COAST ARTILLERY, JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

572 THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL
Russia
THE RED ARMv.-Recognizing that the poor education, both general and
military, of the officersof all grades was causing a low state of efficiencyin the
army, and further that there were no trained officers available for an expanded
army, the Governmentleaders determined to remedy these great defects. A system
of military schoolswas started which has developedso that it now includes schools
for company officers and higher commands, for specialists in general, for special
branch training, for noncommissionedofficers,and to provide reserve officers. It
is estimated that approximately 75,000 men yearly take the one-year course in
regimental noncommissionedofficersschools.
Conscript graduates from the middle grade and higher civilian schools are
placed in special detachments and trained as reserve officers. It is estimated that
from 10,000to 12,000will be so trained yearly.
For several years prominent officials have advocated militarizing the civil
schools. At the beginning of the present school year an advanced.. ourse in military
training was introduced in all high schools and technical schools. It is
divided into a theoretical course in war technique and a practical course of two
months during the summer. All students who will be conscripts next year must
take the course.
China
BA'ITLELINESAT NANKOWPAss.-Study of the battlefield at Nankow Pass
gives additional evidences of the needs for revising our old ideas of the efficiency
of Chinese armies and indicates the remarkable advance in military science which
some of the warring factions in China have made in the past few years.
It will be remembered that the Kuominchun or National Army' of General
Feng Yu-hsiang withdrew from the Peking area in April, 1926, and retreated to
a strong position covering Nankow Pass, some fifty miles to the northwest. Here
the National Army rested until August during which time they were able to
concentrate on the building of a defensive position. On August 14 the combined
forces of Marshals Wu and Chang attacked the position and captured the Pass.
Shortly after the retreat of the Kuominchun, at the invitation of General
Chang Hsueh-liang, certain foreigners from Peking were invited to visit the scene
of the fighting.
Writing of the battlefield, a foreign observer reports that. the National Army
had an unusually elaborate trench system, well developed in all of its details but
poorly sited, some of the trenches being on the skyline. The trench system con-
~I'l M- weH-revett:ed,traversed trenches, in front of which, on the enemy side,
was the following:
A trench about six feet deep and six feet wide with sharp stakes one foot in
height planted in the bottom;
A trench of the same dimensions with a high voltage live wire on stakes in the
bottom and on the enemy side;
A high brush entanglement ...ith heavy planks full of nails, points up, lying
on the ground just in rear.
The attacking troops of the allied armies brought a heavy concentration of
artillery to bear on the Kuominchun position under cover of which the infantry
advanced and occupied the ground. General Chang stated that he had used four