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| "Death Rays" in testing |
| 2004-05-04 |
| by Jim Wilson, Popular Mechanics. A good, short article on the several models of directed-energy weaponry now being tested. EFL. . . . Over the next few minutes we watch the Army’s Humvee-mounted Zeus laser cast its glowing eye upon an assortment of unexploded ordnance. Seeing Zeus in action, we realize we are looking at more than a fast new tool for safely clearing unexploded ordnance. We are looking at the first major military breakthrough of the 21st century. . . . Thus far, the most compact chemical laser to score a kill is the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL), shown here. A few weeks before PM’s visit to White Sands, MTHEL became the first laser weapon to track and destroy multiple artillery projectiles in flight at the missile range. The Air Force is using similar chemical laser technology for its Scud-killing airborne laser, which fits inside a modified Boeing 747-400 freighter. Zeus makes a sharp break with the past. Instead of using highly reactive chemicals to create a laser beam inside a plume of hot gas, Zeus performs its magic inside a special type of glass. Its operating principle is the same as that of all solid-state lasers, including those in CD drives and DVD players. Basically, light from a beefed-up flashbulb sends a stream of photons into nine neodymium-doped glass discs. Inside the discs, the light, which can be thought of as a rabble of raw recruits, becomes organized into a crack drill team--what physicists call a beam of coherent, monochromatic light. Gaining strength as more light is pumped in, the colorless laser beam bursts out one side of the crystal with enough power to heat steel at 200 yards. . . . Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., which developed the 10-kilowatt SSHC laser for the Zeus system, believe the power can be increased to the 100 kilowatts needed to |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 capt joe - old Al Gore speeches / Death Rays? Not unless someone gets singed by the hot air. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-04 7:10:12 PM |
| #4 harsh sounds!! Are they broadcasting old Al Gore speeches. Isn't that against the Geneva Convention |
| Posted by: capt joe 2004-05-04 7:06:37 PM |
| #3 i think those Microwave systems are far more evil then lasers to people. I read about 5 months ago an article that claimed the Marines were sending 24 (i think) portable systems mainly for crowd control that used extremely harsh sound waves that are and fired and directed much like a conventional 'machine gun', its meant to be extremely unpleasant to have beamed on you and can cause eardrums to break too! Trouble is i cant find what the fuck ever happened to them, did they even make it onto the ship to go to Iraq? Also i seem to recall again US marines trialing a microwave beam emitting weapon that heats the skin to unbearable temperature and basically will cook you if you don't turn heel and run very fast , the system was deployed on a Humvee but again this system seems to have dropped off the radar.Maybe it was shit, maybe it was to brittle for military use,maybe it went 'black' as such, oh well there you have it my liited know how on Death Rays,interesting stuff,hey wonder what cooked Islamozoid smells like? :) |
| Posted by: Shep UK 2004-05-04 1:46:44 PM |
| #2 That was a reference to one of our classic postings, on Arafat's paranoid fear of Israeli death rays. IIRC, you're relatively new in town, and so might not catch all the "inside baseball" references. My bad; shoulda put a link in. |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-05-04 1:46:21 PM |
| #1 100 kilowatts needed to microwave Yassir Arafat Mike : How about Mullah al-Sadr in Iraq? Or maybe the whining Al-Jazeera cameraman? |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-04 1:16:10 PM |