Ice Guns & Secret Weapons: Military Mainstream?

[Abishai100]

We've read numerous stories about terrorist cells in the Middle East developing/purchasing bio-chemical weapons for radical warfare.

What kinds of weapons does the US military develop to assert its position in the world of gun-play?

We know of the Stealth Bomber modelling and there are various reports of heart-stopping dart-guns and traction-stopping weapons.

The liquid nitrogen gun (LNG) has already been developed and is used for scientific purposes only (so far), but could the US military find the incentive to arm foot-soldiers with LNGs to literally become deadly 'icemen' to tackle the rogue guerrilla tactics of adversaries on foreign turf?

It seems that new age terrorism has opened up dialogue about weapons empiricism.



Article: CIA's Secret Heart-Attack Dart Gun

Article: "Ice gun" will help to fight riotous crowds

 

[waltky]

Deadlier than a ninja possum...

Squid-inspired Camouflage, Hypervelocity Railguns and Tank Transformations
June 07, 2016 — What was science fiction just a few years ago is now among the Pentagon's most innovative new technologies.

The Defense Department's chief technology officer, Steve Welby, sat down with VOA to talk about some of the craziest and most remarkable breakthroughs being developed in military laboratories across the country. Here are some of our favorites.

Sense of touch

A program called Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) is making robotic arms even more true to life. "The next frontier is the work going on in programs like HAPTIX, where we're not just trying to restore the function of those limbs, but actually trying to restore the sensory function as well," Welby said. HAPTIX will be able to send information from the prosthetic limb back into the body, much like the nerve endings on fingers tell the brain how hard the hand is squeezing something, or how rough or smooth a surface is. Volunteers who thought they'd never have their sense of touch back are already experimenting with prototypes. "It's just an amazing idea that we're now being able to map that kind of two-way feedback into the nervous system," Welby said. "Being able to touch people's lives in these kinds of ways — it's really rewarding work."

Squid-inspired camouflage

Ever want to just disappear? A new type of camouflage will help soldiers blend in with their backgrounds, and even disguise themselves from infrared cameras. Researchers are focusing on a protein called reflectin, which is found on the skin of certain species of squid and octopus, and allows them to very quickly mimic their surroundings and virtually vanish from sight. Reflectin-based invisibility stickers could help the military control the reflectivity of people and equipment, and perhaps even allow thermal management. "We're now learning from nature and applying it in new ways," Welby said. "There are now some interesting prototypes that folks are playing with."

A record-setting firing of an electromagnetic railgun at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Virginia​

Faster than a speeding bullet

The Navy is using electromagnets to shoot projectiles at hyperspeed, many times faster than any bullet can be shot out of other guns. "That's important because it might allow one to be able to defend oneself against, perhaps, missiles that are coming at you, to be able to shoot them out of the air," Welby said. The new technology could also provide the ability to attack an enemy long before the enemy could engage U.S. service members. The gun creates the electromagnetic field used to fire a projectile by shooting an electric pulse down one negatively charged rail and one positively charged rail. It can fire a projectile at a speed of up to 7,400 kilometers per hour.

‘Language of the mind’

Since 2001, more than 250,000 U.S. service members have struggled with memory loss from traumatic brain injuries and degenerate brain problems. And it's not just a problem on the battlefield. Millions of people around the globe are affected by memory disorders from injuries and diseases such as Alzheimer's every year. The military is looking to help people retrieve memory through wearable systems that could restore function in parts of a damaged brain. "We're now decoding the language of the mind, how we actually store facts," Welby said. "It's an entirely new field, areas that we just didn't think were possible before." Researchers are working to understand the way the brain forms memories so that they can identify and correct problems when pathways to memories become damaged. Welby is among many who have had friends and family suffer from memory loss, and he says the hope that the research offers is "enormous."

Safer tanks

 

[whitehall]

Why would you want to carry a weapon that looks like a truck muffler and allegedly fires hyper frozen stuff that you can't touch and has zero ballistic capability? You confuse the Military with nerdy idiots who develop weapons that conform to the CIA's murder mission of plausible deniability. Bullets work just fine if the administration would allow the Military to pull the trigger once in a while without calling fat asses in the Pentagon or the CIA for permission.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Why would you want to carry a weapon that looks like a truck muffler and allegedly fires hyper frozen stuff that you can't touch and has zero ballistic capability? You confuse the Military with nerdy idiots who develop weapons that conform to the CIA's murder mission of plausible deniability. Bullets work just fine if the administration would allow the Military to pull the trigger once in a while without calling fat asses in the Pentagon or the CIA for permission.

It isnt actually cold.
More of a super slippery lubricant.

 

[Abishai100]

A Cyclone of Debris

I think I've already read three stories about rumors that Air France is beefing up security for this summer's Olympic Games in Brazil.

The initiative of the terrorist is to find ways to be clever, compelling the American military to respond with inventive ways to be more deadly.

When you have young Middle Eastern men watching American movies such as "The Matrix" [1999] and imagining themselves as being like the anti-establishment protagonist Neo (Keanu Reeves), you realize that America's brand of unfiltered traffic makes terrorism almost juicy. Bullets don't fly these days.

American servicemen have the double responsibility of looking tougher than terrorists but also consciously kinder. How do you balance that contradiction? As long as the U.S. army has the funds/support to continue sophisticated weapons research, American politicians will feel more comfortable saying things in the press such as, "The American military will not be tricked by terrorists!"

Didn't Mr. Freeze carry his iconic ice-gun in the American comics-adapted weapons-dazzle film "Batman and Robin" [1997]?

 

[xband]

You better live in Antarctica to use an ice gun. Ice has a nasty habit of melting at 33*F and wind chill factor does not come into play with the heat of fusion.

 

[Abishai100]

Jargon

Well, does it matter how we transport the liquid nitrogen? I mean, doesn't it seem that the modern 'flavor' of terrorism arms dialogue in the Western world is simply, "Are their weapons scary?"

Imagine you turn on the news and hear, "Rogue fundamentalist in Tel Aviv starts running from American troops and then throws a bunch of marbles at their feet, causing them to trip and fall and their guns go off unintentionally."

This hypothetical man fleeing with handy-dandy marbles becomes politicized and then people make bar jokes like, "To defeat 'Imperialism,' all you need are marbles..."

In other words, it seems 'wise' to counter terrorism-hysteria talk with more productive talk about America's will to creatively produce military engagement ideas.

A liquid-nitrogen gun, in this light, ironically (and perhaps ominously), in the hands of the American military, sounds rather practical...