- This article is provided courtesy of Stars & Stripes
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- By Sandra Jontz,
- Stars and Stripes European Edition
- September 14, 2004
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- ARLINGTON, Va. - A new sheriff is coming to town.
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- The Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation is designing
a combined lethal and nonlethal weapons system to be fielded to Army and
Marine Corps units in Iraq by summer, 2005, in an experiment called "Project
Sheriff."
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- The concept is to retrofit ground vehicles already in
the services' inventories with an array of new lethal and nonlethal systems,
giving troops working in urban terrain more options, especially when deciding
how to deal with potential noncombatants or civilians being used as shields,
said program director and transformation strategist Col. Wade Hall, a 23-year
veteran of the Marine Corps.
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- Like a sheriff, Hall says.
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- "He's not there to cause destruction. He's there
to keep the peace, but has the option to go to destruction status if he
needs it," Hall said.
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- The Pentagon hopes to launch the system in Iraq in June
or July, equipping four to six Army and Marine Corps vehicles with a combination
of off-the-shelf technology and systems being developed.
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- Vehicles under consideration include the Army's new Stryker
armored personnel carrier or the Armored Security Vehicle, or ASV, and
the Marine Corps' Light Armored Vehicle, or LAV, already proven to work
well in cities, said Hall.
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- A goal of the Office of Force Transformation is to cut
through the years and years it used to take the department to introduce
a new system, he said, while assuring that the technology employed is well-studied
and the office is not sacrificing safety for the sake of speed.
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- Designers see the systems being used for missions such
as armed reconnaissance, raids, crowd control, security patrol and vehicle
checkpoints.
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- While no decisions have been made on which systems will
be used, managers have narrowed the field to a few for consideration, Hall
said.
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- Among them is Raytheon Company's nonlethal Active Denial
System, a counter-personnel directed energy weapon that projects a speed-of-light
millimeter wave of energy that makes skin feel like it's on fire.
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- According to studies done by the Air Force Research Laboratory,
which developed the technology in a joint effort with the Marine Corps
and Raytheon, the invisible beam penetrates the skin to a depth of less
than 1/64 of an inch and produces heat that within seconds becomes intolerable,
said lab spokeswoman Eva Hendren.
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- The sensation stops when the individual moves out of
the beam. The beam does not cause injury because its penetration is so
shallow, Hendren said.
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- Vehicles also could be equipped with high-powered lights
to aid in searches, and an acoustics system such as the Long Range Acoustic
Device, or LRAD, a high-powered bullhorn of sorts that emits an ear-piercing
noise.
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- Marines in Iraq already are using the LRAD system. No
decision on LRAD has been made, but the office has no alternative if it
is not picked, Hall said. Critics of the LRAD system have said the ear-piercing
noise could cause permanent damage and deafness. He said the military still
is conducting studies.
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- The lethal portion of the projects includes a mounted
rapid-fire gun that will be able to carry a diversity of medium- and small-caliber
machine guns at a high rate of fire. The system under consideration is
called Gunslinger and is under development at the Naval Surface Warfare
Center in Dahlgren, Va.
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- An Active Protection System would place an array of sensors
that could deploy decoys and detect chemical or biological agents.
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- While the Pentagon is taking the lead in developing Project
Sheriff, other agencies interested in the experiment's progress include
the Justice, Energy, and State departments and the FBI, Hall said.
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- ©2004 Stars & Stripes. All opinions expressed
in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of
Military.com.
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