AMERICA’S BIG GUNS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25173, 13 March 1943, Page 5

AMERICA’S BIG GUNS

COUNTER TO GERMAN TANKS WASHINGTON, (Rec. 10 p.m.) Mar. 11. Sixty-ton tanks will disappear from the battlefields before the war ends because fire-power and not bulk is the test of any tank. This statement was made by Major-general Campbell, chief of the Ordnance Department, to the American Associated Press, when referring to reports from Tunisia that Americans had nothing to equal the German Mark VI 62-ton tanks. General Campbell said the Americans had four types of mobile field guns that would and had put shells through German armour. The Americans had built 60-ton tanks more than a year ago, but the armoured forces had decided against them because they were too heavy and could not be manoeuvred. “We are very prone to misunderstand the real purpose of tanks,” he continued. “There is no justification for any type of tank except for its fire-power. We knetv eight months ago that the Germans were about to spring a new heavy tank on us. We believe that our big mobile guns will be better than the Germans’ heavy tanks.”