US military want to boil you alive

[DanielS]

I bet the Met. Police can't wait to get their grubby paws on this one for this year's May Day marches...

 

10.30am

 

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Ray gun brings some zap to the battlefield

 

 

Matt Weaver and agencies

Thursday January 25, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

 

 

The US military's Active Denial System, a non-lethal ray gun that fires microwaves that makes people feel they are about to catch fire. Photograph: Elliott Minor/AP

 

The American military has unveiled its latest hi-tech weapon - a virtual flame-thrower on top of a Humvee that microwaves enemies at 500 paces.

The ray gun, which is supposed to be harmless, is designed to make people feel they are about to catch fire and drop their weapons.

 

The futuristic new weapon, called the Active Denial System, was tested yesterday on 10 journalists who volunteered to be fired at.

 

Airmen zapped beams from a dish on a Humvee at the volunteers. They were treated to a blast of 54C (130F) heat, that was said not to be painful but intense enough to make them feel they were about to ignite.

 

The test was carried out at a distance of 500 yards - nearly 17 times the range of existing non-lethal weapons such as rubber bullets.

Military officials say it would help save lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is not expected to go into production until 2010.

 

"This is one of the key technologies for the future," said Marine Colonel Kirk Hymes, director of the non-lethal weapons programme which helped develop the new weapon.

 

"Non-lethal weapons are important for the escalation of force, especially in the environments our forces are operating in."

 

The system uses tiny waves, which only penetrates 0.4mm of the skin, just enough to cause discomfort. By comparison, common kitchen microwaves penetrate several centimetres of skin. The system was developed by the military, but the two devices currently being evaluated were built by defence contractor Raytheon.

 

Airman Blaine Pernell, said he could have used the system during his four tours in Iraq, where he manned watchtowers around a base near Kirkuk.

 

"All we could do is watch them," he said. But if they had the ray gun, troops "could have dispersed them".

[heighway]

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[Jarg Armani]

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