1935 july 28 san antonio light - san antonio tx

An Artist's Conception of aWorld-Wide Conflict

of Nationsa Century

Hence

A Machlne-Gun Soldier a HundredTears From Now.

•pHE cable despatches the other dayI announced that a robot air-I plane had demonstrated its prac-

tical value at the Royal Air Force Air-drome, Famborough, England.

This remarkable r o b o t airplane,christened "The Queen Bee," respondedperfectly to every order given by an of-ficer on the ground by means of theradio.

It was controlled from a small woodencabinet fitted with seven plain whit'ekeys. The plane's engine started intoactio/i at the touch of a switch and themachine rose into the air as if bymagic. From time to time an officershouted:1

"Lift! Dive! Sight! Level!"A technician pressed the proper key

in the control cabinet to transmit theorder, and a light flickered on and offas the apparatus obeyed the officer'swill. The plane carried a machine gunwhich could also be operated by radio.

The hardest test came when theorder was given to land. The officergave^ the command, "Glide!" .Whenthe plane was at 2,000 feet altitude shewent into a smooth glide with the en-gine Just ticking over. She seemed tobe coming down at a steeper angle thanwas safe, but at a certain height an au-tomatic device came into operation,which speeded up the engine for a timeand allowed the machine to make a.safe landing.'

At least fifteen Queen Bees havealready been built. They can be cata-pulted from ships as well as despatchedfrom land. Their range of control isten miles from the radio station, butwith greater power this can be in-creased indefinitely.

That is a real war-making robot, oneof a great variety of robots withwhich many experts believe war will bealmost entirely conducted in future.Erik Nitsche, a distinguished Euro-

A Robot's Fall From an Airplane. X-Ray Picture of a Bullet in the Robot's Heart.

pean artist, has looked into the futureof a century from now and has made aseries of remarkable prophetic picturesof a war fought solely with robot sol-diers. The majority of them weredrawn exclusively for The AmericanWeekly and appear on this page.

Instead of the human machine gun-ners, crouched in their emplacements,waiting for the mangling shell to end

them, t h e r e is as t e e l e n c a s e dmechan ism. Themost important or-gan to the machinegunner, without which his hands wouldbe useless, are his eyes. Nitsche's robotmachine gunner's head is the gun it-self. His eyes are in the heads of thosewho by television and radio direct his

Twenfy-five-tube Radio MilitaryBand.

fire. He c r a w l sforward, h i s hu-man masters milesaway, striving todirect the deadly

stream into the mechanical vitats ofthe enemy's robots.

Patrol work was desperately dan-gerous in the last war. But a flyingrobot, equipped with motion picture

camera and sound recording machines,could dart, and hover over the enemywith no danger to human life—andbring back vastly more accurate ob-servations. When a human soldier getsa bullet in his heart, or in his liver orhas himself partly blown to pieces, thatis the end of that soldier. Not so withthe robot. A new heart can be put inhim as easily, almost, as changing a

Rnbol Pntrol With Movie Cameraand Sound Recorder.

tire. Doctors were notoriously insuffi-cient in the. World War, and they foundtheir tasks unpleasantly dnngcrous. Inthe future, Mr. Nitsche thinks, war ro-bot doctors will attend to the injuriesof robot soldiers. There will also behospitals where all Ihe equipment willbe mechanical, reeking no more ofblood and antiseptics but of machineoil.

Soldiers need music on the marchand to hearten them at other times.One good band is all that woud benecessary in robot times. A robotequipped with twenty-five tubes, im-proved receiver and a loud speakercould pick up the marches and whatnot from the central station and pro-vide music for a whole regiment. Hecould n o t , of cout'.se, extemporizeverses like the thousand and one ofMademoiselle from Armenlieres, nsour boys did in the war. But no Made-moiselle would appeal to a robot.

Combats infinitely beyond the pow-ers of human fighters will be madeeasy by robot development. For ex-ample, the robot planes will be ableto fight each other in the stratosphere,where any conceivable speed can beobtained, and where the air is too rare-fied to sustain human life. By usingthis region one* nation can strike atanother on the other side of the worldin two or three hours.

Whatever goes up must come down,and undoubtedly a number of air ro-bots will do so. Mr. Nitsche draws atear-impelling picture of the fall of oneof these poor creatures, flopping downbeside a peaceful picnic party. It is,indeed, pathetic.

Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Thoonly trouble is that it will probablytake humanity at least thirty morecenturies to become so humane. Andwhen they have done so, there will beno more war—and therefore no need ofrobot fioltiicrs.

Hospital for (he Repair of Robot Soldiers. A Fiplit in the Stratosphere,© I95o, bj , In?. Oral BrlUIn RI;M.5 Br.'«ir>I.