TWO RIFLES FOR EVERY MAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1081, 6 February 1918, Page 8

TWO RIFLES FOR EVERY MAN.

The manufacture of rifles for the American army is proceeding so rapidly, Secretary of War Baker announced recently, that before the end of December the shortage would have disappeared. Mr Baker said he could not answer offhand questions as /to how many rifles were being turned out, although it is understood that the number lias about reached -1000 a day, in an ascending scale. Asked how many rifles this allowed to oacli soldier, .Mr Baker said the estimates made early in the war, that each soldier required live rifles, had been demonstrated by experience abroad to be absurdly high, especially .since so many men are using machineguns, so manv throw bombs and hand grenades, white others are used in various capacities which forbid their also carrying rifles. Two rifles to the man is the proper number now, he said. As to mAchine-guns, that situation, he said, was progressing satisfactorily, though not so well as the rifle situation. He declined, for military reasons, to give the proportion of machine guns necessary to a given number of soldiers.