COUNTER FOR TANKS

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21414, 7 May 1941, Page 6

COUNTER FOR TANKS

Because the tank is the machine by which the Germans have achieved their most spectacular advances in this war, inventive brains in Allied countries have been concentrated on the problem of finding an effective counter in the shortest possible time. That counter has perhaps been found in the cannon-carrying aeroplane, which can hunt fast-moving tanks and destroy them. Planes armed only with machine-guns and bombs are not well enough armed for this special work. Bomb aiming is necessarily somewhat erratic, and machineguns have little effect on armour-plated tanks. Artillery on the ground is not sufficiently mobile to keep pace with the tanks. Or if the guns are mounted in tanks, something like equality in numbers is necessary for success. The cannon-carrying aeroplane, on the other hand, has the speed and the manoeuvrability to attack even in small numbers, providing the enemy has not overwhelming superiority in the air. One shell from an aerial cannon can put a tank out of action. The guns are quick-firing and highly destructive. Planes can be hurried to any point over a wide range where a tank attack might be threatened. And an aeroplane carrying cannon is a machine that can be used for many purposes. If there is no tank to attack it is equally effective in dive-bombing or machinegunning.

Experts believe they have found a most efficient anti-tank machine, but its maximum effect can be achieved only with general superiority in the air. In this regard Britain has strong hopes. It is believed that Britain already has access to an output of planes greater than that which can be claimed by the Axis, and the disparity will grow. Give Britain superiority in the air and she will master the menace of tanks as well. The route to superiority in the air is shorter than that to superiority in tanks and other armed equipment used on the ground. For every new weapon of war a counter is found eventually, but there is often a “ lag ” until brains evolve the antidote. In that interval havoc is wrought. That has been the case with the tank. The weapon is available to both sides, of course, but the one that is ready with large numbers of the machines at the outbreak of hostilities 'has a great initial advantage.