Army Uses Motor Trucks.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 18, 1912:
Blue and Red Field Equipment Moved by Power Wagons.
    The value of the motor truck for military purposes was successfully demonstrated during the manoeuvres which were conducted last week between the Blue and Red armies which operated in the vicinity of New York. Most of the heaviest camp material was moved by motor trucks. The entire field outfit of 2,000 men and horses of one camp was loaded upon less than twenty commercial vehicles.
    Perhaps the most important part of the demonstration was the facility with which the motor wagons moved the camp equipment over roads made heavy through rain, while touring cars and ambulances materially contributed to the success of the operations. The trucks successfully handled the field equipment, which was a new and untried proposition, and the work was efficiently systematized. The officers in charge of the Connecticut manoeuvres stated that by combining the heavy equipment of the three-ton trucks with a few of the lighter one-and-a-half-ton trucks as auxiliaries, every objection raised thus far could be easily met. On the other hand, the trucks have some very conspicuous advantages. For example, some of the batteries had an equipment of forty to fifty teams of mules instead of motor trucks, whereas others had their entire equipment of the latter. In other words, their wagon train was about three times the length of the batteries which used the motor trucks, which means just so much more extended line to defend—a very important item.
    Horses must be supplied with forage at every camp site, while motor trucks carry sufficient gasoline to cover a week or ten days' march—another very great advantage should the army be traveling in a hostile zone.