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Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19940, 26 October 1934, Page 16

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BRITISH ARMY CHANGES Big changes in every branch of the British Army, amounting almost to complete reorganisation, are pending (says the "Daily Dispatch”). The decision follows an experimental reorganisation of the 6th Infantry Brigade into one machine-gun battalion and three rifle battalions. It has been decided that all our forces at home and abroad, including the Indian Army and the Territorial Army, are as far as possible to be trained and armed alike. This will probably mean the reorganisation on parallel lines of the armed forces in Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Cavalry brigades will in the future consist of one armoured car unit and three cavalry regiments with horses, as opposed to the present four horsed units. At present only two cavalry regiments have been converted into arm-oured-car units, the 11th Hussars and the 12th Lancers. As there are twentyone cavalry regiments in all, it is likely that three more will be converted into armoured-car units. First-line transport in both cavalry and infantry will be mechanised. Jt is doubtful whether in five years’ time there will be a single horsed unit in artillery, engineers, signals, or infantry, and only a few horsed units in the cavalry. The fire power of the modem infantry will be increased immensely in comparison with that of 1914. A machine-gun battalion will have thirty-six machine-guns and sixteen anti-tank guns, and an ordinary infantry battalion twelve light machineguns, four 3in mortars, and four ma-chine-guns mounted on tripods for anti-aircraft use. « Even so, the French infantry battalions which guard the German frontier have twice the number of machineguns per battalion.