NEW DEFENSIVE WORKS.

Grey River Argus, Volume 21, Issue 3044, 18 May 1878, Page 2

NEW DEFENSIVE WORKS.

General von Hanneken, in some recently published deductions from the operations of the present war in the East, remarks that late events have shown that security from assault in a field work is not to be obtained by increasing the obstacles to the enemy's advance — as, for instance, by giving. a formidable profile to the parapet and ditch — so much as by making provision for utilising the full power of modern firearms, by providing a clear field of fire in from of the position. The lesson thus deduced by General von Hanneken was, it may be remarked, enunciated almo3 immediately after the last Franco-German war in the " Wellington Prize Essay," in which the author l remarks that "for one place which has fallen because the men on the defensive had not sufficient cover, a dozen have fallen because the obstacles to fire iin front have not been cleared away. It would, therefore, seem to be quite as important to train men habitually to calculate how much ground can be cleared in a given time, and in ; what way it can best be done, as to teach them how to throw up entrenchments." It is pointed out by General Vpn Hanneken that, now that the off active range of rifle 3 has been increased, this clear zone in front of an entrenchment should be 2000 paces wide ; and also that it has become of i greater importance than ever to provide cover for the garrison of a field-work from the preliminary bombardment with which i the assailant , will endeavour, to prepare the way for his infantry attack. If this , precaution has been taken; and a sufficiently wide space cleared of everything that might afford cover to the attacker, an adequately garrisoned field-work may, the German general concludes, be pronounced tactically unassailable.