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NATO Developing Environment Friendly Weapons
EGSonikku writes: "Although it may seem a bit odd, according to this msnbc.com story
NATO and its member countries are developing so called 'green
weapons' that produce similar effects to standard weaponry,
without using chemicals that could be hazardous to the
environment and the soldiers using them. Good to know that we can
bomb each other without hurting the butterflies now, eh?" Heh -- it's the environmental bit shift of the neutron bomb -- "Kill the people, preserve the industry" becomes "Kill the people, preserve the land."
Atleast MAD won't harm the goddamn trees.
So, Star Wars is to be renamed "The Butterfly Effect"?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
One important reason for this is that the number of rounds fired can be very large, even in a small action with few casualties. Munitions are also used in training, with (we always hope) no casualties at all.
You might say that it is far better to just reduce the amount of violence in the world than to try to make it more environmentally friendly (and you'd be right), but in point of fact, even with minimal or no violence, lots of munitions are used, and reducing the environmental impact can make it easier on people who live near training areas or who are trying to recover from a recent conflict.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Made from environmentally friendly jelly fish is now being used to deforest millions of acres of land. Instead of just killing the trees, this new compound simply causes them to drop their leaves.
In other news, 14 were wounded when an RPG was fired into their transport...
How's about stamp out racism and war by education instead?
We already know from Stile's kitty.mpg featuring the cat being eaten that some people can watch people get killed but are distressed as soon as they see a kitten killed and eaten.
Therefore, for all of those people, I support all pussy-friendly weapons.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Given that the environmental problems of many weapons affect everyone except the enemy - most especially the poor civilians who have to live on the battlefield afterwards - this isn't as strange as it sounds. Look at all the environmental cleanups here in the US - Rocky Flats and a bunch of other military and former military lands which have all kinds of pollution, often much worse than is found in civilian contexts.
Another War Department that is not controlled by environmentalists will develop more effective but less environmentally friendly weapons.
I have no problems with the current plan of refining the fuel process in rockets and the propellent in bullets, but I sure hope they don't take it too far. There is a reason we use DU rounds, and there is a reason M1A1's use not-very-clean fuels.
The only way stuff like this can work on a large scale is if everyone agrees to do it (or at least everyone that matters). Because otherwise someone who doesn't care will come along and ream the guys who are trying to measure what kind of emissions their new machine gun gives off.
Maybe this isn't really an issue given the current power-distribution in the world, but it's something to keep in mind.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
I always liked the idea of the neutron bomb. But nobody went for this environment friendly stuff then (the 70's). Nobody's gonna go for it now.
"Kill the people, preserve the industry" becomes "Kill the people, preserve the land."
Actually, this sounds like it will do a bunch to preserve industry. That is the current defense industry. "OK, we have to throw away all the current weapons and factories are working around the clock to give us better ones." It would really be better for the environment if we just didn't keep killing each other.
This can only be a good thing.
Club the baby seals and nuke the whales because if they could, they would do it to us! Get the animals before the get us. Kill! Kill! Kill! Its time to take the sucker fish and all his protected kind. Fry me a spotted owl 'cause Greenpeace ain't coming over for this dinner.
Just look at the Sharks. They know the score and they are targeting humans for destruction at all the popular tourist destinations. You can't trust the animals just look at those damn dirty apes!
if you want to help the environment, don't kill people.
http://techienews.utropicmedia.com help us beta.
Website Hosting
While I won't comment on the morality of hunting, one of the biggest dangers to American endangered species is lead and mercury poisoning from pollution and... expended bullets.
I saw a documentary not long ago on Animal Planet that featured a doctor removing a lot of contaminated material from an eagle's stomach, including lead slugs.
Now, if you're going to tear up a tract of land by bombing it and destroying all the life therein, I wonder if pollution is going to be the biggest of your worries.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
You basically do not want to send in occupation forces into an area where you just poisoned the heck out of it. It would be dangerous to your own troops, and the civilian population who you are trying to win to your side.
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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
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"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
68% of the world's population has been in a war of some kind (be it civil war, world war, whatever) and so it's quite obvious that the UN is not doing its job. Countries are still stockpiling weapons...
I think it's time for a stand. My theory is that if one country, the USA, were to completely disarm itself, then other nations would follow suit. By destroying all of its weapons, the USA would be finally making a plea for peace in the world. Other nations would see this as a gesture of goodwill, and would be similarly encouraged to disarm.
I'm not a dreamer; I really think this would happen. But we have to convince our governments of this. It's a long-term goal, really. But isn't peace worth it?
Let's say the Freds and Bobs are at war for resources, we'll say...farmlands. Can't do either of them much good to use their weapons of mass destruction, because said weapons also destroy the land.
I suppose this is just part of having limited space with which to work. You can't just scorch the earth while you slay your enemies, or else you'll be left with nothing but unusable burnt dirt.
My sigs always suck.
Hmmm....maybe I'll start Greenwar.org! Save the Nukes.
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
Is it actually against the geneva convention to use nuclear weapons ?
As far as i know there are rules saying you cant test them, but if you actually use a nuclear weapon your president isnt going to be hauled into the Hauge and prosecuted for anything.
bah, stupid american hypocracy
the militaries of the world use MILLIONS of small arms rounds per day for nothing more than practice. If the propellant can be made even a little bit more eco-friendly without seriously altering performance, what's the problem? Rifle ranges already spend gobs of money to clean up lead pollution, and there really isnt an alternative.
It means:
(1) Not having to spend time clearing up (your own or other peoples land) after battles.
(2) Not having to spend time clearing up after training exercises.
(3) Injuring/killing the people your trying to injure/kill rather than your own troops.
(4) Less lawsuits (see 3)
(5) Less time answering tedious questions in Parliament / on television about points 1-4.
Boring Old Fart (40, married, 3 kids...er no...make that 49, married, 3 grown up kids...it's been a long time)
As the article states: "At the moment it is more than 100 times more expensive than conventional explosives, but we are still in testing. When we get to mass production we would be happy if they cost two or three times more"
Then guess what happens? Some other liberal group will start crying about the high costs associated with the production of these weapons. So, of course they will support the oh-so-PC "green weapon" idea now, because their real goals are to eventually get rid of these things altogether, unilaterally or not. That would be just fine and dandy, but unfortunately, we can't seem to get places, like, oh, I dunno, China, Iraq, and any number of former Soviet states to stop building weapons on their end.
Now, if they could just build something that would make liberals use a little common sense....
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
New improved formula: not only do our missiles come with our patented peace ingredient, they are now environmentally friendly too.
The industrial-military complex has been selling to the west based on the premise that our weapons are fun and friendly and filled with "peace" for decades. It's not surprising they should attempt to market them on environmentally friendly grounds too.
Nerve gas would be even more environmentally friendly, but is harder to sell from a PR perspective. It's also relatively cheap to manafacture, which negates the main purpose of arms sales. Less corporate welfare to spread around.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Arn't most military strikes aimed at targets such as suspected opposition military bases and other appropriate targets NOT at citizens.
Why should the citizens of a country (and the Earth as a whole) suffer environmental damage long after they have avoided the missiles?
"If we mix them (nitrogen and oxygen) together in a ratio of 4 to 1, they produce nothing but hot air," said Thomas Klaptoke, a chemistry professor from Munich University.
Hell, that's all that profs produce, and I'd hardly call university a safe environment!
A
The best weapon for this are ethnically targeted gene weapons.
we need to develop a bomb with nanotech that will reduce a city to pristine arboreal forest land in a matter of hours or days and spray paint the acronym "ELF" on one randomly selected tree ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's WAR. When you're fighting a WAR, you're supposed to DESTROY things. Widespread destruction is the primary objective of war.
:)
Just remember, the fastest way to achieve peace is to nuke both sides. Try it in Israel and see what happens.
******
"What makes you think I care about your opinions?"
"...99 percent of all missiles are launched in training over your own ground,"
That's the key. But do we really care about the enemy's environment? So, perhaps a more appropriate name for these is training missiles.
As I recall, President Carter killed the neutron bomb project because it made war too tempting. The ramifications of a war should not be lowered - if anything they should be raised. When that's the case, war (especially within your own borders) becomes much less palatable, and therefore the risk of war is reduced...
"Fifty million Americans can't be wrong," said Rep. Billy Tauzin. Gore - 50,999,897 Bush - 50,456,002
Um... this sounds crazy. I have a better idea then spending billions on weapons that kill people and save the environment. I have a better idea.
:)
How about thousands on terminals and network cables so there can be one big LAN fest for the war? Imagine the US vs. China in an all out death match in Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, or Counter Strike? Thats environmentally friendly, saves millions and billions of dollars, and anyone can be a soldier of tomorrow! Hell I'd sign up if wars were fought that way, then I'd buy a beer for the guys I was frag'n for my country!
Oh well, I'll have to settle for reality, which in my view is more stupid then what I mentioned above.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Although not mentioned explicitly, it should be obvious that this is about the use of substances such as depleted uraniam in shells, which has been cited by some as a possible cause of Gulf War Syndrome and recent increases in birth defects in Iraq and surrounding areas.
Current scientific thinking on GWS varies (depending on who's funding the studies) between claiming it doesn't exist at all, was caused by the heavy use of experimental medicines on troops to protect against bio and chemical weapons and the use of the 'depleted' Uraniam.
Now if the shell kills you in the first place, I guess you don't care about its environmental effects, but invading troops or resetting populations might just be a bit more fussy.
And hell, if it sounds like an oxymoron it isn't the first in the field. Millitary Intelligence anyone...
- - Sha la la la . . .
So how long until we get to the point where instead of actually fighting wars, each side of a conflict just feeds "soldiers" into a little thingy that just disintegrates them, saving us the trouble of actual fighting, planes, bombs, you-name-it? Or maybe for starters we'll just send our soldiers onto the field with paintball guns, right? And when they get hit, they go back to base to be peacefully euthanized?
What the hell is wrong with our world?
... not in here, pal, this is a mercedes...
The amonium nitrate fertilizer we'll be bombing people with.
Oh, and how about bird seed shrapnel.
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
Looks like many people here missed the point. One key reason to care about what goes up and comes down is that 99.9% of all ammunition is depleted during training, on your own soil.
.1% higher-tech more-lethal toxic-in-the-making weaponry.
One perfectly valid scenario would be to have, say, 75% efficient nontoxic training grenades which are replaced by 100% efficient war grenades when the time comes to go to war. This is already done with live vs. blank rounds, nothing saying the practice can't be extended.
And if I could say so, I would rather have that 99.9% market share of environmentally friendly training weapons, than the
Subject pretty much says it all. You either understand that conflicts come and go, but munitions last forever (mustard gas from WW-I is still occasionally found in Europe), and you accept the need to minimize that damage to the extent possible, or you don't.
It's also important to realize that, prior to the 20th Century, wars simply didn't leave much (non-biodegradable) hazardous material behind on the battlefield. Some lead from the bullets, but that's about it. Land mines, nerve gas and blistering agents, all are fairly recent inventions and we're just now learning how much long-lasting damage they cause.
(I know, some battles involved salting fields to kill off crops, etc., but you didn't have land mines in those fields that will blow off the legs of children gleaning the little food that does grow there.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
They were designed to kill people inside tanks and bunkers. Air is very good at stopping neutrons, so the lethal range for neutron doses isn't very far, compared to blast radius. No civilian building would be left standing if it was close enough for its occupants to get a lethal dose.
These things were once again designed to kill tanks which can take FAR more punishment than your average two story house.
Just so you know
Tyler Ward
tjw19@columbia.edu
The most environmental friendly and humane method of war is to not start one in the first place.
With the human population approaching 6 billion, it seems that humans have managed to devalue themselves to such an extent that the birds and the bees really are the more valuable factor...
These politics are the future.
Four years of enviroterrorism by GWB and his cronies will show the people that huge profits are useless if you've got no environment left to enjoy them in.
Doesn't sound so bad to me...
Guvegrra?
A leaflet flutters to the ground.
You read the leaflet.
You have been blown up by an environmentally friendly weapon
Under International law you have 1 hour to kill yourself.
Please have your body disposed of in a tidy manner.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
What's This then??? They're hiring, you know.
- - Sha la la la . . .
It's a long-term goal, really. But isn't peace worth it?
While every peace activist in the world will cry foul, peace is so worth it that we spend umpteen billion dollars a year on defense because it is a deterrent.
For example, if there were no nuclear weapons, we would have had WWIII and IV already. Millions of people (including civilians) would have died.
What we really need is goodwill. :) Nations unwilling to work together would be detrimental even if they were unarmed.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
In order to save the world, we must first destroy it.
Apple is like a strange drug that you just cant quite get enough of they shouldnt call it Mac. They should call it crack
This is, of course, absurd, because the neutron bomb's primary purpose was for tactical and operational, rather than strategic, use. The idea is that if you can affect your enemy over the same area with a 1 kiloton neutron weapon as with a 13 kiloton fission weapon, you can essentially "manage" the nuclear battlefield better.
The neutron bomb concept came out of a rethinking of US defense policy, a reorientation towards a strategy oriented around actually fighting the Soviet Union at the point of attack, rather than relying on the Massive Retaliation policy of the 1970s.
Although eventually the DoD found other methods of answering Soviet numerical superiority (deep strikes from the air, force multipliers like the M1 tank, precision guided artillery, cruise missiles, and so on), the neutron bomb was never seriously considered as a means of "saving the industry". Even generals know about radiation. ;-)
See here for a bit more about the neutron bomb in the context of overall defense planning.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Instead of guns, and tanks, etc. Our soldiers could carry light sabers.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
On the neutron bomb, for those who don't actually know or remember (me) the details: [http://web2.iadfw.net/myself/secular/writing/n_bo mb.htm]
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
While I presume that you're trying to point out some irony, the gist of what you are saying is correct: Most people have less of a problem seeing two willing participants fight it out to the death (ergo War) than they do seeing a stronger participant abusing or killing an unwilling weaker participant. I can say with 100% truth that I would feel no sympathy for someone who was shot in the gut by a shotgun if they were caught abusing or killing a kitten, and the same holds true for people killing/hurting children, troops raping women in war, etc.
All international conflicts should be settled by a battlebots competition. Can you imagine the headlines. "Bio-Hazard is defeated by Ziggo, government of the United States is to be transferred at 12:00 midnight" (End of the free world) :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
The primary objective of war is to impose your will on another state. If you can do that with minimal casualties and minimal damage, that's virtualy always to your advantage.
Bring back project Pluto! - see also SLAM, powered by the mighty Tory IIC
launching 55 gal drums with nuclear power!
Dr Strangelove, I presume?.
Discussion of project pluto
Sheesh, the word insane comes to mind.
You don't like an ethnic group that occupies a current area... and you'd like to settle it yourself; what a wonderful solution. Certainly takes the pain out of war, I wonder if the bombs can also distingrate the carcuses as well? That would really help morale -- not having to see the people you killed would be a boon to the new settlers. No more remorse. How cool.
It isn't horrible - it's about as poisonous as lead, and used for the same reason as lead is used: it's very heavy.
To find more info google search for "depleted uranium" or New Scientist has lots of info.
I didn't write it faggot. I even put it on the top.
but munitions last forever (mustard gas from WW-I is still occasionally found in Europe), and you accept the need to minimize that damage to the extent possible, or you don't.
And there's the risk of the munitions ending in a Yahoo Auction and a foreign judge causing lots of trouble. If svastikas and iron crosses were biodegradable, we'd be better.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
It's called a nutron bomb. Kills all sentient life while not damaging the land. Oh and Biological weapons.... we're just setting some little bugs free...
Nothing new here.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
From the comment at the top, it's obvious that Hemos doesn't understand what the Neutron bomb was designed for.
The common misunderstanding is that it was developed to leave industry alone so we could wage an atomic war and then move right in. That's simply not true.
The Neutron bomb, or Enhanced Radiation bomb (ER), was designed with Soviet Armor in mind. During the above ground weapons testing in Nevada, it became clear that a standard nuclear device wasn't effective at knocking out armor. Kind of like how cockroaches, turtles and armadillos survive nukes.
Since the Soviets had 6-1 armor strength in the 60s and 3-1 in the late 70s and early 80s, something else had to be developed. That was the ER nuclear device. Most ER warheads were developed for the 203, 175 and 155mm artillery pieces, the 175 'Long Tom' was retired so that left the 203 and 155, then the Lance tactical missile was fitted with the 175's warheads and the Pershing 1 was also given the ability to fire an ER weapon.
The Neutron bomb penetrated armor and killed the crew much more effectivly than a much larger conventional atomic device.
All the ER weapons were in the 10-15 KT range, not a city buster or stratigic weapon by any stretch, but a tactical weapon that would have been deployed in bottle-necks like the Fulda Gap or against Soviet Armor on the Northern German plains were the Soviet out tanked the British EF by 6-1 or 10-1 depending on the Soviet's deployment.
The whole Neutron bomb for nuking cities or industry and leaving it in-tact was propganda from the Soviet funded anti-nuclear activists. See the Mitrokhin Archives for info on that.
To be perfectly honest with you, the only remotely interesting discussions on this site these days are "troll" or offtopic arguments.
The topics on Slashdot are trolls themselves. Tech news or "news for nerds" consist of less than 25% of the stories. 75% of the stories are some tired old patent argument, Paid advertising posing as news or "RIAA sucks" stories. Even ask Slashdot is worthless drivel as good contributers flee.
The utter collapse of the moderation system is an amusing sidenote. Six months ago the people who run this site were staunch and outspoken opponents of all censorship. Now they are so sensitive to criticism that they moderate down an offtopic comment within 3 minutes.
I visit Slashdot out of habit when I'm bored at work, which has been alot lately since I am between projects and writing documentation. It's entertaining in the same way driving by a car wreck is.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
...would be getting rid of mankind.
In the big scheme of things, mankind will take care of itself eventually. I'm sure the dinasores thought they were forever, too.
In the mean time, do your part by choosing not to breed... it really is the only responsible choice and, god knows, I'm pro-choice!
Greener munitions and fuel have the potential benefit of substantially reducing the costs of weapons training, testing, storage, and disposal. The military currently spends huge amounts of money cleaning up toxic waste at bases and test ranges. If you're spending your defense budget keeping old weapons toxins out of the ground water and paying out medical expenses of soldiers exposed to low level radiation or chemical toxins, you're not going to have much left for actual defense. The effectiveness and efficiency of the military is a function of its entire end-to-end set of tasks and expenses, not just on its ability to procure weapons.
There have been concerns for many years that
lead particles contained in gun smoke might affect soldiers' health.
Lead particles have an even more profound affect on the health of the people they are aimed towards.
Raise your hand if you think China would completely disarm if the US did. Or for that matter, raise your hand if you think Hitler would have disarmed before WWII if the rest of the world had.
The Subject line is absolutely correct. Hemos just bought the standard media distortion when he commented Heh -- it's the environmental bit shift of the neutron bomb -- "Kill the people, preserve the industry" becomes "Kill the people, preserve the land."
The neutron bomb never did any such thing. The effect of induced radiation from the neutron flux would leave valuable objects, such as vehicles and buildings in the target area, too "hot" for use for a long time. The major difference was that enhanced radiation meant the primary effect of the bomb fell off as the square of distance, as opposed to blast effects which diminish more nearly linearly with distance (for the distances of interest, in near proximity to the ground). In other words, its main attribute was that the prompt effects were more localized, which is important in weaponeering, when one wants to pick a detonation point to maximize damage to the enemy while minimizing damage to nearby friendlies (or civilians). Every high school class should go through a basic nuclear weaponeering exercise, determining optimal placement of a blast to achieve certain effects. That would convey both a respect for what the things can do and some grounding in reality, to distinguish the hysterical shrieking from realistic claims.
Also of note is that distant fallout effects would be less with the neutron weapon. At the margin, the weapons might have saved a few million civilian lives in a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact tactical nuclear battle (supposing that such a limited nuclear exchange were possible). It's anybody's guess whether they would have the effect of "lowering the nuclear threshold" in the mind of a decision-maker.
Geeks already realize that popular media coverage of computer-related issues is of poor quality. What they may not realize is that the press has vastly less comprehension of military issues than it does of computers. At best, one occasionally reads a mediocre treatment of the military in a major press publication. Excellent treatments by reporters come by once a decade, and then only in book form, being months or years late for the original press time. More commonly, the articles are agressively awful in their accuracy, erring in the most basic facts. By analogy, it would be like reading an article about the 2.4 kernel release, only to gradually realize that the reporter who wrote it thought Linux was something that one folded from sheets of paper.
I have heard but not confirmed that the newly developed tungsten core "green" 5.56mm bullet will not be available to civilians because it's considered an armor piercing projectile. Can anyone confirm this?
5.56mm is a rifle calibre. Unfortunately some boneheads decided to produce an especially useless handgun chambered in 5.56mm. That makes AP rounds in 5.56mm "forbidden", since AP handgun ammo in the USA is not legal for us lowly proles to purchase.
If it's true, it's rather funny, since the people who push for "saving the planet" are usually the same people who push for gun control laws.
Personally I'm content to use milsurp ammo and conventional hunting ammo in my rifles. None of the animals on my farm have turned up dead with chunks of lead in their digestive system just yet. A lot of Lead Hazard info floating around is patently false stuff written by a whacko group called the Violence Policy Center.
Seems like they must outlaw all weapons then, since when you harm people, you are harming the environment. Think of the money that will be saved!
We found out that we didn't want the industries left behind after we killed the people. It is better to just have the land and build up some useful industry on it than take whatever piss poor version of it the locals had.
that NATO work on weapons to kill the enemy more effectively, rather than preserve the environment. I mean, my concept of war is that at the end of it, the enemy is either dead or is your bitch, preferably dead. A live enemy only lives to fight again. A dead enemy can be used to fertilize the garden.
Of course, we don't fight wars anymore - we have "police actions" and "peacekeeping missions". I really sincerely wish we could get past all this "feel-good" crap and really go out and beat the living holy shit out of our enemies. I mean, consider the "Gulf War" -- what was that shit? We had the capability of decisively ending that little abortion of a war quickly and removing one of the greater threats to world stability at the same time, and yet we didn't.
I just don't understand these modern wars. What's the point?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
i think i will be much more upset that half my family was killed by a bomb than the fact that my pet ferret died from drinking too much contaminated water. just another example of how disgusting and asinine politicians are.
All the bitching. Oi. Some of the heaviest anti-armour munitions in use by NATO members are big solid chunks of depleted uranium. When these big solid chunks smash into the side of an armoured vehicle to do the damage they're intended to do portions on them vaporize. Then when friendly soldiers go through the area they're beathing in lungfuls of not quite unradiactive uranium. Same thing goes for heavily leaded munitions. Besides being bad for friendly soldiers these sorts of munitions are bad for limited engagements in an area where civilians are going to be moved into at some point. If you've got a strip of land that a tank battle took place on with lead and uranaium dust and bits flying everywhere you're not exactly apt to move children and livestock onto it later because it's so contaminated. Look at the Gaza strip, that track of land is so wasted from the constant fighting there, even if Isreal and Palestine stopped fighting people could never live there again.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
When properly conducted (and yes, I am aware that that could not not sound like an oxymoron) the purpose of war is to lead the way, as quickly and effectively as possible, to the optimum conditions for a long-lasting peace.
Using weapons that hose the environment does not exactly set the stage for the long-lasting periods of peace and prosperity that we hope the wars are fought to achieve.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
getting shot at by your own troops using "green" munitions?
Earth-friendly fire!
I was originally going to comment that the "green" weapons make sense in the context of helping an ailing Housing Industry. "New Recently Uninhabited Real Estate Now Available (Please ignore the smell.)" The other replies to this message have helped me realize the amount of damage we are doing to OURSELVES, for pete's sake, with the Practice Bombing Exercises in, for example, the Federal Bombing Range, otherwise know as Nevada. Another example, during all my training prior to visiting SouthEast Asis & its "limited warfare arena" in 1971, I expended tens of thousands of rounds of ammo before I ever left the States. Fortunately for me, I never had to fire a shot at anyone nor had anyone fire at me. While there, I attended two training camps that, again, expended, per person, thousands of rounds. If you extrapolate that training to the millions of folk in the Army & USAF that "live-fire" weapons every year, war or no war, you must have some sort of environmental ammonia-overload. I haven't even added in the Bombs or other Countries to this equation. Anyone got any figures on the effects to the Ozone of training for war? (i.e, ammonia, nitre, etc., (not to mention methane when the situation gets tense!) being loosed into the atmosphere.)
I like the following quote:
"At the moment it is more than 100 times more expensive than conventional explosives, but we are still in testing. When we get to mass production we would be happy if they cost two or three times more," he said."
That's fine and dandy, until the soldiers who need to train with their weapons only have 1/3 to 1/2 of the amount of ammunition for training that they used to have.
Do not try to tell me that those costs will be offset by the reduced costs of cleaning up ranges, impact areas, etc. That is not how funding works. I have been around the block too many times with this to know that it does not work that way...
..."It's true that our missiles created a few hundreds of 20m craters into the land, but they did not release any poisonous byproducts!"
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
I hope those rounds weren't "depleted" Uranium.
Sure in war, I'd love to have something that goes through the other guy's armour like stink. (The trade-off between dying in thirty secords verses thirty years.) But I sure wouldn't want to get too close to it in training in peacetime. (Like is there any isotope of Uranium that isn't radioactive or chemically poisonous?)
In war time, we (Homo Sapiens) have done some silly damaging things--but at least not at bad as we could have.
I believe Britain kind of "lost" an island off the coast of Scotland to anthrax in WWII. Here in Canada, we were playing with that too. Botulism toxin (Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario), riderpest. We had "over-kill" quantities of Compound Zed by the end of the war.
Check John Bryden, ISBN 0-7710-1726-X, "Deadly Allies: Canada's Secret War"
I'll believe in "green weapons" when someone fights a war with them -- which I hope I never see.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Depleted Uranium. The US has used DU in its tank rounds for a number of years because of its density and armor penetration. Although the article doesn't mention it explicitly, I suspect that the whole DU discussion has driven the move toward green munitions in general.
NATO and most of the European countries have been extremely concerned about the environmental and health implications of its use. Training munitions don't contain DU but it was used in the Gulf War.
Science seems to come down on both sides of the issue at the moment. Very difficult to pinpoint specific health problems related to it but it continues to be a suspect in Gulf War illness.
A mortar round that, after it shreds a few trees and splatters some endangered species, biodegrades naturally!
I would think swimming pools would cause more chlorine based by products...but I am no chemist.
Sounds like a great way to justify spending more money....
Do I sound cynical??
why can't we build weapons that don't hurt the soldier either?
Uranium is a radioactive metal period. In fact everything beyond Lead in the periodic table is radioactive. Uranium 238 is less active and mostly Alpha decay active as opposed to U 235 that is more active with beta decay and gamma radiation.
Depleted Uranium has little or no U235 and almost 100% consists of U238. Still ratioactive, eventually creates isotopes of lower atoms that will emit beta and gamma radiation witch is more dangerous to us than alpha radiation that only penetrates the body a few millimeters.
I couldn't agree more. Classic cases of this (and I'm just naming a few off the top of my head here):
1) During development, the M1 tank was lambasted by the press because it used a turbine engine. This "gold plating" gives the M1 tremendous acceleration, allows the M1 to use a variety of fuels, and has helped it to become perhaps the most feared land weapon fielded today.
2) Similarly, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was savaged by 60 Minutes. Unfortunately, many reporters seem completely uninformed about how weapons development and testing proceeds. Like any system, the initial testing version can't possibly be as robust and capable as the fielded version. During Desert Storm, the Bradley proved invaluable. In fact, several actually took direct hits from T-72 tanks and survived. Is version 1.0 of any software ever as good as version 2.0?
3) During the buildup of Operation Desert Shield, many in the media mistakenly opined that the US was unprepared for a desert war. This ignores the very obvious fact that US units had routinely gone through desert warfare training at the National Training Center for almost a decade. Many units also had desert experience through Bright Star joint exercises with Egypt. This is akin to saying that because it's Open Source, Linux is inherently insecure. Someone is just not catching a clue.
4) I don't know how many times I've seen the term "elite" applied to military units that are mediocre at best. A unit that might be considered "elite" in a Third World country is usally no match for a truly elite unit like the SAS, US Army Rangers, Australian SAS, etc. It's like saying "Serving pages from his Apple IIe, Bob was able to run a world-class, high-volume e-commerce website."
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that my personal experience in the military leads me to believe that by in large, reporters are not as intellectually rigorous as they should be. There are a few good ones out there, like Tom Gjelten of NPR, but they seem few and far between.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How about the USA start by ratifying the anti-landmine treaty, and ban these horrific weapons that continue to kill and maim innocent people (often children) years after a conflict ends. That would be environmentally friendly.
And then, perhaps George could consider signing up to the Kyoto Agreement, and commit the USA to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases it produces in times of peace. That would be environmentally friendly.
Reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced by munitions to be 'environmentally friendly' is pretty pointless otherwise.
"troops raping women in war"
You closeminded pig !
How can you presume that fine homosexual members of our military are incapable of raping other men?
After radiating millions of friend & foe troops & civilians in Iraq & Kosovo, they finally realise that DU ammo isn't quite as user friendly as the lobbiests had said.
True elephants are a tough example. It takes alot of time to make a little ivory- so the price likely would be higher than it is now with the trade illegal. (Similarly legal prostitution is more expensive than the illegal kind)
And true domesticated animals differ from wild ones, witnessing dogs for example.
(Dogs released back to the wild do become wolflike very quickly though- dingos for example)
And yes the wild ones would be killed off. No different than if they were not domesticated.
Perhaps we could ask the elephants what they would prefer: To go out of existence like a candle flame, or to live on as a domesticated species. (for zoos,hide,meat,ivory,whatever)
Do this, and you will be less efficient in war. Projectiles, such as bullets, will not behave the same. Different gasses used, different materials in the bullets, will inevitably lead to different accuracy, different characteristics. Train with materials that behave differently than those that you use in combat, and you will be less experienced at precisely the time you need it most.
For example, consider the use of DU rounds in American tanks. The DU has different 'flight' characteristics. By practicing with rounds that do not have the same characteristics, we found the need for computer adjustments in the computer controlled targeting, in order to continue being accurate.
To understand this better, go practice swordplay with a stick. Now, pick up a real sword and go fight with it.
For the majority of rounds expended, there is no, and will be no, computer assistance. Sure, for weapons firing, you can work on the basical mechanical skills, but we already work on those without firing a single shot, not even blanks. The US Army, anyway, doesn't use live fire in many ground troop exercises. A 'blank' charge is not a weapon, so those are not addressed by this issue, anyway. If you wanted to make the full argument that this is aimed at practice rounds, which is not indicated, then you would apply your argument to it's efficiency by laying claim to rockets and artillery. In these realms we see even more dependence on knowing the characteristics, and having experience with the proper characteristics. Switch the components, and you change the behaviour. Change the behaviour, and you will lose efficiency.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Try a neutron bomb. It doesnt kill with a
blast but with neutrons. How enjoyable.
A real environment-friendly bomb would do the following: Destroy the industry, preserve the people.
I'm getting sick and tired of all these damn misconceptions that Neutron/Enhanced Radiation bombs just kill people and leave buildings standing, ready for utilization by an occupying force.
GET THE $^@%$W%%^. FACTS STRAIGHT!
Neutron Bombs were researched and created as enhanced kill and area denial weapons, to use tactically against the advance of Warsaw / CommBLock Armoured columns in the anticipated invasion of Western Europe. The only to date fielded Neutron weapon is the W-70 Warhead for use in air-dropped tactical nuclear bomb (B-61)
With the specific design to roast russians through the armour of their tanks, and make a large section of real-estate too radioactively hot to cross.
These weapons do not just go *pop* like a toy, IT STILL YIELDS 20+ KILOTONS, UP TO 170kt, which is 10x greater than the Hiroshima Bomb.
ALRIGHT?! OKAY? Drop A neutron bomb and you still flatten the surroundings, and you make it unliveable for a good amount of time!!! GRRR.
(Makes you wonder about US doctrine in using these things in friendly German territory. If the Cold war had ever become hot)
Sure, create "green" explosives to protect your own munition grounds, but don't outlaw land mines, which blow off children's legs and kill hundreds of civilans decades after their intended use. Greeeeat.
if you are pro-strong-military or a tree hugging pacifist hippy,
it doesnt matter, its still a good idea...
they mentioned that its to protect your own soldiers
as much as it is to protect 'the environment'... you dont
want your soldiers getting sick from polluted water, strange chemicals
leaking out of their equipment, uncontrolled hazardous waste spills during
combat, think about it, the enemy could use the fact that your army equipment is full of toxic chemicals
in order to hurt you, maybe fighting you with 'enviro-warfare'.
sick, disoriented, aches-and-pains ridden troops do not do
as well in combat either. if you cant see straight because
you accidentally huffed a bunch of chlorine while preparing some
missile system or whatever, then youre gona have a hard time shooting straight.
then there is what happens after the war, the soldiers
become civilians, in places like serbia or whatever, they
go back to the same area to try to live. how can they live,
have children, jobs, etc , when the towns and country
are full of unexploded ordinance, hazardous waste materials,
unknown chemicals left to rot and combine in unheard of ways,
radiation galore from who knows what uranium depleted shells and whatnot.
the only reason i can see to be against it is that
you dont want to pay the extra money to keep your own troops from
getting hurt by their own equipment. well, then , i have no sympathy for you.
That is a HUGE misconception. U-238 (the most common isotope) has a half life of 4.9 BILLION years, and can only undergo alpha decay (in which the nucleus ejects a helium atom). Alpha particles have very short range and are not harmful. Smoke detectors use alpha particle emmiting materials. Only the u-235 (weapons grade) is significantly radioactive. So natural uranium is 97% u-238. DEPLETED uranium is almost 100% u-238. It is no more harmful then other heavy metals like lead. So, you basically wouldn't want to EAT it. I don't think that would be a problem though.
The Stone Age did not end for lack of stones, and when the oil age ends it will not be for lack of oil. --Bjorn Lomberg
thank god for reaganomics. the b-1 program alone
employed tens of thousands of otherwise worthless
engineering students. i think it is simply brilliant
to combine reaganomics with the new enviro-friendly
thing thats becoming so popular with the kids and all.
hell you could get some hippies working for the DOD that way.
To heck with the environment. The earth will be here LONG after us. Just nuke them and get it over with....
than when they started removing cfc's from nuclear missiles to protect the ozone.
the reasoning behind the expense doesnt really matter,
as long as you are building alot of factories around the country.
remember the B1? ever used in combat?
star wars, billions spent, nothing to show for it?
it is sad you do not even understand the people you think you support.
When any army goes out to battle, they aren't trying to improve the environment, plant trees, save baby seals, or release killer whales from captivity.. They are there to destroy the enemy. I think its safe to say we are thankful that a few endangered birds could have been knocked out of a tree by a US tank as a result of Germany's defeat in WWII. I also think its safe to say every american is thankful that the atomic bomb was used on Japan at the end of WWII instead of there being a huge invasion of Japan by US forces and resulting in large loss of american lives.
People are saying we(humans and CowboyNeal) are destroying the environment. Hell, we are a part of the environment. In the wild, animals do whatever they need to do to stay alive and multiply. That is all humans have done, and that is what humans will be doing until the end of our exsitance.
Whatever happened to the good old fashioned burn the fields, salt the land, rape the women warfare?
What's next, tearless mace? Lets try to get as oxymoronic as we can people
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, not just chemistry, reality!
Electromagnetic pulse is what kills all your electronics whenever lightning strikes close by. In the 1960's, tests of atomic bombs exploding at very high altitudes over the South Pacific would disrupt communications worldwide and cause power outages as far away as Hawaii, and the cause was found to be an intense burst of radio frequency noise when the bomb exploded.
These effects were studied, and new electronic warfare weapons were built that could produce electromagnetic pulses to disable the electronic devices of the enemy without using atomic bombs. Of course, the Russians were also onto this, and captured MIGs were found to contain miniature vacuum tubes in their flight control systems, since they were immune to the type of electromagnetic pulse that would destroy the P-N junctions and CMOS layers of semiconductor electronics.
According to the article, electromagnetic pulse weapons can be made that are millions of times stronger than lightning bolts, and will destroy all electronics and even melt electrical wiring, no matter how much surge protection is used. All engines will cease to run (except maybe diesel engines with all mechanical controls), and all airplanes will be unflyable. Power grids will be totally wiped out. Even small items such as pagers, PDAs and calculators will be useless, even if enclosed in a Faraday cage. Better save those slide rules and Underwood typewriters.
While these weapons are harmless to life and very environmentally friendly in the short run, people will have to pitch out all their useless electronics, thus filling up the landfills very quick.
But another theory from the cDc website http://www.cultdeadcow.com/cDc_files/cDc-0355.txt is that GWS is caused by all the smoke from burning the shit from latrines...
Although primarily aimed at cleaning up huge space rockets like the European Space Agency's Ariane 4 and 5, the technology can be scaled down for handguns, making them safer for soldiers and police officers who risk lead poisoning from hours of indoor target practice.
There have been concerns for many years that lead particles contained in gun smoke might affect soldiers' health.
Copper, Bismuth and Steel are suitable replacements for casting bullets without using lead. In fact, military personnel are required to use full metal jacket ammunition in war.
Almost without exception full metal jackets consist of a steel or steel/lead core surrounded by copper. I suppose that lead contaminating the air is for boat tailed ammunition, where the lead portion of the core is exposed in the rear of the bullet. It has a minimal detrimental effect on the accuracy of the bullet and almost no effect on the cost of manufacture of the bullets to completely encase the lead portion of the core with copper.
In the case of police officers, the jacketed hollow points that they almost invariably use have lead that is only exposed on the "front" of the bullet. So when the bullet is fired the explosion of the powder doesn't have much of an effect on the lead, very little lead is released into the air. I suppose that this is only a real problem for the ones who are still using revolvers, but I haven't seen a police officer with a revolver since I was a teenager.
I wonder if throwing in the references to police officers and soldiers and "handguns" is more about getting support for an environmental project than they would otherwise be able to get.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Maybe the rating "Funny" of the parent post has occured after the dude replied ;)
Remember this Star Treck movie?
This one where Spock realises that the group is more important that the individual?
If our species (the individual) is bloody enough to kill itself, we can at least let the rest of the planet (the group) live. And have a healthy life.