Futurist.

This is coolbert:

Thanks to the BBC the predictions of a futurist from the year 1900 examined for correctness. How many predictions right, how many not!

"Ten 100-year predictions that came true"

"In 1900, an American civil engineer called John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions about what the world would be like in 2000. How did he do?"

"10 predictions that Watkins got right..."

ONLY ONE OF THE TEN PREDICTIONS HAVING A MILITARY DIMENSION!

8. Tanks.

"Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of today."

"Leonardo da Vinci had talked about this, says Nilsson, but Watkins was taking it further. There weren't many people that far-sighted."

The automobile as powered by the internal combustion engine was not even invented until 1898. And the tank of course as understood was not invented until the time of the Great War [1914]. Those tanks of that era  ponderous and cumbersome and subject to repeated and almost inevitable breakdown and that is not counting vehicles out-of-action due to enemy fire!

[each and every tank as deployed by the British had embedded among the crew a mechanic whose sole purpose was to maintain the engine and keep the vehicle in working order!]

It was not until the invention of the Christie suspension [1928?] that the tank as we know it today became a military combat vehicle of versatility, much greater reliability and deadliness.

Such is the wear and tear on a modern tank, moving cross-country in rugged terrain and having to operate under conditions much less than favorable, that even with modern technology, the tank is normally CARRIED to the battlefield on the back of a "low boy" type transporter.

As with almost all of these futurists, Watkins was right some of the time, wrong quite often too. This listing by the BBC is merely of those predictions correct and what is called the "top ten".

coolbert.