BRITISH ARMY

Hokitika Guardian, 7 December 1940, Page 5

BRITISH ARMY

A MECHANISED ONE

NEW TACTICS TRIED OUT.

(United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright;.

LONDON, December 5. An armoured division participated in Army corps scale manoeuvres this week. Forty thousand troops covering three hundred miles in 72 hours, trying out new tactics in close air co-operation. The manoeuvre, at which Sir Allan Brooke was the chief observer, was a rapid offensive movement, based on an assumption that the corps had made a successful new B.E.F. landing two days before moving into action. An infantry division trudged forty miles in 36 hours. Armoured forces, including light, medium .and cruiser tanks, and one hundred other fighting vehicles and transports, ploughed continuously through mud. Two squadrons of planes closely supported the infantry, which with the latest 25 pounders assailed the “thickest crust” of enemy resistance. Another squadron co-operat-ed with armoured units which employed the army’s “antipanzer” motor battalion. It swept on to where the opposition was thinnest, seized a town, awaited infantry, and then swept on to the- limit of the advance. All types of planes roared over on a dozen sorties, giving assistance, which was demonstratedly faster than was the Luftwaffe’s, either in Poland or in the Low Countries, also employing a new- “Hush-Hush” form of co-operation with land forces with outstanding success. A “Times” correspondent says: 0000000000000000000