MODERN MAGIC CARPET.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 18 June 1936, Page 2

MODERN MAGIC CARPET.

Licut-Coloncl Justrow (retired) of the German Army has a low opinion of the German steel helmet and expresses it in Die Umsehau. He thinks the helmet has fine, severe, soldierly, Roman lines, but that it is a poor thing, says the New York Times. In the first place, the German “coal scuttle’ ’ of a helmet is too heavy. It offers some protection to the skull, but interferes too much with seeing and hearing orders and calls. In the World War German soldiers who were lying prone, repelling attacks from the air, studying the enemy’s position through “scissors” telescopes, or manipulating range finders and other measuring instruments often discarded their helmets because they were too much of a nuisance. In trench warfare the helmets were excellent targets because of their shape and size. Against modern bullets, which can pierce shields three-tenths of an inch thick, no helmet is of any use. Bullets may be deflected; but Justrow points out that glancing blows fall on the side of a helmet at angles flatter than CO degress. He wonders whether a man would not be missed anyway under the conditions. Bullets and fragments of shells and grenades that pass through a helmet often cause injuries worse than those that would be sustained without protection. Even a glancing hit may be fatal because the blow, like that of a hammer, dishes and drives in the steel straight to the skull. In the process the helmet may even straighten out a glancing bullet so that it can penetrate the metal and kill. Lightness Needed. Nearly every modern army has developed helmets that depart not only from those introduced during the World War but from the German design. It is generally agreed that the metal cannot be thick. In all countries research has been conducted to obtain tough, hard sheet steel alloyed with nickel, chromium, vanadium, molybdenum, and other metals. Germany may need these for other more vital purposes. Against vertical hits no metal is of any use. It has therefore been seriously considered whether heavy steel helmets should not be abolished altogether or whether it would not be advisable to adopt aluminium even at the expense of higher vulnerability. Probably steel will bo retained (perhaps unalloyed) and the shape of the German helmet changed. The brim will be narrower and bent more outwardly, so as to deflect bullets more easily. In, fact, helmet brims have been abolished or reduced in some European armies because shrapnel, once feared because of its downward discharge of missies, has lost its importance. Justrow approves the ridge-like thickening of the metal along the longitudinal axis of the helmet which has been adopted by some general staffs. He holds that this affords some additional protection because it heightens the deflecting effect along the most vulnerable line.