Weapons and the U.S. Government Many of us seem to feel safer than we did during the Cold War. During that time many of us were worried about a nuclear attack, but this has seemed to go by the wayside as time goes by. Are we correct in our thinking things have changed and we are living in less dangerous times? The answer has to be no. Things are even more dangerous now than they were then. First of all, many more nations have nuclear weapons and anyone of them can start a nuclear war. Another thing to consider is the fact the nuclear delivery systems have improved to the point Russia and China are claiming they now have missiles which travel at hypersonic speeds and can’t be shot down. Is this just bravado? I don’t know, but what I do know is the new missiles can change course while in flight making them much harder to shoot down. Iran is on the verge of perfecting a nuclear weapon so if they succeed this will put religion into the nuclear equation. Once that happens there could be someone who is a religious fanatic there who will want to launch a nuclear strike either against Israel or us, or maybe both of us because they believe they are doing God’s work and if we retaliate, they will go directly to heaven. If we examine the nuclear arsenals of the world here is what we find. Russia has the most by a small margin. Their stockpile contains 6,500 nuclear weapons. The United States is second with 6,185. Russia seems to be updating their nuclear weapons. When the United States decided to upgrade its nuclear weapons, the Government Accountability Office announced their plans didn’t align with the budget and many believe this was a signal we couldn’t afford to do it. The country with the third most nuclear weapons is France with 300 nuclear weapons and then China with a reported 290 if that is true. There is a fly in the ointment however. Many believe Israel is in possession of 500 nuclear weapons. Other countries we know about are the United Kingdom with 215 nukes, Pakistan with 160 nukes, India with 135 nukes, North Korea with about 40 nukes. Another country which had been suspected of having nukes is South Africa. So far, the nuclear countries are not willing to use their nuclear weapons because they know once the genie is out of the bottle, it can’t be put back. No one wants a nuclear war because they know there can be no winners. What has been going on lately is the improvement in conventional weapons. They have becoming more accurate and more powerful and new types have come on the scene. As lasers are improved, they are appearing on everything from ships to planes and even vehicles. In this country we developed a giant laser which was carried on a Boeing 747 plane. It was developed to shoot down ballistic missiles; this was before hypersonic missiles started to appear. It turned out it really needed more range. The Boeing laser is being totally outclassed by the new laser being built by the U.S. Army. It is said it will be more than one million times more powerful than the most powerful laser ever built. The system is known as the Tactical Ultrashort Pulsed Laser or USPL. The difference between this laser and others is it operates on pulses on low energy while other lasers produce continuous waves. It is said this laser with be able to vaporize a target and also interrupt the enemies signals. It is also said the system will be able to reach a terawatt in one quadrillionth of a second. The laser weapon is expected to have the prototype finished in 2022 when trials will be run on it. In one way it is sad to say this weapon will be able to blind troops. Work is continuing on kinetic energy weapons. These are weapons which are capable of hitting a target with a solid piece of metal causing the energy of the impact to cause the damage. The weapons however can use explosives. When treaties were signed preventing nuclear weapons in space, we turned to kinetic energy weapons. It is said we have shafts of metal the size of a telephone pole which would produce the same damage as a small nuclear explosion. What a lot of people do not realize is the world has been using kinetic energy weapons for hundreds of years. Anything that shot a stone or solid cannon ball was relying on the fact the impact alone would cause damage. As they say, what is old is now new. One of the problems was using a railgun to launch the weapon. We found out constant shooting using the railgun, which used magnets to launch the weapon would wear out prematurely. New longer lasting materials had to be found. A coilgun is also similar to a railgun in that it also uses magnets. In 1934 a machine gun was developed which was very similar to a coilgun. Another different type of weapon which we have all seen in science fiction movies is the electromagnetic beam weapon. They use pulsed electromagnetic beams to take out an enemy. They are called non-lethal right now, but it seems with more power they could easily kill. Being non-lethal unfortunately doesn’t mean they can’t ruin your life. Some say they are capable of blinding, burning or killing. This means they are not non-lethal at all. There are many secret weapons which we have no idea about. When we think about secret weapons it seems at least some of the ideas are taken from science fiction books, shows and movies. Sometimes all you need is an idea to work on and there certainly are plenty of them around. Sometimes the similarity between the idea and the real thing are amazing. I am always amazed when I read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The submarine’s description was very similar to a modern non-nuclear one and yet the story came out in 1869. Right now, secret departments we know the name of and some we don’t are working on all sorts of things which would amaze us if we knew about them. The ones we know about are DARPA and the Lockheed Skunk Works, but there are others. DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and when others get stuck on a problem that is where they go. The Skunk Works is primarily involved in developing new aircraft and were responsible for the SR-71, a breakthrough aircraft that still holds speed records today.
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