However, we always thought we might some day encounter a really effective type of mine, and possibly the Germans were satisfied if their efforts so much as made our monsters walk delicately, for in an elaborate document, giving every kind of anti-Tank defence instructions, they somewhat pathetically conclude: “Every obstacle, even if it only checks the hostile Tank temporarily, is of value.” But there was one form of weapon which was, we felt sure, bound to be evolved by the Germans. It was one which we were not at all anxious to encounter. We imagined a weapon which should practically be the machine-gun version of the anti-Tank rifle; that is to say, a weapon which could pour out a stream of high-velocity, large-calibre bullets at the rate of two hundred a minute. Actually it was almost precisely such an engine that the Germans had got in their “Tuf” machine-gun, of which an interesting account is given in _Weekly Tank Notes_. The name was an abbreviation for “_Tank und Flieger_” (tank and aeroplane), for it was against these enemies that this machine-gun was intended. It was to consist of no less than 250 pieces, which were made by sixty different factories, of which the _Maschinen Fabrik Augsburg Nürnberg_, was the only one entrusted with the assembling and mounting. The projectile fired was to be 13 millimetres in diameter. From experiments made with captured Tanks, the Germans ascertained that these bullets could pierce steel plates of 30 millimetres in thickness. No less than six thousand of these guns were to be in the field by April 1919, and delivery was to begin early in the previous December--just a month too late. However, when the Armistice was signed, the firms were already in possession of the greater part of the stores and raw material for the manufacture of the guns, a quantity of which were by then well on the way to completion. Immediately after the signing of the Armistice, all the factories were instructed by telephone to continue manufacturing the “Tuf,” and about November 20 they received confirmation in writing of this order, and were instructed to keep on their workmen at all costs. Our occupation of the left bank of the Rhine proved a serious drawback to a continuation of the manufacture, as it completely interrupted communication between several of the factories. The Pfaff Works of Kaiserlautern (Palatinate) and the great Becker steel works of Frefeld, which played an important part in the manufacture of the guns, had to close down, both being on the left bank of the Rhine. The Minister of War throughout the period of its manufacture asked for daily and minute reports as to the progress of the “Tuf,” and it was given priority over both submarines and aeroplanes. But once more, as ever in all that concerned Tanks, the Germans were several months too late. We were never destined to face this particular weapon with the Mark V. The modern Tank fears it not at all. III