Blinding-ray cancelled

Press, 3 February 1984, Page 6

Blinding-ray cancelled

NZPA-AP Washington The United States Army had cancelled a laser weapon system that could blind enemy soldiers during close combat, military spokesmen said yesterday. Major Robert Pilnacek said in Washington that defence officials had halted development of the closecombat laser assault weapon. In Huntsville, Alabama, a defence spokesman at the Redstone Arsenal said that the project apparently had failed to survive the Army’s “prioritising of research projects.” He said that the Army had decided in December to end the C-Claw project after obligating some SNZ2I.S million to its research and development. C-Claw would have used

low-power lasers to blind optical sensors such as tank periscopes at a range of I.6km when C-Claw swept across a battlefield.

The Redstone spokesman emphasised that the device was not being designed to blind enemy personnel, but project designers said that any soldier looking into the weapon’s beam would suffer immediate ruptures of the veins in the eyes, leading to irreversible blindness.

Some defence industry officials have privately indicated their reluctance to build the laser weapon because they fear unfavourable public reaction to a machine designed to blind but not to kill.

Engineers have predicted that the weapon could blind hundreds of enemy soldiers during a single battle.