It was announced yesterday that the Army has placed an order of $25 million dollars for five of Raytheon's ray gun toting trucks to join the fleet of similar devices such as Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser and The Pulsed Energy Projectile, which although dropped as a weapon against humans is still alive and well in development for use against other Laser systems.
Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows 'Potential for Death' After years of testing, the Active Denial System -- the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like beam -- could finally have its day. The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.
The contract for the pain ray trucks is "expected to be awarded by year's end," Aviation Week notes. "A year after the contract is signed, the combination vehicle/weapons will start be fielded at the rate of one per month."
I will be expanding on this subject and the report upon my return in a week. Until then be sure to review the previous articles on the subject here at the Lair.
Old Turk has provided us this Link to a video and transcript from Information Clearing House pointing to the suspected use of similar but more deadly versions of high energy beam weapons in Iraq.
As previously discussed here, the U.S. Military has created a “non-lethal” ray gun that supposedly will merely heat the skin of those subjected to its use.
David Hambling at Wired News reports that this weapon is now certified safe for use.
According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.
The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.
The longer waves are thought to limit the effects of the radiation. If used properly, ADS will produce no lasting adverse affects, the military argues.
Documents acquired for Wired News using the Freedom of Information Act claim that most of the radiation (83 percent) is instantly absorbed by the top layer of the skin, heating it rapidly.
The certification of this weapon is yet another in the seemingly endless line of faith-based initiatives taken by this, heedless of everything, especially consequences, administration:
The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million. Its existence was revealed in 2001 by news reports, but most details of ADS human testing remain classified. There has been no independent checking of the military's claims.
But this time they are being careful to protect their image:
The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.
From one of the documents received by Wired News, which discusses its use in urban areas, we find the motivation offered to volunteers for the testing:
Risk Assessment: Potential Benefits: The volunteer subjects will receive no direct benefit or compensation for participation. The volunteer subjects will benefit from direct knowledge that an effective non-lethal weapon system could soon to be in the inventory. The benefit to the DoD is more rapid acquisition of a non-lethal weapon system needed by war fighting commanders. Human effects data are essential, not only for optimizing weapon design parameters, but also for answering questions related to policy acceptability for the use of such a weapon.
Risk-Benefit Ratio: The benefits listed above are large relative to the risks to subjects, producing an acceptable risk-benefit ratio.
What incentive! I think I'll rush out and volunteer now. It even sounds like fun:
If you want to halt your participation during a scenario, raise your hands over your head and run out of the playing area. You must count to 15 before resuming your participation in the scenario. The operator and field supervisor will coordinate to not reengage you as a target until after these 15 sec have passed. This will allow the temperature of your skin to cool down.
Depending on your role, you may be exposed multiple times to the ADS energy. The scenarios may be video taped and, in certain instances, infrared images will be recorded. These recordings will allow the research team to evaluate how groups of people behave when exposed to ADS.
So there you have it folks. If you are caught in the ray hold up your hands and run from the playing field, returning only after at least 15 seconds.
Oh, by the way, be sure to remove all jewelry, eyeglasses, contact lenses and body piercings prior to running through the rays!
Shortly after the opening of the Lair we looked into the Heat Ray Gun which has been developed for the Military. We took another look when it was certified safe for use.
Now it is shown that, not happy with just making peoples skin begin to cook, they in fact are looking for something more akin to the Death Rays of science fiction movies.
In an article in The Register we find the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking to develop new fiber optics to raise the power level to 300,000 watts or more, 1,500 times the power of conventional fiber optic lasers:
American arms giant Raytheon, working with the US forces and Sandia National Lab, told Wired magazine it has used a bundle of fibre lasers with a total strength of 20 kilowatts to explode mortar bombs very quickly in tests - so quickly that it might be possible to build a system that could shoot down enemy salvos in mid-air. Most raygun fanciers, though, reckon that 100kW is the minimum for a proper blaster cannon which would be fun to have.
Off-the-shelf combinable fibre laser amplifiers are currently limited to 200 watts each, according to DARPA: and it wants to push this up to 1kW to start with, then to 3KW in the next phase. That would mean a Raytheon/Sandia style bundle would scale up to 100kW or even 300kW, well into the proper-deathray range.
This weapon would join an array of high power laser ray guns currently under development for the US Army such as Northrop’s monster truck mounted high energy laser which is competing with Boeing’s Humvee mounted laser or the flying laser platform under development for the Pentagon.
Bomb Sucks Air From Lungs
In other developments the British Army has deployed shoulder-launched "light anti-structure munition” weapons in Afghanistan without reporting the deployment to Parliament.
These weapons are similar in function to the US Military’s Thermobaric bunker buster bombs and the bombs used by Russia to destroy the Chechen capital Grozny.
Thermobaric weapons first disperse an explosive chemical fog to fill a space and then ignite the explosive. First causing a high pressure wave followed a vacuum which sucks the air out of and collapses your lungs – if the initial pressure and heat didn’t kill you the deflated lungs and ruptured organs will.
British defense officials claim their weapon is different in that it doesn’t produce the heat factor. – How pleasant!
Raw Story reports:
According to the US Defense Intelligence Agency, which released a study on thermobaric weapons in 1993, "The [blast] kill mechanism against living targets is unique--and unpleasant.... What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs.… If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated FAE should prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as most chemical agents."
It seems there is a new push to not just kill, but do it in the most horrible manner:
A second DIA study said, "shock and pressure waves cause minimal damage to brain tissue... it is possible that victims of FAEs are not rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or minutes while they suffocate."
"The effect of an FAE explosion within confined spaces is immense," said a CIA study of the weapons. "Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness."
Here is a demonstration of the effects of these types of weapons.
As previously discussed here at the Lair the military has produced what they refer to as a non-lethal weapon. They are now formally announcing its existence and although no orders have been placed for the guns yet, one can imagine it will only be a short time before their deployment.
The system ray is 95 gigahertz, a frequency “absorbed very superficially,” said Miller.
The beam only goes 1/64th of an inch (0.4 millimeter), which “gives a lot more safety.”
.....
In contrast, microwave frequency is around one gigahertz, which moves faster and penetrates deeper — which is how it can cook meat in an oven, said top researcher Diana Loree.
Excuse me, but radio waves are radio waves, they all move at the same speed regardless of their frequency.
Also of note:
And in a bid to avert accidents, Taffola said the operator’s trigger, in a truck far from the action, has an automatic shut-off after 3 seconds for safety.
Like the drone program, another instance of the operator being far removed from the impact of his action - just another video game.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. —Albert Einstein
