The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1914-12-15
Cutting Through the
Eneray's Barbed Wire.

As has been learned from the re-
ports from the war, barbed wire entan-
elements have been freely resorted to
by both sides for protecting their po-
sitions. and in a general way 1t is
known that these consist in a number
Of irregular lines OF strong posts set
solidly In the ground with maze
Of lines OF barbed wire strung be-
tween them; but how these obstacles
ara overcome has been left for ex-
PLANTATION 10 a military expert who has
an interesting story to tell in the
srie.4Ific American Some Of the
many schenaE that have been tried
are descT' bed In detail.
Experiments have been made IN re-
! ~ fng whole sections OF wire at
once BY means Of q rake, to which
a wire rae Is fastened This is
thrown RON an obstacle, and thirty
men Pr cveEl the rope. Thus sec
ton e II upo1nd one half feet deep is
torn Aeven order to reduce the time
1eQu out. pass through a barbed
srsr re2 CLINT Of the wire is usually
aIed loy a bank Of earth) some
Lary engineers have thought that
is a waste, OF precious minutes to
cut or tear T. down, and that 1t is
more rational to surmount the OBJ
stacle in some way. Structures of
boards. ladders. and bags should be
thrown over the wire, according to
their ideas, and upon the platform
Mus made the men can press forward.
Boards eight feet long. nine inches |
vide and three quarters Of an inch |
thick, are fastened together by means !
OF three cross pieces, leaving a clear
space of three inches between the
boards. The weight of the double |
board is thirty-two pounds, and six |
teen of them are employed, each car
ried by a single man. To place the
sixteen double boards on the wire net
requires about one hundred and forty
seconds, as actual tests have shown,
onds to pass over the boards. AS a
time saving expedient, therefore, the
method is hardly a success over that
OF wire-cutting.
Nor are ladders much better. In
some experiments, conducted in Eng
land, ten ladders with nine rungs each
were used Each ladder, twelve feet
long and twenty-five. inches wide,
weighed thirty-twO pounds, and was
carried by single man. The ladders
were laid down in one hundred and
forty-five seconds and sixty-five sec
onds were required by seventeen men
to pick their way from rung to rung.
That this idea Of surmounting an
obstacle rather than cutting a way
through It IS not practicable, is bet
ter shown by the experiments which
have been made with bags of cloth
and wire. Twelve bags each eight
feet long and four and one half feet
wide Cmeasured empty and weighing
forty pounds when filled with straw,
were placed upon a net In ninety five
and seventeen men passed
over them in forty-five seconds When
the bags are made of wire poorer re-
suits are obtained. Such bags are
composed of two pieces OF wire mesh
Ing. eight feet long and four and one :
half feet wide. laid on top of each r
1ther and placed together at the sides
with wire. A quantity of straw three
inches thick is pushed into the wire
bags, which thin weigh only twenty II
pounds. 1t takes ninety seconds to
av eixteen Of these ba ore ar a harf1od |
wire ENHANCEMENT, and it takes seven
cen men sixty-five seconds to pass
Dver them.
The Tamna Trihnne,s Christmas adt.