ACROSS THE CHANNEL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 210, 3 August 1940, Page 7

ACROSS THE CHANNEL

GERMAN BOMBARDMENT.

INEFFECTIVE SCHEME. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Official Wireless.) Received August 3, 10.50 a.m. RUGBY, Aug. 2. Some rather highly-coloured accounts are circulating of multiple lines of artillery emplaced by the Germans along the French coast with a view to bringing part of the South-East Coast of England under a concentrated barrage. The range is quite feasible for big, modern guns, and military circles in London show no particular surprise and no special alarm at these reports.

Under present conditions stories of this nature are not likely to have gone into circulation without the approval of the German military authorities. They are undoubtedly a picturesque form of advertisement of the German preparations against Britain, but the extent to which they correspond with actuality is felt here to be more questionable. .

The Germans may be trusted not to neglect the obvious possibilities of long-range artillery—the use of which is equally open to Britain—but they will also be aware of its limitations* in practice. Fire at cross-Channel range would not be accurate. The guns themselves wear out quickly. Owing to the thickness of the shell case, the .burst is relatively ineffective. Unless the fire is quite erratic it would require to he directed by air observation, and aircraft intruding over the British coast would not be treated by the R.A.F. with any special leniency.

For these and other reasons the long-range bombardment of the English coast is regarded by competent circles here as expensive, uneconomical, and rather ineffective.