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Show Have You Any Ideas for 'Secret Weapons'? Inventors' Council Wants To Know Them Many War Machines Were Developed by Civilian Amateurs Want to help finish winning the war? Well, just settle down some night in that favorite easy chair, light up the old pipe, take out pencil and paper and figure out an easy way of generating gen-erating an artificial fog one that can be laid just where you want it and really do the business. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But the army would give a great deal for a I methods of ventilating the tanks to reduce the extreme heat under, which its crew must operate. At present a roof-suspended unit that takes in air through a bullet-proof enclosure is in use in many types. But the field for improving the comfort com-fort and fighting ability of the men who man the tanks has by no means been exhausted. Another invention the council would like to put its hands on is a voice-transmitting gas mask which would permit its wearer's voice to be heard clearly. At present the new type masks are using a flexible diaphragm. dia-phragm. Others combine the features fea-tures of a lip microphone and a portable transmitter. But the field is still wide-open for improvement. improve-ment. Keenly needed, too, as a protection protec-tion to fliers, is a means of inflating inflat-ing carbon dioxide life rafts more speedily at high altitudes. Fliers forced to bail out in cold North Atlantic At-lantic areas at 30,000 feet find that practical solution to the problem of covering advancing troops this way. It can be done. A number of methods meth-ods have been tried out; but most of the equipment is too big and cumbersome for effective action at the front. The army is still looking for a simple, effective way of providing pro-viding this cover. And while it Is looking for a way to create an artificial fog. it is also on the alert for any new methods of dispelling such a fog laid down by the enemy. Here, too, a number of methods have been suggested, some have been tried with a degree of success; but the problem hasn't yet been really licked. Can tanks be equipped with explosive-absorbing rollers to lessen the effectiveness of minefields? but none as yet has furnished the complete solution. When the soldiers and marines first began landing on Pacific beaches in the face of heavy enemy fire there were scores of suggestions that infantrymen be equipped with shields. This idea had to be discarded, dis-carded, the council says, because the weight of such a shield, if it were to prove capable of stopping a military mili-tary projectile, would be too great for a fully-equipped infantryman to handle. lantic areas at 30,000 feet find that i their carbon dioxide supply has been burned to dry ice by temperatures tempera-tures ranging as low as 60 below. In the rapid parachute descent, the carbon car-bon dioxide doesn't have time to resume re-sume its gaseous state and shock of the icy water, if the life raft isn't immediately available, is often fatal in far northern latitudes. Range finders, too, are important factors in directing artillery fire at enemy positions. Delicate optical instruments, in-struments, they are subjected to hard usage in the field and reflect sudden temperature changes A method of providing more sturdv construction and at the same time reducing the width without reducing reduc-ing the accuracy of operation is a real need. Right now, the council is particularly interested in homely ideas that might aid in destroying Dr removing obstacles to landing op- This is where the National Inventors' Inven-tors' council comes in. It was set up within the framework of the department de-partment of commerce in 1940 to serve as a clearing house for just such ideas that military men might find valuable. Headed by Charles F. Kettering, a past president of the tociety of Automotive Engineers, and composed of the nation's leading lead-ing scientists and engineers, it Ideas from Soldiew. Some of the suggestions, too, come from men at the fighting fronts and in army camps, A lieutenant-colonel on duty in Italy wrote in with an idea for equipping tanks to blow up enemy mines without with-out danger to the tank-crew. His suggestion was equipping a heavy tank with a gigantic explosive absorbing ab-sorbing roller, to be pushed ahead , of the vehicle as it warlpd thrnnh . uu u iutlliti uc.ncn Liie American ingenuity of the man in the street and the proper military authorities. i The council is dedicated to the principle, widely accepted both within with-in the government and outside, that all modern warfare is largely a battle of inventive ideas. The heavily gunned and armored tank, the superbomber, the aircraft carrier car-rier and the robot bomb all have been responsible for major changes to strategy, as well as tactics in the battles of this war. Civilian Contributions. Another thing the council keeps firmly in mind is the fact that many f the weapons of modern war, or the key principles which go into them, were the product of the civilian civil-ian mind the submarine, the torpedo, the motor driven airplane J i , .. . the mine field. An army sergeant, Lauren N. El-kins El-kins Jr., figured out an improved design for a field kitchen, tested it himself on maneuvers, found out it worked and submitted his idea to the council. Within 24 hours it had won acceptance of the army quartermaster corps and test models mod-els were constructed. Along with the new type field kitchen, Sergeant Elkins submitted an idea for a shipping ship-ping case for the kitchen, which broke down into two benches and a table. Another invention which has saved scores of lives is a simple signaling mirror which can be directed di-rected straight into the eyes of pilots searching for crews of sunken ships or airrhen down at sea. This mirror, cheap, light and easy to construct has been known to send a shaft nf uic internal comDustion engine. Naturally, most of the major Improvements on the weapons of war come from expert technicians or outstanding engineers, thoroughly thorough-ly familiar with the particular field In which they lie. But many of the 200,000 ideas or inventions that have been submitted to the council since its inception have come from the rank and file of the people. From farmers, teachers, factory workers, business men, youngsters In school, and even a few women, have come suggestions that have proved of considerable assistance to I sunlight into the eyes of a pilot up to 10 miles away 36 times in a single minute. And there is no trick to focusing it. Value of Milkweed Floss. From the floss of the common milkweed, the researches of a civilian scientist filled one of the most pressing of military needs at the outset of the war. Supplies of kapok, used in the heavy jackets of high-altitude fliers and in life belts, had been shut off by the advancing Japanese. This scientist showed that milkweed floss could do the job better bet-ter and that it could be used, too This signalling mirror can be directed di-rected into the eyes of pilots who are searching for crews of sunken ships or airmen down at sea. erations that have proved so costly in lives in the far Pacific and on the beaches in Normandy. A simple idea from a mechanic or a farmer might develop a technique that would preserve the lives of the men who must go out ahead of the main landing parties and clear the way. Japs Clever, Too. The council cited the report frnm Rir, . - for insulating and soundproofing. Many of the ideas adopied, the council's records show, have served to speed up quick repairs in the field, to get planes and guns back into the battlelines faster than they could have been readied previously. But not all of the inventive and mechanical problems of the armed forces have been solved. Many new ideas still are urgently needed, even in fields where considerable improvements im-provements have been made since the start of the war. For example, there is a crying need for some means of controlling fires in tanks until the personnel have had time to evacuate. At present, pres-ent, the council's records show that carbon dioxide under pressure in a small metal container is being used with some success. But the carbon dioxide treatment doesn't serve m ... uu.on nlau iiieii, uiau only in bathing suits and armed with rifles and detonating charges, had to swim to the obstacles off shore and blast them individually from the path of the oncoming troops. The Japanese, too, have shown themselves ingenious in adapting simple decoy devices to battle-front use in attempting to confuse or mislead mis-lead attacking forces. One Japanese sniper had rigged up an over-sized "puppet show" to harass American landing forces. He concealed six dummies in trees surrounding his position and attached at-tached them to his own station with ropes. When his shots attracted American fire in his direction, he would jerk the cord, let one of the dummies fall from a tree. Each time the American troops were confident they had eliminated his sniping post Than h.M ..,: u. i . The army is still looking for a simple method of generating artificial arti-ficial fog to cover advancing troops. the armed forces. And these inventive inven-tive suggestions follow a definite pattern in volume with each new phase of the war or induction of new weapons by the enemy. For example, when the submarine menace was at its height, the council coun-cil was receiving an average of 100 letters a day describing how torpedo tor-pedo nets could be used to keep the "tin-fish" from blasting the sides of merchant ships. Now that the submarine sub-marine menace has been licked, such suggestions are rare. Right now, suggestions for combatting the robot bombs are on the upswing- prevent the live oxygen-carrying ammunition from exploding within the tank as the fire soars past the burning point of TNT. An improvement improve-ment over this method would be widely welcomed if adapted to the peculiar needs of the tank, where interior space is so limited. Tanks Need Improvements. The cramped quarters of the present-day tank make it a fertile field for improvements. The operator's vision is extremely limited when the tank is "buttoned-up" for battle He can see only ahead. Performance of gyroscopic compasses and other instruments on the control panel could be stepped up. Improvements already have been made, through ideas submitted to the council in u all ,,,3 nuance and open fire again. Some ideas along that line, developed de-veloped by Yankee ingenuity from close experience from hunting and fishing, from work around farm machinery, or from bench and lathe, the council believes, might go a long way in saving the lives of our fighting fight-ing men and give them opportunity to develop tactics of surprise that could come in handy in many a close encounter. The American people have responded re-sponded tremendously to the need for wartime inventions of all sorts and character, the council believes but there are still hundreds of ways' in which American "know-how" can be applied to the problems of a me-chanized me-chanized war. I |