The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1921-02-05
FEARFULNESS OF WAR
IN THE FUTURE

A special dispatch from Paris to
the New York Tribune says:
The next war, says the French Gen
eral Maitrot. holds as many surprises
on land as on sea. France, he says,
since the armistice, has perfected
projectile so powerful that a dozen
would wipe out a city like Berlin. Since
the war great progress has been made
in all European countries in the con-
struction of tanks, silent guns and
heavy artillery of all kinds. These
will be the chief land weapons in fu-
ture battles. Of aeronautics, General
Maitrot says: whoever masters the
air will rule the earth" The airplane
will be undisputed master of future
territorial battles.
The great danger which surface
vessels run in the future is shown by
| the power of the new French air
bombs. At the time of the armistice
the French already were preparing a
half-ton projectile which, if it explod-
ed within hundred feet of a cruiser
would infallibly sink it. The latest
French bomb of this type weighs a
ton, or twice as large as is needed to
sink a cruiser.
About the Germans General Maitrot
says:
"The engineers at the Krupp fac
tory have recently completed a re-
markably heavy 800 quick-fring,
tsoundless gun. The Krupps also have
a new ss-millimeter gun modelled
along the lines of our glorious 75s. 1t
is as mobile and rapid, but is lighter
and carries as far as 10 kilometers.
| The Krupps are now endeavoring to
make this gun soundless. 1t would
be a revolution of the art of war if
the position of the enemv's batteries
could no longer be guaged by sound.
1t is imperative that the French keep
up to the same standard of study"
General Maitrot says that the rapid
race which an airplane can travel now
adays must not be forgotten. cat 200
kilometers an hour" he points out, sit
would take only three hours to fly
from the right bank of the Rhine to
Paris. In a few hours our capital
could be annihilated without a strug-
gle. no resistance being possible. Even
at a height of $4,000 feet it is re-
markable what accuracy can be OBJ
tanned by a bomber If he descends d
| few hundred feet the precision of his
aim is alarming.
"Air projectiles can be made to deal
certain death by containing poison
gas as we'll as explosives. By using
TIE new methods of COMPRISING noS-
ious gases, it will be possible with
gas-laden bombs to submerge entire
districts in poisonous waves.
"If the Germans and bolsheviki
unite one day against France we can
expect this kind of an invasion"
Despite the activity of other nations
in the manufacture of heavy guns,
General Maitrot says: "Our heavy
155-millimeter cannon and howitzer
and our 220 mortars and guns are the
best of their kind in Europe"
In tank warfare the French would
use chiefly the Schneider model as be-
ing a happy and most useful means
between the heavy St. diamond and
the light Renault. The Schneider car
ries a short 75-millimeter gun, two
machine guns and crew of five. 1t
weighs fifteen tons. Compared with
this, the st. diamond has one rs, four
machine guns. crew of nine, and
weighs thirty-two tons. The light
Renault tank has either a gun or
machine gun, is manned by two men
and weighs five tons.