Special designs are for motor vehicles capable of a good turn of speed, and arranged to carry guns especially intended for fighting against aeroplanes or airships, and consequently so arranged as to allow of their muzzles being swung up until the gun assumes a vertical position. Other special arrangements of motor vehicles are those providing for the carriage of machine guns, but this type perhaps comes more properly under the title of an armoured motor car. CHAPTER VII ARMOURED CARS AND OTHER MILITARY MOTORS The Utility of the Armoured Car--Improvised and Other Types--The Uses of Touring Cars and Motor Cycles--Specially Equipped Military Motors. While everyone was aware that the heavy motor would play a very important part in the great war in connection with the transport of supplies and artillery, and that touring cars would be largely used for staff purposes, the enormous extent to which the armoured car has been employed has probably come as something of a surprise. We were, of course, aware of the existence of such machines, but up to the present there had been no real proof of their utility. The German military authorities had evidently, prior to the war, come to their own conclusions on the matter, and the Belgians, whether they were prepared in advance or not, were at least very prompt in following suit. It is doubtful whether, when the war broke out, our own War Department was in possession of a single armoured car, but fortunately this is a type of machine in connection with which deficiencies can be very rapidly made up, and at the time of writing, while no certain quantitative information is available, we are at least aware of the existence of British armoured cars on the Continent, and we know that, for example, London motor omnibuses have been equipped for this class of duty. In this, and in most cases, the improvised armoured car is merely an ordinary vehicle with some simple form of body covered over by armour plating, and with the more vital portions of its mechanism to some degree similarly protected. Thus, some protection is provided for the radiator and steering gear. The dash is covered by steel plating extending upwards to protect the driver, while the platform or body behind is protected by vertical or sloping steel plates. Certain examples of German armoured cars that have been captured answer sufficiently well to this description, but naturally enough in a country where the supply of industrial vehicles is more or less inadequate, the touring car has been selected for adaptation. It has, of course, the advantage of extra speed, and the disadvantage of the vulnerability of pneumatic tyres. Some of these improvised armoured cars merely carry men armed with rifles, while others are equipped with light machine guns. In many instances, searchlights, or very strong head lamps, are fitted. The latter can, of course, be operated by the now familiar electric system, a small dynamo and a battery of cells