Evening star., 1935-10-27
CONTINUED From First Page.)

and ground personnel, 49 new air
stations and new training schools;
she is putting a weight of money be-
hind the development of advanced
design machines and is experimenting
hard with revolutionary ideas about
their weaponing
New Tank Fleet
Is Planned.
She plans also to change her exist
ing land fleet of 1923model Vickers
tanks for a brand model fleet.
And after turning the Bren light ma
chine gun round and round for five
years, she has at last decided to throw
out all her Lewis guns (the 1918 in
vention of the American Col. LewiS),
which did SO well in the Great War,
and re-eQuip with this Czechoslo-
vakian weapon, which is six pounds
lighter, five inches shorter, more re-
liable and more easily handled, and
has a fire-power equal to that of Is
men armed with magazine rifles.
1t Is strange to recall that only
few years back Britain'S Hawaii. the
great base at Singapore was politi-
cal issue and it looked as If the
project would be dropped. Now the
British are speeding up work to finish
1t, S250,00O,000s worth of naval and
air base, before 1910. They intend It
to be the Verdun of their empire de-
fense system. To get past that for
tress when it is completed a hostile
poYer would first have to break
Though a great fleet of hell-divers and
torpedo bombers It would then come
up against the blast of the worlds
biggest guns, mounted on the islet OF
Pulau. Finally, it would encounter
the third line obstacle. the British
feet steaming out to do battle from
their sheltered base.
"All very expensive, but worth it,
thinks the Briton, echoing the French
mans remark to the German as they
stood looking at the new Hackenburg
fortress which bars the way to Metz,
showpiece of the s5O0.0o0,oO0 steel
and-concrete bulwark the Gaul has
built from the North Sea to the Medi-
terranean to contain the aspiring
Teuton.
Combined Power
Developed.
New weapons mean new tactics.
First, you develop the power OF a
weapon. and then of all weapons in
combination. Everything has to be
made over until the only thing that
remains Is the central set of funda-
mental principles Of warfare as DEM
onstrated through the ages by the
great generals, from Alexander and
Hannibal to Napoleon and Foch-and
even these the late +. E. Lawrence OF
Arabia and one or two other practical
warriors of exceptional brain power
and mental range have suggested may
be ripe for revision.
The French believe that the Ger
mans can move their field artillery
at 80 miles an hour, which approXi-
mates the best 1885 American Army
speed, and is TO miles an hour
faster than French speed. But what
worries them more Is the thought that
the Germans have jump on every
one because they have no old military
machines hanging round their necks.
their general staff can build anew on
the accumulated experience of other
nations and develop new tactical ideas
which may forge the German army
into a weapon as superior to existing
ones, hampered by old weapons, old
tactical ideas and traditions and
traditionalists, as the 1918 weapon
was to the 1914 weapon.
This thought Is general in Europe
and explains why the italian Brenner
maneuvers interested the general staffS
less than the subsequent German ma
neuvers. the first Of their kind held
since Hitler started to expand the
German war machine. They want to
discover whether the German general
staff men have any new tactical ideas
up their sleeves.
Old Text Books May Be Changed.
Said general staff man to me be-
fore he left for those maneuvers. IF
the German general staff men are
abandoning old theories and going to
school again to learn from the ground
up how to use the new things science
and engineering and freedom from
old-weapon vested interest have given
them, the tactical possibilities Of the
new German army are SO big that
they may change all our text books
If We get time to change our text
books"
What new tactics can mean Is IL
1ustrated by glance back at the last
war. At Ypres the British used
100000 gunners, who shot off in pre-
liminary bombardment 4,280,0 900 shells
weighing 10000 tons and costing
$57 100000, and 1t took them three
months to penetrate 10000 yards at
o cost Of 100000 men killed. wounded
or taken prisoner. At Cambria they
used 1000 tank men. with no pre-
1iminary bombardment. and IL hours
they penetrated 10000 yards at a cost
of 5000 men. The measure Of diff
ference between those two events Is
that between the old tactic Of the un-
armored static firing line and the new
tactic Of the armored moving firing
1ine-a change which some author
tiles think constitutes the greatest
, tactical revolution in history.
The arms picture in America differs
little from that in Europe or Britain,
except that expenditures there are
bigger than anywhere else. There is
the same energetic making over and
reaching out toward new strategic and
tactical conceptions. Singapore is
paralleled by Hawaii, key to the new
defense line stretching from Alaska to
Panama. Sixty million dollars Of spe-
cial Army and Navy funds is being
spent on those coast defenses. The
floating dry dock at Pearl Harbor
alone cost 100000 900. the Honolulu
air base another $18,000.00
The Navy is getting % new ships,
including 10,000-ton cruiser and a
14,O00-ton aircraft carrier. When the
latter craft is built America will have
four of the biggest and most advanced
pattern carriers in the world. The
Z 0nn nan, r,1op opac In tho h,li1dinU r,rn-