Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-12-11
FRENCH WAR CHARIOT
Military Automobile Armed
 With Rapid Fire Gun.
MACHINE OF THIRTY HORSEPOWER

It Leaps Ditches and Movs Down .
 Battalion In Two Minutes - Runs
 Lightly, Is Turreted and InvuIner-
 able - Twenty Ordered For the
 French Army-Has Great Speed In
 Attack and Flight.
 An armored automobile "galloping" across broken country, leaping ditches like hunting horse, impenetrable to Lebel bullets and shrapnel, firing it's hidden battery at the rate of 600 rounds in sixty seconds, moving down bat. talion of infantry in two minutes and wiping out a squadron of dragons at @ hundred yard range. Such is the thing of terror with which the French army is providing itself, says Paris correspondent of the New York Amer ican and Journal.
 This sounds, I know, like the TO- mances of our late Jules Verne or the English NJ. Wells, but it is all plain military fact, as witness these details which M George Lefevre now makes public in Le Vie au Grand Air.
 An order for twenty of these war chariots has been placed by the French government with French firm. This order follows series of experiments conducted with great secrecy on field of military maneuvers and of which M Tnfn xxrit experiments all the heads of the mill tary departments were invited by card, and by them the most exacting condi- tons were imposed on the experiment ters.
 It was insisted that in state of war the automobile artillery would not be able to use the public highways and that 1t must be able to come to the front across any sort of country, that it must be impervious to infantry fire, that It's interior organs must be ef- fectively protected, that its crew-driv- ing and firing-must be "out of hit" that it's running period must be long and that its wheels must not be at the mercy of any destructive agent. All of these conditions were met in the most remarkable fashion.
 The war automobile, which N of thir- ty horsepower, was seen to be com pletely incased in armor, yet it ran as lightly as a road machine. Neither the driver nor mechanician was visible, while the crew of the mitrailleuse were likewise invisible, being concealed ih a revolving turret.
 / The first test was one of speed over every class of country, the result being an average rate of thirty kilometers an hour. Next came the test of the ditch es, and Girardot, one of the construct ors. accomplished the feat of leaping Into and out of an excavation ten me ters deep and twenty meters wide without break of speed. ..
 Next came maneuver directed against a battalion of infantry. A Hotchkiss was installed In the turret. and the machine, dashing into the in fantry. with its turret swinging to ev- cry quarter, succeeded in firing 1900 rounds in three minutes. It was the unanimous opinion of the military judges that not a soldier would have remained to fight after this discharge.
 Next a regiment of dragons was sent charging into the plain, neither the crew of the war chariot nor the com mander of the dragons having. been informed of the foe to be met. The war chariot did not see the dragons until they were but 300 meters distant. Then. crashing out a hail of projectiles that would have swept half the saddles clear, it fled across country and was out of danger in a minute.
 Next came the test of the war auto mobiles armur. A company of infan- try was drawn up. the motor car re- naining stationary target At twen- ty to thirty meters the Lebel bullets penetrated the armor. which Is light, supple and wonderfully resisting. At fifty meters they remained imbedded in the plates. At 100 to 150 meters the bullets produced a depression and were thrown off.
 Lastly the tires were attacked. and 1t was found that even when pierced with ten bullets they were serviceable for twerty minutes or time enough to get out of danger.
 Such Is the new arm, an artillery of great swiftntSs in attack and flight, practically invulnerable and capable in the hands of . clever handler of deliv- ering terrific attacks In various parts of field of battle In an exceedingly short time It Is to be hoped that these new internal machines will SO add to the horrible prospects of combat that war Will soon become an impossibility.