A BATTLE OF TERROR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18009, 14 July 1928, Page 4

A BATTLE OF TERROR.

UNDERGROUND FORTS

WILL COMBAT TANKS LONDON, May 16. Military experts aiid all those who were in close contact with the. enemy during tho war of 1914-1918 will be stirred by Colonel J. F. C. Fuller’s new prophetic book “On Future ttarfare. Controversy will be raised bj his vision of a war of science, small man-power, and death-dealing machines. , ... „ Colonel Fuller, a General Stall ofhcer, recognised as one of the cleverest brains in the Army, has specialised rn the study of mechanised force, its effect on tactics, and on the morale or nii.iiary and civilian population. “On Future Warfare," with its cold, hard, reasoning, its unemotional references to the casualties of war :1s descriptions of mobile heavy-gun platforms moving to the oheusive, taims in action, aeroplanes in operation, and gas attacks, will prove as discouraging to one section oi the public as it must inspire to further efiort tno mechanically minded among tho proiessionai so.diors:

AIIMY OF 60,000. The small army : M foreshadowed for 1946 bv Ccloim! Fuller. Sixty thousand officers" and men, with 2,OCU lighting machines, is his estimate. ‘A rnicio fc copic force when compared to the horde armies of 1314-1918,” he concludes “Yet. though during the hint veer of tho war we used as many tanks as the number I have just onoted can it be doubted that if the wn ffised fo-we outlined, bad exmteu wo” could not have decimated these ~ ‘v as A o:-aiider decimated the Persians at lssus and at

Fuller describes and explains on liie wed. -n l'-m. t mgs i»"eh scries of siege operations. In place of , v> ,, ; . .y j•:•,)!( ssioii.u en- - , (S u v ,i*.in bv amateur pioneers/ and 'tho result was a chaos of earthworks. . . , °Vh ewliero the writer refers to mistakes in iho eimmol ol the great war. Tim army ol ilie . fute.re w,l he “based on pc* ml . . - it will be able to advance one hundred miles a day. .It mun lie comparaLively .small . m organisation must be simple. It must,

however, be able to find the enemy, to hold him when met with, and when held to hit him and to pursue him. s he finding of an eimyiv will lawm’.v depend on air reoonnaisance, and air power depends on landing iacilities . . v% unout ail" S-‘.per,,/i iu,> iiiipi'iiit; will bo gravely res.noted, and surprise in mechanical warfare is obviously' allimportant.” -ANTI-TANK MOATS.. So the mechanised army will move forward by road and cross country, bn.. there will be obstacles bred out of tn» nations’ appreciation of tanks. Fortifications are h'lcdy to he numerous and small . . . shell proofand gasproof. Zones of modernised Martello i .i- • rs suy' s. ti-i ms-. . t-s. sunk in anti-tank moats, and possibly encircled and connected by minefields. The top of the tower . . . will only just appear above the level of the.. ground, crowned by a small revolving steel cupola containing one anti-tank gun, its garrison numbering about ten men. They should be provided with some hidden means of exit., which will allow their garrisons retiring should thoir gun be put out of action. “The tactical outlook has changed.” stresses Colonel Fuller earlier in the hook. ‘AVe have light tanks fighting light- tanks, which presupposes that each will be equipped with anti-tank machine-guns, and on botji sides these machines will be supported bv heavy tanks. Somewhere in the offing win cavalry be. sticking panic-stricken enemy riflemen routed by the cavalry light tanks, while well in rear, on some anti-tank hilltop, will be congregated the infantry loudly applauding this excellent sport. Such, J believe, is what a battle will look like in the near future.”