History of weather weapons

Military affairs and meteorology have always been closely linked. Ever since Zhuge Liang borrowed the east wind to burn down Cao Ying, there have been endless examples in human history of using meteorological conditions to attack the enemy and protect oneself in wars. War and weather have a long history. From the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century to the Iraq War in the early 2000s, weather and war have gone hand in hand. It can be said that no matter how the combat style changes or the weapons and equipment develop, war will be affected by the weather. Meteorological conditions are a double-edged sword, which is fair to both combatants. The key depends on who can control it without being affected by it. If weather conditions can be used rationally, weather will become a "multiplier" of combat effectiveness.

As early as World War II, weather weapons had begun to be used. In 1943, the U.S. military created a thick fog belt along a river in Italy in order to cover the troops crossing the river. In order to prevent Allied bombing, Germany sprayed a large amount of artificial fog-generating agents to cover the protected area.

During the Gulf War, the special climate conditions in the Gulf region were one of the most important factors in the strategic decision-making of multinational forces. When choosing the timing for the war against Iraq, the U.S. military meteorological department provided the Department of Defense with a climate report on the Gulf region and pointed out that the timing for the war against Iraq should be from December to March of the following year. Although there are many rainy and foggy days during this period, But compared with the high temperature and sandy weather from April to October, this impact is much smaller.

As early as the 1950s, when President Eisenhower was in power in the United States, the U.S. military clearly stated in a research report that "weather control is more important than atomic bombs." The US government also established the "McKinley Climate Laboratory" at the Tampa Bay Air Force Base in Florida to develop weather weapons. Beginning in the 1960s, meteorological weapons developed by the McKinley Climate Laboratory began to be used in actual combat. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military dispatched 26,000 aircraft sorties and launched more than 4.74 million rainfall catalytic bombs over the Vietnam combat area. The large amount of heavy rain and floods caused by the U.S. military made the "Ho Chi Minh Trail", the Vietnamese army's supply line, muddy, seriously affecting the Vietnamese army's operations. action.

In the 1970s, the United States changed the direction of a typhoon and directed it toward Honduras, causing tens of thousands of casualties in Central America.

In 1970, the U.S. Department of Defense spread silver iodide to the clouds in Cuba's "upstream areas," causing severe and abnormal dry weather in Cuba's "upstream areas."

Principle

The reason why artificial weather modification can be achieved under certain circumstances is because there is huge energy and various unstable factors in the atmosphere. If these unstable factors are mastered, The changing pattern of factors, under certain favorable opportunities and conditions, affects the physical processes in the atmosphere in a local area through technical means such as artificial catalysis, and uses less energy to "induced" them, and huge energy conversions will occur. , making the weather develop in the direction expected by people.

In fact, artificial weather modification is a systematic project, from catalyst selection, operation method selection, to weather monitoring and forecasting, all are indispensable, and all work must be accurate. Even so, it is difficult to achieve artificial rainfall under clear skies. For some systematic strong weather, such as heavy rains, heavy snowstorms, typhoons, etc., the effect of artificial weather modification is minimal.