|
Ray guns and plasma force fields -- this must be the 21st century!
The US Army hopes, within a few years, to deploy a plasma shield a machine that generates a protective screen of dazzling mid-air explosions to stun and disorient an enemy. The device uses a technology known as dynamic pulse detonation (DPD). A short but intense laser pulse creates a ball of plasma, and a second laser pulse generates a supersonic shockwave within the plasma to generate a bright flash and a loud bang.The Plasma Acoustic Shield System will eventually combine a dynamic pulse detonation laser with a high power speaker for hailing or warning, and a dazzler light source. PASS has already been demonstrated by the system's makers, Stellar Photonics. "It uses a programmed pattern of rapid plasma events to create a sort of wall of bright lights and reports (bangs) over the coverage area," says Keith Braun of the US Army's Advanced Energy Armaments Systems Division at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, US, where the system is being tested. . . . PASS may be the first step towards a man-portable, tuneable laser weapon that could be used in both non-lethal and lethal modes. Stellar Photonics, which has a $2.7 million contract to build PASS , plans to develop smaller and more powerful versions in future. The company has also pitched a portable laser rifle, which would be lethal, to the US Army. It would weigh about fifteen kilograms, would have a range of more than a mile, and could have numerous advantages over existing rifles better accuracy and the ability to hit a moving target at the speed of light. It could also be used in non-lethal mode, "offering the individual soldier a first response non-lethal alternative, with the capability to go lethal should the situation call for that level of response", says Braun. But extensive testing of its effects on humans would need to be carried out before it could be legitimately used as a non-lethal weapon. Posted by: Mike 2007-05-01 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=187309 |