Antiriot Weapons

Most scientific contributions to military technology are aimed at future war, a far-off, fast-racing conflict between supersonic bombers, atom-armed missiles and man-carrying spacecraft. But more mundane problems have not been neglected by the men in laboratories. With none of the rocket-boosted publicity that swirls around multimillion-dollar projects, technicians are busily turning out new weapons to use on such nasty contemporary difficulties as riots at home and small-scale insurrection abroad. Behind all these devices is the concept of "necessary minimum force," which means no more power than is necessary to disperse rioters without killing them or inflicting wounds that will arouse sympathy. Some samples, as described by Lieut. Colonel Rex Applegate, U.S.A. (ret.), in the military magazine Ordnance:

sb ELECTRICITY. Charged car bodies are a natural outgrowth of the cattle prods already popular in law-and-order circles. All persons touching the electrified car or touched by it will get painful shocks. Occupants of the car will be immune. A further extension of antiriot electronics is an electrified water stream that deals out high-voltage shocks to anyone it hits. "Ranges up to 150 ft.," says the colonel, "are considered possible."

sb NOISE. Electronic racket raisers, says the colonel, "will project high-intensity, variable-pitch sounds, blatting, shrieking noises, etc., in such volume that they will be almost intolerable to the human ear." Another promising device: "A revolving, car-roof-mounted, flashing spotlight of such brilliance that it will temporarily affect the vision of rioters."

sb ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT. After a riot has been quelled, invisible particles that have been sprayed on the mob "will show up when police, using special scanners, interrogate people at identification checkpoints, and will thus enable them to identify mob participants."

sb ARMOR. A new vest of overlapping plastic plates covers all vital body areas and weighs only 4 Ibs. It protects against all thrown objects, grenade and mortar fragments, and bullets moving slower than 1,000 ft. per sec. (which includes a wide variety of small-arms fire from anything but point-blank distance). Men who wear it, says Colonel Applegate, are much more willing to "close": they will perform countermob duties more aggressively.

sb SMOKE. "Under favorable wind conditions," says the colonel, "demonstrations can be inundated with white, nontoxic, nonstaining, obscuring smoke. The effect is both tactical and psychological. Vision is obscured, sense of direction is lost, and mob unity is destroyed. These advantages are coupled with a harmless throat irritation that induces coughing and causes the individuals affected to leave the area with little desire to return."

sb DRUGS. Tranquilizing gas, says Colonel Applegate, will some day be used to calm combative rioters, and dart-injected soporifics will put them to sleep. He concedes that such weapons are still too dangerous to be included in a prudent arsenal of necessary minimum force.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.