MOTORISED ARMY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19884, 10 March 1939, Page 5

MOTORISED ARMY

BRITISH MANOEUVRES NEW TANKS APPEAR LONDON, March 2. Britain’s new mechanised army is concentrated at Aldershot for manoeand will move northward to attack Yorkshire. The plan is designed to represent the spearhead of an expeditionary force such as that which would first be sent to the Continent. In the contingent are 60,000 regulars and some territorials operating under war-time conditions. 'By this means the High Command will gain practice in the general mobilisation, not only of troops, but also of machine-guns, tanks and searchlight units. Interest is attached to the motorised divisions, and also to thousands of armoured -transport vehicles on trunk highways, some of which are being tested for the first time. It will be an army on wheels and the largest ever employed in British manoeuvres. “Land Battleships” New light assault tanks which have been designed to crush hostile machinegun nests, and the newest heavy tanks, “land battleships,” will take part. Meanwhile, 'Bren guns have been issued in sufficient numbers to the regulars to be used in the rifle compe.titions for the Bisley championship. The Air Porce is already exercising, the manoeuvres being on a war-time scale. The Daily Telegraph’s military correspondent, Group-Captain Payne, analysing the Anglo-French Air Forces, says:— “The Government has already extended the plan under which 3500 first line aeroplanes were to be completed and manned in 1940.” Aeroplane Production

Captain Payne continues that in 1938 the monthly production of war-planes was estimated at: Germany 300, Britain 250, Italy 200, and France 50. Britain and France have since more than doifbled this rate. 'France has inaugurated a new production drive to make 2500 first-line aeroplanes in 1940. An additional 1000, it is rumoured, are being bought from the United Stcitcs* The growth of the French industry can be gauged from the fact that the aircraft industry’s plant and machinery, which was valued at £2,500,000 in 1936, will represent an outlay of £11,000,009 in 1946.