THE AUTOMATIC SOLDIER

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 August 1918, Page 12

THE AUTOMATIC SOLDIER

A DANISH INVENTION. A Danish engineer hns recently taken' out a patent for an apparatus bo has evolved and constructed, and which ho calls "Tho Automatic Soldier." It consists of a steel cylinder ivhicli normally is within a larger cylinder, tho whole being vertically ennk into tho ground. Bv means of a very simple ■mechanism which is sot in motion by jvireless telegraphy, the inne ,, cylinder rises to the height of about eighteen inches from (he giound; ofc thi same time an automatic rifle mounted on tho inner cylinder, fires' 400 shots in any given direction. These "automatic soldiers" can ho controlled from ti central position some four or five miles behind the line oi' defence. They can only be seen by the enemy whoii they rise from the ground, arid the installing of then) in the ground is a most simple operation. From trials already made it has been proved that a. few hundreds of these steel soldiers can wsily defend » position against all in-\ fantry attacks, however numerous the opposing i'orce may be. Aβ they are nnturally uninfluenced by panic or disorder, they blaze away their 400 shots without flinching. Tii order to overcome thorn they must he destroyed one bv one, a very difficult matter, and as they are controlled tiv wireless there is no means of demobilising them. , Several Danish military experts, who have witrcs3o;l the trials, are of the opinion tliat it would be finite feasible to line up thp automatic soldiers in the parts most expose! to attack, ordinary troops beinc used for the more easily defended positions. Further, their opinion is thai mi army worked (in these lines would easily win all the battles it undertook with very small losses.— "Daily Mail."