Pentagon Unveils Laser Capable of Shooting Down Drones, Mortars

*Source: RT

The US Army has successfully used a vehicle-mounted laser to shoot down numerous mortar rounds and drone aircraft for the first time.

Taking place over the course of several weeks, the test involved destroying more than 90 incoming mortar rounds and multiple drones. Eventually, the Army hopes to test an even more advanced laser system that could shoot down more dangerous weapons, such as incoming cruise missiles.

Named the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD), the current version of the weapon features three to five lasers that can be attached to the top of a military vehicle in a dome-like turret structure. According to Terry Bauer, the Army’s program manager for the weapon at Boeing, when the HEL MD hits a target like a mortar, it heats up the insides to the point that the mortar explodes in mid-air.

“It falls as a single piece of metal with a little bit of shrapnel. It basically falls where it was going to fall, but it doesn’t explode when it hits the ground,” Bauer said to the Christian Science Monitor. “We turn it into a rock, basically.”



When it comes to shooting down drones, the laser can be used to blind an unmanned vehicle’s cameras and take apart its tail, causing the whole thing to come crashing down to earth.

The Army hopes to use the laser to protect bases that come under fire from mortar and rocket attacks. This happened frequently during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Monitor reported that the cheap cost of using lasers would make the weapons a sensible choice for the Pentagon.

Still, officials said it is unlikely that the HEL MD will be ready for combat use before 2022, as the Army is moving to test more advanced versions over the coming years. The current system is equipped with a laser with the strength of 10 kilowatts, but future versions will be outfitted with 50- and 100-kilowatt lasers.

"If you're engaging a target at the same range, a 100 kW laser will destroy the target in one-tenth of the time than the 10kW would," Bauer told AFP.

The HEL MD is just one of the laser-equipped weapons being developed by the United States military. As RT reported in November, the Department of Defense is looking into attaching high-powered lasers to its next-generation fighter jets, which would be capable of tracking and disarming enemy sensors, destroying incoming missile attacks, and going on the offensive.

Meanwhile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced in October its plans to develop drone-mounted laser systems that would be able to shoot missiles down from the sky.

Report: Israel Sells Drones To Azerbaijan.

*Source: YNet News



Israeli-made drone (Archive photo)


Global Post reports Israel, Russia and Iran violating UN-imposed embargo by selling arms to Armenia, Azerbaijan. Observers: Border skirmishes may escalate to wider regional conflict.

Israel, Russia and Iran are violating an international embargo by supplying weapons to Azerbaijan and Armenia in the framework of their dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a number of media outlets reported Wednesday night.

An article published by the American Global Post news magazine quoted international observers as saying that the region’s strategic oil and gas pipelines and a tangled web of alliances and precious resources threaten to quickly escalate the border skirmishes and airspace violations to a wider regional conflict triggered by Armenia and Azerbaijan that could potentially pull in Israel, Russia and Iran.

In March, the American magazine reported, Azerbaijan signed a $1.6 billion arms deal with Israel, which consisted largely of advanced drones and an air defense system. Through this and other deals, Azerbaijan is currently amassing a squadron of over 100 drones from all three of Israel’s top defense manufacturers.
Armenia, the report said, employs only a small number of domestically produced models.

According to the report, the nations of the South Caucasus, where a fragile peace holds over three frozen conflicts, are buzzing with drones they use to probe one another’s defenses and spy on disputed territories.
The Global Post said that to some extent, Israel, Russia and Iran are already being pulled towards conflict. Last September, according to the report, Armenia shot down an Israeli-made Azerbaijani drone over Nagorno-Karabakh and the government claims that drones have been spotted ahead of recent incursions by Azerbaijani troops into Armenian-held territory.

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan, said in a briefing that attacks this summer showed that Azerbaijan is eager to “play with its new toys” and its forces displayed “impressive tactical and operational improvement.”

The International Crisis Group warned that as the tit-for-tat incidents become more deadly, “there is a growing risk that the increasing frontline tensions could lead to an accidental war.”

The UN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have long imposed a non-binding arms embargo on Azerbaijan and Armenia, and both are under a de facto arms ban from the United States. But the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said this has not stopped Israel and Russia from selling to them.

The two former Soviet republics fought a bloody war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory between 1988 and 1994. The dispute has claimed the lives of some 30,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. They have since been locked in a stalemate with an oft-violated ceasefire holding a tenuous peace between them. The drones are the latest addition to the battlefield.

Big Brother’s New Toy: An EMP Cruise Missile.

*Source: Shenandoah

by John Galt
October 24, 2012 05:20 ET

Just when you thought it was safe to leave your electronics out of the Faraday cage for a day or two, along comes Boeing with a new toy for Big Brother; a cruise missile which emits a microwave burst of energy which creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) as it flies by disabling all electronic devices. In a story from Gizmodo, a test was conducted last week and per the article by Jamie Condlieffe:

The CHAMP tests took place in the Western Utah Desert on October 16th. As it flew by a two-story building, its on-board microwave system shut down every piece of electronic equipment running inside the place. In fact, the test went so well that it disabled all the cameras recording the event, too.

Great. So now do not only have to worry about VIPR trucks driving by our homes and snooping to see what we own, now they have a missile which can take down the internet in an area or destroy your electronic devices whenever they feel the individual in question is a threat to the government.  The video from Boeing’s web site discussing the project is stunning:



Also from the Boeing website this quote should disturb my readers when one considers the insidious nature of how a government out of control could use this weapon on its own citizens:

“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive,”

To read the article in full from the Boeing website click on the link below:

CHAMP – Lights Out

P.S. – It can be mounted on a drone also. FYI.

DARPA presents new flame gun (VIDEO)

*Source: RT

The Pentagon’s standard operating procedure might have called at one time to fight fire with fire. Their Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, is changing that, though, right before our eyes — and ears.

Darpa has come public with one of their latest endeavors, and says that it’s the first time that advancements have been made in this particular field in at least half a century. After making and modifying space age airplanes and even realistic robots a reality, it only makes sense then that Darpa researchers are wrapping their brains around — fire? Darpa says that they’ve been able to extinguish flames by suffocating fire with only sound, and have released a video explaining just that.

By surrounding an open liquid flame with speakers, Darpa scientists have discovered that they are able to snuff fire by creating an acoustic field. The noise is able to increase air velocity around the fire and thus thin the space where combustion occurs. From there, even intense flames can be more easily doused by drowning them with sound.

“We have shown that the physics of combustion still has surprises in store for us,” Darpa manager Matthew Goodman explains in a statement. “Perhaps these results will spur new ideas and applications in combustion research.”

That’s saying a lot, especially since researchers have been trying to figure out how to put out fires with sound since at least 2008. That’s when Darpa first began experimenting in using acoustic fields to help fight fires, but only recently has that hard work paid off. They finally succeeded in extinguishing fire with sound back in December, but only recently has the agency come forth with the proof.

The next step for Darpa will most likely be to see if they can recreate this experiment on grander scale. So far they have only released proof that shows them putting out a small fire contained in a space of just 10 square centimeters, but since these same scientists have been able to take the same technology behind drone aircraft and shrink them to a nearly microscopic level in only a few years, the future really is whatever they want it to be.

RAY GUN 2.0 "The High Tech Weapon That Does Not Kill! It Seemed Ideal For Controlling Mobs"