TESTS OF DEADLY WARTIME WEAPONS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6944, 25 June 1929, Page 2

TESTS OF DEADLY WARTIME WEAPONS

Secrets of Luiworth

In the midst of Wessex, the quiet countryside immortalised by Thomas Hardy and just three miles from Wool Bridge House, where Toss spent her houcvmoon, the latest and most deadly weapons of war arc being experimented with.

Closely guarded by day and night, the secrets arc known only to the Tank Corps authorities at Lulworth Cove, the Dorset resort. The deadliest of armoured fighters loose their first shells against the deserted hill near the sea, but all round there arc thatched cottags, and sheep arc to be seen grazing. At Lulworth Cove the Army sheds are placed so unobtrusively that they arc hardly noticeable from the road. Experiments which have taken place in these huts have resulted in the making of the only tank in Europe which can fro effectively while moving. In the interior of the experimental room (writes a special correspondent of a London newspaper) are scale models of armoured vehicles of cvciy foreign Power and models of English cnes. Sheets of steel pierced by special armour-piercing bullets at varying ranges demonstrate what may be expected from the anti-tank weapons of hostile forces.

Week after week the work has continued in this room until the tank has developed into a powerful battleship of the land. To-day a tank will lumber across rough country at fourteen miles an hour, but experts arc expecting twenty-iive miles an hour. In battle line the crew of the tanks will be in telephonic communication with their commander.

At Lulworth there is also an instructional school to turn recruits into competent tank gunners. Part of the training is done in dismounted gun tu.rds in huts. At one end of the hut there is a stretch of scenery through wlfch move models of tanks and armoured cars. Puffs of smoke from enemy batteries and the red flashes from guns are reproduced by electricity. The crews in the turrets learn to manipulate their guns and tire rounds without ever being in a tank. As the correspondent was looking through the telescope of one of these turrets the tank seemed to be advancing. His tank was rocked by hand, and the movable scenery completed the illusion.

In another hut a tank gun turret was manned with its crew of live, with their headphones. One recruit was rocking and turning the turret like a ship in a stormy sea, while another was producing so much noise from an instrument that it was impossible to hear a word spoken. The gun turret was fighting as nearly as possible under battle conditions. The camp's miniature range consists of four gun turrets with their sixpounders. Here they practise shelling scenery, ivhich is so very near that it can almost bo touched. Although the six-pounders arc worked like standard guns, the barrels are fitted with tubes and the “shell" is a tiny airgun pellet! At Bovington camp, a few miles away, recruits are turned into polished mechanics in six months’ training. The recruit starts at ono hut, where he learns the rudiments of the engine, and when he completes the course he leaves a hut in which is a finished tank.