Today, it is difficult to predict which weapon will determine hostilities, say, at the end of this century. Many promising developments may prove ineffective in asymmetric scenarios. For example, fifth-generation Israeli fighter jets, created with stealth technology, are unlikely to be effective against urban guerrillas in Palestine or in the areas of Beirut controlled by Lebanese Hezbollah. Special forces, equipped with impenetrable armor under "invisibility cloaks" and equipped with light machine guns with "smart ammunition", should solve similar tasks.
Invisible warriors of the future
Being invisible on the battlefield is every general's old dream. It all started with radar invisibility, and the first stele technologies were used for "stealth aircraft", then invisible ships appeared. Today engineers are designing all the new tanks, armored personnel carriers and amphibians that are not visible on radar screens. But that's not all about invisibility. The main challenge is to create soft light guide materials that could significantly reduce thermal and visual characteristics by refracting light around the target. The result is an adaptive camouflage that reproduces everything that is behind the back of an object covered with an invisibility cloak.
Such an adaptive "raincoat-tent" will allow any soldier to be unobtrusive in enemy territory. Of course, a lot here depends on the lighting and the angle of view, but the advantages that such an outfit gives to a sniper, scout or saboteur are undeniable. At the very least, it will make a big difference until the enemy develops countertechnologies. For example, something similar, reminiscent of a "laser stroboscope", may be included in the Russian promising kit "Ratnik". All this is very reminiscent of the alien's spacesuit from the Hollywood blockbuster "Predator", when an alien hunter, switching the ranges of perception, catches a detachment of terrestrial special forces.
Of course, as has happened more than once, any of the most secret developments may end up in the hands of extremists capable of organizing new large-scale terrorist acts using invisible materials.
Shooting blanks
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Even in the works of Jules Verne, you can find a mention of "electric weapons". Unfortunately, the great novelist did not describe them in detail, and today we can only guess about the construction of this mysterious weapon.
Meanwhile, the still outstanding Russian electrical engineer Mikhail Osipovich Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, in conversations with Nikola Tesla at the World Congress of Electricians in 1893, mentioned an electromagnetic rail gun. This weapon was not supposed to use gunpowder, but a magnetic field.
Nowadays, the ideas of the Russian engineer undertook to implement the Pentagon. The terms of reference for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) requires the creation of an "electromagnetic thrower" railgun that throws a 100-kilogram blank at 200 km at a speed of at least 9000 kilometers per hour."
Experts believe that the railgun has good development prospects as a means of conducting offensive and defensive operations. This includes precision strikes and air defense.
However, the rail gun also has significant drawbacks: colossal energy intensity and gigantic power loads. So, for each shot, a current of several million amperes is required (this was foreseen by Nikola Tesla), which is comparable to the currents that cause aurora. It is difficult to predict when capacitor banks will appear capable of concentrating such energy, and the barrels of guns will not burst with each shot.
The battlefield is space
Since the complete collapse of the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the Pentagon has been aggressively trying to turn the skies above our heads into another battleground. And here the "Star Wars" enthusiasts are supported in every possible way by ufologists and conspiracy theorists. After all, every comic book lover knows very well that back in the 1940s, malevolent little green men in saucer fleets occupied the North American "cradle of democracy." This allows, under the pretext of protecting against alien aggression, to develop not only lunar-based nuclear missile systems, but also absolutely fantastic "death stars" from the films of George Lucas.
One of the most realistic scenarios of modern "Star Wars" is a massive attack from space with electromagnetic ammunition. For this, dozens (in some variants - hundreds) of orbital bombers simultaneously detonate electromagnetic (EMP) ammunition at high altitudes. This will deal a devastating blow to enemy satellites, power grids and other communications. All aircraft will fail, transport will stop, cellular communications and the Internet will disappear. After that, any developed state will find itself in the Stone Age. And then the landing of overseas "carriers of democracy" will rush to the defenseless country.
You can, of course, drop EMP bombs from conventional bombers, or equip them with intercontinental ballistic missiles. But all of these delivery vehicles can be intercepted or pre-empted. But satellites with EMP-ammunition are inaccessible to most countries. Only a few owners of anti-satellite systems can resist them. In addition, the time of a strike from space is in no way comparable to the approach of conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), not to mention the fact that an EMP strike is capable of disabling the anti-satellite missile defense system itself.
With the help of such space weapons, Pentagon strategists hope to fulfill their long-held dream and win wars without firing a shot.
Hypersonic Impact
The pace of modern warfare is breathtaking and largely driven by rocket attacks. We can say that the success of a particular operation depends on how quickly the cruise missile warheads hit the target. However, conventional cruise missiles are too slow today. Only by using hypersonic missiles flying at a speed several times the speed of sound would it be possible to quickly respond to a reconnaissance message and hit the enemy.
This is how the concept of "global lightning strike" was born at the Pentagon, which was developed in 2001 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As a result, a model of the Kh-51A hypersonic cruise missile was born.
Russia and China did not stand aside and began their own research in this direction. India also said it has made some progress in developing missile technology with similar parameters. All this has led leading military analysts to declare that the world has reached a very dangerous line and is on the brink of a war that will destroy all life on Earth.
Today, hypersonic experts argue over which combat scenarios a global strike would be most effective. Most are inclined to believe that these will be lightning strikes against headquarters, command and control systems and communications, as well as on other important targets identified by operational intelligence.
Intelligent drones
Artificial intelligence (AI) machines are no longer surprising. In the army, you can find sapper robots, underwater mini-vehicles, controlled from a distance, not to mention a wide variety of reconnaissance drones. Nevertheless, not a single military robot has yet shown the slightest glimmer of intelligence. It all comes down to a crude imitation of human activity.
However, the situation may change. And pretty soon. Many military cybernetics believe that they are already close to creating a full-fledged AI. On the other hand, if “smart drones” appear, then the question of the moral responsibility of their programmers will arise. After all, then machines will independently make decisions that determine the life and death of a person.
Of course, even then, “cybernetic devices”, or simply “cybers”, will be far from intelligent from a human point of view. However, their further development is of great concern. It is unlikely that it will be difficult to reprogram a combat cyber, so a “virtual battle of programmers” will begin, where each side will try in every possible way to “intercept the control levers” of other drones. What can happen in the end is well illustrated by science fiction novels. After all, even without a nuclear apocalypse, the Earth can literally be flooded by a stream of self-replicating “shako-organisms”. In the course of hostilities, the formal logic of AI drones can easily rank the actions of a person sending machines against each other to a common hostile factor. And then a real hunt for humans will begin on Earth.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №24. Author: Oleg Faig