I was watching a movie that took place in Vietnam War and saw that they put large loudspeakers on tanks, boats and even on helicopters. On another TV Series, Generation Kill that took place in Iraq War, they don’t have such things. Soldiers usually sing by themselves.
I’m wondering:
* what was the purpose of loudspeakers?
* why they don’t use it anymore?
In: 219
As a first trip cadet, I was on a ship in the Arabian Gulf. The ship was fitted with LRAD – Long Range Acostic Devices.
You could play pretty much anything through them – basically, they were just a big directional speaker.
They trialled phrases in Arabic to play to the dhows and stop them coming closer. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Dhows would come closer because they couldn’t hear what was being said.
That would then trigger a defensive posture onboard the ship. Poor dhow skippers only wanted to hear the message and end up with guns aimed them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the LRAD stopped being used. The units fitted to the ship I was on didn’t even work – they’d been left uncovered on the bridge wings for several years by that point.
Fun fact: During Operation Just Cause (the US invasion of Panama to arrest Noreiga), Noriega took refuge in the embassy of the Holy See, which meant the US military could not enter. To get him to come out, they blasted rock-and-roll music really loudly for a number of days and he eventually surrendered
Latest Answers