fire• as long .- as. the Vickerscan. The .Lewis will' get over-heated when 700 to 800 rounds Have hero fired'rapidly: It is, therefore; '■■ weapon for short bursts of fire. Sustained fire is for the Vickers. ' - . ■

AUTOMATIC GUN'S EQUIVALENT IN TRIGGER MEN. Expressing both, of them in terms of the individual rifleman,. it may be1 said • thai the fire of a Victors' gun, and, for • short time, of a Lewis gun, equals that of about 20 to 25 good shots with rifles. ' The writer lias endeavoured to prevent these remarks becoming either too technical, or too lengthy, because he is not' a technical man. His purpose is simply to give, some idea 'to the public of, the intense specilisation in the smallarms branch of warfare—a specialisation that goes on unceasingly a» the age-old pursuit of rapidity of fir* continues; a specialisation that, no country, if it values its freedom, can afford to ignore. ' The advantage of the lighter Lewis—; which, with its bipod, can be carried'by one man—owr the heavier Victors, .(three men) in mobility is qualified in one. important respeefc-^weignt of ammunition, r Mobility, of course, is dependent not only on a gun but on what a gun require*. Lewis gun ammunition in magazines is heavier than Vickers gun ammunition in belts. When a convenient ammunition. dump has been established, the mobility of a Lewis gun is practically as great as that of a rifle; but not otherwise. The Lewis gun and parts and equipment .are more, liable, than the Vickers to accident.

It teems to be beyond question, that the Lewis gun cannot take the place of the Vickers. As a kind of antomatic rifle, it is a supplement to, not. a substitute for, the antomatic machine-gun. CLAIM OF THE MADSBN. There does, however, appear to be some'question as to whether the Madsen gun may take the place of the Lewis. It is true that the Russians used a number of Madaen guns, .each weighing about 151b, in the war witH Japan in 1005; and superficial opinion might therefore diamiu the Madsen as having failed to make its mark. Bat modern history shows abundantly how a weapon may fail in one war, and in more than one war,, and yet have conquering possibilities. Tactical mis-use sometimes accounts for such failures. Consider, by way of illustration, the following facts: The hand-operated Gatling gun wag used to a small extent in the American Civil War (1860-64)- A decade elapsed before, the Gatling won its slow way into the British Army. Meanwhile it had figured in the Franco-Prussian War of lffTO, but its tactical use wafr not.understood. In that war France's main hope in the way of machine-guns was U>e mitrailleuse; it was used as artillery instead of as an infantry arm,' and was otherwise mis-handled. The failure of the mitrailleuse, and.of a somewhat similar weapon used by their own Bavarian armies, caused the German generals to set their faces against machine guns for many years after the FrancoPrussian War; but their adverse opinion proved to be a superficial one. Maxim's automatic invention in the 'eighties shook it, and in 1899 (the first year of Britain's war in South Africa) the German Government took the first step towards the ' general introduction of m» chine-guns . into the German army. That Germany reaped advantage from her change of. mind was shown in 1914. INVENTION FAILS WITHOUT , EIGHT USE. Meanwhile, the British handling of. the machine-gun in the South African War did not add to its reputation, but a Hythe professor summed the position up by saying that the failure of the ma-chine-guns in South Africa was due to "want of knowledge in tactical handling and a Idw standard of training of the personnel." So it is quite clear that a failure in one war may be » brilliant success in another.

Among the tdvwxUgM ekimed gts $£•

air-cooled Madsen automatic rifle over the air-cooled Lewis are lightness (the Madsen is about half the weight of the other); ease of fire from standing position; strength of parts, and invulnerability of the gun to mud, water, and dust; barrel can be cooled instantly by plunging gun in any muddy water; hot barrel can be replaced.' with i reserve barrel in twelve seconds (Lewis gun, twenty minutes);- much greater '■ continuity of fire.

But, once again, let us drop the technical. This is not a treatise on , the superiority of any particular gun. . It is a reminder that military science cannot stand still, is not standing still, may never stand still. Can New Zealand afford to lag behind in the ■ march of events? The country has a highlytrained organisation keen to keep in step, filled with esprit de corps. This organisation, must be neither dropped nor neglected. It is riot costly relative to its value. It must at all costs be maintained and encouraged. '