IS INFANTRY OBSOLETE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19906, 28 September 1926, Page 11

IS INFANTRY OBSOLETE

STILL DECISIVE FACTOR. FUTURE MILITARY MACHINES. That military prophets have of late been for the most part tank and aeroplane enthusiasts, tending to overrate the relative importance of machinery in the next war, is the contention of Mr Victor Wallace Germains (rifleman) in an atrticie entitled "An Infantryman Thinks About War,” published - in the -National Review for July. Mr Germains does not agree with the modern' expert who is prepared to lay the infantryman ‘‘gently with the Viking on the poetic shelf.” "\\'e are constantly assured,” ha says, “that the conditions of the world war 1914-S are never likely to recur again; that the post-war tank and the post-war aeroplane have revolutionised all our conception of warfare; that the next war is going to be one of movement, swift, short, and decisive. Mr Germains maintains that in essentials warfare will remain the same, and that the decision will rest, as in all past wars since the Civil \\ ar of 1642, on infantry. New inventions ’will neutralise each other, "Super-tank,” he declares "would neutralise super-tank, super-aero-plane would neutralise super-aeroplane; mobile, mechanicalised infantry columns would neutralise one another, and the result I Trench warfare as in 1914 fought, of course, with more highly developed weapons, but trench warfare, the combat <f infantry against infantry.” Their very uses impose limits on the development of aeroplanes and tanks. Speed and mobility and the importance of not presenting a large target to the enemy must limit the size and armament of tanks. Such vehicles can never hope to carry the material required for battle to anything like the same extent as roads and railways, the possession of which remains strategically decisive Tanks of possible size can never stand up to field guns ready for them. They remain the weapon of surprise. Moreover, smaller and more mobile types can be countered by a heavier litis, which will also be effective in enabling infantry to defend themselves against aircraft and in preventing thsse machines from coming low. Aeroplanes will &iso, thinks Mr Germaine, be restricted to their late roles of reconnaissance and raiding. There is no likelihood of gas more deadly than that at present used being discovered. Such gases as are sufficiently volatile to spread and powerful enough to kill have been discovered. Mr Germains concludes that the main strategic purposes of war will bo possible onlv to masses of infantry. "So long as the buik of this world's commerce is by ships and along roads and railroads,' lie savs "so long will the art of war resolve itself into the effort by one belligerent to seize and maintain control of ths great centres of communication vital to the uie of the adversary. Raids, however deadly, will only be of vital importance as supported by the main power of armies. For the rest, great battles will have to be fought, battles with tlic entire strength of the nation concentrated for a smashing blow. In these battles the infantry will continue to bear a decisive part. Whether leaded on to mechanicalised transport and rushed to tuc critical point; whether employed spade a hand, in digging lines of earthworks; whether creeping to the attack in the waka of a smoking barrage, it will be the blearing strain oi the infantry which will bring the snappiug-pomt of victory or defeat.