No Pain Ray Weapon for Iraq (Updated and Bumped)
Despite years of developments and testing, the Pentagon has refused requests to send its most advanced nonlethal weapon to Iraq. In fact, as early as 2003, an Air Force scientist asserted that had the Active Denial System -- which uses millimeter waves to create an intense burning sensation -- been deployed to Iraq, it could have saved lives, the AP reports:
On April 30, 2003, two days after the first Fallujah incident, Gene McCall, then the top scientist at Air Force Space Command in Colorado, typed out a two-sentence e-mail to Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"I am convinced that the tragedy at Fallujah would not have occurred if an Active Denial System had been there," McCall told Myers, according to the e-mail obtained by AP. The system should become "an immediate priority," McCall said.
Myers referred McCall's message to his staff, according to the e-mail chain.
McCall, who retired from government in November 2003, remains convinced the system would have saved lives in Iraq.
"How this has been handled is kind of a national scandal," McCall said by telephone from his home in Florida.
Not only did Pentagon officials refuse to send the controversial weapon to Iraq, they blocked a request that came as late as December 2006. The big concern is clearly the public fallout from deploying a microwave weapon.
Senior officers in Iraq have continued to make the case. One December 2006 request noted that as U.S. forces are drawn down, the non-lethal weapon "will provide excellent means for economy of force."
The main reason the tool has been missing in action is public perception. With memories of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal still fresh, the Pentagon is reluctant to give troops a space-age device that could be misconstrued as a torture machine.
"We want to just make sure that all the conditions are right, so when it is able to be deployed the system performs as predicted - that there isn't any negative fallout," said Col. Kirk Hymes, head of the Defense Department's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.
There's a larger and more interesting issue here: there will never be a time that the first-use of a new and controversial weapon like the Active Denial System will occur without any fallout. On the other hand, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has long said they need to move to directed energy weapons to achieve the stand-off distances they desire in new weapon. Sooner or later those in leadership will have to decide whether it's worthwhile to deploy such weapons, rather than just punting the ball down the field. Of course, another consideration the military will have to weigh is: At this late stage, would the actual benefit to the military of employing a nonlethal directed energy weapon in Iraq outweigh the possible public backlash, both at home and abroad?
Update:
Armchair Generalist writes:
Yeah, ah guys, little late in the game to be worried about impressions of "torture," dontcha think? Interestingly, the article notes that one request from the field is to take a similar directed energy system and combine it with guns on a mobile platform.
Such a versatile system would let troops deal with “increasingly complex operational environments where combatants are routinely intermixed with noncombatants,” Army Brig. Gen. James Huggins said in an April 2005 memo to Pentagon officials.
I suppose this saves one operator the trouble of retargeting a disruptive crowd that didn't respond to the directed energy "suggestion." Maybe the exact concept of "non-lethal" engagement hasn't really sunk into the broader military user community's mindset yet.
Posted by: Sparks | Aug 29, 2007 2:44:08 PM
Invisible pain rays are exactly what the Arab rumour factory needs, so I guess they don't believe it's worth the mistrust.
They might end up being accused of torturing anyone in Iraq who has pains for some medical reason.
Posted by: Sven Ortmann | Aug 29, 2007 2:49:01 PM
WHY EVEN BUILD THE DAMN THING!
LETS JUST THROW MONEY OFF THE TOP
OF A HIGH RISE BUILDING!!! ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Posted by: I'm OK Really.. | Aug 29, 2007 4:20:21 PM
It seems to me that this sort of weapon is less useful in countries where honor systems--personal, familial, tribal, etc. Let me outline a scenario:
The U.S. military rolls into a recently conquered/liberated town and the men in town surge into the streets, both to demand the restoration of services that were cut off when the local power supply was cut off and to express their manhood. M., a father with two children, has been out of work for six weeks. He's pissed off and angry, but mostly he wants to provide for his family and for people to know he's pissed off. He hates the U.S. military, but he hated the guy they deposed, so he's not willing to shoot anyone...yet.
M. marches in the streets with the AK-47 he keeps at home, and both taunts and demands from the Americans. Then things get a little hot, and suddenly a big truck with a radar dish on top shows up.
M. drops like a rock, the entire surface of his body on fire. From a distance his wife and kids watch him writhe in agony on the floor. Suddenly the pain stops. M. stands up, dusts himself off, and thinks, "What the hell?" Then he turns around and sees that his wife and kids just saw him, helpless on the ground.
M. does not think, "Well, the Americans could have killed me, but they did not. Maybe they're not such bad guys after all." Americans might think that, but this is not America. M. thinks, "The Americans humiliated me in front of my family and my tribe. They will pay."
The next day, M. and his buddies, all of whom were humiliated in front of their families, take the AK-47s and ungratefully shoot up an American patrol. The responding QRF rolls in and kills M. and several of his buddies, inflict property damage, etc.
And of course, Al-Jazeera is on hand to cover everything.
Maybe I've read the whole honor system in the Middle East all wrong, but I get the feeling I haven't.
Posted by: bigfoot | Aug 29, 2007 4:20:43 PM
Sigh, the problems of posting from work. Hopefully I'll fix that soon.
"It seems to me that this sort of weapon is less useful in countries where honor systems--personal, familial, tribal, etc."
Should read:
"It seems to me that this sort of weapon is less useful in countries where honor systems--personal, familial, tribal, etc dominate local psychology."
And I should not restrict those comments to just the Middle East...
Posted by: Bigfoot | Aug 29, 2007 4:26:39 PM
Here's a scenario:
American troops in Iraq can't tell the good guys from the bad guys since the bad guys don't wear a uniform or sign on their head that says "insurgent". American troops use a lethal weapon to kill someone who they thought was a bad guy, but unfortunately they made a mistake, because it turns out the bad guy was an innocent Iraqi. Now that Iraqi's family, tribe, etc, which may have been friendly or at least neutral to the presence of the American troops, now wants to seek revenge to honor their lost loved one. That is how the insurgency grows and that is how it has grown the last several years. Why not use a weapon that can save lives instead of killing.
Posted by: sally | Aug 29, 2007 5:17:42 PM
The US Military is letting private security firms deploy and test this out in Iraq. The Pentagon is a little hesitant to deploy a "torture capable" device in Iraq.
Posted by: Unit24 | Aug 29, 2007 8:22:34 PM
The US Military is letting private security firms deploy and test this out in Iraq. The Pentagon is a little hesitant to deploy a "torture capable" device in Iraq.
Posted by: Unit24 | Aug 29, 2007 8:23:17 PM
The US Military is letting private security firms deploy and test this out in Iraq. The Pentagon is a little hesitant to deploy a "torture capable" device in Iraq.
Posted by: Unit24 | Aug 29, 2007 8:23:24 PM
The US Military is letting private security firms deploy and test this out in Iraq. The Pentagon is a little hesitant to deploy a "torture capable" device in Iraq.
Posted by: Unit24 | Aug 29, 2007 8:23:31 PM
about the honor system...i think bigfoot has it right...in regards to sally...i never was for hearts and minds...that is the most stupidest thing i ever heard of...i think i heard it as a kid about other wars and thought the same thing...
i was taught by miltary who never speak much...that they would just prefer trust and respect...to start out with getting though one day with both sides not shooting at each other...then, try to get it to be more days...
and if a bad day occurs hopefully the respect and trust prevails so that no one continues to shoot not knowing who actually started it!!!
i say if u don't know what u r talking about... keep ur mouth shut...and learn first...which can take many years of trying to find the pieces to the puzzle...then, try to put the puzzle together!!!
Posted by: mz ravin black | Aug 29, 2007 8:48:01 PM
right...in regards to sally...i never was for hearts and minds...that is the most stupidest thing i ever heard of...i think i heard it as a kid about other wars and thought the same thing...
The day I get a senisible post from you....arghhh..
HEARTS AND MINDS? Hearts and Minds?
How about a hole in the heart ? or the head? That is the alternative action
against the terrorist threat in Iraq right now. This weapon is to be used with discretion OK, FINE. Using it however is a heck of a lot better than blowing someone away. Please DO NOT sit here (er you know...never mind) and tell me death is a MUCH better option? Am I seriously reading that argument?!! You'll have to do better than that boys and girls! Does anyone buy that load of%$^%$%^$@ ? Really? Make sure you tell the wife of the next insurgent "Yes, I too am glad your husband still has his honor, and I'll help with the funeral expenses. It's a good thing we didn't use that pesky-dishonoring pain ray (instead)." Of course the concepts are not completely mutually exclusive, but PLEASE let's thing people. Arghh..
Posted by: I'm OK Really... | Aug 29, 2007 10:34:36 PM
THINK PEOPLE! I think I almost have this whole typing thing. However
maz ravin does have an interesting style....
Posted by: I'm OK Really... | Aug 29, 2007 10:39:05 PM
A reliable source specializing in radio frequency in the academic world reported to us that the microwave technology mounted on Humvees has produced unexpected consequences. Apparently the military technicians operating this equipment
have suffered damage to the membrane around
their internal organs and vision damage. This was an unanticipated outcome which resulted in the cessation of use of this weapon in Iraq. Another reliable source with military intelligence background
referred to this phenomenon as "blowback."
Raytheon, who produced this technology, has been working to correct the flaw and has been active in public relations in defense of their product. This information is relevant to victims of microwave
assaults on a smaller scale, i.e. the civilian community.
Posted by: I'm not ok... | Aug 30, 2007 12:04:46 AM
" reliable source specializing in radio frequency in the academic world reported to us that the microwave technology mounted on Humvees has produced unexpected consequences"
Then you've been misinformed. Check back in this blog and you'll see that the effects of MMW from the ADS have been very extensively tests. The only ill effects have been two cases of slight burns out of several thousand exposures. It's safe - but not quite safe enough to quiet worries.
And the ADS has never been deployed in Iraq, by the US military or anyone else.
Posted by: David Hambling | Aug 30, 2007 6:09:31 AM
To be fair none of us knows what the side effects of the ADS weapon are.
We don't have access to the raw data in the studies that were conducted, nor do we know how rigorous the studies were, nor the consequences of long term exposure.
Or have we all forgotten just how many times throughout our history we have been lied to by people in power?
The ADS has a wide field and hits everyone in front of the dish.
If there are serious side effects to exposure that are not yet publicly known, then using such a weapon would injury many people.
Posted by: Bob | Aug 30, 2007 7:05:20 AM
Words like 'pain ray' frighten the ignorant, stupid, and paranoid. They fuel the conspiracy theories of the deranged. Many people also do not bother to think things through rationally - they hear something, and make an immediate, emotional reaction to it that then becomes set in stone. 'Pain Ray' almost never makes a positive first impression.
Unfortunately, the above categories include demographically significant portions of the US and world populations. This makes the deployment of weapons such as this a PR nightmare.
Use of these systems also has some of the drawbacks seen in home defense scenarios - if somebody breaks into your house with a gun and you incapacitate them, they can (and likely will) then sue you. If you shoot them dead, then that's one less possible problem. It's the 'no good deed goes unpunished' effect.
-Kle.
Posted by: Klebert L. Hall | Aug 30, 2007 7:27:31 AM
Terms like 'pain ray' frighten the ignorant, stupid, and paranoid. They fuel the conspiracy theories of the deranged. Many people also do not bother to think things through rationally - they hear something, and make an immediate, emotional reaction to it that then becomes set in stone. 'Pain Ray' almost never makes a positive first impression. Some people automatically fear new technology.
Unfortunately, the above categories include demographically significant portions of the US and world populations. This makes the deployment of weapons such as this a PR nightmare.
Use of these systems also has some of the drawbacks seen in home defense scenarios - if somebody breaks into your house with a gun and you incapacitate them, they can (and likely will) then sue you. If you shoot them dead, then that's one less possible problem. It's the 'no good deed goes unpunished' effect.
-Kle.
Posted by: Klebert L. Hall | Aug 30, 2007 7:30:33 AM
First I didn't see anyone
here try and defend the position
that somehow killing is sooo much
better. Second as usually happens
someone who disagrees will come here
and post false information, with no reference (like "I'm not OK" aha..so clever of you..NOT).
Fortunately someone like David comes
along to dispel the unfounded rumors.
Look if you want to cite research to the contrary fine. Don't tell me "well the science is just WRONG"
and then fail to back it up, JUST BECAUSE you don't like George Bush, or the war, or some other position.
Can you say disingenuous? Say it three times fast it's a tounge twister.
Posted by: I'm still OK... | Aug 30, 2007 8:18:22 AM
"...The system was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico. During more than 12 years of testing, only two injuries requiring medical attention have been reported; both were second-degree burns, according to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Web site..."
(SOURCE ARTICLE: JNLWD NEWS)
Posted by: I'm still OK... | Aug 30, 2007 8:25:36 AM
I'm very disappointed by the poor showing that the tinfoil regiment has made so far in this comment section. Come on, guys, get it together!
Posted by: TrustButVerify | Aug 30, 2007 8:32:20 AM
"I'm not OK" spreading dis-information, I wonder what affiliations he has?
"A reliable source specializing in radio frequency in the academic world reported to us"
What reliable source?
In the academic world?
Reported to Whom?
"resulted in the cessation of use of this weapon in Iraq."
NEVER USE IN IRAQ..
"Another reliable source with military intelligence background" Who, what Intel background? Sounds good though.
"Raytheon, who produced this technology, has been working to correct the flaw" Raytheon didn't say this.
I am reminded of the GIMF order to infiltrate forums and spread dis information.
The only thing accurate in this post is the sig."I'm not ok..." You sir are correct.
G
Posted by: Ger | Aug 30, 2007 8:52:38 AM
tin foil hats?
gee, if some one had a reality other than a ice cream sicial on sundays, who'd listen to them, other than others living a sci-fiction, come-to-life-hell. this article is already 'dated'.
There isn't anything NEW here that wasn't spoken about during Gulf 1.
So what's NASA [aka:the us navy?] up to?
no i don;t need a shrink, i need a investigative reporter. i think the post fired them all.
Posted by: noonehere | Aug 30, 2007 9:28:36 AM
Sorry about the multiple previous posts
Posted by: Unit24 | Aug 30, 2007 9:58:46 AM
Of course this remote weapon requires more testing on US citizens as has been officialy noted, and you can't utilize it on Iraqis for violation of international law. Hi Sharon. Like my humor?
Posted by: John McMurtrey | Aug 30, 2007 11:13:40 AM
HUH???!
Posted by: | Aug 30, 2007 11:39:38 AM
Hey Bob: The ADS does not have a wide beam. It is highly collimated (that means parallel rays) and is not much wider than the dish on the roof of the Humvee. The wavelength of 95GHz is a little less than 3mm and the aperture of the antenna is several hundred times that. That means collimated beam and high gain.
As to your comment that "none of us knows..." how do you know what an unknown number of educated people, many working the in Military Industrial Complex know or don't know? That's not a very scientific statement.
I'm not trying to pick on you, but I am pointing out some serious errors in the way you are analyzing this data
There are clearly some readers who do have knowledge of this system and are trying to set the record straight. Kudos David
Posted by: sparks | Aug 30, 2007 7:10:56 PM
As for scary words, there's that word "microwave" which of course conjures up in ignorant people's minds images of a frozen dinner cooking away in a microwave oven.....I know they try to stress "millimeter waves" but the genie's already out of the bottle.
I blame a lot of it on the average US citizens' appalling lack of scientific knowledge that leads to such mis-information. I wouldn't want to be on the business end of this thing, but better than that the business end of a rifle.
But the saddest thing is that they have spent all this time and money and the thing just sits there, essentially unused for its created purpose. Kind of like someone who buys a very expensive outfit and is then too embarrassed or afraid to wear it out of their house! What a waste.
Posted by: Schrecken Licht | Aug 30, 2007 8:27:14 PM
I've been thinking about my earlier post and have been trying to distill and expound on what bothers me about ADS.
I basically see this as a problem system in cultures where honor, justice, and revenge are powerful motivators. This is a weapon that doesn't kill, it humiliates. The pain part, the denial system, is really kinda not even there for me. The pain lasts only moments, and the system can only stick around for so long. But the outrage you're going to generate in the community you're going to use it on will endure.
This is a weapon you could use in America and it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Americans routinely watch people on television tasered and maced. America is a post-shame society. You can watch American teenagers taser each other on YouTube for fun. ADS = The Jackass weapon!
But the rest of the world is not like America. In many countries and cultures, honor, justice, and revenge are just part of life. Pain is not part of the joke to these people. If you hurt someone, if you shame them in front of their friends and family, you're just fueling the fires. You're treating people like problems, and not really like people. And they will notice.
Another problem with ADS is that they are talking about using ADS in Third World locations where brutality and lethal violence are a way of life. These people are going to consider ADS a joke and are not going to take you seriously unless you express, at least privately, that you are willing to do to them what they are willing to do to you unless some mutual respect grows fast.
ADS smacks of a Rumsfeldian solution: low manpower, high tech, with an impact on the "battlefield" that really hasn't been thought through. Something like ADS is going to feed an insurgency more than stop it. If you're really facing an angry mob like the Fallujah incident that this article references, the best way to stop is to deploy more people on the ground than the mob, show it you mean business, make it disperse, and then create the conditions that will prevent another incident.
America has created incredible weapons systems that give us unmatched superiority, yet I sometimes despair that we constantly seek technological solutions to human problems.
Posted by: bigfoot | Aug 30, 2007 10:53:25 PM
By the way, can we cure the problem DR seems to have where it strips out my beautifully constructed paragraphs? Thanks.
Posted by: bigfoot | Aug 30, 2007 10:54:18 PM
of life. These people are going to consider ADS a joke and are not going to take you seriously unless you express, at least privately, that you are willing to do to them what they are willing to do to you unless some mutual respect grows fast.
SORRY BIGGUY your argument still doesn't wash. This IS NO QUESTION
an effective weapon. They don't have to " take it seriously" or "build mutual respect" (nice buzz-word psychology) to be STOPPED in their tracks with this thing. SORRY! It has been shown to stop ANYONE no matter how much of a "tough guy" dead in their tracks with burning pain. Better that than a bullet to the head.
Again I would love to hear you try and defend the opposite position.
Posted by: I'm Greeaaaat ! | Aug 31, 2007 8:33:14 AM
"Again I would love to hear you try and defend the opposite position."
I had no idea what you meant by that until I realized that you had said something else, to someone else, under a different screen name.
I'm really not in the game of responding to people who belittle and condescend to others. If you don't get my point by now, I really can't help you. I'm sure this represents some kind of victory to you, and by all means gloat here all you want, but if you want to be really constructive, do a bit of reading on the concepts of insurgency, counterinsurgency, and 4th generation warfare.
Posted by: bigfoot | Aug 31, 2007 10:00:17 AM
This weapon isn't for the big picture
"bigfoot" it is for the immediate
threat. We have done far more damage
to the Iraqis from our mismanagement
than this "weapon" could ever do.
I won't gloat, I just feel this weapon
is an effective stand-down option
vs. killing someone, and your
argument seems to be the same (by default) that it would somehow be better to kill the insurgents than disrespect them. See ya.
Posted by: I'm Greaaaaat! | Aug 31, 2007 10:21:05 AM
Why not place them strategically on the mexican border. Mke the illegals crap their pants.
Good place to work out the kinks on drug runners too. Oops, I turned the voltage up again...
Posted by: 111 | Aug 31, 2007 7:03:13 PM
I have been reading about the alfavon waves that control magnetic feilds. This is derived from the suns plasma and electromagntics. I would like to see the scientists team that spoke with me breifly on defensetech on this one on one last year try this frequency. I assume this might yeild some newer results in magnetics as well by beaming magnetism in stronger amperage per pulsed wattage performance. Anotherwords we could magnatize or demagnatice an area. It might come in usefull in space later for gravity beams. Ie space tows.
Posted by: 111 | Aug 31, 2007 7:15:29 PM
Read this old relic oif an article. See how long this has been on the books.
PENTAGON'S LIFELOG REVIVED?
It's been seven months since the Pentagon pulled the plug on LifeLog, its controversial project to archive almost everything about a person. But now, the Defense Department seems ready to revive large portions of the program, under a new name.
Using a series of sensors embedded in a G.I.'s gear, the Advanced Soldier Sensor Information System and Technology (ASSIST) project aims to collect what a soldier sees, says, and does in combat zone – and then to weave those events into digital memories, so commanders can have a better sense of how the fight unfolded.
That's similar to what planners at Pentagon research arm Darpa had in mind for LifeLog, its ultra-ambitious electronic diary effort. But ASSIST's aspirations are more modest, its battlefield focus is clearer, and its privacy concerns are more manageable, military analysts and computer scientists say. All of that combines to give the project a better chance of taking off where LifeLog crashed.
"Welcome to the wacky ways of contracting at the Defense Department. If it doesn't fly the first time around, you can be sure it'll be back. And so it is," said Steven Aftergood, with the Federation of American Scientists. "This time around, though, the work has a slightly more plausible context. And more of an effort has been made to connect it to a military application."
My Wired News article has details.
September 13, 2004 10:06 AM | Data Diving | Discuss
BRING THE PAIN
Can we have our pain ray now, please?
Yesterday, Iraqi insurgents got a big wish fulfilled, when an American military helicopter firing into a crowd of civilians, killing a dozen or more.
Some say the Iraqis, who were looting an abandoned Bradley Fighting Vehicle, fired on the copter first. Some say otherwise. It doesn't matter, really; either way, the U.S. winds up looking more brutal – and less legitimate -- in Iraq eyes.
But what choice did the American gunner have? When U.S. soldiers are faced with a hostile crowd, they only have, broadly speaking, two options for breaking it up: the bullhorn or the machine gun. Words or bullets. Deadly force, or no force at all.
What's need instead is a weapon that falls somewhere in between. That shoots to hurt, not to kill. That drives away looters, without driving up casualty counts.
A microwave-like pain ray, let's say.
Fortunately, such a weapon is already deep into development. It's called the Active Denial System, or ADS. And, by firing electro-magnetic waves that penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin, ADS creates a burning sensation that tends to make people run the other way, fast.
A Humvee-mounted ADS prototype is expected to be ready by the end of the year, with budget decisions made in 2005.
But, whether ADS is accepted or not, attitudes about non-lethal weapons have to change. Right now, the Pentagon's division devoted to such weapons gets about $44 million a year – out of a $400 billion budget. That's to support the development of new weapons, and not build up stockpiles of existing ones, like stun grenades and rubber-ball-packed claymores.
These weapons often stay in warehouses, rather than get used in the field, however. As a combat zone grows increasingly hostile, commanders often become reluctant to use the weapons. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight, they argue.
But that kind of attitude can play right into the hands of insurgents, generating the kind of ugly reports we are all reading today. Sometimes, in the middle of a gun fight, a knife is exactly what's needed.
THERE'S MORE: "You seem to assume that weapons such as the microwave device you describe will be used only for the purposes intended, and that their effects will generally be less harmful than more directly lethal devices," writes World Without Secrets author Richard Hunter.
But what happens if the people faced with such a weapon can't just run away? What happens if they're trapped in a crowd, and the crowd can't move? How much pain must that crowd endure? How long can any member of the crowd be exposed to that weapon before his or her skin -- or their eyes -- simply cook off?
What happens if the devices are used deliberately in a manner designed to cause maximum harm -- say, by training the device on prisoners trapped in prison cells until they literally go mad with pain?
What happens if the system operator turns up the power? A little bit works well, why not try a lot?
What happens if the scientists didn't test the devices thoroughly, and they turn out to render anyone touched by them blind, or impotent, or sterile?
I need a lot of convincing before I believe that weapons designed expressly to cause pain are humane.
Fair points, all. A system like Active Denial certainly would have the potential for abuse. But at least there would be the possibility of using the weapon non-lethally -- a possibility which doesn't really exist today with an M-16.
AND MORE: "Killing is in our intentions, not our weapons," says Defense Tech reader JMW. When faced with an adversary, "the individual soldier has to decide whether to kill or to take a prisoner. This has nothing to do with armament." Aim a pistol at the knees, and it's just about as non-lethal as a pain ray.
There are NO "nonlethal" weapons when in the hands of military personnel. Weapons which disable or confuse enemy troops are those used to prepare subsequent removal of threats by lethal force. This was the classical use of poison gas during WWI and in the Iran-Iraq War. When nonlethal arms are available, one prevents enemy weapon use nonlethally, and then applies the lethal force. Of course, whatever the weaponry, if capture is feasible, it will be carried out; it doesn't matter whether nonlethal alternatives are available -- and they load down our combatants with ineffective equipment.
This differs from police use, where the objective is law enforcement, not killing, threat removal, or capture of facilities (we hope).
AND MORE: "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned tear gas?" asks Defense Tech reader RR. A few rounds of tear gas into a crowd does a great job of changing the crowd's priorities. Safe, cheap, and effective."
September 13, 2004 10:00 AM | Less-lethal | Discuss
Posted by: Max Anderson | Sep 2, 2007 11:44:51 AM
Yup..don't want to ..dishonor them with nonlethal microwaves. We need to respect our enemies more with the good solid thud of a kinetic energy weapon. Actually more thuds equals that much more respect. Hell, tactical thermonukes are really great area denial weapons. Lets really really respect them:)
Posted by: Jon Brooks | Sep 5, 2007 8:17:13 PM
I just know all this chatter is working up to the big sucking sound. I had a friend who created a transmitter that simulated Love. He placed it in an alley, hid amongst weeds and trash cans, and then just strolled around town, observing the behavior of the people. He lamented that you could lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink!
By that, he meant that while you can temporarily force people to stand down from an intense situation, you can't make them learn significantly, the spiritual lessons and attitudes necessary to build a sustainable and truely civilized society. We have to struggle and want that degree of civilization, more than our own individual survival. you have to give up your life in order to gain it.
I think therefor, that somebody should figure out how to make a "Love-gun" and then arm all civilian populations with them, to use on politicians, corporate boards, school boards, ironing boards, and anybody who follows orders with out considering the consequences of his/her actions or considers them and goes ahead and does something uncivilized anyhow. Make Love not war!Ahhhh, I feel better now!
Posted by: E. Mesenbrink | Sep 5, 2007 10:57:27 PM
reduction in population is wanted by the illuminati(or whatever YOU call them) and their one world gov't. ADS doesn't allow this.
Posted by: bill m | Sep 6, 2007 4:00:38 AM
Will this weapon be employed on American Citizens who don't go along with Gov't policy of One World Government when under Marshall Law and the Type of Trained Military from God knows which country who has no sensitivities using this on unsuspecting men, women and children?!!!
Posted by: Mervin E. | Sep 6, 2007 4:32:20 PM
What if a weapon such as this has already been used against unsuspecting American civilians who may have been classified as a "terrorist" under the broad definitions outlined in the Patriot Act? A person who had no intention of killing anyone or blowing anything up or disrupting any critical service or function? Simply a person who was deemed suspicious by a small-town population having more fear of terrorism than common sense and a person at odds with those in power. Would such behavior qualify to designate this person as a target of this type of weapon and the security forces teams that operate it? What if such a team was to set up and aim the portable version of this weapon from within the fiberglass shower enclosure of a vacant apartment to the immediately adjacent fiberglass shower enclosure of the said persons' apartment while he/she was showering? It would seem to be a perfect opportunity of proximity/duration of exposure to accomplish such a task.
Posted by: Tim | Sep 9, 2007 6:51:53 PM
The reason the military is not deploying this weapon is that it is ineffective and the dummies who paid to have it built want to avoid embarrassment.
A metal shield made of aluminum foil or a fine mesh will defeat it. Any cave man can figure that out how on the web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System.
A rifle will take the antenna out in an instant. The power source requires over 150KW to operate which is 2X of the engine of a Humvee. Continuous operation is impossible without towing a huge generator. The beam is focused and cannot manage a dispersed or hidden enemy.
My prediction: Two Active Denial systems will be used to protect the McCain motorcade during the inauguration, if he "wins" the election. Bush certainly needed them during his inaugurations.
Posted by: blondtraveler | Mar 4, 2008 10:44:41 PM
So tell me: Why is it okay to use an M-1 tank or a 50 cal machine gun to blow people apart, but to use an ADS which does not harm anyone is no good? ADS would seem to be the perfect tool for "surgical warfare". It does not violate the Geneva Conventions which many laser systems do (don't tell the DoD, it would ruin their day).
This reminds me of the insanity that prevailed in the medical industry some years ago when "Nuclear Magnetic Resonance" imaging technology was introduced. The medical companies had to rename the technology "Magnetic Resonance Imaging" because the word "nuclear" was too scary. The fact that there is no ionizing radiation associated with NMR (MRI) is apparently irrelevant.
Personally, I'd much rather get whacked by ADS than a 105mm shell any day.