being carried upon the car. The most convenient arrangement for a more powerful searchlight is to be found in the use of a petrol-electric vehicle in which the ordinary change-speed gears are dispensed with, and their place taken by electric machines. The car engine drives a dynamo which generates electric current. This is supplied to an electric motor from which the power is transmitted to the rear wheels. The arrangement is tantamount to an infinitely variable change speed gear, and the important point in connection with the subject under consideration is that the whole or part of the engine power can be used for generating electric current, which can be easily applied to a searchlight on the car. [Illustration: _“The Autocar” illustration._ A “CHARRON” ARMOURED CAR WITH MACHINE GUN.] [Illustration: _“The Autocar” illustration._ A “SCHNEIDER” ARMOURED CAR WITH QUICK-FIRING GUN.] Armoured cars carrying powerful lights are no doubt very effective for reconnoitring during the night. The lights can be switched on quite suddenly and some damage inflicted upon an enemy, and the light switched off again before there is time for fire to be returned or the machine to be located effectively. The car can then be moved rapidly to some other point, and the manoeuvre repeated. In general, the armoured car has been used as a kind of advance guard in front of the screen of cavalry which performs the double duty of concealing the movement of its own infantry and locating the forces of the enemy. Just as the Germans employed cavalry for this purpose to an unprecedented extent in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, and so gained an enormous advantage over their opponents, so the attempt has been made on this occasion to utilise a still more rapid and effective means towards the same ends. As already suggested, any advantage that may have accrued from the utilisation of a new method of this kind need only be a purely temporary one, since any desired quantity of the enormous number of available machines can--if it appears desirable--be converted into armoured cars for our own use or that of our allies at very short notice. One would imagine that events will prove that the armoured motor is valuable as an irritant rather than as a means of locating hostile forces or screening one’s own, since both these latter ends are very much affected by the use of aeroplanes, which make it practically impossible to move large bodies of men secure from observation, and correspondingly easy to gather fairly accurate information as to the whereabouts and strength of the enemy.