East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1915-08-25
NEW BRITISH ARMY
MAY HAVE ARNOR TO
PROTECT ITS TROOPS
GREAT NUMBER OF CASUALTIES
HAVE THEIR EFFECTS UP
ON BRITISH. &
Way TO Minimize Deaths in Conflict
Is Being sought and ArnOr Has
Been Suggested AS Means TO Pro-
tcct soldiers at the Front - plan
May BE Carried Out This Year.
BY WILBUR s FOREST.

LONDON, Aug 14.-(By Mnil)-
The 1915 British army may be an ar
mored army
The great casualty list that filters
through the war office every day
from the front; the convalescent
wounded and battered soldiers that
are always on the streets and the ov-
erflowing hospitals are beginning to
have their effect.
Many ask; Isn't there a way to
minimize this appalling situation?"
Somebody has answered: "Armor."
And it's beginning to look like ar.
NOR for the British soldiers of 1915.
While the British war office is
considering whether it shall slip
back to medieval methods of warfare
so far as the protection of the soldier
Is concerned, well known Britishers
are telling the war office through the
press that armor is natural neces.
sity in these days of machine guns
and high-powered rifles.
Scores of suggestions for modernI
1915 armor emanating from scientists
have narrowed down to the practical
bility of a three piece suit of temper
cd steel that would protect the fore
head, breast and abdomen-the three
vital spots of the body, The favor
ed headpiece will, if authorized BY
the war office, take the form Of the
highly tempered steel skull cap-like
protector now worn by the French
to minimize the danger of shrapnel.
The breastplate would be a thlnI
leather covered hardened plate ofI
steel, curged to fit over the chest
and held by straps that go over the
shoulders and around the waist The
abdomenal protector is suggested in !
the form of another curved sheet Of
steel fitting over the lower ribs and
extending down to the bones Of the
hips.
! The British war office four years
ago experimental with a bullet proof
breast plate at Aldershot where the /
device shed all the rifle and machine
gun bullets that were fired against
it at ranges of one foot to five hum
dred Yards The breast plate was re-
jected on the ground that it added .
too much weight to the equipment of .
the soldier and reduced his march /
ing efficiency.
With a war Of great proportions
that win probably last many more
months or perhaps years and with
the thousands of dead and the tens
of thousands Of wounded the war Of
flee is believed to be reconsidering its
objection to armor.
The men Of the trenches at least
probably will be thus equipped, ac-
cording 70 information today
One of Britain's leading advocates
of armor is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
the noted author Of sherlock
Holmes"
In a lengthy message from his
home at Windlesham. Crowborough, /
Sussex. to a London daily, Sir Arthur
cited an action of the British in
Northern France on May when sew
eral brigades were decimated in an
effort to rush across 300 yards inter-
vening between the British and Ger
man trenches. He warned:
You must either abandon such at
tacks or you must find artificial pro-
lection for the men,
Sir Arthur suggests three-piece |
suits of steel plates for the soldiers
but goes further in advocating a
modern "testudo"-a cover used by
the Roman soldiers in attacking a
wall, former by overlapping their OBJ
long shields above their heads. Sir
Arthur's modern testudo, he would
put on wheels to cover the men asl
they charge the German trenches. He
SAYS:
"These numerous armor plated
bodies could rush with small loss
over a space which had already been
cleared as far as possible Of OBJ
stacles. and so have some chance Of
reaching the enemy's line not as an
exhausted fragment but as vigorous
storming party with numbers intact
Such apparatus would not necessltate
great addition to the impedi1enta
Of an army. It would be a separate
item like the pontoons or the siege
train only to be brought up on spe-
cial occasions to the point where It
is needed for the assault. The vital
body plates, however, should be used
in the every day equipment Of a
fighting soldier"
Armored shields on wheels sucn
as Conan Doyle suggests were used
by the United States infantry dur
ing the last days of the Spanish Am
erican war in Cuba, according to an
English authority on armor They
were invented by General Roy Stone
of the British army. Each shield
lay horizontally and carried the i'm
pedimenta Of marching soldiers when
not placed vertically for sterner use.
Due to the rough character Of the
ground and the predomlnance of
mounted forces in the Cuban cam
paign, the American experiment was
a failure II was stated.
Whether the government will ac-
cept the "testudo" is uncertain but i'll
Is strongly whispered that armor will
have TO do with British armies Of the
coming year.