Evening star., 1940-02-08
New Methods Slow
To Appear in War,
Says Maj. Eliot
Weapons Also Are Little
Advanced Over Those
In Lost Conflict
By MAI. GEORGE FIELDING
ELIOT.

By MAI. GEORGE FIELDING
ELIOT.
In one respect this war is running
true to historical form, and that Is
in the slowneSs with which new
weapons, new tactical methods, are
making their appearance. In 1914,
the airplane had already had sew
eral years of development, all armies
contained embryo air forces, yet the
campaign of 1914 was fought out al
most without benefit of military
aviation, few reconnaissance
flights were made, but with little ef-
feet on the conduct of operations.
At the close of the year, despite
the available and known experience
of the South Africa, Russo-Japanese
and Balkan Wars, it was still pos
sible for British officers to doubt the
-advisability of increasing the scale
OF machine gun establishment tWo
to battalion) with which the war
had begun, and even the Germans,
clearer-viSioned in this respect, ap-
parently did not foreSee the full pos
sibilities OF automatic firearms.
Chemical warfare, foreshadoWed
by horror" writer's for many years,
had not yet made its appearance on
the battlefield. Armored cars were
being used in small numbers and in
spirit and With military results
savoring strongly of the utilities of
knight-errantry, but the tank was
still two campaigns in the future.
Infantry Used Old Guns.
Very largely as 1914 came to its
end, the war was being fought by
infantrymen armed with the bolt
action repeating rifles which had
been standard for year in all armies,
and by artillerymen with field guns
of models dating back to the COS.
At sea there had been equally
little, perhaps even less, in the way
of innovation. The early successes
of the German submarines had
been somewhat of a shock to the
British admiralty's usual cheerful
complacency at wars outset, but
they can hardly be described as a
= surprise; nor were they being used
on the scale which later developed.
Effective anti-submarine devices
were still not in use. Naval avia-
ton was no better developed than
military. The chief advance upon
the naval methods of the Russo
japanese war was the use of radio.
Neither on land nor sea did either
side attempt a real surprise by
weapons one of the most devastat-
ing forms of tactical surprise in the
pages of imaginative fiction writer's
portraying the wars of the future,
one of the rarest in actual military
history, save in the wars of civilized
peoples against savages. The Ger
mans with their gas at Yypres, the
British with their tanks on the
Somme, both had opportunities
later to effect such a surprise.
Neither did so; that is. neither en-
ployed and followed up their new
weapon on a scale which might
have produced a decision. Usually
the military mind lacks confidence
in innovations, seeks always to test
them out on a small scale before
trying them in larger way, and
thus loses whatever surprise value
they may have. The development
of new weapons has thus usually
been a matter of slow trial and
error rather than sudden change;
and it may be said that new war
tends to begin, in the matter of
armament and tactical method,
where the last one left off.
Much Technical Development.
There has been an unusual
amount of technical development
intervening between this war and
the last, with some opportunity for
battlefield tests in Ethiopia, Spain
and China. Air forces have, in the
technical sense, moved forward very
rapidly. The development of mech
anized weapons has had consider
able effect on the organization Of
ground forces Perhaps the great
est single advance in land warfare
has been the coordination of the
air arms with ground troops, CO.
ordination now apparently sine
qua non for success on the offensive,
foreshadowed in Spain, eXemplified
by the Germans in Poland.
But all this was pretty we'll known
4before this war broke out. So far
there have been no real surprises.
So far as is known, chemical agents
Except smoke) have not been used
at all. The vulnerability of tanks
to accurate fire of properly concealed
anti-tank weapons has been empha-
in y,1o "
The Spanish lesson that against
well organized resistance bombing
missions require a fighter escort is
being re-emphasized along the coasts
of the North Sea. No new and start
ling anti-submarine devices have
made their appearances as far as
can be aScertained. The accuracy
OF air bombing does not suggest that
any belligerent has developed a
bomb sight comparable in efficiency
to that of our own services, which
may prove indeed surprise to the
enemy in any war in which this
country may in the near future be-
come engaged.
New Anti-Aircraft Methods.
In the field of anti aircraft de-
lection and fire control new meth
ods are probably being developed,
but not a great deal is known
about them as yet, and they do not
appear so far to possess revolu-
tionary characteristics. The Ger
mans showed a tendency toward
bold and indeed reckless employ
ment of independent armored COL
umns in Poland, but there is moth
ing to show that under less favor
able conditions such methods could
hope for the same degree of sue
cess.
All armies contain a far higher
proportion of automatic firearms
than in 1914, but the problem OF
Ammunition supply on the battle