US Military Tests Non-Lethal Heat Ray

URSpider writes "CNN and the BBC are reporting on a US military test of a new antipersonnel heat ray. The weapon focuses non-lethal millimeter-wave radiation onto humans, raising their skin surface temperature to an uncomfortable 130 F. The goal is to make the targets drop any weapons and flee the scene. The device was apparently tested on two soldiers and a group of ten reporters, which makes me wonder how thoroughly this thing has been safety tested. The government is also appealing to the scientific community for help in creating another innovative military technology: artificial 'black ice'. They hope to deploy the 'ice' in chase scenarios to slow fleeing vehicles." We discussed the military's certification to use the device last month.

Comments

I hate vultures.

[silentounce]

"The device was apparently tested on two soldiers and a group of ten reporters, which makes me wonder how thoroughly this thing has been safety tested."
 
You're worried about the soldiers, right?

Re:I hate vultures.

[Viper Daimao]

Wired (which I remember covering directed-energy weapons back in 2004 and 2005) recently wrote up an easy-reading article that covers most frequently asked questions about ADS, like:
"Does it cause lasting damage?"

In more than 10,000 exposures, there were six cases of blistering and one instance of second-degree burns in a laboratory accident, the documents claim.
And if the military is willing to try it out on news reporters (volunteers all), as they did in the breaking story, they're pretty confident.

Eye damage is identified as the biggest concern, but the military claims this has been thoroughly studied. Lab testing found subjects reflexively blink or turn away within a quarter of a second of exposure, long before the sensitive cornea can be damaged. Tests on monkeys showed that corneal damage heals within 24 hours, the reports claim.

"A speculum was needed to hold the eyes open to produce this type of injury because even under anesthesia, the monkeys blinked, protecting the cornea," the report says.
[...]
[T]he Air Force is adamant that after years of study, exposure to MMW has not been demonstrated to promote cancer. During some tests, subjects were exposed to 20 times the permitted dose under the relevant Air Force radiation standard.
"Okay, no lasting damage usually, but how long does the pain last?"
The pain ceases as soon as the beam's no longer on you.

Yet the ADS, like every nonlethal weapon, is heavily scrutinized because of the potential for abuse ("Will the version in the field be as harmless as the one used on reporters?", etc.) and because, presumably, exotic new technologies like this are hard to sell to a skeptical public. Hence, the reporters themselves being subjected to the weapon.

Then, of course, there are those who oppose any new weapon almost on principle. But after reading similar comments at several sites, I have to ask, Why?

Why oppose battlefield (or riot zone) use of the ADS, which can allow our servicemen and -women to stop a suspicious person at long range rather than (A) let the person close distance and potentially harm our troops, or (B) have our servicemen shoot (lethally) first and ask questions later?

It's precisely these ethical and operational questions that lead me to believe that directed energy has a big part to play in future combat operations. Especially once these weapons get smaller (even as small as rifle-sized, perhaps with a battery in the backpack), there are all kinds of potential military applications.

If you can disable people all around a combat zone without killing them--perhaps so you can get in, detain a high-value target and get out--you don't really have to (for example) discriminate between innocent civilians and enemy combatants who dress like civilians. Instead of killing anyone who gets too close to a vehicle convoy (hey, you don't know if he has a bomb strapped to him, or a gun hidden in his clothing), just zap 'im for a few seconds at a few hundred meters (much further than bombs and much effective small arms fire usually reach) and keep moving. Furthermore, if you can make a combatant stop and drop without putting a bullet in him, you're more likely to be able to detain and question him.

That adds up to fewer "collateral" losses of innocents and more flexibility for our troops. Whatever your human rights concerns, aren't the consequences of not having such a system worse?

Heck, if they can miniaturize it, why not allow it in more mundane civilian/police applications? A short shock of pain is better than being shot, and as the North Hollywood bank robbery/shootout illustrated, bullets aren't always as effective as something like the ADS could be.

Re:I hate vultures.

[COMON$]

Why not just build a huge satellite and fire the sucker off at entire nations from space? Ok ok, bad flashbacks of popcorn exploding from houses.

But seriously, I would rather have a heat gun pointed at me than tear gas next time I feel like rioting.

Re:I hate vultures.

[Viper Daimao]

So your objection is that it might be used for torture? Do you also object to batteries? Water and seranwrap? A long sock with a bar of soap in it? Any tool can be misused, that doesn't detract from it's benefits.

Re:I hate vultures.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're having difficulty imagining the high likelihood of abuse of this sort of technology, then you're part of the problem.

Re:I hate vultures.

[displague]

I read an article about this elsewhere and they mentioned that it has been tested on 10,000 people without a single injury requiring medical attention.

Re:I hate vultures.

[xappax]

A short shock of pain is better than being shot

If someone were going to shoot me, I'd much prefer that they hit me with a "pain ray" than a bullet. That's so obvious it goes without saying, which is why most people tend to think that non-lethal weapons are a good thing with no downside.

There is a huge downside. Non-lethal pain-inducing weapons have a massive potential for abuse. Let me relate a few stories:

I saw some cops who had caught a shoplifter outside a supermarket. They had him in cuffs and he was being verbally obnoxious, though not physically dangerous. He made an admittedly very offensive racial insult at one of the cops. She walked right up to him, got out her mace, and blasted him right in the face. He collapsed choking, vomiting, unable to breathe, but the EMTs on the scene were prohibited from helping the guy because it was a non-lethal weapon: his health wasn't actually being threatened.

A student at UCLA who committed the non-violent, non-threatening offense of refusing to show ID, was restrained and shocked repeatedly with a taser. It was caught on video, and the cops were very obviously using the taser as a tool for forcing compliance, not defending themselves against danger. The officer's comment in that article "If he was able to walk out of here, I think he was OK," is especially telling about the police attitude toward taser use.

Non-lethal weapons have the potential to be used in the same way as lethal weapons - namely using force to prevent someone from harming you. But they can also do something that lethal weapons cannot - they can be used for what is effectively torture: the inflicting of serious pain for very minor reasons. Lethal weapons cannot be used this way because shooting or stabbing someone has a very severe, permanent, and noticeable effect.

Officers or soldiers who shoot someone have a lot of explaining to do. There is an identifiable wound, a permanent harm done to them, and because it's easier to hold someone accountable for shooting someone, officers and soliders are much more reserved and judicious in their use of lethal weapons. By contrast, non-lethal weapons are used essentially at a whim, because the perceived severity of their action is both to themselves and the public eye, much lower.

Non-lethal pain-inducing weapons are torture - there's simply no way around it. There are undeniably certain circumstances when torture is preferable to execution, but we must think very carefully about how and where we introduce tools of torture to be used by our military and police - their use must be taken every bit as seriously as lethal weapons.

Re:I hate vultures.

[blugu64]

"But seriously, I would rather have a heat gun pointed at me than tear gas next time I feel like rioting."

Doing anything weekend after next? I've got the itch for a good riot.

Re:I hate vultures.

[electrosoccertux]

So your objection is that it might be used for torture? Do you also object to batteries? Water and seranwrap? A long sock with a bar of soap in it? Any tool can be misused, that doesn't detract from it's benefits. How about perfectly legal, safe, controlled protesting?

That's what I see this being used for. Gov't doesn't like
a). What they're protesting about (IE the protesters are right, the gov't knows it, and doesn't want the word to spread)
b). How many people are involved (same fear as above, word could spread)

So just use a non-lethal weapon that leaves no mark to get rid of the people with no consequences!

That's the issue here, there's a much smaller barrier to disbanding legal protesting than there was before existence of this weapon.

Re:I hate vultures.

[Chris Burke]

So your objection is that it might be used for torture? Do you also object to batteries? Water and seranwrap? A long sock with a bar of soap in it? Any tool can be misused, that doesn't detract from it's benefits.

As standard-issues police/MP armaments? FUCK YES I OBJECT. We're not talking about a generic "tool", we're talking about something specifically designed to be a weapon, given to the police for that express puprose. If a cop was caught walking around with a bar of soap in a sock, there might be some questions asked. But his microwave torture device? He's supposed to have that.

There'll be plenty of other posts on the subject, just like there were in the last article on this weapon, but I'll say it again: The difference between a lethal and non-lethal weapon is not just that you'd rather have the non-lethal weapon used on you, it's also that the police are vastly more likely to use the non-lethal weapon on you!

Especially a weapon that leaves no marks, and thus no proof after the fact that the weapon was in fact used. You don't think that'll be used more recklessly by police than their sidearm any use of which requires extensive justification and accounting for every shot fired? "Huh, those protestors said we used our microwave pain rays? They're lying! Just like they're lying about the first guy to throw a rock being a plain-clothes cop!"

This isn't someone re-purposing a bar of soap and a gym sock as a torture device -- which, if a cop was found walking around with and using, would cause some questions to be asked. This tool's benefit is the same as its downside.

Re:I hate vultures.

[Chris Burke]

I'm going to guess you are now going to oppose spoons being allowed to the military.

That's because you're a fool who hasn't listened to a word that I've said.

I oppose spoons being given to the military for the express purpose of being used as torture devices. The day I see riot police brandishing spoons and threatening to harm protestors with them is the day your argument makes a god-damn lick of sense.

This weapon is not some random tool like a tape measure or a screwdriver that could hypothetically be re-purposed for torture, it is a torture device as designed and when used as intended. That is its function -- inflicting pain on human beings en mass and from a distance.

split opinion

[Lord_Slepnir]

One one hand, a bunch of Iraqis with burns they can claim was caused by the Great Satan's hellfire gun is about the last thing we need. On the other hand, it's better than giving them a sudden case of lead poisoning.

Re:split opinion

[CRCulver]

How about getting out of Iraq and leaving those poor people to mend their shattered country themselves?

You're assuming that the Iraqis want to mend their shattered country. Most would be perfectly happy fragmenting it along ethnic lines. The only reason the U.S. is keeping it together is to avoid pissing off Turkey (by creating an independent Kurdistan) and to avoid giving Iran the gift of a nice Shi'ite client state.

Re:split opinion

[BecomingLumberg]

You are right- We should let the sectarian violence rage completely unabated. I am not saying we should have gone there in the first place (although I do think Hussein got his right), but the fact remains that we are there now. Leaving would only be worsening things. Sure I would love to have the friends I have serving over there back home and safe, but I would not have them come home now and just let Iraq go to shit. Maybe you should go back to selling mattresses.

Re:split opinion

[be-fan]

The irony here is that at least with Hussain there, we didn't have to worry about these things. The interests of the United States were better served with a low-level dictator in place than the current unpredictable and uncontrollable situation. Of course, we did not expect the dictator to be replaced by general chaos, but it seems that we did not realize that Hussain was the thing plugging up the dike.

Re:split opinion

[iminplaya]

...but it seems that we did not realize that Hussain was the thing plugging up the dike.

We knew exactly what his puropse was. That's precisely why we kept him there for 25 years. And the shah for 26 years in Iran. And Pinoche in Chile, Marcos in the Phillipines, Somoza in Nicaragua...the list goes on. You can blame the damn media for exposing our real intentions and hypocrisy about fomenting "democracy". So now we will foment chaos and destruction to "prove" that we were right in supporting these hooligans, and that you need an iron fist to keep the peace. Right now, all that chaos is very good for the bottom line. As the old joke goes, When you write the check to pay your taxes, remember, there are two L's in Halliburton.

Re:split opinion

[Cornflake917]

Yeah because if we stay in there for another decade, lose another few thousand U.S. troops, and kill another hundred thousand Iraqi's, then Iraq will magically transform into a democratic nation with peaceful people.

Did you even study Vietnam? You can't force people like the ones who live in Iraq to be peaceful, lest you become another Saddam Hussain.

Re:split opinion

[Chris Burke]

Of course, we did not expect the dictator to be replaced by general chaos,

Of course there were two sets of reasoning behind the expectation, and it is the difference between them that has led to this sorry affairs.

We, the people expected that there would not be general chaos because we also expected that the military had a plan for maintaining order while working as quickly as possible to fill the power vacuum.

The architects of the war, specifically Donald Rumsfeld, expected there would not be general chaos because he also expected that a fully-formed democracy would fall from the sky, everyone would love us unconditionally, there wouldn't be an insurgency, and therefore he didn't need to have that plan thingie.

Not that everything would have been open arms and roses if we had an actual plan based in reality, but we might not be describing the situation as "general chaos". The damage done to the Iraq war by Rumsfeld is incalculable, and it doesn't matter how much better Gates is, he can't undo that damage. Bush and military leaders are talking about how we can't afford to fail. Well, sorry boys, we failed three years ago when some moron stood on a ship with a big banner that said "Mission Accomplished", and he believed it.

Re:split opinion

[Chris Burke]

I could've told you this was coming back when the invasion was first announced. Why? I'm Bengali.

Well not to pat myself on the back but I knew it was coming too, and that's with my piss-poor American public school education. ;) Quick, list of countries whose people were grateful to be invaded and occupied by a foreign power! Hmm...

"What every terrorist fears most is human freedom -- societies where men and women make their own choices, answer to their own conscience, and live by their hopes instead of their resentments. Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies -- and most will choose a better way when they are given a chance."

Haha! I didn't watch the speech, because I can't stand to hear the man speak, and I didn't read about it either since I knew what he was going to say.

That's just a twist on a clasic Bush line. He used to give a much more direct and even more ludicrous statement when he was explaining why terrorists would want to attack the United States: "They hate us for our freedom." Oh man, that one had me rolling in the isles. Also crying, because a person who believes that (not that Bush necessarily does, but many believe it because he said it), then they have absolutely zero chance of ever understanding terrorism.

My personal favorite example of how ludicrous this whole line of thinking that Democracy will make everything okay is when the Palestinians voted in Hamas. The West's reaction was basically: Oh shit, you weren't supposed to be that free!

Ultimately, it's not democracy that makes Westerners, well, Westernized. It's a couple of thousand years of shared culture, history, and civilization. Democracy is an expression of the underlying mindset of the West, not the underpinnings of that mindset. It took the West a long time to get its societies to the point where they could support democracy. It took France a 150 years to build a supportable Republic, and France had one of the longest traditions of liberal Enlightenment thinking in Europe! How could anybody be stupid enough to think that we could have pushed Iraq to do it in a few years, much less a few decades?

Yeah, my history education was shitty and Euro-centric, but damn do I find it amazing that so few of my fellow Americans seem to remember this simple fact. Just like so many don't seem to appreciate how great our debt to France is. Is it any surprise that they also thought that getting rid of Saddam Hussein would turn Iraq into Oklahoma overnight?

Useful Against Insurgencies

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds just like what we need for our boys and girls over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of dropping a bomb over the evildoers' heads, or not even fire for fear of collateral damage, this weapon would be the solution.

I know the kneejerk slashdotters will come out of the woodwork against this, but would you rather have dead people or civilians? It's funny how you guys love technology except when the military invents it.

Re:Useful Against Insurgencies

[*weasel]

Technology is neutral.
If you're uneasy with how evil our leaders are becoming, it doesn't really matter whether they develop new technologies or not, does it?

Re:Useful Against Insurgencies

[kalirion]

It all depends on how the device is used. Here's a very plausible scenario: there's a mostly peaceful demonstration, and a few of the demonstrators start throwing rocks. The forces which are there to keep order turn the device on the crowd. Everyone feels like they're burning alive, there's a stampede to get away from the pain, and dozens of people are trampled. Hell, even if there is no stampede, you are basically torturing people most of whom have done nothing wrong. Yes, it's torture even if it leaves no injuries.

Also, I recall reading somewhere that all who volunteer for being hit by the device are told to remove all metal objects from their persons. So what if someone in the crowd has metal jewelry - would end up welded to their skin?

Re:Useful Against Insurgencies

[Johnny5000]

If you're uneasy with how evil our leaders are becoming, it doesn't really matter whether they develop new technologies or not, does it?

There are degrees of evil.
A lot of the objections over this sort of thing come from the fear that this weapon (and other less-lethal weapons) may be used against crowds of peaceful demonstrators.

The somewhat-but-not-completely-evil authorities might not feel entirely comfortable firing lead into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators, but be perfectly fine with using a heat-ray against a crowd.

Of course, the same effect could be achieved with older technologies like fire-hoses, teargas, rubber bullets, etc. These have been used in the past as weapons against peaceful demonstrators in order to silence them, so there's no reason to believe the heat-ray wouldn't be used as well.
So, if there are potential dangers to being on the receiving end of this technology, it's probably best that we find them out now, before it is used against large groups of civilians.

Re:Useful Against Insurgencies

[Loconut1389]

Wonder if it would set off ammunition in a weapon being carried?

Re:Useful Against Insurgencies

[Malakusen]

Future AQ recruiting video, using footage from Iraq:
Cold-hearted armed and armored U.S. troops in armored vehicles cooking screaming Arab children with a heat ray.

Brilliant.

Don't Forget!

[Life2Short]

I think if the University of Florida has taught us anything, you have to thoroughly soak your target first.

Popcorn

[The_Mr_Flibble]

How long after this thing is deployed will we see video's on you tube with soldiers using this thing to make popcorn ?
And how long after will we see drunk soldiers holding the popcorn whilst it's being made ?

if i recall correctly

[circletimessquare]

the military had a great new weapon in the form of a liquid that would foam and solidify a few years back. so an urban crowd is getting uppity. rather than shoot them, spray them. voila: instant immobilization, no worries of permanent damage or death... well that's just the thing. in a real crowd situation, someone's mouth would get sprayed. then it's a tracheotomy in a few minutes or death by suffocation

so what will happen with the OUCH ray is that someone will get hit in the eyes, and be blinded. or with the black ice, as any hockey player/ fan will tell you, someone will do a perfect backward fall and wind up with a concussion or brain damage

all i'm saying is that the nirvana of the perfect nonlethal crowd control/ imlpement of war is not very easy to obtain. all you do is trade in one kind of potential for damage/ death for another kind of potential for damage/ death. tragedy is not so easily avoided. we don't live in a world where improbable and deadly accidents never happen, and we don't live in a world where everybody has agreed that violence ion the name of advancing yout agenda isn't the answer (no matter what your ideology, from the right or the left)

Nothing new : Search 4 pain microwave weapon

[gd23ka]

They've already used that on people. Another "nonlethal" weapon that will
hideously kill at close range.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=microwave+pa in+weapon

Raytheon's Silent Guardian

[eldavojohn]

The weapon is called the silent guardian. It's made by Raytheon and that site has a short video just showing it off with a product sheet.

The most interesting things from that product sheet:

Targeting: Stationary firing position with 360-degree coverage
Integrated sensors with joystick control
Single-man operation

System Setup: Automatic target tracking
Modular architecture
Secure antenna stabilization platform
able to operate in 40 mph winds

Mission Profile: Less than 2-second retargeting capability
Shoot-and-scoot capability
Less than 2 seconds to switch from standby mode to armed

Contractor Support: Complete logistics support package available to include:
- Return and repair maintenance
- System training
- Web-enabled supply support
- Supports Army two-level maintenance system

And I personally think the most important aspect of this weapon is that it fills the gap between shout and shoot which is a big thing when you think about it.

Re:Raytheon's Silent Guardian

[jimicus]

Stationary firing position with 360-degree coverage

Wonderful! So you can shoot yourself without turning the gun around.

Microwaves not ionizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Microwaving people is obviously really unsafe,

Microwaves are not ionizing like Ultra-violet, X-rays and other higher energy shorter wave-length radiation. If they really did cause cancer, folks are around airports and other radar (Microwave) installations would have a much higher incidence of cancer than the general population.

Test it on me!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the government would follow me around for a few months testing this thing on me, it's friggen cold right now in New England!

Isn't this "ray" easily blocked?

[rcb1974]

Couldn't an organized crowd just pull the metal screens off their windows and use them as shields? Last I checked, those work great against microwaves. You could even make clothing made of flexible metal mesh to block the incoming rays.

Re:Fear and cancer

[Apocalypse111]

Unlike most cases where I would immediately pipe in about the safety of microwave radiation as compared to other, higher power (or ionizing) radiation, in this case the questions of safety are justified I think. The reason that cell phones are safe is because, even though they are a microwave-using device right next to your head, the amount of radiation hitting your body doesn't penetrate the first couple layers of skin, and raises the temperature by less than walking out into the sun. This, on the other hand, pumps out enough juice to cause 130 degrees of pain. I can't imagine that enough microwaving to cause this kind of temperature increase wouldn't also penetrate deeper into the body, possibly heating other organs that really ought-not to be heated. Also, if I recall correctly, there was some evidence that microwave radiation in elevated amounts (as compared to the background) over time can increase the incidence of cataracts. In that case, even if we aren't giving people a higher risk of cancer, we might be making them blind. Sure, we can handle cataracts in the western world, but I imagine it'd be a different story in some of the places around the world where this system would be deployed.

Oh yeah, and that metal thing... yeah, that could be bad.

Stopping Fleeing vehicles try a HERF Gun

[HighOrbit]

see Build Your Own HERF Gun
and
HERF Gun: Make it in your basement

Supposedly the High Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) burst will disrupt all the electronic components in an engine. My understanding is that the Coast Guard is already using these to stop fleeing motor boats (sorry no link) and the air force is researching a HERF weapon to knock all the electronics in a area USAF Detachment 8 Continues US Research Into EMP-Microwave Weapons

Here's what I wonder, though

[Moraelin]

Here's what I wonder, though: on who will it be used?

On enemy soldiers? If someone is dead set on ventilating your brain, what's to stop them from using some kind of shielding? If it's millimeter wave, it's still possible to block it, for example, with a fine enough metal mesh. You can see through it (poorly) to aim the gun. Plus, guiding a weapon via a periscope isn't exactly a new idea. Any tank or APC includes such devices.

Will it protect against a sniper in Iraq? Well, no, because if you knew where the sniper is, and had LOS for such a device, then you also have LOS to counter-snipe him. In practice they can still shoot once or twice with impunity, then be gone before you even figure out where he was.

So they're going to help, how? Preemptively microwave everything in sight, including kids, pets, retired seniors and everything, just so a possible sniper gets inconvenienced too? Not entirely practicable or sane.

It seems to me like this kind of thing is only useful for one thing: against demonstrators which weren't armed to start with. Yeah, giving a few of those burns will soo make it clear that the USA is there just to bring them democracy and freedom of speech.

Re:Here's what I wonder, though

[zazzel]

So I'm trying to imagine *any* military or police uses this kind of weapon on me, the demonstrator. Now, for a second, just ignore my (dis)honorable intentions to protest. What happens when someone uses this kind of weapon on me, probably abusing it the way tasers are already being abused in certain cases? Well, I'll make sure as hell this weapon can't harm me any more (tinfoil, anyone?). And next, I'll probably be in a good mood to use any combination of intelligence, technique and force to make sure the asshole who's been using this kind of weapon on me gets "what he deserves".

So, now you're no longer restricted to heating dinner using microwaves, but you're making sure I'm becoming the enemy you're so afraid of. Full of hate and dangerous.

Temperatures

[ZOMFF]

Considering that the average temperature of bath water is ~110F, 130F doesn't seem like it would be too uncomfortable for a soldier. Considering the temperatures most soldiers face (especially those deployed to the desert) I'm sure they are exposed to similar temps by the environment alone + gear. The question I have is will the microwaves react differently to a metal object as opposed to human skin? IE: cause the gun/weapon a soldier is holding to become very hot causing the soldier to drop it, rather than causing the skin to burn.

that's just the thing

[Moraelin]

Anyone the army actually wanted to give lead poisoning, it will continue to give a lead poisoning. If someone is shooting an AK-47 or worse yet a Dragunov at you, you don't want him just forced to dive around a corner. One way or another some soldiers will still have to hunt him down, sooner or later.

The only people against you'd want to use a non-lethal weapon is, well, people you don't want to give a lead poisoning in the first place. Like civilian demonstrations. That's what worries me. It's not a weapon of war, it's a crowd control device. Same as rubber bullets and water hoses, only a level meaner: when was the last time you heard of those used in a battle? It's not the kind of thing you'd win an offensive with, it the kind of thing you'd use to keep people from protesting against a puppet pro-USA dictator.

Torture

[MrSteveSD]

The use of this device would effectively amount to torture. Using it on a crowd of protesters you want removed would be equivalent to going around and Tazering all of them. Passive resistance does not justify the use of torture.

Re:Torture

[Rogerborg]

We've already lost that argument. See "drive stun" and an explicit UCPD policy on torturing suspects into compliance in the context of Mostafa Tabatabainejad (among others).

Re:Torture

[Ogive17]

So what happens when your "passive" resistance turns into burning cars or throwing rocks? Should law enforcement let things get out of control or start throwing lead into the crowd?

Non leathal weapons work because they cause momentary pain, not permanent damage (like getting shot). Using your arguement of torture, we'd have to get rid of pepper spray, tazers, stun guns...

Re:Torture

[Peter La Casse]

The use of this device would effectively amount to torture.

Watering down the word "torture" accomplishes nothing good. Any device can be used for torture; circumstances matter.

Re:Non-lethal, huh?

[m0ok1e]

Just an FYI, it is against military law to fire upon someone who is helpless to defend themselves, like someone chained to something. It doesn't really matter how long they hold down the trigger, the people in the focused beam will run away from it as fast as they can. The video I saw of the tests indicates that, and the weapon does not penetrate buildings or metal, etc, so there is respite from it if you can run. Also, this thing requires A LOT of battery power to operate, and I don't think the intention is to operate the thing at full power for more than a couple of seconds, or in quick bursts. I believe it will entirely deplete the battery if you run it for a whole 2 minutes.
You CANNOT, and I mean CANNOT stand in the way of this weapon without having your natural instinct kick in and make you run the hell away from it. It is simply not possible.

Huh?

[lendude]

"The goal is to make the targets drop any weapons and flee the scene." Why the f*ck would they drop their weapons and flee the scene? If they can flee the scene, they'd wanna hang onto their weapons wouldn't they? And if they can't flee the scene, unless the beam can cover the whole mass at once, they might be tempted to use their weapons? And if they can't flee the scene, they are pretty much constrained anyway?

Sounds more like a tool to use on demonstrators who aren't armed, just pesky.

"Iraq" is a stalking horse

[Rogerborg]

This will be used on peaceful protesters in the US, and will be sold to other repressive regimes for use against their own citizens. There is no use for it in Iraq.

Re:Non-lethal, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize how useless your comments are?

First, this is a weapon like any other weapon. It can be used poorly and is ultimately a tool of the person that wields it. There are hundreds of more effective and less detectable methods of torture that could be used via 15th century technology. Do you think this is any more dangerous than 100,000 19 year olds running around with machine guns?

Second, stereotyping different states as "back-water" and making baseless assumptions about the humanity of our soldiers is not just ignorant, its potentially harmful. Just because you politically disagree with the war in Iraq doesn't mean you should punish those who have volunteered to serve this country with your disdain. Soldiers do not make policy, and 99.9% of them have no desire to torture anyone. These people are doing a job that is noble, and that requires a lot of sacrifice. If you keep attacking the soldiers instead of the policy then pretty soon we're not going to have anyone volunteering to protect our country from the real dangers of the world.

You are undoubtedly a symptom of the real problems this country faces. You are an ignorant elitist, who bases assumption on conjecture instead of reality. You assume that you are better than everyone else, and that somehow you are the embodyment of humanity, when nothing could be further from the truth. Why any sensibile person would take your comments seriously, or place any merit in them is beyond me.

Please respond in a way that allows me to further stereotype you, so that I can continue to make my point.

Re:Black ice

[geekoid]

IT's not uncommon forpolice to try and manipulate the chase.

If soemone is zipping down the freeway you have a god indicator where to deploy this.
Another use would be outside of banks, just to watch robbers fall on their ass as the try to fly.

I agree

[wiredog]

We should just use the good old fashioned lethal weapons. Much less chance the people we are shooting at will get cancer 20 years from now.

Re:I agree

[giminy]

Much less chance the people we are shooting at will get cancer 20 years from now.

Sure it's true that the lab mice don't get cancer 20 years from now after being shot in the face. Mouse physiology is quite different from ours, though.

In short, I don't think we've done enough carefully controlled human trials with bullets to make your claim. I'd suggest some form of double-blind experiment, shooting several thousand subjects from various socioeconomic classes with blanks and with bullets, and see what the effect on cancer rate is. I'll volunteer for the control group, which doesn't get shot at all. Providing a baseline for the population is probably the hardest job, as it takes the longest amount of time.

Reid

Re:I agree

[chameleon3]

I don't think we've done enough carefully controlled human trials with bullets to make your claim. I'd suggest some form of double-blind experiment, shooting several thousand subjects from various socioeconomic classes with blanks and with bullets, and see what the effect on cancer rate is. I'll volunteer for the control group, which doesn't get shot at all. Providing a baseline for the population is probably the hardest job, as it takes the longest amount of time.

Unfortunately, the scientific method requires random assignment in order to prove causation, so you can't volunteer for a group. You'll have to take the coin flip like the rest of them :-)

and needless to say, your participation in your own idea for an experiment negates the 'double-blind' nature of the experiment

btw, yes IAASR (I Am A Science Researcher)

PS I know that your post is meant to be a joke, but you'd be surprised how many students entering my Research Methods class don't see the problem with letting participants volunteer for their condition!

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Cowpat]

we should stick with the lethal weapons. 'the authorities' are far less likely to use them if they're lethal - if they're non-lethal they think 'oh, it doesn't matter when I use this' and just fire away. The simple fact is that the threshold for deciding the escalate the situation to shooting someone is no higher now that TASERs are available than when they weren't, but now TASERing someone who won't shut up is easy to do and impossible to verify for evidence purposes. Take, for instance, the Iranian-American student who got TASERed 6 times a few months back because someone police officers decided to use their TASERs as 'motivational tools' to try and make him stand up. Would they have knee-capped him with a few rounds of 9mm if they only had guns and no TASERs?
What will we see with this new weapon? When the crowd in the 'free speech zone' starts getting more vocal than you like, in the old day's you'de just have to have put up with it. Today you can just shoot them with a heat ray until they quieten down and hey! it's non-lethal so it doesn't matter!

Re:What it'll be used for

[Rogerborg]

Oh, genius. So, let's indescriminately torture innocent people whose cars have broken down in order to mildly inconvenience the 1% who are hostile. Truly, it will bring the War on Hearts and Minds to a speedy conclusion.

unintended consequences and baked Alaska...

[ofcourseyouare]

I agree that "the most important aspect of this weapon is that it fills the gap between shout and shoot which is a big thing when you think about it"; and certainly this sort of non-lethal weapon could help prevent the "mourning war" or vendettas which (I think) you mentioned in an earlier excellent post on a related topic.

However, I do think one unintended consequence of non-lethal weapons is what we saw with Tasers when that student was expellend from the university library a couple of months ago. In that case, it seemed to me that if the guards had not had tasers, they would not have escalted to beating him with nightsticks, they'd have had to just haul him out physically. Because they had a non-lethal but very unpleasant weapons, they escalated to that wheras otherwise they might have been more patient.

Something similar might happen with this. You have an unruly crowd: rather than just wait it out as you might currently, instead you microwave them with this device. Thus the non-lethal weapon can result in more force being used rahter than less.

Having said that, if this is being used instead of rubber bullets let alone metal ones it's difficult to see the problem.

And of course it could vastly simplify the manfacture of baked Alaska ; )

Just Remember

[faqmaster]

Just remember: You have to moisten the unruly crowd first, otherwise it will stink the place up for days, and some individuals may even catch on fire!

The Simpsons quote you're looking for:

[Headcase88]

Grampa: What the hell is that?
Frink: Why, it's a death ray my good man, behold. (Frink fires death ray)
Grampa: Hey, feels warm, kinda nice.
Frink: Well it's just a prototype, with proper funding I'm confident this little baby could destroy an area the size of New York City.
Grampa: But I want to help people, not kill 'em!
Frink: Oh, well to be honest, the ray only has evil applications. You know my wife will be happy, she's hated this whole death ray thing from day one.

With thanks to The Simpsons Archive

Re:Non-lethal, huh?

[geekoid]

Based on the limited tech spens, I would say it is to be deployed remotly. Probably dropped from the air.
If that's true, then hooking it up to the mains isn't going to happen.
And you owuld need to hook it into something more powerfull then your 115 in a house. making it even more difficult to find a convienant spot to do that.

Mostly likely use is the drop it into an area, people flee, the military comes in to secure said area.

Also could be deployed from a tank, or other completly enclosed vehical.

People seem to overlook that the military is looking for non deadly ways to to their job. This is a good thing.

Oh, flippin' please

[Moraelin]

What of people rioting outside of an embassy? That would be a good use for this weapon.

Did it ever occur to you that an embasy is, pretty much by definition, in the middle of another country? You know, _sovereign_ country? You won't be making many friends worldwide if the USA's embasies start frying another country's citizens just because they were making a ruckus in the wrong place.

Further, if terrorists are disbursed among civilians, you can use this weapon to stop everyone, grab the assholes with the AKs, and everyone else lives. Minimal collateral damage.

Heh. Dude, no offense, think about it for a second. I don't know what bad action movies or bad video games you've been playing, but people don't just hang around and chat nonchalantly when someone is shooting an AK. The moment someone actually started shooting an AK from the middle of the crowd, actually even before they actually shoot it, the civilians will stampede in panic to get to shelter. You don't need a freakin' heat gun to disperse them, their own "omg, I don't want to die" panic will kick in just nicely.

If you need a heat ray to disperse them, then there wasn't anyone shooting from that crowd in the first place. Any "terrorist" in that crowd didn't have anything more lethal than a slogan on a piece of cardboard, if the rest of the gang didn't already disperse.

Also convenient when assaulting a critical location with entrenched enemies that you don't want to blow up (power plant, oil refinery, etc). You can incapacitate the bad guys without blowing the building up - big win for all of the innocents that rely on the building.

Heh. Now I probably forgot most of what they taught me in the army, but that sounds as just about as pointless as trying to spray them with a water hose to assault that position. What's wrong with it? Off the top of my head:

1. This heat ray doesn't incapacitate, it just makes them take cover. No more. I.e., all it does is suppression. And at that it will cause suppression on the 1-2 you actually _hit_, whereas a single light machinegun will make a whole freakin' company take cover, and occasionally kills someone too.

2. It's just microwaves, so any tanks, APCs, God knows what else, will still be able to shoot at you just as well.

3. For that matter, a simple metal mesh will be perfectly good protection for anyone else who still wants to shoot at you. If you knew that the enemy has these things, you just give your soldiers a piece of mesh with a hole for the barrel of the gun.

Re:Eyes with contacts aren't safe

[Gandoron]

While this may not cause immediate long term damage to the naked eye. I read something over a year ago that in all the tests, they made the subjects remove their contacts. Apparently, the contacts can melt and bond to the eye. While we might like to believe that no one in the crowd will be wearing contacs...this is just not the case... -G

OBLIG. MLK Quote:

[gaspar ilom]

"What do they think as we test our new weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe?"

-- Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (April 4, 1967)

It's already 130 degrees in Iraq

[wthanna]

On a hot day, it can reach nearly 130 degrees in Iraq.. so if you use this weapon over there, they will look at each other and say "hot day today, Ishmael, eh?"

Re:milimeter waves ....

[Vegeta99]

It does that because microwaves are centimeter waves, and will heat a hell up a of a lot more than just your skin.

Untold Details

[diff2uni]

The only difference between this "non-lethal" weapon and a "lethal weapon that produces excruciatingly painful death" is the power level setting on the unit's control panel. If the top layer of a persons flesh is burned over a large percentage of the body, this person will die a horrible death. If the top layer of skin on the eyeballs are damaged, this person will be blinded. This type of weapon will most likely be used for crowd control and probably on its own citizens sooner or later.

Foil hat?

[Aqua_boy17]

But seriously, I would rather have a heat gun pointed at me than tear gas next time I feel like rioting.

I personally am left wondering if a foil hat would be an asset or a liability in this case.

Re:Foil hat?

[COMON$]

considering what tinfoil does in a microwave you may at least go out in style like a giant sparkler.

Please stop the strawman arguments

[HighOrbit]

The use of this device would effectively amount to torture. Using it on a crowd of protesters you want removed would be equivalent to going around and Tazering all of them. Passive resistance does not justify the use of torture.

Please stop using strawman agruments. The article said nothing about peaceful protestors. I seriously doubt the military cares about a group of people peacefully singing kumbaya around a campfire, seeing how they have their hands full fighting people with AK-47s and RPGs. Let's see what the article said:

The technology is supposed to be harmless -- a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons.
Hmm...Peaceful protestors don't carry weapons.

During the first media demonstration of the weapon Wednesday, airmen fired beams from a large dish antenna mounted atop a Humvee at people pretending to be rioters and acting out other scenarios U.S. troops might encounter.
Hmm... Peaceful protestors are not rioters.

They let volunteer reporters experience it, so the public could know what it really did. None of the reporters have so far claimed they were "tortured".

However, I will grant that the device could be abused. But then again, so could a rubber hose, a car battery, or a bamboo cane.

...and if your friends die?

[bigtrike]

If your friends that are over there now die in service later, will they have died accomplishing anything? In order to stay in Iraq, we better have some sort of plan other than just "stay the course"

If sectarian violence and civil war is inevitable, why waste the lives of our service men just to postpone it a little longer?