50 Years of Research and Still No Microwave Weapons

DevotedSkeptic writes in with a story about the lack of usable microwave technology to come from 50 years of military research. "For some Pentagon officials, the demonstration in October 2007 must have seemed like a dream come true — an opportunity to blast reporters with a beam of energy that causes searing pain. The event in Quantico, Virginia, was to be a rare public showing for the US Air Force's Active Denial System: a prototype non-lethal crowd-control weapon that emits a beam of microwaves at 95 gigahertz. Radiation at that frequency penetrates less than half a millimetre into the skin, so the beam was supposed to deliver an intense burning sensation to anyone in its path, forcing them to move away, but without, in theory, causing permanent damage. However, the day of the test was cold and rainy. The water droplets in the air did what moisture always does: they absorbed the microwaves. And when some of the reporters volunteered to expose themselves to the attenuated beam, they found that on such a raw day, the warmth was very pleasant. The story is much the same in other areas of HPM weapons development, which began as an East–West technology race nearly 50 years ago. In the United States, where spending on electromagnetic weapons is down from cold-war levels, but remains at some US$47 million per year, progress is elusive. 'There's lots of smoke and mirrors,' says Peter Zimmerman, an emeritus nuclear physicist at King's College London and former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in Washington DC. Although future research may yield scientific progress, he adds, 'I cannot see they will build a useful, deployable weapon.'"

Comments

No new weapons?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a tragedy.

Re:No new weapons?

[schnell]

No new weapons? What a tragedy.

I prefer living in a country that wastes money trying to find non-lethal weapons that don't work out vs. countries that take the cost-effective, pragmatic approach of "f**k em, bullets are nice and cheap."

There are plenty of reasons to criticize the US Department of Defense, no question. But the fact that they are spending money on non-lethal weapons means they at least care about a future war where not everyone has to get killed. Or even if you want to indulge your most Reynolds-wrapped tinfoil-clad conspiracy theories, a future where US domestic political protestors don't meet the same fate as those in the Prague Spring, Tienanmen Square or Syria.

Are There Any Alternatives

[rueger]

Sigh, if only there were other ways to control peaceful pro... ah mobs of anarchists.

Like pepper spray, water cannons, clubs, horses, dogs, sonic weapons, machine guns, truncheons, whips, tear gas.....

$47 million. You could make a good start at buying an election with that kind of money.

Re:Are There Any Alternatives

[godel_56]

Sigh, if only there were other ways to control peaceful pro... ah mobs of anarchists. Like pepper spray, water cannons, clubs, horses, dogs, sonic weapons, machine guns, truncheons, whips, tear gas.....

There are some excellent non-lethal possibilities that the authorities are not using, such as laser dazzlers. My favorite unused method is the foam generator. You cover the entire ravening mob in a layer of soapy foam about 3 meters thick, so they stumble around saying "where'd every body go?", and the cops pluck them out from the front end of the mob at their leisure. You can also include orange or green skin dyes or capsaicin in the foam if you're feeling nasty.

Re:Are There Any Alternatives

[strength_of_10_men]

But then they'll all be clean and we can't call them dirty hippies anymore. :)

So let's see

[93 Escort Wagon]

We have a very expensive crowd control weapon that likely could be rendered ineffective as long as enough of the protesters brought 99-cent spray bottles full of water along with them.

Got it.

Re:So let's see

[sjames]

With the right rectifier you might even be able to recharge your cellphone.

Re:So let's see

[number11]

We have a very expensive crowd control weapon that likely could be rendered ineffective as long as enough of the protesters brought 99-cent spray bottles full of water along with them.

But it's the very first weapon that a tinfoil hat is actually documented to protect against.

The spray bottles are good. But arty foil-backed protest signs that just happen to be shaped like corner reflectors would be fun for the people in the front.

Really?

[nospam007]

The anti-terror guys have warned us for years that a microwave cannon could be built with parts ordered from the web, capable of frying a plane's electronics when it tries to land.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-196971883.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1166499/Terrorists-bring-jumbo-jet-using-microwave-cannon-built-internet.html

So I guess Mythbusters didn't get an authorization to test that either.

Re:You say it like it is a bad thing.

[sjames]

More likely it is a tool to disperse protesters without those incriminating head cracking videos.

They found the warmth pleasant.

[Anarchduke]

Put him in The Comfy Chair!!!!

Re:Until recently

[Guppy]

Basically it was done with specially doped ruby emitters if I remember correct.

It was a pentacene-based organic material: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-maser-power-cold-demo-solid-state.html

Re:You say it like it is a bad thing.

[sjames]

It makes it way too easy to disperse peaceful protestors when their message is politically inconvenient. The people you linked to were not protesters, they were rioters and anything but peaceful. A water cannon would have done a better job than the microwave weapon anyway.

Re:You say it like it is a bad thing.

[Joce640k]

I can easily see this going badly wrong.

eg. In a big crowd the people at the back won't feel anything but they can be blocking the escape of the people at the front. The people at the front will have nowhere to go and could be exposed to this for a very long time. That's torture by any definition.