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Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

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Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#51

Post by observationist »

camilo2025 wrote: post #33
observationist wrote: post #27

Serbia had the LRAD systems on hand, after buying them in 2022, most likely from Genasys, but possibly from HyperSpike. https://genasys.com/lrad-products/ It's a legal gray area in Serbia where the use against civilians isn't explicitly forbidden, so they're playing fast and loose and moving fast to crush opposition. It's better than troops just gunning people down, but for a modern, supposedly civilized country it's…

You are aware that these LRAD systems have been used against US citizens, aren't you?

Yes - we've got a long way to go with regards to these technologies.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#52

Post by perching_aix »

hammock wrote: post #42
camilo2025 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that these LRAD systems have been used against US citizens, aren't you?

When?

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_acoustic_device#Uni...

Was an especially commonly discussed topic in 2020 during the George Floyd related protests. Some notable video resources on how to defend against these devices and what one can expect: [0] and [1]. To save you time, if i remember correctly, the most effective is one of those plastic riot shields held in reverse to direct the sound back at the sender (notably pretty difficult when you don't want to just hit other protesters, or don't know where the sound is coming from and/or are getting hit by reflections).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXKTBQBugIA

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqIvak-4Ek

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#53

Post by alephnerd »

casenmgreen wrote: post #20

Serbia is one of the Russian-controlled Governments, along with Hungary and Georgia; these are the countries where we expect to see such attacks made to suppress protest. (USA is not controlled, any more than say China is controlled, but is an authoritarian regime (so no real elections), so there's a shared world view, and here also I would expect to see much the same.)

> Serbia is one of the Russian-controlled Governments

Serbia is a major weapons supplier for Ukraine [0][1][2] and has backed Ukraine's stance on Crimea as it has implications for Serbia's stance on Kosovo.

Vucic only cares about Vucic, and will work with any country (Germany [3], Russia, China [4], America [5], Turkiye [6], UAE [7], etc) to continue to hold power and balance alternatives.

By becoming close with every major player in the region, it makes it easier for Vucic to continue to crackdown on opposition without dealing with condemnations (eg. Germany will remain silent because of the billions in FDI).

Orban did the same thing, but after grinding the EP to a halt, patients for Orban grew thin. By remaining outside the EU, Vucic can continue to hold power while not burning that many bridges with European leadership.

> USA is not controlled, any more than say China is controlled, but is an authoritarian regime (so no real elections)

Huh? Serbia is a night and day difference to the US. The best comparison to the US is probably Israel.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/leaked-us-intel-document-claim...

[1] - https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/09/19/ukraine-is-a-boo...

[2] - https://www.ft.com/content/136ed721-fd50-4815-8314-d9df8dc67...

[3] - https://www.politico.eu/article/serbian-president-aleksandar...

[4] - https://apnews.com/article/serbia-china-xi-jinping-visit-nat...

[5] - https://amp.dw.com/en/serbia-and-us-the-next-great-trans-atl...

[6] - https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/defense-at-for...

[7] - https://www.mei.edu/publications/serbias-best-friend-arab-wo...

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#54

Post by Aeolun »

timewizard wrote: post #44
tonyhart7 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the only acceptable condition to use it maybe if there are riot or violence breakout in that area not for peaceful protest

It's a weapon meant to deny the use of an area by threatening non-selective permanent physical damage. There are very few legitimate civil use cases for something like that.

Something like protecting the capitol from being stormed by a mob?

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#55

Post by XorNot »

darepublic wrote: post #38
malfist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The report I read said it relied on bone conduction, so hearing protection wouldn't do a whole lot. Only things that can attenuate low frequency sounds before it gets to the ear. So muff style headphones might work, or mass

Can you have a device which upon detecting the frequency emits some kind of counter vibration that cancels out th attack?

It's not theoretically impossible but it is completely impractical to engineer such a thing - destructive interference has to be precisely matched to cancel out a sound, and if it's not you just get "beats" as the phases overlap.

And that match depends on matching frequency and distance - or having a very fast tuning system, and then you've got to do all this in a device that's not just another LRAD (at which point you're back to "the best defense is a good offense").

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#56

Post by pclmulqdq »

camilo2025 wrote: post #33
observationist wrote: post #27

Serbia had the LRAD systems on hand, after buying them in 2022, most likely from Genasys, but possibly from HyperSpike. https://genasys.com/lrad-products/ It's a legal gray area in Serbia where the use against civilians isn't explicitly forbidden, so they're playing fast and loose and moving fast to crush opposition. It's better than troops just gunning people down, but for a modern, supposedly civilized country it's…

You are aware that these LRAD systems have been used against US citizens, aren't you?

Police also regularly use tear gas against US citizens. These are weapons that would violate the Geneva convention, but we're okay with them to disperse a crowd.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#60

Post by zozbot234 »

hettygreen wrote: post #8

Is there any counter measure for this? Hardcore hearing protection? Noise cancelling headphones? Handheld sound insulation "shield"?

Use some thick metal plate as a shield and let it reflect the sound back towards the source, most likely. Or something foamy, like mattresses or the like, to just attenuate it. But I don't think any of that would protect you if you're facing 160 dB (though it would indeed be useful if you're farther from the source); the appropriate tactic then is indeed to disperse uniformly over a larger area and make it infeasible for your adversary to launch a concentrated attack. (After all, this is how actual present-day military tactics copes with the existence of much older "area denial" weapons, such as machine guns, tanks etc.) Your protests should then become more "hit and run" in style, relying on highly visible gimmicks rather than mere physical presence to demonstrate continued support.
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