The Giant Destroyer of the Future 



Can a juggernaut be built which 

 will annihilate a whole army ? 



By Frank Shuniaa 



Illustrated by Edwin F. Baylia (. 



*<rt*.^ 



, The author is a distivguished engineer luho invented 

 the daring sun-power plant described in the October 

 issue of the Popi'lar SriEXCE Monthly. His concrete 

 piles, wired glass, luool-degreasing machines and other 

 inventions have made him famous. — Editor.) 



A CLUB, a bow and arrow, a blunder- 

 buss, an infantryman's ritlc, a forty- 

 two centimeter howitzer are merely 

 instruments for deli\ering blows. The 

 essential difference between the battles of 

 prehistoric times and those of today lies 

 in the manner of delivering blows. Smoke- 

 less powder has merely lengthened the arm 

 of a modern fighter. He strikes and kills 

 at a distance of miles. 



For all our machine-guns, for all our ter- 

 rible "artillery- preparation," battles are 

 still won by bayonets. Tactics have been 

 somewhat modified since Napoleon's day, 

 because of the invention of the machine- 

 gun and the high-powered field-piece. But 

 the individual fighter is still as imjiortant 

 as he ever was. \Vc speak of the (ierman 

 or French or Russian "war machine," 

 when we mean a million or more indi- 

 viduals trained to act with a precision that 

 roughly approximates that of a modern 

 universitv football team. 



Only the Battleship Is a Real War Machine 



Because armies are still composed es- 

 sentially of many indi%Mduals, fighting 

 ships may be more fittingly temied "war 

 machines." A modern battleship is a real 

 machine. The men on board are merely 

 so many intelligences that control the steam- 

 engines, the turrets, the great guns, the 

 searchlights. No one ever hears now of 

 hand to hand conflicts at sea. Ships are 

 sunk at ranges of five and se\-cn miles. But 

 land warfare is still waged not by a few 

 machines, as on the sea, but by organized 

 millions of men. 



Amiies have increased in size. Fighting 

 ships, on the other hand, have diminished 

 in number. Contrast the numerical strength 

 of the British Na\y now with what it was 

 in the days of Drake and Nelson. .\ few 

 dozen ships, highly intricate machines, 

 have taken the place of hundreds. 



\Vh\ is there no land battleship, some- 

 thing comparable with our own Penii- 



897 



