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Show Trying Out War Tlreoiies If tho great European war Is already al-ready noteworthy for the number of theories it has upset, It is none tho less worthy of attention for thoseit has confirmed. It seemed to bo th'i consensus ot military expert opinion beforo August 1, 1914, that tho era ot close formations for assault had gono by. That attacks must bo mads In open order against troops armed with modern high powerod firearms was nssertod by mon who were close students of U10 an of war from tho standpoint of tho military profession. Tho battlo picture drawn by theso experts ex-perts was full of distances, lines separated sep-arated by tho effective reach of rifles ri-fles having ranges In excess of 2500 yards and thin clouds of smoko alone Indicating tho positions ot tho hostllo armies. Tho war, on tho contrary, has abounded with pictures not so very different from thoso with which tho artists ot tho last century crowded crowd-ed galleries of European capitals. Men havo been thrown In masses against other men In masses; tho sa-bro, sa-bro, tho bayonet and tho lance have all been employed. Enthusiasm seconding sec-onding discipline has carried men through zones of fire which the text writers writing in peaco had pronounced pro-nounced Impassable. Tho theory that under modern conditions fighting would bo at long rango was blown to pieces in tho earliest combats ot tho war. Previous to tho war thero was a disposition among students to doubt tho lmportanco of field artillery against tho infantry long rango rifle, ri-fle, and what has proved to bo unduo emphasis was laid upon Its function of preparing tho way for attack. Possibly Pos-sibly this was because in the Boer war tho British artillery failed to shake the nerves of tho Doers or to clear tholr trenches for tho assaults that followed. At all events, wo seo that in tho fighting in tho east and In tho west the nrtlllory Is playing a great Part, and Is massed for action ac-tion In nccordanso with tho Napoleonic Napole-onic piecept and practice Tho other day, In tho courso of their drive at Warsaw, tho Germans aro said to havo brought at least 600 field guns to the support of their charging masses mass-es of Infantry, and tho report does not seom Improbable, In view of tho groat numbers of cannon employed In every region covered by tho war. Tho field gun of today Is a repeating rlflo throwing a Bhower ot projectllos of 12 to 15 pounds weight each. It Is to the field gun of tho past what tho rovolver ls to tho horse plBtol. Yet, desptto tho chango In Its power and efficiency, artillery must bo massed mass-ed to get tho best result, according to -tho dictum Napoleon laid down In 1800. Wo of tho United, States havo a lesson to learn from tho European use of artillery If wo over begin sor-lously sor-lously to overconio our lack of preparedness. pre-paredness. Wo ur0 Inclined to look to our own military experiences for guidance, but tho lessons of our Civil war aro no longer applicable In that great strugglo tho Union had In Us sorvlco not vory far from 470 batteries batter-ies of field artillery. Averaging theso at four guns aploce, tho Union had nearly 1,900 guns It could bring Into action. Theso wero spread over bo vast an area that tho artillery arm was not always in quantity what It should havo been. Sherman thought one gun to every thousand Infantry a fair allowanco. Frequently other generals of different views could not muster more than two guns per thousand. thou-sand. Today tho European belligerents belliger-ents allow four or live guns per thousand thou-sand Infantry, not only for tho nor-al nor-al effect of their support, but for massing great linos of cannon to crush by tho weight of flro heavy lines of troops urged forward In closo order. Boston Transcript. |