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Swarms of inexpensive drones, please meet your archnemesis – THOR
A new Air Force weapon will wipe out drone swarms with the push of a button
One of the biggest threats to U.S. troops abroad isn’t a stealth fighter, a nuclear missile, or a massive cyber attack. It’s a swarm of cheap drones that can overwhelm the expensive defense systems troops have on hand now.
“I’m talking about the [drone] you can go out and buy at Costco right now in the United States for a thousand dollars, four quad, rotorcraft or something like that that can be launched and flown,” Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command said last summer. “And with very simple modifications, it can be made into something that can drop a weapon like a hand grenade or something else.”
In sufficient numbers, those drones can spy on friendly bases, destroy infrastructure and attack personnel, explained the Air Force Research Laboratory in a recent video. How? Because machine guns don’t have the range or accuracy to destroy the nimble fliers; anti-aircraft missiles are too expensive to use on the cheap devices; and most military bases don’t have enough missiles to destroy an entire swarm.
Enter Thor, the Norse god of Thunder, who serves as the namesake to one of the Air Force’s newest weapons. While the Air Force’s Tactical High Power Operational Responder (THOR) may not look like a hero, it could save the day for American troops if their far-flung combat outposts are ever attacked by hundreds of cheap kamikaze-style enemy drones.
THOR isn’t much to look at: the weapon consists of a big satellite dish mounted on top of a 20-foot long shipping crate. But simplicity is a virtue, as the weapon can be transported easily aboard a C-130 transport plane and set up within three hours by a crew of two, according to the Air Force Research laboratory, which is leading the development of THOR.
Once THOR is set up, it can detect an incoming threat and silently shoot a beam of energy to knock out drones in a wide target area, exactly like what you might find in a drone swarm. The beam is a high-powered microwave that instantly triggers a counter-electronic effect in the targeted drone. AFRL boasted that the system took out hundreds of drones in real-world tests. That real world setting may have been somewhere in Africa, where the Air Force tested out THOR starting in December.
“I’ve watched it in action and it’s really quite impressive,” said Air Force chief scientist Richard Joseph at the time.
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The State of New Hampshire and some of its residents have schooled “River Dave” Lidstone in most brutal fashion: A good man living off the grid on other people’s property may reap bad rewards, if government finds out
Fire burns cabin of New Hampshire man jailed after nearly 3 decades in the woods
For almost three decades, 81-year-old David Lidstone has lived in the woods of New Hampshire along the Merrimack River in a small cabin adorned with solar panels. He has grown his own food, cut his own firewood, and tended to his pets and chickens.
But his off-the-grid existence has been challenged in court by a property owner who says he’s been squatting for all those years. And to make Lidstone’s matters worse, his cabin was burned to the ground Wednesday afternoon in a blaze that is being investigated by local authorities.
Lidstone, or “River Dave” as he’s known by boaters and kayakers, was jailed July 15 on a civil contempt sanction. He was told he’d be released if he agreed to leave the cabin, but he has stayed put.
“You came with your guns, you arrested me, brought me in here, you’ve got all my possessions. You keep ’em,” Lidstone told a judge in a court appearance Wednesday morning. “I’ll sit here with your uniform on until I rot, sir.”
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A female driver in Los Angeles has shown us there is no need to change one’s plans for the day after causing an automobile accident, even if the accident was running over and killing a 91-year old woman
Fatal Hit-and-Run NR21202
Los Angeles: The Los Angeles Police Department’s South Traffic Division detectives are asking for the public’s help in providing any information that would lead to the identification of a hit-and-run driver involved in a traffic collision that resulted in the death of a pedestrian.
On August 2, 2021 at 7:00 a.m., an elderly woman, approximately 91-years-old, was struck while walking across an alley on Ellendale Place just south of Adams Blvd. The vehicle was traveling westbound in the alley backing unsafely when the suspect vehicle collided with a pedestrian that was walking westbound in the alley.
The driver exited the vehicle and observed the pedestrian laying on the roadway. The driver moved the vehicle out of the roadway, stood around her vehicle for approximately three minutes, then returned to her vehicle and left the location failing to render aid.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded and transported the victim to California Hospital where she died from her injuries.
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