Show PREPARING FOR ACTUAL WAR large sums of money expended for models destroyed as object lesson for gunners near okehampton Oke hampton england the other day a dummy village that had been especially built for the purpose was blown to pieces by shell fire from a battry of heavy guns placed some ditanna away the object of the cu ell no briois is and costly experiment being ot of course to find out exactly what would happen to a real village in similar circumstances says pearson s weekly the idea which is not exactly a new one was boltrom borrowed ed originally from germany where some very blab orate experiments on similar lines ha e been conducted one of these involved the construe tion of an exact model to scale of the great fortress of the mod el a as not a toy but a real fort in miniature covering over four acres of ground and costing to build walls bastions glacis redoubts mere all solidly and substantially made A powder magazine in which some scores of barrels of powder were stored m a as placed in exactly the same position as the real powder magazine occupied in the real fortress even the money tower wherein is kept at ever since 1874 the sum of 6 in coin for the purpose of immediate use in case of war was duplicated and dummy treasure chests filled with steel ingots were placed inside it when all was ready the bombardment commenced the guns used were real cannons but they were fitted fatted ins de the bores with in ner jacket tubes so as to admit of miniature shells being fired at the miniature fortress four hundred pilots shots were fired but the magazine remained unexploded although every effort was made to de it the money tower how ever was wrecked and the treasure was scattered in all directions A far more elaborate experiment also conducted by germany was made in 1869 when bismarck and moltke to gether m were ere planning to attack france A scale model of paris parts was built with the fortifications and prin cipal buildings all carefully marked out these there were then bombarded at various distances and the effects care fully noted As a result when the real came to be bombarded in grim earnest some two ears later the german ar tillery men were able to place their shells within the doomed city esaly how and where they liked having p P t got the ranges by experiment ing on the model it will doubtless surprise many peo pie too to learn that similar tactics have been adopted by germany as regards Fri england gland large size scale mod els of the fortifications of portsmouth at all events were constructed and blown to pieces by shell fire some little time back on a lonely spot in the island of rugen in the baltic sea and doubtless other experiments of a like nature have been carried out |