Show MILITARY SCIENCE The Automatic Gun Bicycle Army Corps Simplified Fortifications I seems to be the general opinion among United States army officers that I the development of military science in the immediate future will be in the direction di-rection of simplified fortifications greater utilization of the bicycle and the extended use of some form of automatic au-tomatic gun The modern army engineer en-gineer sees little use in raising great mounds of earth such as used to be done when hasty and even permanent works are needed The bigger the earthwork the greater the mark for the enemys big guns A hole in the ground has been the theoretical formula for-mula for fort building and now that we posses field pieces with disappearing disappear-ing carriages it can be practically carried j car-ried out A gun that is capable of I rising out of an innocentlooking hole 1 pouring forth great volleys of death I I dealing bullets and then sinking out I j of sight leaving hardly a trace of its j presence and certainly nothing to fire at is certainly formidable enough to I invest the new theory with all needful logic I would he to an enemy what j I the hollow road near Waterloo was to I i I the Cuirrassiers of Napoleon j I In his last report General Miles recommended j rec-ommended the greater use of the bicycle I bi-cycle for military purposes He even I I intimated the desirability of establishing establish-ing a completely equipped bicycle corps This has been openly discussed at Governors island and is accepted there as his opinion of the most probable prob-able advance of the near future So far bicycles have been used in the t iy iu 01 lieu ur usoatca duty A much simpler form of wheel will have I I to be adopted however before bicycling I bicy-cling becomes a factor in army life I I The present diamond frame machine is despite its lightness much too cumbersome I I cum-bersome Captain Gerard has overcome r over-come the difficulty in France by inventing I in-venting a special form of folding bicycle bi-cycle It has proved to be well adapted L for general use Twentytwo men of the Eightyseventh infantry recently made a successful tour of 1200 miles on it each man getting off of his wheel and carrying it on his back over rough places three hundred separate times during the journey The rifle of the future will be the automatic rifle This is the conclusion conclu-sion of military men not only of this but of other countries General Wille a German army expert on the subject of firearms says decisively that it will ultimately be the rifle in general use by the armies of the world Its particular point of merit in its capacity for doing away with the mechanical operation of loading In effect it does its own loading load-ing leaving the soldier free to attend to the business of firing thus concentrating concen-trating his attention on his opponent and rendering his aim surer As pointed out by General Wille the force of the recoil of the automatic gun is employed for charging and closing the breech and the firer has only to let off the shot in order to again load the weapon so that the number of shots discharged without with-out an effort is precisely the same as the total contents of the magazine Th only comparatively weak part of the automatic gun lies in its spring but as I they have been found after tests made I in Austria to withstand the wear and tear of from 10000 to 14000 discharges this does not count for much THEODORE WATERS |