You’ll shoot your eye out.
Welcome to the future, you sorry space rats. China now claims that they have a functional, antipersonnel laser assault rifle in the ZKZM-500. And, oh yes, it’s ready for production according to the researchers behind the project.
The weapon fires a beam that is invisible to the naked eye, and causes “instant carbonization” on contact with human skin. And not only can it be fired through windows, it can also ignite flammable clothing. Oh, yes, and it’s silent.
From an interview in the South China Morning Post, the researchers gave the lowdown on it’s potential uses:
The 15mm calibre weapon weighs three kilos (6.6lb), about the same as an AK-47, and has a range of 800 metres, or half a mile, and could be mounted on cars, boats and planes.
It is now ready for mass production and the first units are likely to be given to anti-terrorism squads in the Chinese Armed Police.
In the event of a hostage situation it could be used to fire through windows at targets and temporarily disable the kidnappers while other units move in to rescue their captives.
It could also be used in covert military operations. The beam is powerful enough to burn through a gas tank and ignite the fuel storage facility in a military airport.
Because the laser has been tuned to an invisible frequency, and it produces absolutely no sound, “nobody will know where the attack came from. It will look like an accident,” another researcher said. The scientists requested not to be named due to the sensitivity of the project.
“Why you eyein’ my lemon drink tech?”
Now, the sharp eyed among you might be able to glean a few tidbits that will force you to ask questions. Specifically, if you’re at all familiar with weapons, real or fictional. For one thing, this is not a lethal weapon, like you’d expect from fictional ray guns. Sure, getting hit with it will hurt like a sonuvabitch, but it probably won’t kill you. The other important thing that the entire article fails to mention is rate of fire. Which, given the power requirements of such a laser, may well be slow; each 2 second burst may have a longer interval between shots.
Granted, that’s less of a problem if you have a whole bunch of them. And coming it at roughly $15,000, you probably could, especially as you’re paying for electricity rather than hard ammo. Doubly so, since a full battery bank gives you 1000 shots, as they claim.
But you won’t see this thing in the hands of civilians, regardless of how affordable it might be. It’s guaranteed to be restricted to police and military personnel. And even then, it might be frowned on; it’s the sort of things that violates the U.N.’s Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons. That said, it’s not like the U.N. could actually do anything about it, since the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons lacks any real means of enforcement.
And that’s how we get to Winnie the Pooh and his laser gun seen in the cover image. Because this is China we’re talking about, and chances are the ZKZM-500 will eventually be used outside of the suggested usage parameters. Indeed, a promotional paper for the weapon uploaded to the Chinese government website highlights that it could potentially be used against “illegal protests”. Soooo, yeah, not quite so cool anymore. Though at least any protesters will live to tell the story of their wicked scars. Well, probably.
Source: Gizmodo
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