GrandSon of Spectre
Posted on 02/17/2002 7:19:22 AM PST by vannrox
AMERICA'S enemies will soon face a weapon, once confined to the Star Wars films, that can bring death at the speed of light. The special operations AC-130 Spectre gunship, whose conventional weaponry has been used to devastating effect since the Vietnam War, is to be fitted with a laser that can shoot down missiles, punch holes in aircraft and knock out ground radar stations. Despite the successful operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, the emergence of asymmetric terrorist warfare - attacks such as September 11 where the enemy is unseen - has led the Pentagon to identify the need for a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system. The next generation gunship, codenamed AC-X and nicknamed 'Son of Spectre' by US defence officials, will carry all the weaponry already used on the AC-130, including twin 20mm Vulcan cannon (capable of firing 2,500 rounds per minute), 40mm Bofor cannon (100 rounds per minute) and a 105mm Howitzer. Its 21st-century addition, however, will be its biggest punch: a chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil), capable of carrying out lethal and non-lethal attacks. The advantage of laser weapons is that they strike at the speed of light. In the Coil, the power of a chemical reaction is converted to laser energy, and the weapon can carry on firing as long as its power source is intact. Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, has given the go-ahead for the next-generation AC-130, which includes full funding for the "integration of a direct-energy weapon". The Pentagon is yet to announce when the new laser-equipped "Son of Spectre" will come into operation, but it is understood that the first upgraded version could be involved in military operations within two years. Although lasers exist that can hit aircraft, disable optically guided missiles and destroy communications lines, the ability to vaporise enemy troops and vehicles Star Wars-style will take a few more years to develop. The Spectre, flown by the 16th Special Operations Squadron, has a crew of 13, including two observers using television and infra-red images to direct the four gunners on to their target. Working in pairs, normally providing close air support for special forces ground operations, Spectres can circle targets for hours, pulverising areas the size of football pitches with extraordinary precision. The Spectre has, however, come to the end of its operational life and further upgrades have been ruled out on cost grounds. Rob Hewson, the editor of Jane's Air Launched Weapons, said: "The laser will be the atomic weapon of the 21st century. Since the 1970s, US scientists have conducted a series of secret experiments in the Nevada desert using lasers. "We know that they had lasers capable of causing immense damage but they needed huge power packs. This remains a problem and this is why a laser weapon can only be fitted on an air frame the size of the AC-130. But advances will be made and the power plant will shrink and one day it will dominate the battle field. "The Americans may already have a very powerful laser weapon far more advanced than we have seen. They have been carrying out research in this field for years but it is a very secret weapons programme and we have no idea how far they have progressed." Once the Coil and its power plant have been fully developed, the USAF hopes to fit it to a whole range of manned and unmanned aircraft, such as the Predator reconnaissance probe, which is fitted with Hellfire missiles and has been used in CIA operations in Afghanistan. Lasers could also be used as an additional weapon system to fighters, bombers, helicopter gunships and warships but this is unlikely for a decade.America's laser of death cleared for take-off
By Sean Rayment
(Filed: 17/02/2002)
I meant by the use of the word "ulitmately" that the laser beam weapon technology could be stolen, bought or reproduced independently by other scientists in other countries who may work for the AntiChrist someday.
This type of scenario of where technology is stolen, purchased or independently produced has already happened before with nuclear devices. Once a given potent military technology is demonstated to work, others rush to duplicate, steal or buy the technology around the world.
The Russians could also already have a laser beam weapon as well since they have been working in this area for decades. The US and Russia are working on space based beam weapons to knock out satellites and to shoot down ballistic missiles. This was part of the SDI missile defense program at Kirtland Air Force base near Los Alamos in the 1980s that I was invited to work on.
My friend Air Force General Benton Partin (provided analysis of bomb forensics in OKC bomb case) was the first to start the US laser beam weapons program in the US over 35 years ago. Partin is a strong Christian believer who is well acquainted with Bible prophecy and what the book of Revelations has to say.
The fact this could happen is demonstrated by others who have alleged that Clinton already gave away some of America's best nuclear and missile technology to China.
Stay Safe !
I am no Biblical scholar but we seem to have many false prophets in the U.S., I hope we are not home to the AntiChrist nor the fulfillment of Revelations prediction of fire on the Earth. However we are creating weapons of mass destruction that may operate independently of human control. Why is Western culture so intent on it's own demise?
Personally, I believe that the distinguished history of the United States of America, both militarily and civilly should command respect. No other country on Earth has accomplished what the U.S. has. Therefore, the Respect HAS been earned.
You don't actually believe that people like mister eagle owl actually think that far ahead do you ? I mean, your point requires something beyond, "Food good" and "Fire good" ... much too taxing these days..
eagle owl = Owl_Eagle
Victus, libertas et possessio. Its really not any more complicated.= Victus, libertas et possessio. It’s really not any more complicated.
Perhaps it’s more complicated than you “think”.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
courtesy to H.G. Wells, 1898
The Heat-Ray
After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of fear and curiosity.
I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate longing to peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sand heaps that hid these new-comers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there?
Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups--one a little crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near me. One man I approached--he was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name--and accosted. But it was scarcely a time for articulate conversation.
"What ugly brutes!" he said. "Good God! What ugly brutes!" He repeated this over and over again.
"Did you see a man in the pit?" I said; but he made no answer to that. We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side, deriving, I fancy, a certain comfort in one another's company. Then I shifted my position to a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was walking towards Woking.
The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. The crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and I heard now a faint murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chobham dispersed. There was scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit.
It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent movement upon the sand pits began, a movement that seemed to gather force as the stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained unbroken. Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin irregular crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.
Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand pits, and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty yards of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag.
This was the Deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent.
Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet distances.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air.
This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.
Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.
Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.
Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run.
I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight.
It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied to stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sand pits and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather between me and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the sand pits the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a crash far away to the left where the road from Woking station opens out on the common. Forthwith the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, domelike object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.
All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in my surprise. But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me suddenly dark and unfamiliar.
The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except where its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the early night. It was dark, and suddenly void of men. Overhead the stars were mustering, and in the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost greenish blue. The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell came out sharp and black against the western afterglow. The Martians and their appliances were altogether invisible, save for that thin mast upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated trees here and there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of the evening air.
Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had scarcely been broken.
It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected, and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came--fear.
With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather.
The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare to look back. I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this mysterious death--as swift as the passage of light--would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder and strike me down.
GrandSon of Spectre
Just don't forget what you wished and dreamed for when the mandatory "anti terrorist" biometric id implant is announced. The lasers, sonic weapons, nausea weapons and other various anti personnel weapons are *right there* and will be introduced into the "enforcement" industry as the cost drops, and the "necessity" of population command and control rises. Look at the conventional arms and the surveillance tech they have now, extrapolate it a bit. And with moores law still being reality, I'd say give it around 5 years or so now.
Smile at the hovering robot camera over your head, the lens also has some "non lethality" connected with it.
Couldn't happen, only ragheads and gooks and other assorted untermenschen will be targeted? Really?
Historically, no dictator has had any trouble maintaining armed forces, they will continue to remain loyal, even in the face of widespread and obvious civilian hardship. Look at north korea for an example.
Not saying 'everyone" in the military would follow any order, but just commenting most generally on militaries and past historical reality, they can be used OR abused on their own populations of civilians, and "enough" might just go along with the 'abusing" part if it came to that.
I understand your concerns, but really, the I think you give the government WAY to much credit. They’re a bunch of incompetent bumbling idiots out side of the military. Completely incapable of effectively menacing the G.P. of the United States.
The “Government could turn these weapons on its own people” logic would imply that we are living under the constant threat of being nuked by our own missiles or torn through by an A-10 Gatlin gun burst. It’s pretty low on my list of fears.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
If your income derives from wages and US investments - bank accounts, brokerage accts, mutual funds, etc. then thanks to the universal identifier SS number Uncle knows your exact income before you file the return. The purpose of the 1040 is to take care of those pesky things like "unreported income" from private exchanges, business ventures and certain illegal activities ( gambling, narcotics, dealing etc ) which the IRS reminds you are still subject to income tax.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
A financial institution which I no longer do business with once sent me a 1099 which contained different information than that which it sent to the IRS. I was called for under reporting in the year following that filing despite the fact that I used the information which the institution provided me to file that return. The firm ultimately rectified the discrepancy and uncle displayed his great magnanimity by dispensing with penalties & interest since they determined it was the bank's fault after more than a year of back & forth with them. concerning the dispute.
I don't like it but the IRS make itself your confidential parter in all recorded transactions and so I stick with my point.
didn't know you all were expecting.
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