Introduction

An Austro-Hungarian engineer, Günther Burstyn, designed a "land-ship" vehicle in 1911, which was tailored to cross trenches, provide infantry support and crush barbed wire entanglements. This was the Burstyn Motorgeschütz. It was relatively small, with a revolving turret and potentially armed with a light 37 or 47 mm gun, and a crew of two. The unique aspect of this experimental design was the articulated arms that could be deployed to assist in trench crossing, and "push down" barbed wire. These arms were lowered to help cross trenches, angled to push down wire entanglements, and up for normal terrain . Burstyn received a patent and built models and a wooden mock-up; but the design went no further. He proved to be a visionary. His design anticipated trench warfare years before WW1 and included the basic layout of a tank.

Dangerous times followed the end of WWII. In quick succession, the emerging superpowers not only armed themselves with nuclear weapons but showed an overt willingness to use them. The spread of communism into the Eastern European bloc countries and the Asian continent created a need for information so the United States and her allies could make informed decisions about the enemy's intentions. The exploits of the U-2 and SR-71/A-12 pilots who braved overflying hostile territory at high altitude in order to get a strategic, big picture of our enemies have been well documented. What we don’t hear a lot about are the efforts of those tasked with collecting localized intelligence for use on a more immediate time scale. Things as simple as weather conditions to the location and strength of enemy forces are critical to those who decide military actions.