Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1902 — NEW WAR AUTOMOBILE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NEW WAR AUTOMOBILE

A. N. Milner, a former captain of the First Infantry, U. S. A., and a graduate of West Point, class of ’75, has been in Chicago talking to General MacArthur, commander of the Department of the Lakes, and other officers at army headquarters regarding- an armored automobile. He has succeeded in interesting the government in his invention, likewise army officers. The War Department may decide to build several experimental machines on the lines laid down by Capt Milner. If it does not, the inventor, who is a former St. Louis Street Commissioner, will organize a stock company, build several automobiles of the armored type and turn them over to the United States for trial. The military attaches of the different governments represented at Washington are exhibiting the keenest in-

terest in the idea, and are anxious to secure the device for their own armies, if it proves a success. The sketches accompanying the application for patents show a machine built in the shape of a cigar, having turrets of the revolving type fore and aft. These are pierced for the use of Gatling guns in the smaller automobiles and for one-pound rapid-fire guns in the heavier machines. Each turret is equipped with a searchlight for use at night and armored with half-inch plates. It is an easy matter to picture one of these machines in the crisis of battle belching forth shot and shell and fire and death with no living thing in its wake. It would be more potent in deciding the fortunes of the day than Blucher, Sheridan, the Tenth Legion, or all of the famous men or corps who turned the tide of battle.