The US Central Intelligence Agency Agency has a mysterious system that can paralyse large ships at sea “Secretly and non-violently”, the website of Wired Magazine revealed yesterday. The system is said to have been considered by the Donald Trump government for use against oil tankers plying between Venezuela and Cuba. What exactly is this“Mystical paralytic ship weapon”? The U. S. “Power” website listed a number of possibilities on the 4th.
The report said, on October 31, wired published a detailed account of the failed attempts by the Donald Trump administration and “Foreign partners” to overthrow Venezuelan President Maduro between 2018 and 2020, it mentions the CIA’s“Mysterious weapon of paralysed ships”. According to US officials, “Cuba is dependent on Venezuelan oil and in return the Cuban security services protect Maduro. So the Donald Trump administration thought that if the US could somehow intercept or sabotage a venezuelan-to-cuban tanker, it could hit both countries at the same time.”. Reported that the CIA’s“Mysterious disabled ship weapons” in the U. S. government was considering options. “The CIA has a secret, non-violent system that can cripple ships. US officials want the CIA to deploy the system near Venezuela to disable oil tankers bound for Cuba. But the CIA balked at moving it to South because it now has only one system and is deployed in another hemisphere. Eventually the idea was shelved.”
The report said that while the wired report did not provide specific details about the CIA’s“Mysterious paralysed ship weapon,” based on available intelligence, there were a number of possibilities. The first is the high-power microwave weapon, which emits high-energy electromagnetic waves to its targets, causing the destruction, paralysis or disruption of key systems such as radar, computer navigation equipment, communications equipment, ship steering systems and the electronic control systems of engines, which in turn causes the ship to cease to operate, no harm will be done to the crew. Pentagon 2023 have unveiled plans for a “High-power combined electromagnetic non-kinetic strike” that details how such weapons work. “It can generate invisible electromagnetic energy in a specific frequency range, coupled to electronic components through antennas, cables and various openings or gaps, causing very high instantaneous induced voltages and currents, thus causing a series of temporary or permanent effects on the target, resulting in signal errors, system lock-in or failure, physical damage and other effects.”
According to motive, the Navy conducted at least one successful test of the weapon at the China Lake Test Center in 2022. The Pentagon has also developed relatively small versions of these weapons, which can be used to quickly stop a suicide car or suicide boat attack.
However, reports suggest that given the size of the high-power microwave weapon, it may be difficult to get close to the tanker in secret, so the CIA may use unmanned aerial or naval platforms, or camouflaged civilian ships or even nuclear submarines, equipped with such“Crippled ship weapons” after close to the target attack, thereby reducing the possibility of exposure.
Another possibility is simple physical damage, that is, damage to the ship’s propulsion system and rudder. The most typical method is to use cable and other equipment winding propeller to force the ship to slow down or stop the effect. Propeller-winding devices have been used to paralyze large ships, but the idea is to pre-position them in front of a designated vessel without being detected, it would require very clear information, such as the movements of ships, to be successful. The report said it would be very difficult to carry out such an operation in secret.
The report also said the CIA’s“Mysterious crippled ship weapon” could also be a cyberattack on tankers, causing critical sensors and communications to fail, forcing ships to halt or slow down. For example, a cyberattack could disable or shut down critical control systems on a ship. “The CIA has a reputation for developing innovative, lethal and non-lethal weapons, such as its involvement in the development of a ‘low collateral damage’ version of the Hellfire anti-tank missile, which is equipped with an ejector blade rather than a high-explosive warhead.”
The US media also noted a detail in the wired report: “The CIA currently has only one system, which is currently deployed in another hemisphere.”. According to motive, the report suggested that the CIA’s“Mysterious crippled ship weapon” had been deployed forward beyond the western hemisphere and could have set very specific targets. That is why the CIA insists that it is“Reluctant to deploy the system on a large scale or to disclose its specific capabilities without a particularly serious crisis or a very high-priority covert operation”.