The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1905-12-20
4 FRENCH WAR CHARIOT
MILITARY AUTOMOBILE ARMED
WITH RAPID FIRE GUNS.
A Machine of Thirty HORSEPOWER. 1t
Leaps bitches and Mows Down a
Battalion in Two Minutes.

| An arm0feu autOln0Dlle BallOplug
across broken country, leaping bitches
| like q hunting horse, impenetrable to
| Lebel bullets and shrapnel, firing its
| hidden battery at the rate of GOO rounds
in sixty seconds, moving down a bat.
| talon of infantry in two minutes and
| wiping out squadron Of dragons at
a hundred yard range. Such is the
| thing of terror with which the French
| army is providing itself says a Paris
correspondent of the New York Amer
| lean and Journal.
This sounds, l know, like the ro-
mances of our late Jules Verne or the
English NJ Wells, but it is all plain
military fact, as witness these details
which NJ. George Lefevre now makes
public in lie Vie au Grand Air.
An order for twenty of these war
chariots has been placed by the French
| government with a French firm. This
| order follows series of experiments
| conducted with great secrecy on field
of military maneuvers and Of which
| M. Lefevre was a witness. To these
experiments all the heads of the mill
| tary departments were invited by card,
| and by them the most exacting condi-
lions were imposed on the experiment
tiers.
1t was insisted that in a state of war
the automobile artillery would not be
able to use the public highways and
| that it 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 eff
fectively protected, that it's crew-driv-
| ing and firing-must be ''Out of hit"
that its 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 is 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 in
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 leapfng
into and out of an excavation ten me-
tiers deep and twenty meters wide
! without break of speed.
Next came a maneuver directed
against battalion Of infantry. A
| Hotchkiss was installed in the turret
| and the machine, dashing into the In
| fantry, with it's turret swinging to ev-
cry quarter, succeeded in firing 1880
| rounds in three minutes. 1t was the
unanimous opinion of the military
| Judges that not 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 fed across country and was
out of danger in a minute.
| Next came the test of the war auto
mobiles armor. A company of infan-
| try was drawn up, the motor car re-
naming stationary target. at TWEEN
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 $50 meters the
| bullets produced depression and were
thrown off.
Lastly the tires were attacked, and
it was found that even when pierced
with ten bullets they were serviceable
| for twenty minutes or time enough to
| get out of danger.
Such is the new arm, an artillery OF
great swiftness in attack and fight,
practically invulnerable and capable in
| the hands Of d clever handler of deliv-
| ering terrific attacks in various parts
Of a field of battle in an exceedingly
short time 1t 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.