Sonic weaponry
From Freepedia
Sonic and ultrasonic weapons (USW) are weapons of various types that use sound to damage, incapicitate, or kill an opponent. Some sonic weapons are currently in limited use and extensive research and development by military and police forces. Many exist only in the realm of science fiction.
Some of these weapons have been described as sonic bullets, sonic grenades, sonic mines, or sonic cannons. Some make a focussed beam of sound or ultrasound; some make an area field of sound.
Many real sonic and ultrasonic weapons are described as "non-lethal", but they can kill under certain conditions, so the term "less-lethal" is more accurate.
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Designed to attack the target's middle ears and inner ears
These project sound or ultrasound that can break the eardrums of its targets and cause severe pain or disorientation. Usually, this will stop an enemy in its tracks, and is helpful against enemies with great physical resistances. Against creatures with naturally sensitive hearing, it is devastating.
- As used in air, they are mostly or entirely science fiction. In such scenarios they sometimes serve as stunners.
- Underwater, for a ship to fire its ordinary navigation sonar loudly has long been known in the real world as an effective anti-frogman weapon. The frogmen are disoriented, panic and drown, or are forced to surface.
Designed to cause physical damage to people and buildings
A reported real weapon
The U.S. DOD has demonstrated phased arrays of infrasonic emitters. The weapon usually consists of a siren that sounds at about 7Hz. The output from the siren's interrupter is routed (by pipes) to an array of open emitters, which are usually one wavelength apart. At this frequency, armor and concrete walls and other common building materials vibrate, and therefore provide no defense. The frequency is chosen to be near the resonant frequency of internal organs, causing illness and deafness and internal injuries.
The resulting weapon is the size of a truck, fragile, shoots at the speed of sound, and has a substantially shorter range than missiles or artillery shells. Shells move faster than the speed of sound, so artillery can win by shooting after the infrasonic weapon turns on, but before the sound arrives. Also, mechanical "diode walls" to convert the oscillating air into a steady flow have been demonstrated. Although not common at this time, they could be mass-produced and would provide an effective countermeasure.
Lethal sonic weapons, in air
Most of these are science fiction only. There are these types:
- Powerful low-pitched sound waves as a shock wave that blows enemies back. Fictional rifles that project sound to knock down or stun are featured in the 2002 movie Minority Report.
- A tight beam of focused sound used as a weapon like the focused light in laser guns.
- A powerful ultrasound beam which can liquefy living tissue.
- A powerful sound designed to get buildings or structures to resonate and in that way break them.
Lethal sonic weapons, underwater
Underwater, some sonic weapons are practicable in the real world.
- Ultrasound disintegration of solids in liquids is well known in industry, and could be adapted into a weapon.
- It has long been known that ultrasound in water will kill small water animals.
- There have been unconfirmed reports of scuba diver deaths and mass deaths of fish from being caught in powerful undersea ultrasound beams used by navies for communicating with submarines.
- It is suspected that the sperm whale uses powerful ultrasound to stun or kill its prey.
- There have been unconfirmed speculations about development of real lethal underwater ultrasound anti-frogman weapons.
See also
- Sone (a unit of loudness of sound)
- Sound pressure
- Sound energy flux
- Sound power
- Sound intensity
- Long range acoustic device
