New Britain Herald Newspaper, August 20, 1915, Page 10

American Press Association. at Camp Whitman, N. Y. 2 g meal. “itzns‘s to B Officers In United States Army —Young soldier getting ready for his 8.—Operating a wireless telephone at Camp Tobyhanna, 4—Some recruits at Plattsburg (N.Y.) camp. 5.—Artillery in action 5 p Whitman, N. Y. 6.—Ohio g | Tobyhanna at headquarters. v hefofé has this nation 2 gmilitary instruction d training to such a large j ' number of men and boys as p. Four camps have been con- for the collese boys—one at g N. Y.; another at Luding- one at the Presidio at San and the fourth at Chicka- [Ga. In addition the camp at frg was . opened for the busi- In, and many hundreds took ad- jof the opportunity to famil- @insclves with the duties of the goldier. Nearly all the state in the country had several f¢ camp life this summer also. purg’s stretch of thirty acres he summer military camp to filians for duties as officers in War hums with activity these the end it Is expected that barracks at the edge of .the fwill have housed at least 35,- These are drawn from the | | component elements making | jass of prospective officers. Ma- éral Leonard Wood had su- imand of the maneuvers and d by all the recognized au- n the United States army on ous branches that make up a factity,” to use a collegiate iprises the experts on ord- familiarize officers uardsmen in camp. 7.—Officers at formations and other requisite nance, tactics, technical branches that are to a well rounded education. General Wood's Plan. Bach year it is planned to have 35,- 000 men assemble here. From these a cértain number will be givén army berths.. The civilians who have passed the student age are trained entirely with an eye to making them real offi- cers. They are assigned to commands, regular soldiers being enable civilians to take charge of them, | The cirriculum of the school is not the usual- humdrum and routine of a summer camp. Scant attention is paid to the school of the soldier, as the gen- eral relies on the civilians to study | that for themseives. The plan is to | with the modern weapons of warfare. Machine gun | practice, according to General Wood’s | plan, is the important study. In com- pany with other modern soldiers Gen- eral Wood believes that the wars of the future will be fought with machine guns rather than rifles. Great guns have been mounted here and the of- fice e taught their use. Soldiers now stationed at the bar- racks see in this movement a great forward step in the matter of pre- paredness. bivouacked to | Volunteer Militia. The volunteer militia of the various states is in a pretty poor state, ac- |an reorganization army bill 000 men for foreign service. mean a great drain on the sup cording fo one of the officers who Is instructor at the summer school. The men are poorly officered, he said, as they themselves have not been schooled into a real soldierly educa- [tion. United States army today,” said this officer, “is in such shape that for as small a force as it is it is a splendid fighting machine. The new alls for This will of country. In addition, the men available for home duty are about twice as many as the police force of New York. “We could never have such a thing in this country. But you cannot find a single officer in the regular army who isn’t in favor of universal mili- tary service. Orators may say that it is repugnant to a free republic to com- pel men to serve in the army. But the professional servants of all who start all the wars that we must fight for “The officers in thi 10, Q5 them believe that the United States finally must come to the point where she will- compel her citizens to serve in the army. Australia does it. Swit- zerland does it. Switzerland can mo- bilize 250,000 men in twenty-four hours. She can get 500,000 to the front in three d She did that 1 Au- and that's the reason that the ans went through igium, per- n on Men. a million men to- That would take plan is to have n life to com- Would Need a M “We would need morrow for war. 000 officers. Our men step from civil mand, fit to take charge of the men under them. That's the purpose of this school. We could not take militia officers in case of war to have com- mand of T soldiers. With the regular army and the militia we could put on the field of battle today about 300,000 men. It has been the rule of war according to statistics that in the first six months of a war the loss to | train a satisfactory one. | the purpose of thiz school—to have a each side is usually about 30 per cent of the total force. We need a reserve to fill the gaps that would be opened. We must get them among the people of the country. It takes six months to make a fair soldier and one vear to To train men to be soldiers you need officers. That's reserve corps of officers that could step into the breach tomorrow and train men and equip them both mentally and physlcally to have a million soldiers in the field within six months of the out- break of any war against this country. In Need of Munitions. “Kitchener has 4,000,000 men in the rear of the last line of trenches in | France, and they in many cases lack s and ammunition, while the artil- practically powerless because it has not high explosive shells. The German has been prepared. He has been thorough, and the result is that not a battle has occurred on German excrcizes to limber up the!r muscles; then follow breakfast und time for put- ting the tents in shape and for a swim in Lake Champlain, on the edge of which the Platteburg camp is pitched, The mornings arc glven up to the | manual of arms, marching and the | sentials | spite the fact thal the two Ralsers are practically fighting three-quarters of Europe. Those are the lessons that we want to learn, and that's why Gen- eral Wood has hit on this plan to start a school for officers. It is one of the best and most progressive movements that the United States army has taken since its inception. We don't want a tremendous standing army; not by any ! means. But we want a reserve forc that can take the fleld at a moment's notice, equipped, prepared and ready to fight the moment the command comes.” Expenses Are Small. | The expenses are small and, exclu- sive of railroad fares, do not exceed 0 for a month of training. Uniforms | and specfal clothing cost about $20: | boar? and other camp expenses do not excred $30; all arms and other equip- ment are furnished by the Unitel States army without cost. At 5:30 in the morning the bugle soil in the past year of warfare, de- | entary which every soldler, and es- pecially every officer, must know, Specialized Training A.so. In the afternoons the training is more specialized, and the men select their courses. There are cavalry drills, in which tre polo players of the east ex- cel, and there are courses in signaling, field artillery, military hygiene, mili- tary map making, etc. ireat attention is given to work with the rifies. By the end the first week the men are ready for patrol and scout work and marching. This gradually develops as the men become experienced and hardened, for the officers realize that business and professional men have been living sed- lives and must be given time to get in shape, Battalion problems develop in which “team play” is of first importance—re- sistance to an attack on the flank of » road column, delaying actions, prepar- ing and holding a defensive position and lastly the covering of a retreat. In this work the men get a real taste of target of sounds and the men turn out for short |trench digging and range work. ROPLANES AND MOTHER SHIP IN OPERATIONS IN DARDANELLES STRAIT g an aeroplane back to ship after a flight in Dardanelles and (below) “mother ship” with two aeroplanes on ir value in fight- »ne of the most 5 of the war. In 1en are activ 760d machines most interesting aerial Bs have occurred at the Dar- here the allies have tried for ) foxce the strait. Thesc ms 8 AR §88 PRESENALIGN faNs- ¥ iters the air deck. poses largely, but a difficulty was met and had to be overcome before a land- ing was effected. The aeroplane moth- er ship has been developed, and from the deck of this boat air craft are launched. Naturally the first task before Great Britain when the wonderful effective- ness of aeroplanes became evident was to turn out as many machines as pos- lsimu, and in France and Germany also ithe mrohlem of eutnub sleghively Rub a stopper on all serious forms of ex- perimenting. Consequently the types of alr craft on both sides remain prac- tically the same today as they wer before the war, the only difference be- ing that designs which were proved defective or ineffective were promptly condemned and every effort was made to turn out as many as possible of those types which had proved their value. For this reason the monovlane has been practically abandoned by all countries. In England the monoplane has never been popular, except among exhibition fliers and aerial acrobats, the objection to it Leing that neither the pilot nor the passenger ever has a thoroughly good view below him and that for a given horsepower it is actually easier to get high speed out of a biplane than out of a monoplane and yet produce a machine which will lift reasonable weights and land- rea- sonably slowly. If one looks at a monoplane and a biplane *head-on” one sces that a monoplane is what is known to every engineer as a “king post girder,” whereas a biplane is a “box girder.” The actual amounts of struts and trusses and wires is about the same, 0 that for a given width of wing from tip to tip, or span, as it is called, a biplane has two lifti one above the other, against the single lifting surface of the monoplane, so that it has twice the lifting area, and vet the amount of stuff in the way of struts and wires to be pushed through the air is roughly about the same, and as all these set up what is called “head resistance” the speed in each case is about the same; also the weight in each case is pretty ncarly the same, because it is pe in a biplane or box girder structure to use lighter main spars for the wing In tackling hostile craft in the early part of the war the usual weapons were either ordinary service rifles or automatic pistols, though a good many pilots, especially the crack fliers or “tabloid” scouts, preferred to use the old fashioned long barreled revolver throwing a heavy bullet. However, it soon became evident that a machine gun mounted on an acroplane was actually the most ef- ficient weapon, but there was the ob- vious difficulty of fitting a machine gun on a “tractor” machine so that the stream of bullets would not hit the propeller. Various efforts, all of them futile and a good many of them hu- morous, have been made to get over this difficulty. Some people have tried fitting a machine gun on the top of a biplane so as to fire over the top of the propeller, and the French even tried fixing the gun so high .up on a monoplane that it cleared th® propeller tip, but, of course, the passenger in each case had to stand up to fire, which was seedingly uncomfortable for him sidering that he is ploughing through the air at over sixty miles an bhour. HOW NEW YORK HARBOR IS PROTECTED BY BIG GUNS AGAINST ANY ENEMY ORE than one interesting problem in heavy gunnery close at home presents it- self in these days of stress here and strife abroad. The recent war game along the Atlantic coast, for example, in which the pick of Uncle Sam’s battleships and destroyers took part, adds much to the ever present speculation as to whether New York is | vulnerable or not. Can the forts of New York thro enough steel from their heavy artillery to keep an enemy's fleet outside of great gun range of Manhattan island | or Brooklyn? Do our Dreadnoughts and super-Dreadnoughts present enough of an armored bulwark (plus their own big fourteen inch guns and twelves) to protect Manhattan against an invader from overseas? Let it be admitted, frankly, that sev- 1 of the great nations have battle- mounting guns big enough to over the Woolworth tower or| a bullseye of the Waldorf-As- though the shots be fired from far out at sea. On the other hand, our forts at the Narrows and at Sandy Hook mount guns of equal strength, as well as one or two of greater power —the sixteen inch type. Given a gun on the rocking deck of a warship and another of similar range and power ou a concrete emplacement behind a para- pet ashore, and the latter has the ad- | vantage of the former every time. Now arises another delicate consid- | eration—has any country enough big warships to smother our coast defense | forts? And have we sufficient ships able to throw enough heavy metal to drive them off or sink them? Of course a definite answer to such questions, however pertinent just now or however interesting to the layman, cannot be set down. What we can ar- rive at in our search for information is something about the ships and the guns themselves, considered against the background of the Atlantic ocean near New York and the forts that fringe the sand pits of Sandy Hook, that guard the outer gate and the green slopes of Staten Island and Long Is- land farther up the bay. Sandy Hook is the strongest tion. Fort Hancock absolutely com- mands the entrance channels to New er sh knock make toria, posi- York bay. Mounted there are batteries Photos by American Press Association Big mortars at Sandy Hook and (below) soldiers loading one of the long range guns. of twelve inch rifles, a goodly number of the new fourteens and one or two sixteens, besides mortars almost innu- merable. Supplémenting this splendid const defense scheme are Fort Wadsworth and Fort Tompkins, on Staten Island, commanding the lower bay and out to sea, and Fort Hamilton and Fort La- fayette (the latter obsolete) on the Brooklyn side at Bay Ridge. They face the Narrows. The batteries of twelve fnch mortars | which these forts mount are as fine » type of ordnance as even the most ex- acting artillerist might demand. They have a ship sinking range of at Jeast eight miles, and each can plump 1,046 pounds of projectile at a discharge down on the deck of any Gollath of the seas that might venture in that close, The shell would rise five miles in the air on its way to the target and would fall with such momentum that no declk could stand the impact pius the explge sion of the projectile,