The Mena weekly star., 1918-03-14
BIC WAR MACHINE ON U. s. FRONT
Plans for a Great Field Army for Major Operations Are Worked Out - An Imposing Array of
 Death-Dealing Guns.

Washington, March Biased up- on the three-line method of trench warfare evolved in France, the war department, it was learned today, has approved a plan of organization which fixes six divisions as the strength of an army corps. Three or more corps will constitute field army and the immediate purpose of the action is to complete the opera ton of field army in France in the shortest possible time, to give Pershing the strength to hold a fully Americanized sector of the front. The plans leave to General Pershing the determination of the corps and the number of field ar mics needed and also commanders for the higher units.
 By the six-diyision army corps plan, each corps will occupy front sector with two divisions, while two replacement or reinforcement lines of two divisions each will back them up. The effect is to produce the line depth necessary for the type of warfare now in progres.
 Seasoned First Line Men
 Replacement troops sent from the United States are fed into the war machine in France at the third fine. They move forward in regular or der as their training progresses and arrive at the front line trenches teI fill in casualty gaps only when they have been thoroughly seasoned
 To fulfill the functions of an army corps it has been found nec- essary to place under corps com mander, in addition to his six in fantry divisions, approximately 30,- GOO men known as corps troops. These comprise artillery units, en- gineers, and all types of service battalions for work on the com munication lines of their own corps. A similar organization of about 10000 men is necessary for each field army of three corp4 These field army troops maintain the lines from the advance base of the army back to the sources of supply. In the case of General Per- shing's forces this line connects with the ocean transport service. Included in the corps troops are many units of heavy artillery, equipped with guns ranging up to 10 and i2 inches in ealibre, both for fixed emplacement and for mobile artillery.
 Great Array of Artillery
 This comprises the artillery re- serve of the corps. The great gen. eral artillery reserve of the field army IS under direct command of the army commander and includes his so-calIed army troops.
 The organization schedules show that General pershing is to bel equipped eventually with artillery of all calibres on scale not hereto fore dreamed of. The proportion of artillery to army rifles adopted by the war department is greater than that of either the British or French | and the tendency of the de- pertinent is to increase the big guns.
 Included in the heavy artillery | assigned to corps of field army | commanders will be whole brigades of anti-aircraft guns, mobile how itzers of six, eight, ten and even twelve inch ealibre, rifles of simi- lar size, including heavy long range naval guns and probably as soon as they are available, batteries of the monster American Ai6-inch naval | rifles recently developed.
 With this array of guns, army depots twenty miles in the rear of his trenches could be kept under bombardment.
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