WAR OFFICE INERTIA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 136, 12 June 1933, Page 7

WAR OFFICE INERTIA

While experiments in petrol-driveS caterpillar-track tractors for military use had been carried out by the Bri* tish authorities before the war, thera had been no serious investigation of proposal by any nation to develop the caterpillar principle for lighting, as opposed to transport purposes. In 1903 Mr. H. G. Wells, in fiction, anticipated the intervention in battle of fighting machines which amounted to large-sizei tanks. Five years later Captain T. G* Tulloch had suggested a scheme for a' steam-driven pedrail armed and ar* moured trench-crossing machine, and in 1911 had put forward proposals fo* use of armed and armoured linked Hornsby-Ackroyd tractors with a crew, of a hundred men. In 1912, Mr. L. E.de Mole, an Australian, actually placed; before the War Office a.design, followed in 1916 by a model, for a. climbing^ fighting, track-driven machine. This was the real prototype of the tank, and! in some particulars, especially its! pivoted ends and flexible chain tracks for steering a curved course, it seems to have been superior to the machinai actually produced. Unfortunately, what* ever may ha^ve been the official opinion* with regard to this scheme, no action' was taken. The originators of tha idea of the machines finally built wera| ignorant of the work of Mr. do1 Mole,and his invention had no' influence at} all on the evolution of the tank. The real obstacle to the development of the new machine appears to havei been the military mind. In the years before 1914 military opinion generally], inclined to the belief that in' any] future struggle open warfare, or a! "war of movement," alone was prof bable, and that in such a campaignmobility was essential. This would' account for the fact that hot only irt Austria, but fin France and the idea was held by inventors and yefe waa not thoroughly exploited. lai France, during the latter part of 1915^ M. J. L. Breton, a French deputy, de« veloped a caterpillar wire-cutter. Thii was tried, and orders were given fo^ a few, which, however, were not con* structed. In Germany in 1913 and againl at the end of 1914 proposals were madq' for an armoured automobile on cater* pillar tracks, and in 1915 some expert* ments were made, but here" again no* steps were taken,''and it was only aftdl} the apearance of the British tanks in| 1916 that the question was taken upi by a special commission after one o^ the British machines had» been tern* porarily captured. •