SCIENCE AND THE AFGHAN WAR.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5424, 3 July 1879, Page 3

SCIENCE AND THE AFGHAN WAR.

We regret topeafronj The Time? Correspondent at Daia that, notwithstanding all that science has done for warfare, the Afghan war has been. an unscientific one. {^ India," he, states j *,' is unprepared ior/ scientific war. The enemy, like ourselves, possess arms of precision and artillery. Their artillery at AH Musjid and the Peiwar Kotal was probably equal, if not superior, to our own. Rockets, however, so readily carried over rough mountain : roads, and so terrifying to barbarians from ! their eccentric course, exciting their astonishment more than any other appliances of art except the telegraph, have, j never been introduced in the campaign. Nor have any steam launches been sent to traverse the navigable, Oabul River,' explore its windings, and secure the left flank from gatherings of the enemy. . No lime lights or other lights, of which science boasts so many,' have ever been supplied to prevent the enemy perpetually ■ harassing our troops and disturbing their much-needed repose by creeping; within range, under cover of night, and firing into our camp." This is rather disheartening, and we trust that in the campaign against the Zulus more attention will be paid to recent applications of science, and that, for example, night surprises will be made impossible by the use of one or other form of light, whicliby a little ingenuity might be made to light up all the ground around any position. ......