The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1918-09-26
A MECHANICAL WAR
AND YANKINCENUlTY
Vast Store of Machinery Used In the
Great World War

the construction of field guns in the
vast workhouse of the ordnance
branch of the American army here.
One of the American designs which
has won strong favor with the French
experts is the split trailer" which
extends back of the gun from the
wheels down to the ground. From the
earliest days of gunnery this trailer
has been a single piece. But the Am
orleans have split 1t in two from the
ground up, so that two great legs
spread out backward from a cannon.
The results have been astonishing
permitting an ordinary field piece to
be elevated to so degrees, or almost
straight up.
The American design has o been
adopted as the standard French model,
and 1t is going into all the new guns
made at French a~rsenals. Official
photographs made by the ordnance
branch are now going forward for
public exhibition in America showing
this split trailer firing at an elevation
OF 73.4O degrees.
Here could be see also every form
Of the death-dealing mechine-gnn
which became such a formidable
weapon in the present ws
This is an age OF mechanical war
fare,' said the officer as he pointed out
the different types. French English
American, as well as German and
Austrian. There were no machine
guns used in the Civii II only a
lew in the Spanish-American and
Boer wars; more In the Itusso-Japa-
,.ese and Balkan wars; ami now they
have developed to a foremost place as
an effective and deadly means of war
fare,,'
Most OF the nations are making two
forms of these machine-guns, the
heavy type weighing about thirty
pounds, mounted on a tripod and
drawn by a mule, and the lighter au-
tomato rife, weighing about fifteen
pounds, fired from shoulder by hand
like an ordinary rifle, and carried by
hand as its not much heavier than the
standard 1O-pound rife. Both types OF
these guns fire steady streams OF lead
as the belts of bullets are fed into the
reservoirs, the only limit being the
amount OF ammunition which can be
carried. With each automatic rifle
are three men, one to fire and two to
keep up the steady feeding Of ammuni-
ton.
New Machine Guns
The new type Of American machine
gun makes a favorable appearance In
this array OF makes from all the ma
lions. 1t is coming over in large
quantities now, and most of the AM
erican divisions now arriving come
with their machine-gun sections
equipped with the new American mod
ell. AT the training camps the tests
have given the best results, but the
real test of battle action is still to
come as most OF the Divisions on the
lighting line obtained their
gun equipment before the new model
was ready.
In this same arsenal n could com
pare the rifles AID bayonets OF all the
combatant troops. The American
bayonet looked like a long, sharp
edged knife But the French bayonet
was more like q slender rapier, two
feet long and without cutting edge,
meant for stabbing. The Russian
bayonet has no sharp point but Is like
a screw-driver with a fiat edge, cut
ting and stabbing ut the same time.
And besides the guns OF all kinds Is
the ammunition ctored In vast quanti-
ties in arsenals and warehouses n In
huge parks and ammunition dumps all
the way-from the coast up to the fight
ing front. The great stacks OF shells
are very orderly in arrangement; eacn
stack representing a carload. and
each graded by caliber andlot-number.
Each lot Of shells differs slightly In
power, and the only way to insure un-
form accuracy in the fire OF a battery
is to keep 1t supplied with the same lot
of shells.
Separate from the shells. are the
fuses and grenades kept in small de-
tached lots owing to their highly ax-
| plosiye character. In n OF these
grenade dumps there were eighteen
different kinds OF gas. hand ana rine
grenades.