Set PHASRs On Stun 380
brianber writes to tell us NewScientist is reporting that the US Government has unveiled a new weapon in their non-lethal arsenal. The Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHASR) laser rifle has many potential applications such as temporarily blinding a suspect who drives through a roadblock. So far, however, the DoD has declined to comment on the specific details of how it works.
Can't blind on purpose (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can't blind on purpose (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can't blind on purpose (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nice acronym (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Can't blind on purpose (Score:2, Informative)
Geneva conventions bar the use of maiming weapons, and one that would blind the enemy combatant is right out.
Since when has the US ever obeyed the Geneva convention? [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Blinding the driver (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How is that a problem for America? (Score:3, Informative)
For example, during the March Up to Baghdad in 2003, JAG groups were embeded in the main force and follow-on forces and anything taken, down to the knock-off Pepsi in one of the factories owned by Uday, were paid for or people who owned it were paid for things taken or damaged.
It's not perfect and 100% "clean", but its not really accurate to critize the DoD, a War is a War and it is violent and unfair, but the US and other NATO militaries try much harder than anyone ever has to mitigate the impact on civilians and non-combatants.
Re:ah, who cares about geneva conventions. (Score:5, Informative)
We're napalming civilians, now.
Not to sound condescending to the younger slashdotters amoung us, but this isn't in fact, as recent a development as you might think. There was this thing way back when called The Vietnam War [wikipedia.org], where US forces used napalm quite copiously on civilians.
History inevitably repeats.
Re:Can't blind on purpose (Score:5, Informative)
I just happened to be finishing up an excellent, if a little dated, book on Laser Weapons called 'Laser Weapons - The Dawn of a New Military Age' Its out of print, but if you can find it [amazon.com], I highly recommend it. Co-authored by a military Major General and a Biomedical Engineering professor specializing in eye injuries, etc.
One thing that is NOT in TFA, is this key fact about Low Energy Laser weapons:
The key point here is that a laser weapon like this will only be 'safe' on the targets at night. During the day it won't work.
If you really want to poke around and see whats out there, both experimental and deployed, try some of these searches (and since most stuff related to laser weapons is still highly classified, take what you read with a grain of salt):
These are programs primarily from the late 1980's and 1990's, but it gives you an idea what they were looking at back then and some may still be in R&D today. Systems like Stingray and LDS were deployed at some point or came very close to it.
One thing most people don't realize is that High Energy Laser weapons (HEL) like proposed for SDI, etc, are VERY difficult to deploy and run into serious problems with atmospheric distortion and interference (lookup Laser Thermal Blooming [google.com] on Google - its a neat effect) But Low Energy Laser (LEL) weapons can easily blind soldiers, destroy optics, and destory sensitive sensors on vehicles, aircraft, and missles, and aren't as severely impacted by the environment like HEL weapons are. Plus they are CHEAP to build and the technology is widely available - thus the weapons aren't limited to the G-8. If you think terrorists haven't considered using LELs you're kidding yourself. They may not have the dramatic effect - but imagine the psychological impact on a society (think DC Sniper) if numerous people started going blind just walking down the street. Why do you think the FAA freaked out so badly when people pointed handheld laser pointers at landing aircraft. I have a Class IIIa laser on my desk I bought for $50 - how hard would it
HE vs WP (Score:3, Informative)
Before tanks were hermetically sealed like they are today, you could pretty reliably disable one by dumping some burning stuff on it (napalm, white phosphorous, burning gasoline) if you could get it to fall down into the gap between the turret and the chassis. The turret essentially sits in a hole in the top of the chassis...get something through that gap and it's in the crew compartment. This is why if you're in a tank, you don't want to let yourself get swarmed by rioters with Molotov cocktails; even though it might not seem like they'd be much of a risk to a tank, a few well placed ones can really make life uncomfortable for the crew inside.
As a result, you don't send out armor units without infantry support, because they'll get overrun by foot soldiers and destroyed (a la 'Saving Private Ryan'). An advancing armor unit will almost always be mixed in with regular leg infantry, as force protection.
As a counter to this, if you're an artilleryman and trying to stop an advancing column of tanks with infantry support, you'd use a combination of both air-bursting high explosive (to disable the soldiers) and white phosphorous (to disable the tanks). The command for this is "HE and WP, timed and quick" -- high explosive air bursting (timed fuse) and white phosphorous with a contact-detonating fuse (quick fuse).
Nowadays, I'm not sure that white phosphorous is really used as a weapon per se, I think it's mostly used for the psychological effect, and for illumination. Plus obviously the tactics of huge land armies maneuvering around each other is relatively outdated today.
Re:Can't blind on purpose (Score:4, Informative)
It's not hard to believe though, since a dead criminal is just another statistic, while a live one is a "victim" that some scumbag lawyer can put up in front of a jury and use to wring a settlement out of you, especially if you hit them in the spine and caused any sort of permanent damage.
From a public relations standpoint, it's usually better to create bodies than it is to create cripples. The exception to this might be if creating a body also involves creating a marytr.
Re:Can't blind on purpose (Score:2, Informative)
Here you go, took me about 1 minute to find it, just requires some basic paperwork and you could have it on your desk in about 1 month or less. Yep it's class - IV
http://amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm [amazing1.com]
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