Topic: Military Theory
Machine Guns Will Displace Infantry
The Florence Times Daily, Florence, Alabama, 20 March 1927
London (UP)—Conclusions drawn by military experts based on the most advanced practice in British and continental army maneuvres in 1926 indicate that the next war is likely to be almost entirely a matter of machine guns, aircraft and tanks. The role of the infantryman seems to be taken over by the machine gunner.
The present trend of the French and German armies to have one machine-gun company to every three of ordinary infantry—a far bigger proportion of machine guns to rifles than was used in the Great War—is expected during 1927 to continue to progress in favor of the machine-gun. Some experts prophesy that within the next ten years the proportional figures will be reversed, and that 1937 will see three companies of machine-gunners to every company of infantry in an efficiently organized army.
Increasing reliance of the machine gun as a weapon of offence and defence, is due to marked improvements that have been made since the war, both in increasing the reliability of the machine-gun and decreasing its weight. For readily mobile forces the Browning machine-gun, it is said, seems likely to entirely replace both the Lewis and the Hotchkiss machine-guns.
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