Army Successfully Demos Laser Weapon Stryker in Germany, DefenseNews.com, March 21, 2018, available at < https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/03/21/us-army-successfully-demos-laser-weapon-on-stryker-in-europe/>. The pain forces the person to flee the area. The scanning array projects microwaves that disrupt the surface-to-air missile's guidance system, deflecting it from the aircraft. [24]China North Industries Corporation, "ZM-87 Portable Laser Disturber Fact Sheet," quoted in Human Rights Watch, "Blinding Laser Weapons: The Need to Ban a Cruel and Inhumane Weapon," September 1995, at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/General1.htm (March 15, 2006). The device emits separate electromagnetic pulses to suppress navigation and transmission channels used to operate an aerial drone, terminating the drone's contact with its operator; the out-of-control drone then crashes. The number of "shots" a laser weapon can produce is limited only by its power supply. So hypersonic kinetic interceptors would have to be capable of achieving speeds of Mach 15 and higher. For example, while the Chinese ZM-87 laser interference device is technically a laser dazzler, it can permanently damage the human eye at a distance of two to three kilometers. LRAD systems are used for long-range communications in a variety of applications[53] and as a means of non-lethal, non-projectile crowd control. EM launchers use electrical energy to throw a mass at a target, thus making them distinct from directed energy. Electronic devices can be shielded by putting conductive metal cages around them; however, enough microwave energy may still get through the shielding to damage the device. U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, "High-Power Microwaves," fact sheet, September 2002, at, Dr. Stephen Adams, "Electrical Power and Thermal Management for Airborne Directed Energy Weapons," U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, September 2001, at, Carlo Kopp, "The Electromagnetic Bomb-A Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction," at, GlobalSecurity.org, "High Power Microwave (HPM)/E-Bomb," at, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, "Active Denial System," fact sheet, September 2005, at, Press release, "Northrop Grumman Surpasses Power, Run-Time Requirements of Joint High Power Solid-State Laser Program for Military Use," Northrop Grumman Corporation, November 9, 2005, at, China North Industries Corporation, "ZM-87 Portable Laser Disturber Fact Sheet," quoted in Human Rights Watch, "Blinding Laser Weapons: The Need to Ban a Cruel and Inhumane Weapon," September 1995, at, "Electromagnetic Weapons: Come Fry with Me,", David Ruppe, "Directed-Energy Weapons: Possible U.S. Use Against Iraq Could Threaten International Regimes," Global Security Newswire, Russias New START Breach Means U.S. Nuclear Weapons Modernization Is a Must, North Koreas Growing ICBM Threat: How America and South Korea Should Respond, China Surpasses U.S. in Nuclear Missile Launchers; U.S. Unprepared to Deter Growing Threat. There is no injury to the target individual. With the ever-increasing use of electronics in weapons systems, HPM devices could have a devastating but nonlethal effect on the battlefield. The THEL system uses radar to detect and track incoming targets. Design specifications are already being determined. However, these lasers were generally large and heavy. and directed energy weapons exist in the medical profession and in society at large. This makes targeting and tracking easier as well. A DE weapon is a system using DE primarily as a direct means to disable, damage or destroy adversary equipment, facilities, and personnel. The Rheotron was captured by the Americans in Burggrub on April 14, 1945. Because electrical noise from car engines would interfere with field strength measurements, sentries would stop all traffic in the vicinity for the twenty minutes or so needed for a test. In addition, while you are firing on one power source, you can be charging another for near continuous operation. According to a legend, Archimedes created a mirror with an adjustable focal length (or more likely, a series of mirrors focused on a common point) to focus sunlight on ships of the Roman fleet as they invaded Syracuse, setting them on fire. Depending on the type of laser, this means that the weapon can have an almost "endless magazine" of laser bursts. How 'Revolutionary' Is CHAMP, New Air Force Microwave Weapon? Weapons that go beyond non-lethal intentions and cause 'superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering' may also violate the Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977."[87]. The device combined two slightly different frequencies which when heard would be heard as the sum of the two frequencies (ultrasonic) and the difference between the two frequencies (infrasonic) e.g. Turning to the air, the United States spent billions of dollars to develop and deploy stealth technology for its fighters and bombers to avoid radar detection and being targeted by surface to air missiles. Discrete, mission-aligned efforts will maintain our pace of development in the race to get these technologies to the field. As the Pentagon addresses these issues, it should do so in the same way that it would for any other category of weapon that it has reviewed. Electrolasers make use of laser bloom, a normally undesired effect. However, the wide variety of missions, platforms, and implementation environments necessitates continued service-differentiated development activities. The EPFCG uses chemical explosives to compress an electrically charged coil. [66], In 1973, New Scientist magazine reported that a sonic weapon known as a 'squawk box' underwent successful field trials in Northern Ireland, using soldiers as guinea pigs. The idea of damage is to inflict moderate injury on enemy communications facilities, weapons systems, and subsystems hardware, and to do so in order to incapacitate the enemy for a certain time. Some common bio-effects of non-lethal electromagnetic weapons include: Interference with breathing poses the most significant, potentially lethal results. The manufacturer states that the weapon can disrupt remote control, the transmission of video at 2.4 and 5 GHz, and GPS and Glonass satellite navigation signals. [10]Press release, "Airborne Laser Progress Continues as Northrop Grumman Runs Full-Power COIL Tests, Delivers Beacon Illuminator Laser," Northrop Grumman Corporation, January 4, 2006, at http://www.irconnect.com/noc/pages/news_printer.mhtml?d=91869 (March 15, 2006). HPM weapon technology is based on the same technology as radar devices, which already have a long history of research and development. Furthermore, the power of lasers and microwave weapons has decreased, allowing for nonlethal uses. [74] Some of the victims of this method suffered from suspicious cases of cancer and have claimed that they had also been targeted with directed X-rays. [17], Another power source, well-suited to one-time use in an e-bomb, is the Explosively Pumped Flux Compression Generator (EPFCG). When directed at humans, a microwave weapon causes atoms to vibrate, which in turn generates heat. [54] They range in size from small, portable handheld units which can be strapped to a person's chest, to larger models which require a mount. Examples of this capability include signal overrides or insertion, power cycling (turning power on and off at irregular intervals) and causing the system to lock-up. These effects are not permanent because the target system will return to normal operation within a specified time, which obviously varies according to the weapon. 3. This plan includes a program which aims to test high energy lasers on aircraft against surface to air and air to air missile threats. There is no injury to the target individual. The megawatt-class laser was tested at full power in early 2006. Potential applications of this technology include weapons that target personnel, missiles, vehicles, and optical devices. On August 24, 2004, the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) system destroyed a salvo of mortar rounds in midair during a test. What exactly is a directed energy weapon? While they are both part of the electromagnetic spectrum, laser and microwave weapons operate very differently and have very different effects. In addition, when the East German state collapsed, powerful X-ray equipment was found in prisons without there being any apparent reason to justify its presence. A microwave weapon can achieve this result by causing malfunctions within certain relay and processing circuits within the enemy target system. Directed energy weapons, such as lasers and microwaves, had enjoyed an exotic aura. Examples of NLFoS weapons include: a 60kW laser called HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance) expected to be deployed by 2021 that will be capable of burning through small boats and shooting down drones; the SSLTM (Solid State LaserTechnology Maturation system), which will eventually be a 150kW laser weapon on the LPD27 amphibious ship; and the ODIN (Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy) that will also go on a destroyer.11. Directed energy weapons are among the high-tech arms of the century. A demonstration system was tested at Kirtland Air Force Base in 2000. Examples of this cited earlier included the Airborne Laser, the Navys LaWS program, and others. . For example, as mentioned earlier, directed energy weapons development can take advantage of progress being made in commercial industry around processors, power generation and management and even lasers subsystems themselves. X-ray lasers may be possible in the not too distant future. The United States cannot allow itself to fall behind in yet another area of warfighting as has happened in hypersonics. In recent years the U.S. Navy deployed a 30kW class solid state laser weapon system (LaWS) prototype on the Afloat Forward Staging Base, USS Ponce. When using laser weapons, the warfighters will need new situational awareness and battle management tools because of the potential long-range effects to avoid friendly systems fratricide. A related project is the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) system, which uses a less powerful version of the ABL's COIL laser, instead of missiles, to attack ground targets. The short, intense bursts of energy produced by HPM devices damage equipment without injuring personnel. Stupor is reported to have been used by Russian forces during the Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war. If the microwave energy travels through the targets own antenna, dome, or other sensor opening, then this pathway is commonly referred to as the front door.7 On the other hand, if the microwave emissions travel through cracks, seams, trailing wires, metal conduits, or seals of the target, then this pathway is called the back door.8. The system consists of several modules: an infrared detection system to detect the missile's launch; the Tracking Illumination Laser (TILL); the Beacon Illuminator Laser (BILL); and the Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL). In the next several years, the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force all plan to develop and field these weapons at an increasing pace. So, for a hypersonic weapon that is travelling at 25 times the speed of sound, a high- energy laser can engage it at roughly 35,000 times its speed. Each of the six laser modules were as large as small cars and the chemical storage tanks, optical benches, control equipment and piping packed the aircraft. At 200 yards away, body temperature increases from the normal 98.6 F to 107 F. At closer range, the temperature increase can be even higher, and is lethal. In the Star Wars movies, a wide variety of directed energy weapons are depicted, from handheld light sabers to massive, spaceship-mounted laser cannons. The ABL is a system that uses a megawatt chemical laser mounted on a modified Boeing 747 to shoot down theater ballistic missiles. This produces a burning pain without actually damaging the tissue. According to DODs Joint Publication 313 Electronic Warfare, directed energy (DE) is described as an: umbrella term covering technologies that produce a beam of concentrated electromagnetic energy or atomic or subatomic particles. A high-voltage electrical charge is then fed into one of the laser beams, striking the target. The destructive power of directed energy weapons (their lethality) derives from the amount of energy transferred to the target over time. The MARAUDER (Magnetically Accelerated Ring to Achieve Ultra-high Directed-Energy and Radiation) used the Shiva Star project (a high energy capacitor bank which provided the means to test weapons and other devices requiring brief and extremely large amounts of energy) to accelerate a toroid of plasma at a significant percentage of the speed of light. The meaning of degrade is to remove the enemys ability to operate and to potentially inflict minimal injury on electronic hardware systems. Since the invention of gunpowder, a weapon's effectiveness has no longer depended on the wielder's strength, but on the chemical energy of the propellant or explosive. Depending on factors such as burst height, microwave frequency, and the shielding around the target electronics, such an e-bomb could have an effective range of several hundred meters. Directed energy weapons could have several main advantages over conventional weaponry: Some devices are described as microwave weapons; the microwave range is commonly defined as being between 300MHz and 300GHz (wavelengths of 1 meter to 1 millimeter), which is within the radiofrequency (RF) range. They have strong physical and psychological effects and can be used for military and terrorist activities. A possible future development is the electrolaser. [13], A related project is the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) system, which uses a less powerful version of the ABL's COIL laser, instead of missiles, to attack ground targets. A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy, including laser, microwaves and particle The power output necessary for a weapons-grade laser ranges from 10 kilowatts to 1 megawatt. This causes the beam to lose focus, dissipating its power. But again, advances in computational power coming out of the gaming industry (such as graphics processing units) and artificial intelligence coming from autonomous automobile development can be instrumental in providing these needed capabilities. Vigilant Eagle is a ground-based airport defense system that directs high-frequency microwaves towards any projectile that is fired at an aircraft. HPM weapons have also been considered for use as nonlethal "heat ray" systems for crowd control. Colonel Craig Hughes, Office of Force Transformation, U.S. Department of Defense, "Re-directed Energy: the Tactical Relay Mirror System," presentation at The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., February 13, 2006. Developing hypersonic interceptors will also be an option in the U.S. defense architecture. These waves penetrate only a few millimeters into the skin and cause the sensation of heat. General DOD policy is that directed-energy weapons can be used legitimately on the battlefield. Adversaries are not waiting to develop directed energy weapons. In early versions of laser weapons, the light was generated by chemical reactions. DEWs use the electromagnetic spectrum (light and radio energy) to attack pinpoint targets at the speed of light. [48], Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, A laser weapon is a directed-energy weapon based on lasers.[50]. [3]Richard M. Roberds, Ph.D., "Introducing the Particle-Beam Weapon," Air University Review, July-August 1984, at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1984/jul-aug/roberds.html (March 15, 2006). The kinetic energy imparted by a particle stream destroys the target by heating the target's atoms to the point that the material literally explodes. The virtual inaudibility of the equipment is said to produce a "spooky" psychological effect. Artilleri-Tidskrift (22009): s. s 1215. getty. The Active Denial System (ADS) is a non-lethal directed-energy weapon developed by the U.S. military, designed for area denial, perimeter security and crowd control. DefenseNews in their coverage of the March 2018 Booz Allen Hamilton/CSBA Directed Energy Summit in Washington highlighted the remark by Colonel Dennis Wille, the Army G3 strategic program chief for U.S. Army Europe, that over the weekend the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment (supported by the 7th Army Training Command and the Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Oklahoma) had conducted a live-fire engagement of the 5kW Mobile Expeditionary High-Energy Laser demonstrator at the Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. The MDT is a fixed grid of passive infrared (IR) cameras. Even the most conservative market projections for directed energy weapons indicate nearly $30 billion being spent by the United States during the next ten years. Are these weapons still science fiction, lab experiments, or are they real? Challenges remain in terms of the size, weight and power input requirements of todays laser systems, especially in the thermal control and power management subsystems. The THEL system uses radar to detect and track incoming targets. The countries abandoned particle-beam weapon research as impracticable.[3]. While not a rifle or gun, it is so nicknamed as it is handled in the same way as a personal rifle. There are reports that the Terra-3 complex at Sary Shagan was used on several occasions to temporarily "blind" US spy satellites in the IR range. "'[68][69], In East Germany in the 1960s, many people were arrested and interrogated for holding politically incorrect views or for performing actions deemed hostile by the ruling socialist state. This damage may create permanent effects depending upon the severity of the attack and the ability of the enemy to diagnose, replace, or repair the affected systems. This makes targeting and tracking easier as well. Thus, the deny capability is not permanent because the affected systems can be easily restored to their previous operational condition. However, considerable work still needs to be done before they can be deployed. Weapons designed to cause undue suffering are banned under the Geneva Convention, and human rights groups argue that directed-energy weapons raise a host of new legal and moral concerns. 4 Slab Lasers, RP Photonics Encyclopedia website, available at
. [4] Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. Today, solid state electrical (including fiber) and hybrid lasers are being developed that are much lighter and smaller. First, the choice of a lasers wavelength can help to mitigate the affect because different laser wavelengths perform much better in the atmosphere than others. from PrayingMedic: Q NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2022 VIDEO: In addition to being able to scale effects on a target, directed energy weapons have inherent attributes that are attractive to the warfighter. [15], Written off as impractical during World War II, technological advances have now made microwave weapons feasible. They can destroy, degrade or blind many other systems that contain sensors and electronics. Because of its coherence, laser light can stay concentrated for very long distanceseven thousands of miles into space. Much work needs to be done before DEWs are deployed. [25]"Electromagnetic Weapons: Come Fry with Me," The Economist, January 30, 2003, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030130-ebomb01.htm (March 15, 2006). For example, when deployed, the anti-ballistic missile Airborne Laser will cost approximately $1,000 per shot,[5] while each Patriot missile currently costs $2 million to $3 million. In practice, the weapon was highly vulnerable to enemy fire. [46] Potentially lethal effects are produced only inside 100 meters range, and disruptive effects at distances on the order of one kilometer. PRISM. "[75], In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, which was nicknamed Star Wars. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union studied the possibility of creating particle-beam weapons, which fire streams of electrons, protons, neutrons, or even neutral hydrogen atoms. In most cases, the target system must be shut off and restarted, and may require minor repairs before it can operate normally again. Therefore, HELs and HPMs could also play a role in the midcourse/terminal phase of both types of hypersonic missile flight. Similar to the Armys RCCTO and the Navys Accelerated Acquisition (AA) Process, the Air Force is leveraging both Air Force Research Laboratorys DE Directorate and Air Force Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office to expedite delivery of capabilities to address key capability gaps identified in the DE flight plan: Forward Base Defense, Precision Strike, and Aircraft Self-Protect. It was capable of damaging or destroying fast attack boats, unmanned aerial vehicles and was used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). There are also three types of EM [81] After the end of the Cold War, the Terra-3 facility was found to be a low-power laser testing site with limited satellite tracking capabilities, which is now abandoned and partially disassembled. One problem that affects laser beam strength is a phenomenon known as "blooming," which occurs when the laser beam heats the atmosphere through which it is passing, turning the air into plasma. [3], China,[4][5][6][7] France,[8][9][10][11] Germany,[8][9] the United Kingdom,[12][13] Russia,[14][15][16] India,[17][18][19] and Pakistan[20][21][22] are also developing military-grade directed-energy weapons, while Iran[23][24][25][26] and Turkey claim to have them in active service. There has yet to be testing for long-term side effects of exposure to the microwave beam. How can they be used and how disruptive can they be? These devices have also been demonstrated to stall or damage car, truck, or boat motors. The distinction between them is the wavelength/frequency of the energy. 12 Jen Judson, U.S. While directed-energy research is advancing, inadequate funding is hindering more rapid development and deployment of these technologies. , 2019, available at . The Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) is an acoustic hailing device developed by Genasys (formerly LRAD Corporation) to send messages and warning tones over longer distances or at higher volume than normal loudspeakers, and as a non-lethal directed-acoustic-energy weapon. RIVERDALE, Md. Russia has reportedly been using blinding laser weapons during its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. These data are then passed on to the mirror system, which makes appropriate corrections so that, when the COIL fires, maximum energy is transmitted to the target. The release noted the HPM and HEL systems engaged and defeated dozens of unmanned aerial system targets during the exercise.14. 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