Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-03-05
INDIVIDUAL GATLING
GUNS FOR NEXT WAR
Nations VIII Throw Old Armament
in the Scrap Heap and Adopt
the New Slayers.

AT any moment now the world Is
likely to see every great nation sud
denly adopt automatic rifles, or ma
chine guns, for every soldier, throw
ing to the scrap heap millions and
millions of modern repeating rifles.
"GAtlings" is the expressive slang
for automatic pistols, rifles and shot
guns, as the automatic have the ter
rors Of Calling guns, even il con-
structed on wholly different princi-
pies Every soldier must be armed
with Calling" Is almost certain to
be the order of some great nation in
a few months. II one starts, the
others are almost certain to jump
also.
Gen, William Crozier, chief Of ord
nance Of the United States army, has
recently issued a circular to invent
ors telling what would be the desir-
able features of an automatic should
er rifle and promising tests if any
good designs are submitted. when
1t appears that the development Of
the automatic shoulder rifle has pro-
ceeded far enough, plans will prob
ably be made for a competitive test
to determine whether any make of
automatic rifle is suited to the re-
quirements Of the United States" he
says.
In Europe all the ordnance officers
are sitting in the front seats when
any new automatic goes through its
tricks Dozens Of models by design
ers Of half a dozen natlonalities have
been tested and developed and sub
mitted A French expert recently said
there are now so many satisfactory
models that the inventors have be-
gun to copy one anothers best points,
bringing them all around to much the
same design.
Automatic shoulder rifles will
weigh only slightly more than present
! rifle models, but they will shoot
many times as fast when the time
comes, The soldier merely attaches
a band Of cartridges to the rifle and
pulls the trigger. As fast as he can
pull the trigger, the gun will be on
the job with fresh bullet. He need
not stop after each bullet to pump"
as he does with a repeater and so
he can keep the rifle at his shoulder,
fixed on the mark. The recoil is
much less than in a repeater, for II
is the recoil effects which keep the
automatic at work loading up after
each shot
Three objects to the adoption Of
"gats' have kept the nations back
but all three are either overcome or
will be soon. The objection that
there were no satisfactory models for
military service is disappearing al
ready, Another objection is a doubt
as to whether or not It would be
wise to give a soldier n gun which
took quantities Of ammunition, and
let him fire It all of quickly, when
more ammunition perhaps could not
be quickly supplied But there Is
evident an increasing belief among
foreign army officers that an army
with "gats' might have an enormous
advantage IN tight position, so that
a remedy for this objection ought to
be found, rather than a surrender to
It,
Biggest Of the objections is the ex-
pense. The United States, for in
stance, has somewhere in the neigh
borhood Of million modern Spring
field repeating rifles, Of the model
adopted following the Spanish war
lessons Replacing those with auto
motlcs would put pigeonhole dust on
congressional economy plans. with
the European nations the job would
be even bigger.
1t is partly for the purpose Of stav-
ing off the day Of tax shivers that
every nation has been working so
hard TO make its repeating rifles
work better than ever. Now they have
been so perfected that there seems
to be little yet to be invented for
them They have been made and
equipped with ammunition so that
they will shoot In very flat line at
long distances which formerly meant
pointing the gun up in the air The
curve n bullet takes when shot at
man 1000 yards away is not very
high, and the bullet is likely to wing