U.S. Military publicly unveils heat-ray gun

[XanBcoo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6297149.stm

I'm actually pretty excited to hear this news. I remember reading about this weapon roughly 4 years ago, when it was still in early-to-mid production stages. I've had an interest in non-lethal weapons ever since. I think it's cool that it's coming along without very many kinks so far. I can't wait until 5 years from now, when they've really got the technology down for this stuff.

Right now, there seems to be a lot of focus mainly on crowd/riot control, but its usage in armed conflict has a lot of potential as well. I'm no anti-war activist, but if it were possible to easily incapacitate enemy troops instead of killing them on the spot, I wouldn't complain. Or if it got to the point where troops could simply heat an entire area, making it so that enemy forces could not physically defend themselves. That's neat.

Or they could just crank up the heat and, y'know, vaporize people. Heh.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1999141,00.html

This article talks about a few safety concerns. I agree that in the wrong hands, this is a pretty dangerous tool. But hey, what weapon isn't?

[6Zabuza9]

wow!! they better make a freeze gun next

[Assassin]

Thats pretty neat.

But it makes you wonder. How long before they go even further with this technoogy and develop a version that can incinerate a river in a matter of minutes. What happens when a secret organization of ninja terrorists steals it and trys to evaporate the gotham river?? The military will be useless, and we will have only one hope......THE DARK KNIGHT!

[el_boss]

Next step... light sabres

[Danad_corps]

Neat idea but i don't know how useful it will be in real life situations. In an angry mob there are hundreds of people (its not called a mob for fun!). If someone is being attacked, people resort to human instinct (protect your children and then every man for himself). They are not going to stand there sending new waves to the vanguard as the previous ones return to the back (that would be a good strategy on their part seeing that by the time the initial group gets sent to the front again, they'd have completed the "cooling period"). Most likely a few in the front will be kept in the front and will receive blisters if not burns. A better crowd-control would be to use that linear sound wave device they showed on Future Weapons.

Btw, i loved that diagram of how it works(the skin part was actually a little informative).

Truck -----(beam)--------->[person]

This could be awesome for use as an actual weapon though. I'm sure they could tweak it so that it's waves penetrate deeper into the skin or just so that its much more efficient at heating things up. Either way, it'd probably be great for making a grilled cheese sandwich.

[ChaosK]

I had the same reaction my friend did..."wtf this isn't star wars".

[XanBcoo]

Neat idea but i don't know how useful it will be in real life situations. In an angry mob there are hundreds of people (its not called a mob for fun!). If someone is being attacked, people resort to human instinct (protect your children and then every man for himself). They are not going to stand there sending new waves to the vanguard as the previous ones return to the back (that would be a good strategy on their part seeing that by the time the initial group gets sent to the front again, they'd have completed the "cooling period"). Most likely a few in the front will be kept in the front and will receive blisters if not burns. A better crowd-control would be to use that linear sound wave device they showed on Future Weapons.

I see what you're saying, but I got the impression that since it's a semi-focused blast and pretty maneuverable, it would be easy to shoot multiple targets. It's not like they're planning on keeping the beam on the "first wave" watching them writhe around in pain. They're gonna target the immediate threat, not the guys who have already been downed.

[Death BOO Z]

hey're gonna target the immediate threat, not the guys who have already been downed.

I find it hard to believe... it's the army, it's too much of a burden for them to target anybody... you pick a target, you stick with it until someone else gets inside the beam...

[complich8]

I was under the impression that this is more of an area-of-effect thing. It's directed, but it's still fairly broad, designed to make a whole lot of people in a small area quite uncomfortable.

Rotating lines of people probably wouldn't work too well. Similarly, it's not going to "down" anyone ... it's going to make people not want to be where they are.

Lastly, the military has very strict codes of ethics. It's unethical to fire indiscriminately, particularly in the presence of innocent bystanders. An incapacitated person would definitely qualify as a bystander, so I don't think the "focus fire on one person" deal would really fly.