Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

Second Variety’ is a short story by Philip K. Dick. It got published in 1953 in Space Science Fiction magazine. A nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the West has reduced much of the world to a barren wasteland. However, the war continues among the scattered remains of humanity. The Western forces have developed “claws”, which are autonomous self-replicating robots to fight on their side. It is one of Dick’s many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth’s surface uninhabitable.