China's Progress in Directed Energy Weapons Impressive

[Dragon Emperor]

China advancing laser weapons program
November 22, 2010 admin 331No commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.whiteowlconspiracy.com%2Funcategorized%2Fchina-advancing-laser-weapons-program%2FChina+advancing+laser+weapons+program2010-11-22+12%3A12%3A00adminhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.whiteowlconspiracy.com%2F%3Fp%3D331

(Jon E. Dougherty – WorldNetDaily) Not only is the Chinese military advancing rapidly in the field of anti-satellite, anti-missile laser weapon technology, but its technology equals or surpasses U.S. laser weapons capabilities currently under development, informed sources have told WorldNetDaily.
According to Mark Stokes, a military author specializing in Chinese weapons development, Beijing’s efforts to harness laser weapons technology began in the 1960s, under a program called Project 640-3, sanctioned by Chairman Mao Zedong. The Chinese, he said, renamed the project the “863 Program” in 1979, after a Chinese researcher named Sun Wanlin convinced the Central Military Commission “to maintain the pace and even raise the priority of laser development” in 1979.
Today, Beijing’s effort to develop laser technology encompasses over “10,000 personnel — including 3,000 engineers in 300 scientific research organizations — with nearly 40 percent of China’s laser research and development (R & D) devoted to military applications,” Stokes wrote in an analytical paper provided to WorldNetDaily.

China’s “DEW (Directed Energy Weapons) research (is) part of a larger class of weapons known to the Chinese as ‘new concept weapons’ (xin gainian wuqi), which include high power lasers, high power microwaves, railguns, coil guns, (and) particle beam weapons,” Stokes said. “The two most important organizations involved in R&D; of DEW are the China Academy of Sciences and the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND).”

To underscore Beijing’s fixation with laser weaponry, the Hong Kong Standard reported Nov. 15 that the Chinese have developed a laser-based anti-missile, anti-satellite system.

“China’s system shoots a laser beam that destroys the [guidance systems] and causes the projectile to fall harmlessly to the ground,” the paper said.

The report also noted that Beijing had “conducted tests of its new technology since August 1999,” and said the system was “similar to the laser defense system technology being developed by the U.S. Air Force.”

Rick Fischer, a congressional Chinese military hardware expert, told WorldNetDaily that recent photographs of Chinese main battle tanks taken during military parades held in celebration of China’s 50th anniversary of Communism in October showed “what was described as a photoelectric device that may have been a ground-based laser equivalent” of the same ASAT system.

Fischer said the U.S. is currently developing a similar weapon, whereby “a ground-based laser would be capable of producing a ‘dazzle’” strong enough to knock an incoming missile off course.”

However, he cautioned, “the Chinese may have beat us to the punch,” though he said attempts to classify the new battle tank equipment as “definitely laser technology” were inconclusive.

As early as 1997, the Army reported successfully test-firing a ground-based laser called MIRCL at an orbiting Air Force MSTI-3 research satellite as it passed over the Army’s White Sands, New Mexico, test facility. According to one published report, “Two bursts from the chemical laser struck a sensor array on the MSTI-3 craft.” The U.S. firms Boeing and TRW are also developing an airborne laser defense system, fitted to a cargo model of the 747 airliner, that would be capable of targeting incoming ICBMs and other medium-range missiles, either destroying them or rendering them incapacitated.

U.S. officials downplayed the results of the Army’s laser tests, saying only that they were “a research experiment, not a step towards a space weapon.”

But since the Hong Kong newspaper account, officials and experts in the United States have begun to re-examine the issue of Chinese military laser technology, which now may be even more advanced than developments first revealed by the Cox Committee.

According to the Cox report, Beijing had already managed to obtain sensitive laser technology enabling them to test miniature nuclear weapons and to assist the Chinese navy in locating hard-to-find U.S. nuclear submarines.

Unclassified documents provided to WorldNetDaily also provide detailed technical information on new Chinese beam director designs for high-powered laser weapons — specifically those designed for eventual “anti-satellite missions,” anti-missile applications and for blinding combatants in the field. Stokes said the Chinese were especially interested in the development of “free electron laser” weapons, “because they have a number of advantages, including their adjustable wavelength and bandwidth and their potential range of 5,000 kilometers.”

According to documents, Li Hui, Director of the Beijing Institute of Remote Sensing Equipment, a developer of optical precision and photoelectronic guidance systems for surface-to-air missiles, “has cited laser technology as the only effective means to counter cruise missiles.”

Hui has “encouraged the acceleration of laser weapons development,” the documents said, while stressing that an “anti-cruise missile laser weapon” already developed by China “utilizes…the most mature high-energy laser technology, the deuterium-fluoride (DF) chemical laser.”

“Li Hui’s statement advocating ground-based laser weapons for use against missiles is not the first by a Chinese weapons developer,” the documents said. “The 1028th Research Institute (RI) of the Ministry of Information Industry, a major Chinese developer of integrated air defense systems, has analyzed the use of lasers in future warfare. Such uses include active jamming of electro-optics, blinding combatants and damaging sensors, causing laser-guided weapons to deviate from their true targets, and target destruction.”

The 1028th’s analysis, the papers said, “concluded with the statement, ‘The appearance of laser weapons will have a significant impact on modern warfare. On today’s electronic battlefield, it is natural for defensive systems to use low-energy laser weapons to damage enemy electronic equipment. When high-energy lasers that can directly destroy tanks, planes and ships develop and mature, they will be formidable offensive weapons.’”

Stokes’ research supports the Cox Committee’s conclusions about Chinese intentions to build a variety of high-tech laser weapons. Though he said “there is no proof or strong indication that development” of such weapons “is in a more advanced stage in China than in the U.S.,” he notes that China’s People’s Liberation Army “is placing greater emphasis on lasers and their potential military applications.”

“The Academy of Military Science, the PLA’s leading think-tank on future warfare,” Stokes said, “believes lasers will be an integral aspect of 21st century war.”

/news/archives.asp?ARCHIVE_ID=16Charles Smith, a WorldNetDaily staff writer and founder of Softwar, wrote Jan. 26 that new Chinese laser systems not only are rapidly advancing, but they incorporate microchip technology obtained through export from the U.S.

“The Clinton administration allowed the export of advanced radiation-hardened microchip technology, vital electronic components for military satellites and nuclear weapons, to Russia and China,” Smith wrote. The technology allowed China to build air-defense laser systems powerful enough to deliver an “estimated…10,000 watts of output power on a target up to 500 miles away.” Smith said the Chinese are preparing to deploy “an even more powerful ground-based laser by the year 2000.”

The Pentagon declined to comment on current Chinese laser weapons development, but most experts who spoke with WorldNetDaily believe the Chinese have obtained advanced laser technology from multiple sources. They also believe Beijing is involved in an ongoing plan to “acquire” new laser weapons technologies either by producing them domestically, buying them or through espionage.

William Triplett II, co-author of the Chinese espionage bestseller, “Year of the Rat,” and a new book detailing Chinese military prowess called “Red Dragon Rising,” said he believed Beijing may have stolen some U.S. ASAT and laser technology, but indicated that in the end that may prove to be a small part of their developmental process.

“Right now the Chinese are in the cat-bird seat,” he said. “They have holes in their capabilities, but they have access to cutting-edge military technology from both Russia and the U.S. What they couldn’t get from us they have bought from Moscow.”

Triplett said that while China’s use of laser technology was “advanced,” Beijing’s ASAT and anti-missile laser weaponry was “not yet equal” to U.S. capabilities.

“The degree to which espionage” was involved with Chinese acquisition of laser technology “is really not clear,” said Fischer. “We can assume with a high degree of certainty that Beijing is seeking Russian laser technology, but they themselves have devoted enormous resources” to the research and development of laser weaponry, he said.

Stokes added, “Chinese analysts see directed energy weapons as important for China’s air defense and counterspace efforts. DEW efforts also reflect a diversification of China’s nuclear weapons industry.”

From China advancing laser weapons program | White Owl Conspiracy

What are DEW? Read below:

Directed-energy weapon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about practical experiments with energy weapons. For fictional uses, see raygun.
Humvee with Active Denial System mounted
Humvee with Active Denial System mounted

A directed-energy weapon (DEW) emits energy in an aimed direction without the means of a projectile. It transfers energy to a target for a desired effect. Intended effects may be non-lethal or lethal. Some such weapons are real, or are under active research and development.

The energy can come in various forms:

* Electromagnetic radiation, in lasers or masers
o Heat
* Particles with mass, in particle beam weapons
* Sound, in sonic weapons

Some such weapons, perhaps most, at present only appear in science fiction, non-functional toys, film props or animation.

In science fiction, these weapons are sometimes known as death rays or rayguns and are usually portrayed as projecting energy at a person or object to kill or destroy. Many modern examples of science fiction have more specific names for directed energy weapons, due to research advances.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Operational advantages
* 2 Problems and considerations
o 2.1 Blooming
o 2.2 Evaporated target material
o 2.3 High power consumption
o 2.4 Beam absorption
o 2.5 Lack of indirect fire capabilities
* 3 Lasers
o 3.1 Electrolaser
o 3.2 Radio frequency
o 3.3 Microwaves
o 3.4 Pulsed Energy Projectile
* 4 Particle beam weapons
o 4.1 Plasma weapons
o 4.2 Electric beam in a vacuum
o 4.3 Speed of the weapon
* 5 Sonic weapons
* 6 History
o 6.1 Ancient inventors
o 6.2 Robert Watson-Watt
o 6.3 Engine-stopping rays, urban legend made real
o 6.4 Tesla
o 6.5 German World War II experimental weapons
o 6.6 Strategic Defense Initiative
o 6.7 Iraq War
* 7 Non-lethal weapons
* 8 See also
* 9 Notes
* 10 References
* 11 External links

[edit] Operational advantages

Laser weapons could have several main advantages over conventional weaponry:

* Laser beams travel at the speed of light, so there is no need (except over very long distances) for users to compensate for target movement when firing over long distances. Consequently, evading a laser after it has been fired is impossible.
* Light has negligible mass, so is little influenced by gravity, so that long range projection requires little compensation. Other aspects such as wind speed can be neglected at most times, unless shooting through clouds.
* Lasers can change frequency to provide an active area that can be much smaller or larger than projectile weaponry.
* Given a sufficient power source, laser weapons could essentially have limitless ammunition.
* Because light has a practically nil ratio (exactly 1 / c) of momentum to energy, lasers produce negligible recoil.
* The operational range of a laser weapon can be much larger than that of a ballistic weapon, depending on atmospheric conditions and power level.

Modern ballistic weapons commonly feature systems to counter many undesirable side-effects mentioned for them in the above comparison. As such it follows that laser weapons advantage over ballistics, could end up more about elegance and cost.
[edit] Problems and considerations
[edit] Blooming

Laser beams begin to cause plasma breakdown in the air at energy densities of around a megajoule per cubic centimeter. This effect, called "blooming," causes the laser to defocus and disperse energy into the atmosphere. Blooming can be more severe if there is fog, smoke, or dust in the air.

Reducing blooming:

* Spread the beam across a large, curved mirror that focuses the power on the target, to keep energy density en route too low for blooming to happen. This requires a large, very precise, fragile mirror, mounted somewhat like a searchlight, requiring bulky machinery to slew the mirror to aim the laser.
* Use a phased array. For typical laser wavelengths this method requires billions of micrometre-size antennae. No way to make these is known. However, carbon nanotubes have been proposed. Phased arrays could theoretically also perform phase-conjugate amplification (see below). Phased arrays do not require mirrors or lenses, can be made flat and thus do not require a turret-like system (as in "spread beam") to be aimed, though range will suffer at extreme angles (that is, the angle the beam forms to the surface of the phased array).[1]
* Use a phase-conjugate laser system. Here, a "finder" or "guide" laser illuminates the target. Any mirror-like ("specular") points on the target reflect light that is sensed by the weapon's primary amplifier. The weapon then amplifies inverted waves in a positive feedback loop, destroying the target with shockwaves as the specular regions evaporate. This avoids blooming because the waves from the target passed through the blooming, and therefore show the most conductive optical path; this automatically corrects for the distortions caused by blooming. Experimental systems using this method usually use special chemicals to form a "phase-conjugate mirror". In most systems, the mirror overheats dramatically at weapon-useful power levels.
* Use a very short pulse that finishes before blooming interferes.
* Focus multiple lasers of relatively low power on a single target.

[edit] Evaporated target material

Another problem with weaponized lasers is that the evaporated material from the target's surface begins to shade. There are several approaches to this problem:

* Induce a standing shockwave in the ablation cloud. The shockwave then continues to perform damage.
* Scan the target faster than the shockwave propagates
* Induce plasmic optical mixing at the target. Modulate the transparency of the target's ablation cloud to one laser by another laser, perhaps by tuning the laser to the absorption spectra of the ablation cloud, and inducing population inversion in the cloud. The other laser then induces local lasing in the ablation cloud. The beat frequency that results can induce frequencies that penetrate the ablation cloud.

[edit] High power consumption

One major problem with laser weapons (and directed-energy weapons in general) is their high electric energy requirements. Existing methods of storing, conducting, transforming, and directing energy are inadequate to produce a convenient hand-held weapon. Existing lasers waste much energy as heat, requiring still-bulky cooling equipment to avoid overheating damage. Air cooling could yield an unacceptable delay between shots. These problems, which severely limit laser weapon practicality at present, might be offset by:

1. Cheap high-temperature superconductors to make the weapon more efficient.
2. More convenient high volume electricity storage/generation. Part of the energy could be used to cool the device.

Chemical lasers use energy from a suitable chemical reaction instead. Chemical oxygen iodine laser (hydrogen peroxide with iodine) and deuterium fluoride laser (atomic fluorine reacting with deuterium) are two laser types capable of megawatt-range continuous beam output. Managing chemical fuel presents other problems, so the problems of cooling and overall inefficiency remain.

This problem could also be lessened if the weapon were mounted either at a defensive position near a power plant, or on board a large, possibly nuclear powered, water-going ship. A ship would have the advantage of water for cooling.
[edit] Beam absorption

A laser beam or particle beam passing through air can be absorbed or scattered by rain, snow, dust, fog, smoke, or similar visual obstructions that a bullet would easily penetrate. This effect adds to blooming problems and makes the dissipation of energy into the atmosphere worse.

The wasted energy can disrupt cloud development since the impact wave creates a "tunneling effect". Engineers from MIT and the U.S. Army are looking into using this effect for precipitation management.
[edit] Lack of indirect fire capabilities

Indirect fire, as used in artillery warfare, can reach a target behind a hill, but is not feasible with line-of-sight DEWs. Possible alternatives are to mount the lasers (or perhaps just reflectors) on airborne or space-based platforms.
[edit] Lasers
A USAF Boeing YAL-1 airborne laser
See also: Electromagnetic weapon

Lasers are often used for sighting, ranging and targeting for guns; but the laser beam is not the source of the weapon's firepower.

Laser weapons usually generate brief high-energy pulses. A one megajoule laser pulse delivers roughly the same energy as 200 grams of high explosive, and has the same basic effect on a target. The primary damage mechanism is mechanical shear, caused by reaction when the surface of the target is explosively evaporated.[citation needed]

Most existing weaponized lasers are gas dynamic lasers. Fuel, or a powerful turbine, pushes the lasing media through a circuit or series of orifices. The high-pressures and heating cause the medium to form a plasma and lase. A major difficulty with these systems is preserving the high-precision mirrors and windows of the laser resonating cavity. Most systems use a low-powered "oscillator" laser to generate a coherent wave, and then amplify it. Some experimental laser amplifiers do not use windows or mirrors, but have open orifices, which cannot be destroyed by high energies.[citation needed]

Some lasers are used as non-lethal weapons, such as dazzlers which are designed to temporarily blind or distract.

Specific examples include:

* The Zeus laser weapon is the first laser and the first energy weapon of any type to be given actual use on a battlefield. It is used for neutralizing mines and unexploded ordnance.
* Laser Area Defense System.
* The Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) is an experimental U.S. Navy deuterium fluoride laser and was tested against an Air Force satellite in 1997.
* In 2011, the U.S. Navy began to test the Maritime Laser Demonstrator (MLD), a laser for use aboard its warships. [2] [3]
* Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response, or PHaSR, is a non-lethal hand-held weapon developed by the United States Air Force [4] Its purpose is to "dazzle" or stun a target. It was developed by Air Force's Directed Energy Directorate.
* Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) is a weaponized deuterium fluoride laser developed in a joint research project by Israel and the U.S. It is designed to shoot down aircraft and missiles. See also National missile defense.
* The U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser, or Advanced Tactical Laser, is a plan to mount a CO2 gas laser or COIL chemical laser on a modified Boeing 747 to shoot down missiles.[5][6]
* Northrop Grumman has announced the availability of a high-energy solid-state laser weapon system that they call FIRESTRIKE. The system is modular, using 15 kW modules that can be combined to provide various levels of power.
* Portable Efficient Laser Testbed (PELT)[7]
* Laser AirCraft CounterMeasures (ACCM)

Further information: Laser applications
[edit] Electrolaser
Main article: Electrolaser

An electrolaser lets blooming occur, and then sends a powerful electric current down the conducting ionized track of plasma so formed, somewhat like lightning. It functions as a giant high energy long-distance version of the Taser or stun gun.
[edit] Radio frequency

High-energy radio-frequency weapons (HERF) work on the same principles as microwave ovens, have also shown potential.

On January 25, 2007 the US Army unveiled a device mountable on a small armored vehicle (HMMWV). It resembles a planar array. It can make people feel as if the skin temperature is around 130 °F (54 °C) from around 500 yards (460 m) away. Full scale production of such a weapon is not expected until at least 2010. It is probably most usefully deployed as an Active Denial System.
[edit] Microwaves

Microwave guns powerful enough to injure humans are possible:

* Active Denial System is a millimeter wave source that heats the water in the target's skin and thus causes incapacitating pain. It is being developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and Raytheon for riot-control duty. Though intended to cause severe pain while leaving no lasting damage, some concern has been voiced as to whether the system could cause irreversible damage to the eyes. There has yet to be testing for long-term side effects of exposure to the microwave beam. It can also destroy unshielded electronics.[8] The device comes in various sizes including attached to a humvee.
* Vigilant Eagle is an airport defense system that directs high-frequency microwaves towards any projectile that is fired at an aircraft.[9] The system consists of a missile–detecting and tracking subsystem (MDT), a command and control system, and a scanning array. The MDT is a fixed grid of passive infrared (IR) cameras. The command and control system determines the missile launch point. The scanning array projects microwaves that disrupt the surface-to-air missile's guidance system, deflecting it from the aircraft.[10]
* Bofors HPM Blackout is a versatile and compact stand alone High Power Microwave system suitable for evaluation, research and as a decision tool for microwave effects and/or protection. With this system a realistic perspective is possible with regard to tactical adaptation and the generated level of microwave radiation. Bofors HPM Blackout has proven destructive effects at considerable distance against a broad field of COTS equipment.[11]

[edit] Pulsed Energy Projectile
Main article: Pulsed Energy Projectile

Pulsed Energy Projectile or PEP systems emit an infrared laser pulse which creates rapidly expanding plasma at the target. The resulting sound, shock and electromagnetic waves stun the target and cause pain and temporary paralysis. The weapon is under development and is intended as a non-lethal weapon in crowd control.
[edit] Particle beam weapons
Main article: Particle beam weapon

Particle beam weapons can use charged or neutral particles, and can be either endoatmospheric or exoatmospheric. Particle beams as beam weapons are theoretically possible, but practical weapons have not been demonstrated. Certain types of particle beams have the advantage of being self-focusing in the atmosphere.

Blooming is also a problem in particle beam weapons. Energy that would otherwise be focused on the target spreads out; the beam becomes less effective:

* Thermal blooming occurs in both charged and neutral particle beams, and occurs when particles bump into one another under the effects of thermal vibration, or bump into air molecules.
* Electrical blooming occurs only in charged particle beams, as ions of like charge repel one another.

[edit] Plasma weapons
Main article: Plasma weapon

Plasma weapons fire a beam, bolt, or stream of plasma, which is an excited state of matter consisting of atomic electrons & nuclei and free electrons if ionized, or other particles if pinched.

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.[12]
[edit] Electric beam in a vacuum

In a vacuum (e.g. in space), an electric discharge can travel a potentially unlimited distance at a velocity slightly slower than the speed of light. This is because there is no significant electric resistance to the flow of electric current in a vacuum. This would make such devices useful to destroy the electrical and electronic parts of satellites and spacecraft. However, in a vacuum the electric current cannot ride a laser beam, and some other means must be used to keep the electron beam on track and to prevent it from dispersing: see particle beam.
[edit] Speed of the weapon

The speed of the energy weapon is determined by the density of the beam. If it is very dense then it is very powerful, but a particle beam moves much slower than the speed of light. Its speed is determined by mass, power, density, or particle/energy density.
[edit] Sonic weapons
Main article: Sonic weaponry

Cavitation, which affects gas nuclei in human tissue, and heating can result from exposure to ultrasound and can damage tissue and organs. Studies have found[citation needed] that exposure to high intensity ultrasound at frequencies from 700 kHz to 3.6 MHz can cause lung and intestinal damage in mice. Heart rate patterns following vibroacoustic stimulation have resulted in serious arterial flutter and bradycardia. Researchers have concluded that generating pain through the auditory system using high intensity sound risked permanent hearing damage.

A multi-organization research program[13] involved high intensity audible sound experiments on human subjects. Extra-aural (unrelated to hearing) bioeffects on various internal organs and the central nervous system included auditory shifts, vibrotactile sensitivity change, muscle contraction, cardiovascular function change, central nervous system effects, vestibular (inner ear) effects, and chest wall/lung tissue effects. Researchers found that low frequency sonar exposure could result in significant cavitations, hypothermia, and tissue shearing. Follow-on experiments were not recommended.

Tests performed on mice show the threshold for both lung and liver damage occurs at about 184 dB. Damage increases rapidly as intensity is increased. Noise-induced neurological disturbances in humans exposed to continuous low frequency tones for durations longer than 15 minutes involved development of immediate and long term problems affecting brain tissue. The symptoms resembled those of individuals who had suffered minor head injuries. One theory for a causal mechanism is that the prolonged sound exposure resulted in enough mechanical strain to brain tissue to induce an encephalopathy.[14]
[edit] History
[edit] Ancient inventors

According to legend, the concept of the "burning mirror" or death ray began with Archimedes who 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. Historians point out that the earliest accounts of the battle did not mention a "burning mirror", but merely stated that Archimedes's ingenuity combined with a way to hurl fire were relevant to the victory. Some attempts to replicate this feat have had some success (though not on any of three attempts by the MythBusters television program). In particular, an experiment by students at MIT showed that a mirror-based weapon was at least possible, if not necessarily practical.[15]
[edit] Robert Watson-Watt

In 1935 the British Air Ministry asked Robert Watson-Watt of the Radio Research Station whether a "death ray" was possible. He and colleague Arnold Wilkins quickly concluded that it was not feasible, but as a consequence suggested using radio for the detection of aircraft and this started the development of radar in Britain. See: History of radar#Robert Watson-Watt.
[edit] Engine-stopping rays, urban legend made real

Engine-stopping rays are a variant that occurs in fiction and myth. Such stories were circulating in Britain around 1938. The tales varied but in general terms told of tourists whose car engine suddenly died and were then approached by a German soldier who told them that they had to wait. The soldier returned a short time later to say that the engine would now work and the tourists drove off. A possible origin of some of these stories arises from the testing of the television transmitter in Feldberg, Germany. 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. A distorted retelling of the events might give rise to the idea that a transmission killed the engine [16]

A shoulder-mounted engine-stopping weapon was a central plot element in episode 303 of BBC espionage drama serial Spooks, in which it was referred to as an "engine killer".

Modern car engines are not mechanically, but electronically controlled. Disabling the electronics can indeed stop the engine. This has been implemented in OnStar, which has a remote control feature, but this is not a weapon. See also electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which is known for its engine-stopping effect, but is an undirected energy weapon.
[edit] Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a noted inventor, scientist and electrical engineer. He invented Tesla coils, transformers, alternating current electrical generators and was the first early pioneer of radio technology. Tesla worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon from the early 1900s until his death. In 1937, Tesla composed a treatise entitled The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media concerning charged particle beams.[17]

Tesla was noted for claiming that he had developed what he called a "teleforce" weapon, or death ray. This death ray could "send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles (400 km) from a defending nation's border and will cause armies of millions to drop dead in their tracks", as said in an article. He offered this invention to the U.S. War Department and to several European countries without success. Various conspiracy theories persist regarding the nature of this device and the whereabouts of Tesla's model or schematics[18] for it.
[edit] German World War II experimental weapons

In the later phases of World War II, Nazi Germany increasingly put its hopes on research into technologically revolutionary secret weapons, the Wunderwaffen.

Among the directed-energy weapons the Nazis investigated were X-Ray Beam Weapons developed under Heinz Schmellenmeier, Richard Gans and Fritz Houtermans. They built an electron accelerator called Rheotron (invented by Max Steenbeck at Siemens-Schuckert in the 1930s, these were later called Betatrons by the Americans) to generate hard X ray synchrotron beams for the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM). The intent was to pre-ionize ignition in Aircraft engines and hence serve as anti-aircraft DEW and bring planes down into the reach of the FLAK. The Rheotron was captured by the Americans in Burggrub on April 14, 1945.

Another approach was Ernst Schiebolds 'Röntgenkanone' developed from 1943 in Großostheim near Aschaffenburg. The Company Richert Seifert & Co from Hamburg delivered parts.[19]

The Third Reich further developed sonic weaponry, using parabolic reflectors to project sound waves of destructive force. Microwave Weapons were investigated together with the Japanese.
[edit] Strategic Defense Initiative

In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, which was nicknamed Star Wars. It suggested that lasers, perhaps space-based X-ray lasers, could destroy ICBMs in flight. Though the strategic missile defense concept has continued to the present under the Missile Defense Agency, most of the directed-energy weapon concepts were shelved.
[edit] Iraq War

During the Iraq War, electromagnetic weapons, including high power microwaves were used by the U.S. military to disrupt and destroy the Iraqi electronic systems and may have been used for other purposes[which?]. Types and magnitudes of exposure to electromagnetic fields are unknown.[20]
[edit] Non-lethal weapons
Main article: Non-lethal weapons

The TECOM Technology Symposium in 1997 concluded on non-lethal weapons, “Determining the target effects on personnel is the greatest challenge to the testing community,” primarily because "the potential of injury and death severely limits human tests."[21]

Also, "directed energy weapons that target the central nervous system and cause neurophysiological disorders may violate the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980. 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."[22]

Some common bio-effects of non-lethal electromagnetic weapons include:

* Pain
* Difficulty breathing
* Vertigo
* Nausea
* Disorientation
* Other systemic discomfort.

Interference with breathing poses the most significant, potentially lethal results.

Light and repetitive visual signals can induce epileptic seizures. Vection and motion sickness can also occur.

Cruise ships are known to use sonic weapons to drive off pirates.[23]

From Directed-energy weapon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DEW are the future of warfare and it is a good direction in Chinese defense industry. Any news on recent developments and discussions on new Chinese DEW goes here.

 

[anon45]

Conspiracy website + "informed sources"? Can't say the credibility is through the roof here.

 

[Zabaniyah]

Conspiracy website? Not buying it