Your life turns into an unending darkness. You can never see your loved ones, your children, the Sun or the Moon. It can be worse than death itself.Laser weapons can be used in the battlefield to permanently damage the eye and cause incurable blindness in everyone hit by the beam. Guns shooting invisible rays of demise are no science fiction, unfortunately. Very real laser rifles capable of blinding human beings exist, and have already been tested in practice. The good news is that no reports of their use in actual combat situation has been reported yet.
LasersLasers in the battlefieldEffects of laser weapons to the eyeBlindnessLasers and international legislation Furthermore, if laser weapons become commonplace among armies, they will undoubtedly diffuse to terrorist groups and criminal organizations as well. If their manufacture and use are not banned as soon as possible, we might be facing an all new disastrous means of urban terrorism by the end of the 20th century. Lasers Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, or Laser is a form of light with frequency between 10^12 and 10^17 Hertz. Since laser is a form of electromagnetic radiation, it has no mass and travels at the speed of light (300 000 km/sec).
Laser light differs from normal light in that it is highly coherent, has one single wavelength, and generally travels in one direction only.Light from a laser source may be continuous or pulsed. Continuous laser light may have power from one thousandth of a Watt to thousands of Watts. Pulsed lasers may reach energies of up to millions of Watts for a fraction of a second at a time. Lasers are used in a great variety of applications, such as medical applications, range finding, radar, and material processing.
Lasers in the battlefield In the battlefield, lasers have several applications, including hand-held range-finders, target designators, simulators, laser-warning devices and laser radar. Lasers may be used against planes, helicopters, anti-aircraft artillery, tanks, trucks, and infantry.Anti-personnel lasers have ranges of 1000-2000 meters, may be able to change the frequency of the beam to make detection and protection against the light harder, are silent, and can be used at night. Also, a backpack-held battery could give enough power for 2000 to 3000 shots, and a 50 kW engine could keep a laser weapon operable for hours. Laser weapons can also be used against masses of people by scanning the area with the beam. Disadvantages of such weapons include that the eye has to be hit if any damage is to be caused, protection measures against the weapon can be built if the wavelength of the light is known in advance, laser light is blocked by smoke, and at night they are only usable on short ranges because of easy detectability.
Eye protection can be effective against anti-personnel weapons. Goggles can be built to block certain wavelengths, and thereby stopping the laser beam from hitting the eye. “Optical fuses,” based on the evaporation of a thin film, can be used in optical systems. Naturally, indirect viewing methods such as the use of video technologies is an effective protection against eye damage caused by laser light. Shutter mechanisms can also be built against laser weapons. All means of protection mentioned hinder the combat efficiency of the soldier bearing them, and therefore the mere use of laser weapon handicaps the enemy troops. Effects of laser weapons on the eye Laser light carries energy, and when the beam reaches its target, the energy is absorbed by the object hit and turns into heat. The eye tissue is damaged if the energyof the laser beam is high enough. Two kinds of damage can occur, namely coagulation and the more dangerous photodisruptive action, which means that the tissue is actually torn apart.Given that the power of the laser beam is high enough, the exposure of even a nanosecond can be sufficient to cause permanent retinal damage because of photodisruptive action. If the beam hits the macula, central vision is wiped out, a phenomenon called “central scotoma.” If the beam hits the periphery, the victim might not even realize he or she has been hit. When a laser beam hits the optic nerve, however, all vision is lost.
If haemorrhaging takes place, eye movements may help to spread the blood around, making the effects even worse. The effects of the laser beam hit may or may not be permanent, depending on the amount of energy delivered.
The amounts of energy needed to cause temporary, “flash” blindess, and permanent blindess appears to be very close to one another, and therefore controlling the permanence of blindness caused may be impossible in practice. Some damages to the cornea or the lens may be healed, but all retinal damage is permanent. Psychological effects of permanent blindness Approximately 80 or 90 percent of the human sensory stimuli comes through the eyes. Therefore, the loss of vision automatically changes the course of the victim’s life. Reading, writing, driving a car, finding items easily, walking without the fear of hitting obstacles, responding to other people’s gestures, and naturally working become impossible. Permanently.Depression is very common among people facing sudden, permanent blindness. Self esteem is compromised as the victim becomes to a large extent dependent on other people in most everyday routines and cannot usually do productive work. Blindness is a heavy tax on both the family of the blinded person and the society as a whole. Rehabilitation and care of the victim takes up a lot of both human and material resources. Direct and indirect costs of sudden blindness include medical treatment, rehabilitation, therapy, and retraining of the victim, time spent on guiding and helping the blinded person, and the lost working years of the victim.
International legislation concerning laser weapons At the present (January 1996) there are no international pacts or agreeements to forbid the manufacture or use of laser weapons on the battlefield. The International Committee of Red Cross and the Swedish government have both suggested amendments to the United Nations agreeements on war practices that would forbid the use of blinding weapons.