At 12:16 PM 10/28/00 -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>The US military is testing anti-missile lasers, whose power sources are
>large enough to take up most of a large jet. If they can destroy
>missiles, their effect on unarmored infantry would probably be similar
>to what you're looking for...but this would be like swatting flies with
>a sledgehammer. Why bother with an expensive death ray when some
>bullets would render the enemy just as dead? Similar logic applies to
>antivehicular weaponry.
In my research for Non-Lethal Technologies, I have run across references to
US research in electromagnetic antipersonnel weapons. One system,
supposedly deployed during the Gulf War, is a black pyramidal device that
is dropped in a grid pattern from helicopters. When activated, it radiates
RF with a specific pulse shape that disrupts the nervous system, causing
unconsciousness and death, if the victim is left in the field long enough,
or is close enough to the emitter. The method of deployment seems only good
for interdiction - like a mine field.
The person who told me about this has a relative in the military who is
into weapons research - so either I have heard a real leak or someone is
telling a joke to see how far it spreads...
We had inquiries from Department of Defense people as to what kind of
waveforms our car stopper devices produced. When we told then that we make
a damped sinusoid at around 1 MHz, they lost interest.
I wonder if NMR techniques, perhaps focusing on a resonance in a molecule
like hemoglobin, could be used as a death ray? Perhaps all that is needed
is a way of inducing a current in the victim that mimics the effects of a
defibrillator.
Ever read Heinlein's "Sixth Column"?
Chuck Kuecker
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:19 MDT