U.S. beam weapons almost ready for battle

As a Star Wars and Star Trek fan, I always thought these types of weapons were either pure science fiction or at best a long way off in the future. But according to this article, the future is right around the corner from being now.

article

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - There is a new breed of weaponry fast approaching — and at the speed of light, no less. They are labeled "directed-energy weapons," and they may well signal a revolution in military hardware — perhaps more so than the atomic bomb.

Directed-energy weapons take the form of lasers, high-powered microwaves and particle beams. Their adoption for ground, air, sea, and space warfare depends not only on using the electromagnetic spectrum, but also upon favorable political and budgetary wavelengths too.
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After more than two decades of research, the United States is on the verge of deploying a new generation of weapons that discharge beams of energy, such as the Airborne Laser and the Active Denial System, as well as the Tactical High Energy Laser, or THEL.

On the geo-political stage, the imminent deployment of these weapons by the United States might explain the feverish attempts by countries such as iran and north korea to field nuclear weapons and their delivery systems --- before these new directed energy weapons make their "investment" obsolete.


[edit on 1/11/2006 by centurion1211]

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Dubbed the "God particle" by Nobel Prize- winning physicist Leon Lederman (I purchased his book), the Higgs boson is a controversial particle believed to endow all other particles with mass. Lederman's hypothesis supports the existence of the elusive God particle based on its effect on visible particles (in close proximity to it) after a collision in a supercollider. A simpler explanation would be to consider an invisible soccer ball being kicked into a net. Although you wouldn't see the soccer ball fly or enter the net, the bulge in the back of the net would prove the existence of the ball - not to mention a goal.

Would those weapons be like this? If such force that was thrown upon a human (such as in the above article) it would at the very least decapacitate (if not kill) the human?

No, if you read the article and do a little of your own reasearch, these are based on known types of energy such as lasers and microwaves that have been weaponized. Some will kill, but some will also keep an enemy from having to be killed.

From what I know,

If you're pregnant and stand next to a microwave, there's a possibility your baby will become mutated. Now if you direct a lot of that energy at a human, if it wont fry them to crisp, they'll die soon from radiation and whatnot.

I don't see how that weapon can be very effective in the field of battle:

"CHARGE!"
*encounters enemy*
"Hey there Ehud Barak, can you wait till my weapon char-"
*dies*

Originally posted by centurion1211
On the geo-political stage, the imminent deployment of these weapons by the United States might explain the feverish attempts by countries such as iran and north korea to field nuclear weapons and their delivery systems --- before these new directed energy weapons make their "investment" obsolete.

Well their investment is already obsolete unless of course they're planning to use these weapons.

they use them in panal when daddy bush was in office,it showed in some video documentary i watched a while back in usaz history,it showed bodies cut and their wounds burned in,no bleeding..like light saber style cuts.
the one's they using/testing in iraq looks like this

ADS...
active denial sytem READ!!!

it goes into very in depth information as far as the shocks and all that ^

The recent movie "War of the Worlds" might give some insight into what a battle between a conventionally armed military (jets, tanks, cannons, guns) and a U.S. military armed with directed energy weapons might be like. This development has to be very worrisome for the militaries of 2nd and 3rd tier countries - especially those seeking nuclear weapons. What do you do when several hundred stealthy, solid state laser-armed UCAV's appear in your skies and start taking out anything you have that flies through the air (planes, missiles, artillery shells) and moves across the ground? When the military you deprived your own people to get is useless or junk?


[edit on 1/12/2006 by centurion1211]

Yes, the U.S. military is quickly moving towards incorporating beamweaponry into their vast arsenal. As some people have suggested on this site, the weapons could be very much like the weapons from say.... Star Trek. The interesting thing about thse types of weapons are how versital they are.
They can be non-lethal disablers; green lasers such as the SaberShot system www.defense-update.com... which only stuns the target by blinding them (temporarily) or the active denial system, which does the same job, but by causing intense pain rather than blinding.
It is also possible to use these in an anti-personnel and anti-electronic system manner. My dad once told me a story about his time in the USN. The radar (AEGIS i think) was on for testing and one of the engineers failed to realize it was on. He stood in front of it for just a short period of time and was fried from the inside. He died the next day. Furthermore, several countries are pursuing high powered microwaves as a means of frying electric circuits, particularly on planes, to stop incoming missles.
One further use that has been considered is a chemical laser, mounted on either a large plane or a transport helicopter, to use as a weapon against both smalll targets and tactical theatre missles, such as the SCUD.

I was thinking about this further today and have come up with a pretty much non-lethal way to defeat a country. You would drop several of those automated microwave area denial weapons that cause the burning feeling on key military and government facilities. The people manning those facilities would have to flee, and the only way for the country to regain the use of them again would be to attack their own installations with bombs and missiles to try and destroy the transmitters. Now, if I've thought of it, I'm sure the Pentagon has already put the plans in motion.

[edit on 1/12/2006 by centurion1211]

Here is the guys who work on that:

www.de.afrl.af.mil...

And the technology is already extremely far along. The current lasers can project a beam approximately 1000 times hotter then the surface of the sun.

Just a FYI, there are currently a ton of NRO satellites in orbit around the earth that have this technology in it, setup to take out targets as small as a dime and it would look like a lightning strike. The technology is also focused outwards and is used to destroy large space debris (mainly for practice). Besides that its also used as a missle defense shield.

You guys remember that large "Explosion" in North Korea? How it was first stated as an 'accident' and then later they were saying it was a nuclear test? Well, from what I have heard, it was really a strike with one of these weapons on one of their sensitive nuclear development facilites.

Honestly, the lasers out there are powerful enough to carve your initials on the surface of the moon.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

the PhaseR system currently being developed and there are currently 2 types of prototype systems being tested by the us defence departement.




[edit on 22-1-2006 by MarkLuitzen]

Originally posted by Jules M Rogers
It is also possible to use these in an anti-personnel and anti-electronic system manner. My dad once told me a story about his time in the USN. The radar (AEGIS i think) was on for testing and one of the engineers failed to realize it was on. He stood in front of it for just a short period of time and was fried from the inside. He died the next day.

Well, that's not really true of any shipboard radar, but they are certainly unhealthy to stand in front of for extended periods of time, so those of us who worlk on those radars are more than happy to allow and encourage that rumor to propogate. Now the guy who walked in front of a 5GW continuous wave transmitter up in Alaska, he died real quick.

Another thing to remember, Electromagnetic radiation is not the same kind of radioactivity you get from something like a nuclear bomb. It's more like a light or a heat lamp, when you turn it off, things stop glowing. On a very technical level, microwave ovens work by exciting the water molocules in your food, thus inducing heat.

Oh thank your for the correction, it seems I was wrong about it being the AEGIS system. It's been a while since I heard the story.

Oh and by the way, I never said that it was a ship-based system, although I suppose that it may be somewhat inherent in calling it AEGIS, which is normally on ships. Although my dad was in the navy, you must remember that my dad was an engineer, and was certainly not always on a ship. For significant portions of time he was also stationed on land, in Hawaii.

P.S. I do know perfectly well how a microwave works and don't see how the comment about electromagnetic energy is relevant to my post. As best as I can tell, having a high-powered microwave fired at you could easily excite the water molecules in your own body, and as you were so kind to tell me, produce heat. Enough to "cook" you, in fact

sorrey, I wasn't terribly clear in my intentions there. The comment about how microwaves works was directed more at Vinci's comment about waiting for them to die later, and the usual path that winds up taking. (In fact, nearly every net based conversation I've had eventually includes someone who doesn't know the difference)

Anyhow, rephrasing my comments to "It's not the radiation that kills you, but the burns from it" is a pretty close equivilent to "It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end".

I was reading a patent online about a beam weapon. This device sounded very simple. The basic idea is that a beam of ultraviolet light will actually act as a conductor for an electric charge.

So the way the device worked is that you first put the light on the guy, and then the current is sent over the beam, kind of like a laser-tazer. When the dot hits you, wham, you get 50,000 volts or whatever. No wires or antyhing, just plain old UV light.

This patent is probably still out there if you search the database. The point is, not all beam weapons involve heat.

Anyway, here's a pic of the new Puff the Magic Dragon style airplane mounted version of the lasers like you guys are talking about:



Boeing Recieves Aircraft For Laser Gunship Program

Terminator HK, anyone? How long before UAV drones have laser beams? Oh but they won't kill you, they'll just incapacitate you.

Wonderful.

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Terminator HK, anyone? How long before UAV drones have laser beams? Oh but they won't kill you, they'll just incapacitate you.

Wonderful.

Hey, thanks for that link smallpeeps. I hadn't even heard of that program yet. It reinforces what I said on another thread about the so-called arms race with other countries like china, india, iran, etc. Truth is those countries must right now be trying to decide whether to just give up on the arms race, or not. They've been begging, borrowing and stealing to try to come up with their own answer to the F-22, but that isn't even where the U.S. is "playing" anymore. With beam weapons coming on line and planes like the X-51 being announced, any future battle might be like the current U.S. forces battling the martians on the recent War of the Worlds movie.

Time for the rest of the world to throw in the military towel and just concentrate on taking care of their growing populations IMO ...

[edit on 1/24/2006 by centurion1211]

Originally posted by centurion1211

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Terminator HK, anyone? How long before UAV drones have laser beams? Oh but they won't kill you, they'll just incapacitate you.

Wonderful.

Hey, thanks for that link smallpeeps. I hadn't even heard of that program yet. It reinforces what I said on another thread about the so-called arms race with other countries like china, india, iran, etc. Truth is those countries must right now be trying to decide whether to just give up on the arms race, or not. They've been begging, borrowing and stealing to try to come up with their own answer to the F-22, but that isn't even where the U.S. is "playing" anymore. With beam weapons coming on line and planes like the X-51 being announced, any future battle might be like the current U.S. forces battling the martians on the recent War of the Worlds movie.

Time for the rest of the world to throw in the military towel and just concentrate on taking care of their growing populations IMO ...

[edit on 1/24/2006 by centurion1211]

which leads to the question whether such weapons actually exist or are anywhere near being tested. projects tend to be prolonged. though it would be best for all if countries like iran etc would just give up.

all this talk about futuristic weps could just be based on theories of what could be done to make it look like usa is more advanced than they actually are.

though i hope its all real and the weps can soon be used on the battefield

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by warpboost
I don't doubt that they have something triangular in shape. Whether its nuclear powered or anti gravity technology exists I dont know? I dont doub that antigravity research has been done, but did they devlop a working technology???

I remember reading some story about the triangles in the 1st Gulf war flying over the front line troops and vaporizing the Irai positions with a beam/energy weapon. The story even said that one the Marines snapped a pic, but his camera was later confiscated. I don't know where I read that story, but thats probably all it was. I doubt it was a very crdible source where ever I read it.

got this of the page of one of our threads because I knew something came to mind now we are about beam weapons so I digged a little in our older threads. click above link .


also read this www.abovetopsecret.com...
mid section of the article speaks of soldiers describing a fighterdisc
with beam weapons in action in the first gulf war.

[edit on 25-1-2006 by MarkLuitzen]

I spoke of the phaser system in a earlier posting above I just got mail and here is the link on it
www.military.com...

great read.