[Infowarrior] - US to export riot-roasting raygun

[Richard Forno]

US to export riot-roasting raygun

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/07/silent_guardian_export/

'Oops,' giggles Raytheon after commercially apt leak
By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

Posted in Science, 7th October 2009 10:29 GMT

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The United States is to export its crowd-grilling "less lethal"  
microwave cannon, the Silent Guardian - which has never been deployed  
by US forces due to worries over bad publicity - to an unnamed foreign  
ally.

Aviation Week reports today that executives from American arms  
megacorp Raytheon, makers of the famous yet seldom-used riot-roaster  
weapon, have disclosed a sale of four containerised Silent Guardians  
to "a US ally". The revelations were described as an "oops" by the  
corporate types, as the Pentagon had forbidden the firm to make the  
sale public.

The Silent Guardian works by playing a wide-angle beam of microwave  
energy on its targets - generally assumed to be something on the order  
of a hostile mob. The effect of the weapon on humans is to heat up the  
outer layers of human skin, causing a painful burning sensation and  
forcing people to disperse.

The idea of the microwave cannon is to offer US troops, perhaps  
heavily outnumbered by angry crowds overseas, an alternative to  
opening fire or being overrun/compelled to retreat. Weapons of this  
sort were formerly termed "non lethal", but this was objected to on  
the grounds that rubber bullets, clubs, tasers etc do sometimes leave  
their targets dead - even if perhaps from some indirect cause like  
falling down and hitting their heads. As a result, people tend to say  
"less lethal" now.

Perhaps bizarrely, however, the Silent Guardian in particular has  
attracted massive negative commentary from its earliest development  
days, and repeated requests for it from US commanders overseas have  
thus been denied - the Pentagon seemingly finding that it got less bad  
press by dealing with riots the old-fashioned way, by a mixture of  
blunt trauma and gunfire.

There were also some technical issues with earlier Silent Guardian  
versions mounted on Humvees, as these lacked the cooling and  
associated power to function in the heat of an Iraqi summer. This has  
been sorted out for some time, however, with upgraded versions  
supplied in containerised form suitable for deployment on a lorry.

The US government may find itself unable to deploy the microwave gun  
due to public pressure, then: but it appears that at least one foreign  
government has no such qualms. And, perhaps, that Raytheon is quite  
pleased to let the world know it has some customers at last for the  
Silent Guardian technology. ®