1935 July 28 San Antonio Light - San Antonio Tx

An Artist's Conception of a World-Wide Conflict of Nations a Century Hence

Rnbol Pntrol With Movie Camera and Sound Recorder.

A Machlne-Gun Soldier a Hundred Tears From Now. •pHE cable despatches the other day I announced that a robot airI plane had demonstrated its practical value at the Royal Air Force Airdrome, Famborough, England. This remarkable r o b o t airplane, christened "The Queen Bee," responded perfectly to every order given by an officer on the ground by means of the radio. It was controlled from a small wooden cabinet fitted with seven plain whit'e keys. The plane's engine started into actio/i at the touch of a switch and the machine rose into the air as if by magic. From time to time an officer shouted:1 "Lift! Dive! Sight! Level!" A technician pressed the proper key in the control cabinet to transmit the order, and a light flickered on and off as the apparatus obeyed the officer's will. The plane carried a machine gun which could also be operated by radio. The hardest test came when the order was given to land. The officer gave^ the command, "Glide!" .When the plane was at 2,000 feet altitude she went into a smooth glide with the engine Just ticking over. She seemed to be coming down at a steeper angle than was safe, but at a certain height an automatic device came into operation, which speeded up the engine for a time and allowed the machine to make a. safe landing.' At least fifteen Queen Bees have already been built. They can be catapulted from ships as well as despatched from land. Their range of control is ten miles from the radio station, but with greater power this can be increased indefinitely. That is a real war-making robot, one of a great variety of robots with which many experts believe war will be almost entirely conducted in future. Erik Nitsche, a distinguished Euro-

A Robot's Fall From an Airplane. pean artist, has looked into the future of a century from now and has made a series of remarkable prophetic pictures of a war fought solely with robot soldiers. The majority of them were drawn exclusively for The American Weekly and appear on this page. Instead of the human machine gunners, crouched in their emplacements, waiting for the mangling shell to end

X-Ray Picture of a Bullet in the Robot's Heart.

them, t h e r e is a fire. He c r a w l s s t e e l encased forward, h i s hum e c h a n i s m . The Twenfy-five-tube Radio Military man masters miles most important orBand. away, striving to gan to the machine direct the deadly gunner, without which his hands would stream into the mechanical vitats of be useless, are his eyes. Nitsche's robot the enemy's robots. machine gunner's head is the gun itPatrol work was desperately danself. His eyes are in the heads of those gerous in the last war. But a flying who by television and radio direct his robot, equipped with motion picture

Hospital for (he Repair of Robot Soldiers.

camera and sound recording machines, could dart, and hover over the enemy with no danger to human life—and bring back vastly more accurate observations. When a human soldier gets a bullet in his heart, or in his liver or has himself partly blown to pieces, that is the end of that soldier. Not so with the robot. A new heart can be put in him as easily, almost, as changing a

A Fiplit in the Stratosphere, © I95o, bj

, In?. Oral BrlUIn RI;M.5 Br.'«ir>I.

tire. Doctors were notoriously insufficient in the. World War, and they found their tasks unpleasantly dnngcrous. In the future, Mr. Nitsche thinks, war robot doctors will attend to the injuries of robot soldiers. There will also be hospitals where all Ihe equipment will be mechanical, reeking no more of blood and antiseptics but of machine oil. Soldiers need music on the march and to hearten them at other times. One good band is all that woud be necessary in robot times. A robot equipped with twenty-five tubes, improved receiver and a loud speaker could pick up the marches and what not from the central station and provide music for a whole regiment. He could n o t , of cout'.se, extemporize verses like the thousand and one of Mademoiselle from Armenlieres, ns our boys did in the war. But no Mademoiselle would appeal to a robot. Combats infinitely beyond the powers of human fighters will be made easy by robot development. For example, the robot planes will be able to fight each other in the stratosphere, where any conceivable speed can be obtained, and where the air is too rarefied to sustain human life. By using this region one* nation can strike at another on the other side of the world in two or three hours. Whatever goes up must come down, and undoubtedly a number of air robots will do so. Mr. Nitsche draws a tear-impelling picture of the fall of one of these poor creatures, flopping down beside a peaceful picnic party. It is, indeed, pathetic. Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Tho only trouble is that it will probably take humanity at least thirty more centuries to become so humane. And when they have done so, there will be no more war—and therefore no need of robot fioltiicrs.