Motor Equipment at the Manceuvres.
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The actual dispositions and the nature of the Lie:Lk., ill the great war game, which, during the present week, is being played in the country between Amesbury and Fastleigh, and between Shaftesbury and Winchester, are of little technical interest to the readers of this journal. It is sufficieet for them to realise, in a general way, that in the Red Army, which annprises the 2nd Division as well as several brigades of cavalry, there are some 27,000 officers and mms ill full warpaint and armed to the teeth—if such expressions are admissible nowadays, all of whom have to be supplied with the bare necessities of life, and with ammunition, during the whole of the time that they are out on " active " service in the veryextensi ett maraeuvre area. The opposing Blue Army, although it is the possessor of a certain amount of mechanical transport, consisting of one company A.S.C. from the Belford depOt, supplemented by certain hired units, does not entirely depend upon motor haulage for the whole of its food and powder, as is the ease with Redland's army.
For the first time in history, those responsible for the planning et' this annual war game have decided that mechanical transport shall take its full share of responsibility in the operations. Last year, the mechanical transport worked under such conditions that it would not have been fatal had it failed altogether. It then ran in parallel, as it were, with the ordinary second-line horsed transport, and what there was of it worked for either of the contending sides promiscuously. The railway ie the rear was then assumed to he unimpaired. In 1909, mechanical transport was present on sufferance, whilst this year it is on trial.
The " General Idea " for the present manceuvres suggests that the railway between the commissariat base and the advancing columns, of the Rod forces, has been put out of action, and it is thus the onerens and responsible duty of the transport and supply and of the ammunition parks to bridge Liaise gaps from the bases to the second-line transport of the main army. It will, therefore, be realized that the mechanicaltransport department of the A.S.C. has, this year, had no mealt task set for it.
It is true that the whole of the present week's operations will only necessitate the bringing up of two days' supplies, for the men carry " two days " themselves, and the columns' own transport carries another " two days." The mechanical transport equipment will, therefore, at the end of the week, not Lave had much work in the nature of a " trying out," although mustering and manoeuvring will have afforded useful practice. The mechanical-transport base, at which the repair shop and headquarters are stationed, was on Monday estab lished. at Stoney Castle camping ground, in proximity to the great Army pantry and slaughter houses at Bisley. During last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, over 110 muchani cal-traneport units, of which about 85 are subsidized and the remainder are owned by the A.S.C. permanent establish ment, assembled on what are known as " the sande." in the vicinity of the A.S.C. lines at Aldershot. These were divided into the following parks :—The Cavalry Division transport and
supply park, composed of lorries and tractors, and despatched to Winchester on Sunday ; the Cavalry Division ammunition park, consisting of four internal-combustion tractors and traders ; the army troops park, a detachment of five tractors for the haulage of the balloon, field telegraph and other miscellaneous equipment ; the 2nd Division ammunition park, containine 32 tractors hauling three wagons each ; and the 2nd Division transport and supply park, which consists of two sections, each of 23 tractors and waeona, of the new selfcontained field rerair train• and of the headquarters staff office. The Cavalry Brigades. operating from Winchester. have, as we have stated, their own transport equipment., both for supulies and for ammunition. Their transport and slimily nark consists of 10 subsidized Foden lorries and of four subsidized Fowler tractors with trailers. The former come from Smithsea, Coseort, Henley, Lewisham, Bethnal Green. Pimlico, Ch ich te ter and Westminster respectively, whilst the tractors hail fron, Weybridge, Chichester. Camberwell, end Stuines.
The 32 tractors of the 2nd Division ammunition park include eidit A.S.11 machines. and, of the eubsidized enesines, the most-noticeable is that from the Rickinanswerth and Uxbridge Valley Water Co.. which engine was a prize-winner at the C.M.t. A. parade last June. Other tractors in this division come from Brentford, Poole, Worthing, Devizes. Timbridge Wells. Oxford. Wimborne and Chieheeter. The personnel in charact of this park was drawn from Chatham. A new method of -attaching three standard horse-ammunition wagons behind each tractor is being tried this year. The
use of a. novel design of demountable spring draw-bar enables the wagons to be turned over to the horse teams with the minimum of delay and trouble. The Divisional transport and supply park undoubtedly is the most-interesting portion of the whole of this assemblage of transport plant, both on. account of the number of tractors which it contains and of the first public appearance in this section of the new travelling workshop train. No. 1 section of this park, under the direction of Lt. Godfrey, includes 21 tractors and trailers and two Foden steamers. Prominent amongst the tractors in this section is a battery of " Little Giants" belonging to R. White and Sons, Ltd., the ginger
beer manufacture's. No. 2 section, under the direction of Lt. Blaney, did not assemble at Aldershot until Tuesday last; it includes 22 tractors and trailers arid one steam wagon. In addition to these two divisions, attached to this park is a bakery detachment and four special petted-driven lorries for the letpid transport of meat and bread. Two of these latter machines are of a new worm-driven Straker-Squire type, and two are of the latest-model Milnes-Daimler.
The repair train consists of six units, each of which com
prises a tractor and a heavy trailer. One of these trailers
carries a 25 Imp. power set in the shape of a Gardner engine and direct-coupled dynamo. The other trailers, four of which carry motor-driven machine tools, are arranged to be con nected with this generating set by easily-attached cables for power-transmission and lighting purposes. Amongst the plant which as thus available at any base which the headquarters may establish, there is the following equipment: A Tangye nulling machine ; an Armstrong-Whitworth shaper ; a 6 in. Lang lathe; an 8 in. Lang gap lathe with a 10 ft. bed; a
crucible furnace and a ease-hardening furnace by Fletcher Russell and Co., Ltd. ; a tool-grinder and a large emery wheel ; a power hack-saw ; a tire-heading machine; a portable forge; a Harvey-Frost vulcanizing plant; a very-full complement of loose plant of all descriptions. A comprehensive equipment it will be granted, although there is a temptation to criticize the suitability vi one or two of the heavier tools. The advisability of driving a. dynamo from one of the steam tractors by belt, showman-fashion, would seem to be preferable to the cartage of a separate power-plant, but we are told that such a echeme would not allow the whole installation to be self-contained when not on service. All this machinery is mounted on old-pattern wooden trucks of doubtful stability, Find it is certain that this combination will result in damage, both to the machine tools and to the trucks themselves before the week is out, for reasons which are obvious. We understand that new trucks. are now under construction at Woolwich. Major Wilder, the energetic officer in command of the whole park. to whose personal example the exceptional keenness of this division must obviously be attributed, has succeeded in starting up the whole of the machine tools in the repair train only 15 minutes after taking Position. It is common knowledge that the British War-office _Authorities favour the tractor for most. military purposes— a practice which is in opposition to that adopted by the French and German Covermnents. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in the present assembly of subsidized and stateowned vehicles, so far as the Red army is concerned, the tractors should outnumber the self-contained wagons by about seven to one. There are four internal-combustion tractors, a Thernveroft and three Hornsby'', with the Cavalry. Of the 90 steam tractors, which are distributed amongst the various parks, Tasker's Little Giants are the most numerous, the next in order being Aveling and Porters. Burrella, and Fowkrs. Other makers represented are Foster, of Lincoln, Wallis and Steevens, Clayton and Shuttkworth, Garrett, of Leiston, and
B rown and May, of Devizes. In the matter of steam wagons, P etiola have it all their own way. A large fleet of petrol vehicles belonging to Commercial Car Hirers, Ltd., is being emnloyed by Ind. Coepe and Co. In conclusion, we would once again urge the necessity for an in-crease in the matter of subsidy to suitable machines., At present. the annual grant is so small that the inebilizing authorities are not in a position to require a hieh state of mechanical efficiency from the recipients. In thecurrent ma-nunivres. it is a fact that some of the machines which have been gratefrilly accented amild unhesitatingly have been sent back as unfit, had the obligation of the owners been greater. These few shaky examnles. however. can in no way compete in the matter of seandalous decrepitude with very many of the pitiful wrecks of hired trarusport horses which are endeavouring to struggle through the week's service.