NEW ARMY PLAN EXPLAINED IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18419, 22 March 1928, Page 10

NEW ARMY PLAN EXPLAINED IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

CAVALRY REGIMENTS BEING REORGANISED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. . RUGBY, March 20. Sir L. Worthington-Evans, Secretary for War, introduced the Army estimates in the House of Commons. Dealing with the Royal Tank Corps, he said that it was the present intention that the Third Battalion of the Tanks should have fifty-two tanks. The conception which the War Office had of the development of tanks and the mechanised force was not that they should replace the shock tactics of cavalr>'- The men in the cavalry machine gun squadrons were being trained as cavalrymen. Should they be in a country where vehicles could not carry guns, but where animals must do that work, the men trained so would be capable of functioning under those circumstances. With regard to the organisation of two cavalry regiments with armoured cars, the 11th Hussars and the 12th Lancers, the Minister pointed out that they would each be counted in three squadrons of thirty-four armoured cars. The present estimates provided that during this year the 11th Hussars, which regiment was at Home, should have thirty-four armoured cars, and the regiment in Egypt, the 12th Lancers, should have eleven armoured cars only, so that one squadron would be mounted and the other two squadrons would be mounted in the succeeding year. He could not do it completely in Egypt this year.—British Official Wireless.

MECHANICAL WARFARE BOARD ESTABLISHED.

RUGBY, March 20. The War Office has set up a new body, known as the Mechanical Warfare Board, to act in an advisory capacity on technical problems in connection with mechanised transport of all types for army requirements and to secure liaison with the mechanical engineering industry, so that the army may be in close touch with engineering progress and commercial production. The president is General Sir Webb Gillman, Master-General of the Ordnance.—British Official Wireless.