U.S. Testing Pain Ray in Afghanistan (Updated)

Originally posted by Signals
One must wonder if some type of suit could protect from the micro ray.

Well, I have seen specialty protective gear for working on operating radar systems, but here's the sad truth - at 95GHz, it's really tough to shield against penetration using a tin foil suit.

Any opening larger than about 62 mils, and it's coming right in. You aren't going to be able to have any seams, from your toes to the top of your head. Or it's coming in the cracks. A non-conductive gap in a seam the size of a ballpen point is as good as a superhighway at 95GHz. Even if you dressed up like Emma Peel in "Positive Negative Man", you're going to burn.

Practically speaking, no band of hippies will be able to field a suit that will work. Metal trash can lids or whatnot are not going to be of any use.

Originally posted by justwokeup
However, i'd be more worried about its torture applications. How long could anybody stand being staked out naked near one of these emitters? No physical damage, just electricity into controllable persistent all over body pain.....

I tend to put this (I hear it a lot) into the "why bother" category. Why would you tie up a relatively expensive piece of equipment to torture someone? It costs a good bit to fire up a VMADS too - the emitter is a gyrotron, that box contains a freaking cryogen! The gyrotron magnet is superconductive, like a MRI machine. It takes a while to spin one up and down, and it uses fuel like no tomorrow when it's running.

There's a lot of ways to torture people that don't really cause a LOT of physical damage that are pretty cheap, if you're into that sort of thing. For example, there is an "off label" use of a fairly common medication that really enhances the sensation of electrical shock. Shocks that you'd laugh off normally become really annoying once they load you up with a nice dose, so you can tell the guy that you're going to electrocute him and not really be doing any damage, but he will think he's being burned alive.

Or there's the old Army story (sort of like an urban legend) of the 100 Questions of the Lubyanka.

And there's always Barbra. I'm pretty sure I'd crack the third or fourth pass of "Memories".

Originally posted by zer0pro
I like how people keep insisting that this thing can't kill you because " THEY told me it can't , it's just a deterrent" THEY would never lie to you... right! Guaranteed that if it truly is non-lethal , THEY are working on the lethal version and THEY won't stop till it can pop you like corn from a mile away.

Well, they don't have to tell me, because I understand Maxwell's equations. It's sort of a giveaway as to the limits of what the thing will do.

And back to "why bother" - instead of developing your putative death beam which costs millions of bucks and is limited by the inverse square problem you have with any DEW, why not get out a Barrett and just stick a 50BMG or .338 round in them for 50 cents?

Hell, I could do it on a good day from half a mile, if you weren't running around a lot. Way cheaper than a death ray.

They'll eventually use this on us. They do with every "non-lethal" weapon. Problem is, this isn't non-lethal. It uses radiation, like a microwave, to heat the water and fat molecules in your body. Heat those suckers enough, and you literally cook. Granted, the beam is at 95GHz, not at 2.45GHz which is what a microwave uses. This only allows beam penetration of 1/64th of an inch. So it can penetrate your eyelids, and babies' flesh. But it doesn't penetrate past the first layer of your skin into the dermis.

On the bright side, maybe these tinfoil hat wearers weren't so off in the first place....

Like all focused energy, the beam will irradiate all matter in the targeted area, including everything beyond/behind it that is not shielded, with no possible discrimination between individuals, objects or materials, although highly conductive materials such as aluminium cooking foil should reflect this radiation and could be used to make clothing that would be protective against this radiation.

Originally posted by againuntodust

On the bright side, maybe these tinfoil hat wearers weren't so off in the first place....

Like all focused energy, the beam will irradiate all matter in the targeted area, including everything beyond/behind it that is not shielded, with no possible discrimination between individuals, objects or materials, although highly conductive materials such as aluminium cooking foil should reflect this radiation and could be used to make clothing that would be protective against this radiation.

No, but they're wrong in thinking they'll be able to make a Bacofoil suit that will make them immune. The wikipedia author is correct in that aluminum will reflect it, but incorrect in that they've obviously never had to deal with RF shielding of high-power microwave sources - ANY opening as large as a tenth of an inch will allow the ADS to light you up. And, practically, they're not going to be able to manage that.

reply to post by Bedlam


Literally using tin foil from the supermarket as body armor isn't really an option any intelligent army or militia would consider. Lining the inside of garments with a similar material would yield the desired result, though.

Originally posted by againuntodust
reply to post by Bedlam

 

Literally using tin foil from the supermarket as body armor isn't really an option any intelligent army or militia would consider. Lining the inside of garments with a similar material would yield the desired result, though.

Not so much. I'm not saying it's literally impossible to do, but it would be the sort of thing I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to pull off in a practical sense, unless they had a LOT of expertise in the area, and even then it would take a lot of specialized test equipment and fabrication facilities you aren't going to see.

I'm not kidding, you get a gap as little as a tenth of an inch, and it'll go right through. Seams, zipper openings, gaps between the pieces of the shielding, you name it, it'll be like it's not there, the signal will get right through.