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Slippery Slime Developed to Control Crowds
powlow writes "Southwest Research Institute (press release )developed a non-hazardous chemical spray system that spreads a highly slippery, viscous gel (which the lab designated a "mobility denial system" and dubbed "banana peel
in a can") to inhibit the movement of individuals or vehicles on treated surfaces. Marines Corps believes it can be used for crowd control. (Defense Technical Information Center's PDF Report) In tests, volunteers attempted in vain to walk across a lawn sprayed
with the slime, and in fact, had they not been safety-harnessed during the tests, many would have broken bones."
the chemical itself is labeled as non-hazardous, as in, you wont see your finger melt off if you dip it in the stuff.
id say the process of using it would be considered "non-lethal", but i suppose that certainly somebody could crack their skull open in a fall, but the site does say it "will help the Marines stop or deter threats without the use of deadly force."
beats the heck out of shootin people, but could really could cause a lot of injuries too it sounds like
As a former trombone player, I'm guessing this stuff wouldn't be what you'd want. It sounds like they lay this stuff on thick enough that the slipperyness is provided by low-friction shear within their gloop. A trombone slide is a tight enough fit (at the bottom seal area anyway) that their gloop wouldn't be thick enough to contain the internal shear.
One of those silicone pastes and water is still probably the best bet for you. (Please don't tell me you're still using oil!)
--Rob
Non-lethal is ver relative. CS (tear) gas is one of the least lethal and hurtful ways of dispersing a crowd but rarely used. I went through the CS test in the military, not comforable but not very painful.
Not always. During the WTO demonstrations in London last summer, the response to a very small proportion of violent demonstrators was to box large numbers of (overwhelmingly peaceful) people in and stop them leaving. We're talking all day here, until the demonstraters were cold, hungry and just wanted to go home. Illegal detention, say the detractors; screw the damn hippies, say proponents (when translated from Weaselese).
Any device that gives control is going to be looked on favourably.
To give some perspective, credit where credit is due: British riot police have learned some long, hard lessons, and are, I think, the finest in the world.
I participate in fairly large scale historic reenactments including shield wall and mixed infantry and cavalry actions. In fact, reenactors were solicited as police extras in a recent film about the 1984 British miner's strike, because we are used to doing shieldwalls and charges.
But our level of expertise stops at the 1984 level, when the British riot police used haphazard tactics and made a lot of mistakes. Eighteen years later, they are simply astonishing to watch in action, and they do it (largely) without using chemical weapons or firearms or even batons, they do it through slick manouvres and integrated foot and horse actions that put the right amount of deterrent in the right place at the right time, to stop conflicts before they start.
Argue the morality of controlling political demonstrations, but don't forget that crowd control also involves preventing injury at otherwise good natured public events. And you can definitely do that without fancy chemical weapons, you just have to invest in training. Crowd control is about people, not about technology.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Why do the Marines need crowd control? Wouldn't this be the job of law enforcement, and maybe National Guard?
Our elected officials have this notion in their head that the Marine Corps is the world's 911 force. Somalia was a hell of a wake up call for the Marines. Until that time, they didn't really spend any time training for crowd control or less than lethal methods of controlling or attacking people. Why should they? It wasn't their job to do so. Let the MPs deal with that shit!
Well, they've since woken up and realized that it is now their job to do so, for good or bad. I've been to Quantico during the phase of The Basic School (the officer training program through which *all* Marine Corps officers go and learn to be rifle platoon leaders) which they are taught riot control. It's quite impressive.
Should the Marines should have to deal with this shit? That's another discussion all together (and I'm sure that you can guess my opinion). But the reality is that as long as our elected officials keep sending them into giving them missions where crowd control is required, the Marine Corps will keep training for it.
Kevin
Microwave pain devices, crowd stunners, directed painful noise producers, movement inhibitors, etc.
What's happening to our right to protest? Didn't we used to have a voice?