[Chisel Head]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/army-ordering-p.html

...a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer...

http://blog.wired.com/defense/images/2008/10/10/ads_desert_2.jpg

[nalioth]

Unfortunately, anything can be abused.


<cough>Taser</cough>

[Valkman]

You DO wear your aluminum foil beanie at all times, right? :D

[Valkman]

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

[CWL]

Duct-tape a pack of Orville Redenbacker popcorn to the top of your head, if it starts popping, you know it's time to seek cover.

[Valkman]

I like that - you can eat it too!

[Mongrel]

It's all fun and games...












until they use it...

[jahwarrior]

it worked in "Batman Begins"...

[CZ.22]

Wouldn't a microwave emmiter require a fan of some sort? Micorwave ovens work by creating friction between asymetrical molecules by bouncing beams of energy off a fan, so how would this one work?

[nalioth]

Micorwave ovens work by creating friction between asymetrical molecules by bouncing beams of energy off a fan, so how would this one work? This one is giving it to you direct from the emitter.

[Limeyfellow]

Good luck if you have say metal fillings, coins in your pocket, a metal zipper on your trousers. You see when microwaves hit them they increase in temperature substantially, and is why they made everyone take off any metal to test and limited the exposure to extremely short periods. It sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen as soon as the wrong people get microwaved and suffer severe burns for daring to have money in their pockets.

[hso]

Yes, it can kill, but I dare you to figure out a way to carry it concealed.

[TimboKhan]

Oh noes! I haz been made! What shirt/pants/belt/kydex combo will keep me from getting made with my deuce and a half and giant microwave emitter? thx,bye.

Edit to add: Yes, yes... I know that's not a deuce and a half....

[ArfinGreebly]

Wouldn't a microwave emmiter require a fan of some sort? Micorwave ovens work by creating friction between asymetrical molecules by bouncing beams of energy off a fan, so how would this one work?

Eh?

You're saying the emitter output is being reflected by a fan?

Never had a microwave oven apart.

My microwave experience is limited to hot-shell klystrons and traveling-wave tubes, with the output piped directly to a feed horn at the dish. That sort of thing -- even at the meagre two watts we were pumping -- would ruin your day.

I guess a fan-as-reflector would disperse the beam better for oven applications. Never occurred to me.

Anyone confirm this design?

[hso]

AG,

Micorwave ovens use something that looks like a rotating fan with complexly angled vanes to scatter the microwaves from the magnetron around the interior of the oven.

No such critter would be needed or wanted on this device. You'd want to generate lots of microwaves and send them up a wave guide to be reflected by that "antenna" so you could direct it at the target.

Plenty of scope dopes from the AF will tell you about exploding turkeys and other meaty bits tossed into the beam of tactical or search radar. This is just a special application of the same technology.

[hso]

The "fan" is for scattering the energy around the oven chamber. For a directed beam you'd just treat it like any other focusable/defocusable system and pump it up a wave guide to an emitter to be directed by a reflector. Move the emitter wrt to the reflector and you defocus the beam to spread it out while keeping the directional aspect. Run the power up or down and increase or decrease the flux.

Scattering with a "fan" would ruin the directional capability.

[Chisel Head]

I wonder what would happen to the food, once this fan-like device is disabled.
A German was once caught, by the police, for converting a microwave oven into a device used to harm a disturbing neighbor through he wall of an apartment. The neighbor complained of headaches and nausea. Little did he know that he was slowly being cooked:

http://www.mikrowellenterror.de/artikel/munzert1.htm

...Die Primitiv-Variante der Mikrowellen-Waffe sieht so aus: Beim Mikrowellenherd aus der Küche wird ein Schalter überbrückt, vorne die Schutzsicherung weggenommen und stattdessen ein Metalltrichter aufgesetzt, sodass die Wellen des Magnetrons - zentraler Bestandteil zur Mikrowellenerzeugung - Wände durchdringen können (das Foto eines umgebauten Mikrowellenherdes liegt uns vor, es gibt auch eine genaue Bauanleitung [2], die jeder aus dem Internet abrufen kann und sogar ein Buch [12], in dem gezeigt wird, wie man einen Mikrowellenherd aus der Küche in eine gefährliche Mikrowellenwaffe umwandelt)...

The device probably was put together, using the microwave projector pointing to a parrabelum-shaped reflecting mirror. Such as infrared-receiving telescopes and sattelite dishes are set up.

More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0815-02.htm

...The concept behind high-powered microwave weapons is simple. A burst of electromagnetic energy is created and directed at an enemy's electronics. The force burns them out much like a lightning strike can destroy home appliances...

[icanthitabarn]

This thing was on a show last week. It works. They used it on like five or six guys at like two or three hundred yards. Had em clawing themselves and scattering in a second. I think they can pinpoint it to one person, too.

[Pax Jordana]

this.. frightens me.

Still it, like anything else, can be destroyed if you hit it hard enough.

at least it's still got external gas tanks :-D
(critical hit!)

[CWL]

I think they can pinpoint it to one person, too.

Looking at the size of the emitter, I think that a normal person would be able to move faster than a pinpoint beam. That is, if you know it was being used against you.

[JImbothefiveth]

I know what to say next time anyone asks for a good "truck gun".

[Chisel Head]

...Duct-tape a pack of Orville Redenbacker popcorn to the top of your head, if it starts popping, you know it's time to seek cover...I wonder if it's against the Geneva Convention to have prisoners of war marching in 12th century armor which has been tarred and popcorned, as a warning of enemy microwave attack of which would produce better meals for troops than K-rations