An Artist's Conception of a
World-Wide Conflict
A Machlne-Gun Soldier a Hundred
Tears From Now.
•pHE cable despatches the other day
I 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," responded
perfectly to every order given by an of-
ficer 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 en-
gine Just ticking over. She seemed to
be coming down at a steeper angle than
was safe, but at a certain height an au-
tomatic 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 cata-
pulted 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 in-
creased 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-
of Nations
a Century
Hence
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 sol-
diers. The majority of them were
drawn exclusively for The American
Weekly and appear on this page.
Instead of the human machine gun-
ners, crouched in their emplacements,
waiting for the mangling shell to end
Hospital for (he Repair of Robot Soldiers.
Rnbol Pntrol With Movie Camera
and Sound Recorder.
tire. Doctors were notoriously insuffi-
cient in the. World War, and they found
their tasks unpleasantly dnngcrous. In
the future, Mr. Nitsche thinks, war ro-
bot 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, im-
proved receiver and a loud speaker
could pick up the marches and what
not from the central station and pro-
vide 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 Made-
moiselle would appeal to a robot.
Combats infinitely beyond the pow-
ers of human fighters will be made
easy by robot development. For ex-
ample, 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 rare-
fied 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 ro-
X-Ray Picture of a Bullet in the Robot's Heart. bots will do so. Mr. Nitsche draws a
tear-impelling picture of the fall of one
them, t h e r e is a fire. He c r a w l s camera and sound recording machines, of these poor creatures, flopping down
s t e e l encased forward, h i s hu- could dart, and hover over the enemy beside a peaceful picnic party. It is,
m e c h a n i s m . The Twenfy-five-tube Radio Military man masters miles with no danger to human life—and indeed, pathetic.
most important or- Band. away, striving to bring back vastly more accurate ob- Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Tho
gan to the machine direct the deadly servations. When a human soldier gets only trouble is that it will probably
gunner, without which his hands would stream into the mechanical vitats of a bullet in his heart, or in his liver or take humanity at least thirty more
be useless, are his eyes. Nitsche's robot the enemy's robots. has himself partly blown to pieces, that centuries to become so humane. And
machine gunner's head is the gun it- Patrol work was desperately dan- is the end of that soldier. Not so with when they have done so, there will be
self. His eyes are in the heads of those gerous in the last war. But a flying the robot. A new heart can be put in no more war—and therefore no need of
who by television and radio direct his robot, equipped with motion picture him as easily, almost, as changing a robot fioltiicrs.
A Fiplit in the Stratosphere,
© I95o, bj , In?. Oral BrlUIn RI;M.5 Br.'«ir>I.