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Dagobah Resident
Yeah, I know this is old news, but it is leading up to the new 21st century fire hose.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070124/us_nm/weapons_usa_heatbeam_dc_1
Sure what is going to happen is the operator will use this sparingly as a last resort and the people who are having this used against them will all carefully single file out the nearest exit instead of trampling each other to death.
Ironically, this technology is just exactly the kind of thing that military entities will be able to develop an effective countermeasure to but ordinary people will not. So in other words, this is not being developed to deploy on an enemy combatant in full dress, it is only being developed to use against a civilian population under the excuse of the humanitarian cause of lower casualties.
What is truly scary about this is that people will actually believe the explanation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070124/us_nm/weapons_usa_heatbeam_dc_1
Yeah, I'm sure they tested the "weapon" using realistic conditions i.e. a trigger happy operator under perceived assult, an angry crowd in a confined area.By Jim Wolf 22 minutes ago
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Georgia (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday unveiled what it called a revolutionary heat-beaming weapon that could be used to control mobs or repel foes in conflicts like
Iraq and Afghanistan.
The so-called Active Denial System causes an intense burning sensation causing people to run for cover, but no lasting harm, officials said.
"This is a breakthrough technology that's going to give our forces a capability they don't now have," Theodore Barna, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts, told Reuters. "We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010."
The weapon, mounted on a Humvee, uses a large rectangular dish antenna to direct an invisible beam toward a target. It includes a high-voltage power unit and beam-generating equipment and is effective at more than 500 meters.
Existing counter-personnel systems designed not to kill -- including bean bag munitions and rubber bullets -- work at little more than "rock-throwing distances," said Marine Col. Kirk Hymes, director of the
Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.
In increasingly complex military operations, the technology provided a much-needed alternative to just going from "shouting to shooting," said Hymes, who is responsible for the weapon's five-year, $60 million advanced development.
Variations of the system could help in peacetime and wartime missions, including crowd control and mob dispersal, checkpoint security and port protection, officials said. It could also help in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Raytheon Co., which has worked to develop the technology, has built a prototype called Silent Guardian, that it hopes to sell in the United States and abroad in what could become a multibillion market.Yeah, it would be really great to quell those nasty protest marches...
The weapon was shown off publicly for the first time at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, where it has been undergoing operational tests by the 820th Security Forces Group, which protects Air Force assets.
The directorate invited reporters to be zapped as part of what its spokeswoman, Marine Maj. Sarah Fullwood, called an effort to "demystify" the technology at issue.
At a distance of several football fields, the sensation from the exposure was like a blast from a very hot oven, too painful to bear without scrambling for cover.
The burning sensation is achieved by high-power energy waves that heat the skin to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The pain ended as soon as the target jumped from the line of fire.
Documents given out during the demonstration said more than 10,000 people had been exposed to the weapon since testing began more than 12 years ago. They said there had been no injuries requiring medical attention during the five-year advanced development program.
Sure what is going to happen is the operator will use this sparingly as a last resort and the people who are having this used against them will all carefully single file out the nearest exit instead of trampling each other to death.
Ironically, this technology is just exactly the kind of thing that military entities will be able to develop an effective countermeasure to but ordinary people will not. So in other words, this is not being developed to deploy on an enemy combatant in full dress, it is only being developed to use against a civilian population under the excuse of the humanitarian cause of lower casualties.
What is truly scary about this is that people will actually believe the explanation.
