MlDEAS Come True (May, 1954)
Well this one certainly did come true.
MlDEAS Come True
When these ideas were only on the drawing board. Ml predicted great futures for them. We were right.
BATTLEVISIONBACK in January 1952 Mechanix Illustrated ran a story called Why Don’t We Have Battlevision? In it we suggested that the generals of the future might be able to see the progress of battles on television screens from the relative safety of their headquarters. The series of photographs on this page show the U.S. Army using this very system to observe cadets during battle maneuvers at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Mobile Signal Corps camera units at the front relay the complete television coverage of the sham battle back to commanding officers four miles away.
Dubious achievement; nothing like watching war from the comfort of your bunker or living room. Now wonder that the younger generation confuses it with video games.
Comment by tom — December 9, 2011 @ 9:34 am
tom: I really doubt that the ability of commanding officers to observe the front remotely has any significant effect on kids’ views of war.
Comment by GaryM — December 9, 2011 @ 11:36 am
In the 60′s the generals could watch the war on the evening news. (Which is why they have reporting pools now!)
Comment by Hirudinea — December 9, 2011 @ 6:50 pm
Gentlemen: We have the technology now! It is called drones, when even the soldiers/pilots fighting the war are safely kept back in the Continental US.
Comment by Kosher Ham — December 10, 2011 @ 1:47 pm
The why, back then, is that cameras and the trucks and people needed to run them, were not expensive, nor very secure. Battle hardening them would add more cost.
Comment by Gary James — December 20, 2011 @ 4:41 pm