Military Ray Gun - It's Official

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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.

In a similar article at Raw Story it is stated:

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.

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Army Orders Ray Gun Delivery.(Developing)

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.

Wired News reports:

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."

In this report titled Millimetre Waves, Lasers, Acoustics for Non-Lethal Weapons? Physics Analyses and Inferences by Jürgen Altmann of the Technische Universität Dortmund in Dortmund Germany, it is revealed that these energy waves are not as non-lethal as they are claimed to be.

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.

Of Ray Guns and Lung Sucking Bombs

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.

Ray Gun Certified Safe For Use

By Bluebear2














UPDATE 12/26/06

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.

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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!

Ray Guns For Law and Order

UPDATED 9/21/06

Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne has proposed that they test their new ray guns on demonstrators before they test them on the enemy!

Michael had this to say about it:

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Excuse me?

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, .... if I hit somebody .... and they claim that it injured them .... I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Is he saying that it's ok to test it on our own citizens but not on a foriegn enemy because the press would give him grief if he injured a foreign enemy?

Then we have:

".... injured them in a way that was not intended ...."

So he intends to injure protestors?

But wait a minute - you think this is something out of Flash Gordon?
Well think again!

"A non-lethal -- but potentially harmful -- crowd control weapon that heats human skin is bound for Iraq, and possibly to a police department near you."

The Active Denial System, or ADS, a crowd control weapon built by Raytheon Corporation is scheduled for military deployment in Iraq in 2006. This weapon has already been tested on volunteers at New Mexico's Kirtland Air Force Base. Among the safety measures taken were to ban the wearing of glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage, as well as remove metallic objects such as keys to avoid burns.

The weapon emits a 95-gigahertz microwave beam, intended to heat the skin within 2-3 seconds causing pain but no physical damage. After 5 seconds the pain is unbearable. The natural pain response is counted on to make one move out of the beam.

New Scientist.com reports:

"During the experiments, people playing rioters put up their hands when hit and were given a 15-second cooling-down period before being targeted again. One person suffered a burn in a previous test when the beam was accidentally used on the wrong power setting"

Ok so they will use it on demonstrators. What are they going to do - announce "Hey everybody we're going to zap you so be sure to take off your rings and glasses, take out your contacts and those of you with congenital insensitivity to pain step aside"?

And now coming to a police station near you!

"Raytheon spokesperson Alan Fischer said the company is "working on a number of active denial projects, with various ranges. The hope is to some day miniaturize them to the size of a hand-held unit that could be carried in a purse or pocket."

Time to rush out and buy Raytheon stock folks!

"The potential for this technology is huge."


The Real Thing























UPDATE 9/21/06: Here is an article from Defense Update Online Magazine outlining a number of these "non-leathal" weapons soon to be deployed.


Sources: CNN Alternet.org New Scientist