Air Force demonstrates non-lethal weapons

[Joanne98]

Air Force demonstrates non-lethal weapons
http://www.tribstar.com/statenews/cnhinsall_story_025003212.html
Technology key to next generation of warfare

By Kari L. Sands
THE VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES (VALDOSTA, Ga.)

VALDOSTA, Ga. — U.S. troops throughout the world are involved in complex peace-keeping operations that often require the use of non-lethal force.

The Active Denial System, a weapon that meets the criteria for non-lethal force, was demonstrated to the media Wednesday morning at Moody Air Force Base.

The ADS is a non-lethal, long range, energy weapon. The system projects a focused beam of electromagnetic millimeter waves up to 500 meters to induce an intolerable heating sensation on an adversary’s skin, repelling the individual without causing injury.

Personnel involved with this evolution in warfare technology gathered at Moody to discuss alternatives for peacetime and wartime missions. Theodore Barna, assistant deputy under the Secretary of Defense, began by saying, “We are defining emerging technology needed by warfighters, then putting the effective technological advances in the hands of our warfighters.”

Col. Kirk Hymes spoke on his area of expertise, including management, planning, and policy issues regarding non-lethal weapons.

“We stay in tune with the needs of the warfighters,” said Hymes. “They have told us that they need more non-lethal weapons as a lethal response is not always the best defense. These non-lethal weapons like ADS demonstrate technology that is truly transformational. It’s effective and equally compelling at five meters or 500 meters.”

Stephanie Miller, technology advisor for Radio Frequency Radiation Branch, said, “At 95 ghtz., this short wave length reacts very superficially. We have looked at cancer, infertility, and birth defects as results and have detected no risks. The risk of even the most minor injury is one-tenth of 1 percent.”

“It’s an amazing weapon with the same effect on everyone. It’s very consistent,” Miller later added.

The Air Force has been conducting research on the effects and enabling technologies since the late 1980s to develop the ADS. The ADS will provide military personnel with a weapon that has the same non-lethal effect on all targets and can be utilized in crowd and mob dispersal, checkpoint and perimeter security, area denial, port protection, and infrastructure protection among other military uses. With a millimeter frequency wave that reaches a skin depth of about 1/64th of an inch, more than 600 volunteers have participated in testing. All testing strictly adheres to the procedures, laws, and federal regulations governing human research. The tests involving humans have been reviewed by an Institutional Review Board composed of a diverse group of qualified experts.
http://www.tribstar.com/statenews/cnhinsall_story_025003212.html

[peacebird]

1. How does this effect elderly? People with medical conditions? Remember the TASER is "non-lethal"

yet how many people have died as a result of being tasered?

Very frightening.

[LynnTheDem]

4. "someone in the path of a HPM burst might be cooked like a meal readied by a microwave oven"

Source: Scientific American, February 18, 2003
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CBC91-B6FD-1E51-A98A809EC5880105

Killing Me Softly...
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2001/03/newshole1.html

[PDJane]

2. Scares the hell out of me...........

because it's going to be used on civilian populations somewhere, and there's no guarantee the damn thing is non-lethal on children, the elderly, or those with already compromised systems.

[MikeNearMcChord]

3. I bet these bastards would love to demonstrate this on Jan 27th

[wtmusic]

5. Intolerable?

If a crowd decides that King George's policies are more intolerable than brief bursts from their little ray-gun, it may have no effect. What do they do then? Fry people alive?

[wtmusic]

6. The timing of this announcement wouldn't be intentional, would it?

Nah.

[NobleCynic]

7. It is a noble idea

that is perfectly suited to be used in all the wrong ways

[TheWatcher]

10. I'm sure Hitler thought the Final Solution was a Noble Idea as well.

This was by it's very design to be used in all the wrong ways to begin with.

[Az_lefty]

8. it's going to be tested on protesters first...

remember that asshole AF general that wanted to test these new weapons on protesters? He wanted to make sure they were safe before using them on enemy combatants.

(can someone help me with the link?)

Found it: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060913&articleId=3213

[Kablooie]

9. California is about to make spanking illegal so this sounds like a good alternative.

[llmart]

11. I just read your tag line.....

please tell me that idiotic asshole didn't actually say that.

[Kablooie]

13. I copied it word for word from a video clip.

[Nihil]

12. Can someone help me on this please?

> It’s effective and equally compelling at five meters or 500 meters.

How can this be true?

I thought that the effect would drop off due to the inverse square law
and so if the weapon has the desired effect at 500m then it would be
devastatingly dangerous at 5m as the intensity of the beam would be
so much stronger?

If the beam is "focussed" at 500m (or whatever is the range setting)
does this just mean that it will be out of focus at 495m and so not
as intense?