Outside at the annual Mock Riot at an old state pen in Moundsville, West Virginia, police squads are fighting mock battles with college kids portraying rebellious inmates. Inside, vendors are showing off the latest in weapons – both lethal and nonlethal – body armor and robots.
One of the most impressive pieces of kit is also the most nondescript. It looks like a thick, tan-colored stop sign mounted to a metal stand. The Long-Range Acoustic Device built by American Technology Corporation focuses and broadcasts sound over ranges of up to hundreds of yards.
There’s a lot you can do with this. Record a message in whatever language you want and you can shoot bulletins to flood survivors or refugees to advise them where to find help. Switch to an annoying whine and dial it up a notch and you can use the LRAD as a weapon. Cruise-ship crews have used the device to ward off pirates. The Army and Marine Corps in Iraq use it to disperse crowds and, in a mounted version, to protect convoys. Corrections and police departments armed with LRAD can put down riots without firing a shot. Sound (ahem) implausible? Look at the picture at right of test subjects getting the LRAD treatment. And take it from me: today at the Mock Riot, Scott Stuckey from American Technology Corp dialed the LRAD down to one of its lowest settings and swept it past me. It was like having a hundred nagging girlfriends in my brain screaming at me. Very unpleasant.
ATC has delivered around a thousand LRADs in several models to law enforcement, cruise lines and the military. Prices are in the low five digits. Check out the video below to see LRAD in action at a military convoy exercise. It’s not much to look at, but the visuals aren’t the point. First you’ll hear the opfor open up with small arms; then you’ll hear the LRADs go into action, sweeping in the general direction of the shooters. Note what happens to the incoming fire.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/vP-WNnIzcIo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
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The video doesn’t seem to load (for me anyway).
Will the LRAD have physical effects (vomiting, perforated ear drums etc.) if turned all the way up and left on people?
Zaphod,
Try the vid again — I fixed it in Youtube.
As for physical effects: nothing huge, except pain in your head. As for effects of long-term exposure … probably insanity.
Thanks, it works now.
LRAD looks pretty useful, they should have a fingernail on blackboard option.
[...] This continues my series on the annual Mock Riot in Moundsville, West Virginia, where police forces, the military and arms makers get together to test out nonlethal weapons and tactics. Part one here. Two here. [...]
[...] In their second scenario, the MPs used a Long-Range Acoustic Device to disorient rioting inmates in a dining hall then stormed in firing nonlethal bullets. See for yourself: [...]
[...] The Long Range Acoustical Device is a device that uses high-intensity sounds to deter enemies. It sounds annoying just in this video. It is hard to imagine how awful it would be up close. You can read more about the device on War is Boring on on Wikipedia. The AP says there are 1,000 of these LRADs deployed by the military in Iraq. [...]
[...] Deploying LRAD, a nonlethal weapon system, cleverly navigates constitutional restrictions. A Singaporean ship falls outside of “Japanese interests”, but using nonlethal weapons such as LRAD arguably falls outside of the definition of “force”. (Some however might argue that a device that feels like, according to David Axe, “a hundred nagging girlfriends in my brain screaming at me” does sound a lot like force.) [...]
…It sound EXACTLY like the giant mutant ants from “Them”!!!
Fuck this LRAD….
Destroy all LRAD’S that are used against protesters.
Every single thing the military said was ONLY for use against terrorists, have always eventually been used against American citizens, and it’s wrong.
[...] MP’s new Stryker also has a turret fitted with a Long-Range Acoustic Device — which can broadcast a painful whine to disperse crowds — plus a laser dazzler that temporarily blinds people and a shotgun loaded [...]