Madison County Democrat

Army Tests Own
"Little Inch"
For War Zones

A new portable rubber pipeline—the only one of its kind—
is expected to graduate from
Army testing laboratories next
spring.

Designed to save money and
time by streamlining methods
for delivering gasoline to war
zone vehicles, the new supply line
is the world's lightest weight
gasoline hose and the strongest
for its weight ever built. It
weighs less than one pound per
foot, has a 500-pound burst
pressure, and is four inches in
diameter.

The Army expects the pipe-line
to save taxpayers hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year by reducing the number of tank trucks
and drivers needed to move bulk
shipments of gasoline to supply
depots in combat areas.

The developmental pipe-line is
used with a new Army device
capable of pumping 324,000 gallons of gasoline a day through
five miles of rubber "pipe" laid
on level ground. This is about
eight times as much gasoline as
an infantry division in combat
normally uses in one day.

Laid in hilly territory like that
in Korea, the pipe-line can deliver 324,000 gallons of gasoline
a day over two and one-half
miles. This amount is equal to
that of 162 tank trucks with a
capacity of 2,000 gallons each.
The pipe-line—made in 500-
foot sections linked together with
couplings—can be laid from a
truck moving 15 miles per hour.