The tank's tracks, hard rubber blocks set in steel frames, last eight times as long as those in any other service. Stretched taut by the idler at rear, held to the ground by the heavy-sprung, bogies amidships, they bite the earth and hug the roughest terrain, At the driver's seat, the two steering levers control each track separately, and on occasion can throw the tank into a 360° spin.
Driven by an expert, a tank can take a 45° grade, cross trenches and ford streams. But a tank is perilously easy to turn over, and even on the highway, with the commander standing in the open turret, the one-way uncushioned jolting of the tank is the worst punishment a peacetime soldier can take. Worst shocks come when the tank up-ends or buries its nose to a full stop in an embankment. For these occasions the crew wears crash helmets and learns a special technique to avoid broken bones in the scramble.
With the turret buttoned up for combat the tank becomes a bellowing inferno for its crew inside. Directed by pressure of the commander's feet on his shoulders, the driver must gun the tank out of trenches, around tank obstacles, through trees and out of the way of other tanks. Next to him, on the other side of the drive-shaft tunnel, the assistant driver is glued to his.30-cal. machine gun. In the turret the commander and gunner swing their guns together. The.50-cal. gun is used against enemy tanks, anti-tank defences and materiel. The.30-cal. is used against enemy personnel.
To make these machines and train the men to run them is one of the gravest problems in the national-defence programme. Only. two manufacturers and one Government arsenal are now equipped to produce the armour and assemble the tanks. A sober lesson is taught by U. S. World War experience. The U. S. then appropriated $175,000,000, put 23,000 tanks on order. At the war's end 80 tanks had been delivered.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.