Bombs
The introduction of the atomic bomb assured a monumental revenge for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After GIs were slaughtered by the thousands throughout the Pacific theater, the American public was ready for a device that would stop the enemy in its tracks despite the huge number of instant and protracted civilian deaths and radiation sickness associated with its impact.

With the war in Vietnam, many new technologies were brought to bear — electronics in a big way, napalm (nearly a chemical weapon but considered a "defoliant") and incremental improvements to helicopters, fighters, bombers and swift boats.

Now, according to last month's Chemical & Engineering News (via Physorg.com), "the United States is considering controversial proposals to produce a new generation of nuclear weapons and revamp its nuclear weapons complex:

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees design, production and manufacturing of nuclear weapons, developed proposals. One part of the plan calls for production of the "renewable, replacement warhead (RRW)," a new nuclear weapon that NNSA says will be easier and environmentally cleaner to manufacture and more difficult for terrorists to disassemble or detonate.

Drones, the Sequel
Unmanned vehicles are playing an increasingly larger part in helping keep soldiers out of harm's way, as IMT has discussed before. In fact, a spate of recent chopper losses and combat surges has caused the Pentagon to shift some wartime missions to UAVs and other robotic systems, military managers said recently.

For instance, the Hunter UAV, "one of the oldest in the Army's robotic fleet," has been tasked with even more future mission types, Wired also notes:

It has logged more than 24,000 combat hours in the Balkans and in Iraq. Over all this time, the drone has had a single mission: reconnaissance, spotting foes from above. During the last few years, however, the Army has been training its UAV workhorse for other tasks — like attacking enemies directly, with laser-guided weapons.

Here a Hunter UAV drops a Viper Strike anti-tank munition on a target during a series of recent trials at the White Sand Missile Range in New Mexico.

And for years we've been hearing about Northrop's killer drone prototype —the X-47B — for the Navy. It is currently under construction, as Wired points out on its blog:

The company was building the carrier-capable robot under a joint DARPA-Navy-Air Force program for combat drones, while Boeing put together an Air Force-oriented machine. But the project was abruptly, and unexpectedly, canceled last year. Only the Navy remained interested.

So now Northrop and Boeing are squaring for a $1.9 billion contract to build a killer drone that can take off at sea, says Wired.

Lasers, Beams and Rays
Although the military has already been developing lasers, as of a BBC News report in February, "a laser developed for the military is a few steps away from hitting a power threshold thought necessary to turn it into a battlefield weapon."

BBC notes that "the solid state heat capacity laser has achieved 67 kilowatts of average power in the laboratory." If this technology can be improved, then 100 kW of power can be achieved, which would enable soldiers to destroy rockets, mortars and roadside bombs from a mobile, vehicle-mounted weapon up to 3 or 4 kilometers away.

Meanwhile, Technovelgy.com reports that the U.S. Army is developing a paralysis beam. Although "details are sketchy," U.S. government acquisition records seem to call for contractor Peak Systems to "design and fabricate a light-based immobilization system/deterrent device and integrate it with an unmanned aerial system," which will include "any necessary medical research on frequency and amplitude modulation of high-intensity light that will cause immobilization to all those within the beam."

(That's not the only flying robot/ray gun combo the U.S. military is examining: the Air Force is also toying with the idea of mounting its Active Denial System pain weapon on a drone, too.)

The military and contractor Raytheon have also been working on a ray gun that emits a 130˚ F (54˚ C) ray that penetrates clothing and the surface (1/64 of an inch) layer of skin, according to a report from The Associated Press. AP notes that "the technology is supposed to be harmless — a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons."

All branches of the military have expressed interest in these ray guns, which will not go into production until at least 2010.

Chemistry Reactions?
Although chemical weapons have been a global taboo for decades, some in the U.S. Air Force are now pushing to use them again. A recent study from the Air War College calls for using chemicals as "first-use weapons against terrorists" — part of a larger pitch, Wired reports this month, to "rethink the long-time pariah of military warfare."

Before visualizing flesh disintegrating off human bones, however, what Naval Commander George N. T. Whitbred IV has in mind are non-lethal technologies such as calmative agents, sticky foams and malodorants. The benefits, in Whitbred's view, would include "reduced collateral damage," "more options in the application of force" and the ability to help "close the gap between war and peace."

Wired, however, points to the events that led to tragedies at Waco (the Branch Davidian ranch raid) and the Dubrovka Theater siege in Moscow, where authorities used a supposedly nonlethal chemical and 117 hostages consequently died.

For now, the science and manufacture of military weapons continue, as do creative (and scary) developments in making the enemy — whoever it is — submit.

Resources

U.S. Envisions a New Generation of Nuclear Weapons
by Jeff Johnson
Chemical & Engineering News (via PhysOrg), March 2007

Killer Drone Strike
by Noah Shachtman
Wired, Feb. 28, 2007

Pentagon Abandons Big Bomb Test
by Jennifer Talhelm and Ken Ritter
The Associated Press, February 2007

Offensive Use of Chemical Technologies by US Special Operations Forces in the Global War on Terrorism: The Nonlethal Option
Defense Technical Information Center, July 2006

Iraq's Superbombs: Home Made?
by David Hambling
Wired, Feb. 26, 2007

Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon
by David Hambling
Wired, Dec. 5, 2006

Ray Gun Makes Targets Feel Like They're on Fire
by Elliott Minor
The Associated Press, Jan. 25, 2007

Record power for military laser
by Paul Rincon
BBC News, Feb. 22, 2007

Army Developing Paralysis Beam
by Bill Christensen
Technovelgy, Feb. 27, 2007

First Photonic Laser Thruster Successfully Demonstrated
Bae Institute, Feb. 21, 2007

Picture This: Killer Drone in the Shop
by Noah Shachtman
Wired, April 9, 2007

Tiny Tin Oxide Wires Detect Fake Nerve Gas
by Aaron Rowe
Wired, April 11, 2007

Air Force Report: Bring Back Chem Weapons
by Sharon Weinberger
Wired, April 10, 2007