Talk:Electromagnetic weapon

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I'm sorry if this is done incorrectly, I don't know how wikipedia editing woks. This section has significant problems in formatting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-energy_radio-frequency_weapons#Use_against_humans — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.126.164.128 (talk) 05:42, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

This article has a few problems

Specifically, that it starts with a description of a railgun and later becomes (to paraphrase) MIND CONTROL LASERS. 184.148.179.121 (talk) 03:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Article

`... from exposure to ultrasound' — the article should be about electrtomagnetic weapon, not sonic. The sound and electromagnetic effects are different. 195.122.224.212 (talk) 15:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I think one source of confusion is that an em weapon target might hear the noises coming from things making sounds such as a car engine or running water. However this is only because there has to be an input to the brain to magnify the em weapon signal, when talking about using it to make someone hear voices or if it is being used to incite a general source of dread. Very similar to how a paranoid person interprets unclear voices as a person talking about them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.59.28.166 (talk) 12:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The formatting here is way off-it reads more like an article than a Wikipedia entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.181.224.64 (talk) 18:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Note the ABL does NOT "burn the skin off missiles" but does cause a very minor bit of damage in the skin of the fuselage of the vehicle, which, at the high speed it is travelling, proves fatal to the missile as the deformation hits the airstream. If anything a significant portion of the skin is torn off by airflow, the missile tumbles out of control and breaks apart. I doubt the ABL will ever see deployment, even Kim John Il knows about disco mirror balls. (the flaw of the design concept being sufficiently polished surface materiels in a fuselage effectively diffuse/reflect the laser's energy, not completely, but enough to befuddle the effectiveness as its aiming systems can only affix to the target so long.)Perhaps "Airborne Boeing Boondoggle" was a better govspeak name...Batvette (talk) 13:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

How do you know that the ABL will have any sort of difficulty with reflective surfaces? Are you or do you know an expert in the field who has experience with COIL lasers and the properties of the 1315nm beam produced, or have any credible reference at all, or is all of this just a cynic's horribly misspelled, "mirror beats lazor" conjecture? Vocationalzero (talk) 02:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

One needn't be an expert in the field to understand that "mirror beats laser" sums it up dead on. ABL, at least the COIL version, has been cancelled so it's a moot point anyhow. Mainly due to lack of desire to fly around with thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals.... "umm, we're about to hit a little turbulence here, folks". The whole thing was a sham, sold to Americans as part of a "layered missile defense" to "keep us safe"- yet ABL had only hopeful success against short and medium range ballistic missiles, or so called "theatre" range-and then had to stand off in coastal waters where there's usually cloud cover! Guess how many countries which may possess such such vehicles are within range of the American continent? How about NONE, at even several times that distance. ABL can't touch an ICBM with its mach 24 speed at end of boost phase, the only vehicle which could threaten us. 75.55.38.123 (talk) 13:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not making an edit, as this isn't a field I know much about... But I think it's confusing to discuss skin damage to humans and skin damage to missiles in the same paragraph - there's not much similarity between the two. Also, I don't know that a laser should count as an electromagnetic weapon anyway - obviously light is electromagnetic, but I've always thought of these weapons as being in a very different class. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.52.213 (talk) 11:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it's a separate issue, however all of these are "directed energy weapons" which utilize a certain bandwidth of the "electromagnetic frequency spectrum" which can be considered down below RF energy to just above audio, all the way up through the visible light spectrum and not ending until we hit gamma and even cosmic rays! If there is a distinction that is relevant it may be ionizing VS non ionizing radiation, as that directly applies to the biological effects oh cells/tissue. The whole article needs a rewrite, tho, I will try and contribute a bit in the near future. 75.55.38.123 (talk) 13:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Barely any of the contents have anything to do with weapons that are generally considered electromagnetic. The contents seem to have more to do with directed energy weapons. I'm almost positive weapons that would fall into the category of electromagnetic weapons would be like railguns, gauss guns, and coilguns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.231.187.186 (talk) 19:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Re railguns: Not at all. We have Railgun and Linear motor, the latter effectively being the Coilgun / Gauss gun / "Electric Cannon" type. They are kinetic energy penetrator throwers, the key difference to conventional guns being that they accelerate said penetrators electromagnetically. I think that "EM weapons" should be defined: weapons which deliver EM radiation to the target or something similar, more accurate.

Re skin: yes the wording is confusing. One should write about "human skin" and the "missile airframe" instead.

Re mirror beats laser: It depends on the wavelength. Visible and infrared are easier to reflect, but extreme-UV (most so-called "X-ray lasers" are of that kind) radiation is a different beast. It penetrates many metals, thus limiting reflection severely. However, the ABL is infrared and thus probably inefficient. OTOH, most liquid metals are very reflective, so we have to account for a great deal of reflection losses with all metallic targets - whether there is a reflective coating or not.

However, the most severe shortcoming lies in the many references to mental manipulation using microwaves. This kind of usage is not supported by reliable sources. And no, I don't count The Economist as a reliable source on the topic. At least, Energy Weapons 101 is not an Econ. course... (There are some examples that The Economist was wrong, in the recent AFD, too) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 09:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

survivalist us centric much?

Ethical Considerations

Faced with peaceful, non-violent protestors, law enforcement officials having, say, airborne electromagnetic weapons at their disposal could covertly influence the protestors to disband without the protestors even being aware of such an effort. Faced with rioting and overt violence a government could covertly create a perimeter fence of radiation through which the rioters could not pass without feeling unbearable pain. Using electromagnetic weapons law enforcement officials could, over time, covertly harass a "person of interest" into committing suicide and thereby effectively admit his involvement in the crime. A US citizen could, under the protection of the US Constitution, launch from behind drawn blinds a covert electronic attack on an unwanted, unsuspecting neighbor thereby influencing the neighbor to sell his house and move away. Even if the neighbor suspected he was being harassed electronically he probably could not convince the authorities to search his unfriendly neighbor's home without his being able to produce indisputable evidence of the harassment.

what is this shit?

Wasn't this sourced material referencing a FBI report or memo? Where did it go? What happened to all the info about it being able to cause anxiety and fear? This is very important and interesting information...

The "Ethical considerations" section reads like an opinion piece. Whether someone finds this information interesting is not relevant to the facts of this topic. If someone really wants to have discussion about the hypothetical uses of this device, then it should be on some 3rd party site and possibly linked from here. I hope this section is removed because I did not find it informative.