BIG U.S. DEFENCE SCHEME

Evening Star, Issue 20253, 14 August 1929, Page 9

BIG U.S. DEFENCE SCHEME

GUNS ALONG COASTS COST' ESTIMATED AT £20,000,000 NEW YORK, July 28. The United States military plans for defence, which involve an elaborate modern anti-aircraft scheme, include also, according to the ‘ New York Herald,’ an ambitious project of coast line defence. Tho latter scheme is estimated to cost at least, -£20,000,000. , If the army has its way a chain of 100 bring stations will be constructed on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for stationary and mobile heavy artillery, comprising Min guns with a range of thirty miles. . The stations will bo connected by k rail, so that.the “Big Berthas ” it is proposed to construct can be speedily moved up and concentrated at any threatened point. The heavy expense involved is not in keeping with President Hoover’s plans for economy. Army officials have therefore yet to persuade Mr Hoover and Congress of the necessity for such an expensive project. Meanwhile they propose to carry out a series of tests to demonstrate the mobility of modern siege guns. Starting to-day, one of the new weapons, weighing 380 tons with its railway carriage, will be sent from Virginia to the Pacific Coast with all possible speed. It is estimated (hat twenty-eight days will be required 1 for the journey from coast to coast, because road beds and bridges must be tested before the huge gun proceeds. The guns fire one ton projectiles at the maximum rate of one every minute, and cost £BO,OOO each to construct. Army officials maintain that the United States would not look warlike to 9ther nations if it prepared such a chain of firing stations! since their use would be purely defensive-.