The official seal of the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD)
Remember in the good ol’ days of bullets and bombs, when the military’s weapons were designed to kill bad guys? Things have gotten a lot foggier in today’s world of poorly-acting civilians, starving children, and assorted Occupiers. That’s what makes this document, posted on the research outfit Public Intelligence’s web site, fascinating. Think of it as the Pentagon’s holy grail: a roster of deployed and desired non-lethal weapons (yea – it’s one of the Pentagon’s classic oxymorons; the Defense Department has had a long history of trying to develop them but never quite succeeding).
Obfuscation of injuries – let’s call it the fog of gore – is front and center. Here’s a list of some of the weapons, and what they’re supposed to do to the bad folks they’re aimed at. See if you can translate them into English:
Green lasers: ocular impairment
Acoustic Hailing Devices: auditory impairment
X26 Taser®: human electro-muscular incapacitation
FN 303 air gun: blunt trauma
66mm Light Vehicle Obscurant Smoke System: visual obstruction
Vehicle Non-Lethal/Tube Launched Munition System (VENOM™): flash bang, ocular and auditory impairment [the non-lethal trifecta! – ed.]
Active Denial System: heat sensation causing involuntary movement away from the beam
XM1112 Airburst Non-Lethal Munitions (ANLM): thermal heating
Ocular Interruption (OI): optical impairment
Subsurface Non-Lethal Engagement-Impulse Swimmer Gun: nausea
Here’s Battleland’s favorite: just how do you stop the good guys from shooting at you?
Department of Defense
Simply change the all-white cluster bursts inside an M585 40mm grenade to – yep, you saw this coming — red, white and blue. That way, when you come under fire by friendly forces, you can fire this sucker high in the sky:
The modification consists of replacing the 5 star white cluster payload with a red, white, and blue display…Provide US ground forces a lightweight, distinct, minimal muzzle signature capability to hail and warn a perceived friendly unit to prevent blue on blue or blue on green fratricide.
Just so long as the bad guys don’t know about it.