Cruise Missile
An Idea Ahead of Its Time
Here is a photo taken from a 1916 issue of 'L'Evenement' (The Event), a Belgian news magazine published under German censorship during the war years. The caption calls the device : 'a mechanically propelled aeral torpedo'. Essentially it was an early prototype of a pilotless flying bomb, better known in modern day terms as a cruise missle. It was of course not jet powered but nevertheless the basic principle is the same.
No mention is made of how it was intended to be launched or guided nor if any tests had been made. Clearly it was an idea ahead of its time but doomed to be unsuccessful because of technological limits.