Topic: Plasma shield or Plasma weapon?

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

The US Army hopes, within a few years, to deploy a plasma shield – a machine that generates a protective screen of dazzling mid-air explosions – to stun and disorient an enemy.

The device uses a technology known as dynamic pulse detonation (DPD). A short but intense laser pulse creates a ball of plasma, and a second laser pulse generates a supersonic shockwave with the plasma to generate a bright flash and a loud bang.

The Plasma Acoustic Shield System will eventually combine a dynamic pulse detonation laser with a high power speaker for hailing or warning, and a dazzler light source. PASS has already been demonstrated by the system's makers, Stellar Photonics.

[Just plain old Punisher]

It's a weapon. More along the lines of a flash-bang grenade than a lethal weapon tho.

[Centurus]

If it provides a way to incapacitate the enemy without really killing them as well as reducing our own casualty numbers on the battlefield, while at the same time increasing the odds of winning a battle, then I'm all for it.

Is there any radiation involved in the whole process however?

[Nemesis]

If it provides a way to incapacitate the enemy without really killing them as well as reducing our own casualty numbers on the battlefield, while at the same time increasing the odds of winning a battle, then I'm all for it.

Is there any radiation involved in the whole process however?

Sometimes it is better for you to cripple or kill the enemy rather than capture him.

What would have happened in WWI for example if all German casualties had instead been captures?  The 6 million captives would have not only broken the Allied economy to hold onto but would have cost so much manpower to guard that they (the allies) would have been unable to continue the war.