EQUIPMENT OF BRITISH ARMY IS CRITICISED

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 September 1950, Page 5

EQUIPMENT OF BRITISH ARMY IS CRITICISED

LONDON, Sept. 29.—“ The Army of the Rhine has been quietly and cheaply carrying on with reconditioned war-time stocks of vehicles and weapons,” says the _ military correspondent of the Daily Express, in a dispatch from Paderborn. “This has saved a lot of steel and money, and the Secretary of State for War (Mr John Strachey), who is now at Paderborn on a three-day visit, will be able to judge the consequences. “Few now believe that any weapons but the very latest would be good enough to face even moderate Soviet tanks and the dense battalions of the Soviet infantry. “Mr Strachey will find our infantry platoons in the Rhine Army without 3.5-inch bazookas; he will find them using rifles little different from the type issued in 1914, the Bren gun of the 1930’5, and the easily produce war time Sten. These weapons may be as good as anything the Russians have, but outnumbered as we are by eight to one, British weapons need to be eight times better.” British Army manoeuvres are taking place this week between Paderborn and Hamelin.