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Show A BARRAGE AND THE STORM TROOPS. Ono of our artillery officers has given us a description of a barrage employed to stop an enemy attack. First in line of action are the hand grenades, used when the advancing storm troops have reached the wire entanglements; then the rifles and machine guns. Next are the French 76's with shrapnel, then the 4.7-inch guns. Just beyond are the mortars, 5-Inch 5-Inch and 6-incb seacoast guns, and far in the rear are the howitzers, and the powerful long range guns which must be renewed by relining after firing 600 or 700 rounds. With all these guns firing, how do the German shock wavs pet through? No one seems able to answer the question, except by conceding that the bombardment, which is intended to open the way for the massed formation, forma-tion, clears the enemy irenehes of machine ma-chine gun nests, and so disorganizes the artillery in the rear of tho front lines as to virtually paralyze the defenders de-fenders long enough to permit the shock troops to pour Into the trenches in great numbers and d moralize resistance. re-sistance. The allies have employed the skirmish skir-mish line formation in making drives, but the lines are too thin to cause disorganization dis-organization of the enemy, even when the attack Is driven home. The Germans Ger-mans lose heavier In the initial stages of these wave attacks, but when they finally reach their objectives, do they pay a higher price In men than do the allies in attaining similar results? Frank H Slmonds, recognized as America's foremost military critic, as late as last spring predicted that, if the Germans persisted in their solid waves in makinc drives, they would bo defeated by attrition, and he also offered the forecast that the side attempting at-tempting the greater number of assaults as-saults on entrenched positions would suffer disaster. The Germans have challenged both statements by their present offensive and, up to now. seem ot have proved that Simonds has miscalculated. The Germans pay dearly to pet into their opponents' trenrhes but onre in, because of their massed streneih, they suffer less than do the alllec oo |