Oooh oooh. Just when I thought I had hit the retro-futuro motherlode, along comes Tales of Future Past.
The site has a ton of vintage looks at tomorrow, including classic magazine stories of inflatoplanes, hovering Oldsmobiles, and kitchen computers.
But the stuff that’ll get Defense Techies riled up is in the Future War section. Land battleships, anyone? (Note the farmhouse, about to be crushed.) Jumping jack artillery tower? Gyro destroyer? (Think Ferris Wheel, with guns, and you’ve got the right idea.)
“Predictions about the future seem to have a paradoxical quality about them. On the one hand, you see all sorts of articles and images showing a prosperous, peaceful people enjoying complex and interesting lives with all sorts of wonderful gadgets. On the other hand, you find gleeful descriptions of the most incredible means of wielding death that an adolescent mind can conjure,” David Zondy, the site’s founder, notes. “Come to think of it, that ended up being not very far from the truth. The late 20th century saw the West, and many parts of the rest of the world, enjoying incredible levels of prosperity with some of the most wonderful technological toys ever made, yet at the same time the entire world had a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over its head.“
UPDATE 10:25 AM: Modern Mechanix just posted the full text of a 1934 story, “Is Aerial Warfare Doomed?“
(Big ups: Chris)
Vintage Looks at Future Wars
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I remember in the past watching GI Joe cartoon (?) with a large battle ship on ground (or was it a ground air carrier?). It may sound like science fiction or cartoon, but I imagine it may still have use. Ground ships are likely to be large, and could be slow, but considering to set up a ground base made of tents that could consume time risking itself in a hostile area of terrorists, there is no need to set up a base since every thing is ready in the ground battle ship (You’ve got your bed room shielded with thick metal within the ground battle ship, and not thin fabrics of a tent, and you have your bedroom ready the first day you are at your destination, while it takes time to set up building a base with tents). Air ship could be an alternative, but its armor may be at risk. However, ground battle ships are limited in area it may operate. Meanwhile, many powerlines would be in the way. The ground battle ship should be compact in size to be able to drive through many areas as possible, and is expected in use of rurla areas, landing from sea/ocean, with more use in low intensity conflict than traditional war. The ground battle ship should have self defense systems against enemy (in low intensity conflict) rockets and missiles due to its size that may alert the enemy. It might be better to define it as a mobile base with bonus of active defense features (CISW that could destroy an incoming RPG-7 rocket and strike a suicide bomber VBIED), just to illiminate the consumption of time of setting up and removing ground bases made up of tents. I had thought about it with some other ideas to integrate but I will shut my mouth for that. I hope Pentagon would consider to have ground battle ship at the size of destroyer or smaller (I rather define it as ground assault ship) that would land from sea/ocean and just drive on ground from the beach, so that you won’t have to unload the trucks and consume time. The major problem is powerline, and you need to find routes to detour all this, and that limits use with limited access on ground. For a more inland region, then we would have to get the orthodox ground base.
Perhaps Hitler had been reading a few too many of these magazines. Witness the proposed P-1000 Ratte Super Heavy Tank:
http://www.achtungpanzer.com/p1000.htm
http://www.panzerschreck.de/panzer/pzkpfw/p1000.html
http://i.somethingawful.com/booklist/wallpapers/ratte_800.jpg
H. G. Wells 1905 “The War in the Air” is a classic dystopian novel that anticipates many themes from Jared Diamond’s modern “Collapse”.
Basically, a technological world that is rich but fragile,goes to war and implodes, Collapse-style.
There is also an air attack (by the Germans) on New York City that is very similar to the 9/11 attack.