"USSR - People's Commissariat of Aircraft Production
Factory #454
#44917
Kuybishev
July 26th, 1941
Report
Introduction
About three months ago, during a conversation with Doctor of Technical Sciences, G.I. Babat, who was working at the "Svetlana" factory in Leningrad, comrade Babat and I decided on boundaries to a solution to the issue of an effective offensive death ray.
The issue of death rays have attracted scientists for a long time, but due to the fact that the problem had no solution for a long time, one can only find descriptions of non-existent projects in popular science or science fiction magazines.
However, one can present an idea for creating a death ray based on scientific foundations. I am not saying that all difficulties that will be met in the process are easily conquered and that death rays can definitely be obtained using the method described below, but there is a possibility that the question will be answered.
After a discussion with engineer G.I. Babat, I though through a series of details of this issue and even calculated the approximate cost of building the first prototype of the device. That cost is seven million rubles.
The large amount of necessary materials with the degree of risk did not allow me to request funding, and I continued to think the issue over.
It is reasonable to present the following idea to experts in the fields of physics and radio technology and begin urgently designing and building the device and testing its individual components.
One can think that if the necessary amount of major specialists from the Academy of Sciences, NII 33, the "Svetlana" factory, and military specialists, working on several variants at once, prioritizing the economy of time, a death ray will be created in a short time.
It is necessary to assign professor G.I. Babat, professor Neiman (NII 33), Professor Rytov (Academy of Sciences), associate professor Vollner (KII), and Professor Naumov (Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences) to this project.
Means of creating a death ray
Everyone knows Al. Tolstoy's book The Garin Death Ray, which describes a fictional device that creates death rays by concentration of heat (beam) energy. However, the laws of physics (optics and thermodynamics) contradict this idea.
One may think that it is impossible to create a death ray by concentrating beams of energy. This is confirmed by failures of multiple scientists, such as professor Bonch-Bruevich, which tried to use ultra-short radio waves.
There is another, more realistic method. This method consists of using a beam of rapidly flying electrons.
Let us imagine that we manged to create a beam of electrons with the intensity of 1 million Amperes with the potential difference of 50-100 million Volts. Such a beam will carry 50-100 kW of power. The air will not interact with electrons that are flying so quickly. It is known that the faster a beam of electrons is fired, the smaller the effective surface area of atoms that are pierced by this beam when it passes through matter.
Let this beam of electrons impact a metallic surface, for example a ship's armour.
If the beam is focused such that it covers a surface area of 1 cm², 50-100 kW of heat energy will be concentrated on that area.
That kind of focused heat will result in the ship's armour being quickly (in a fraction of a second) melted through, like a hot needle melts butter or wax. A moving ship can be cut in half like with a blowtorch.
How do we create such a fast moving electron beam? There has not been a solution to this question, but the direction to the answer has been set.
The Lawrence principle, used in cyclotrons, can be used to create a 50-100 million Volt electron beam. The principle uses blocks with variable parameters.
A beam of electrons can be accelerated around a trajectory of variable potential. The potential is altered in such a way that the beam is accelerated at every stage. The cumulative acceleration is enough to create the necessary speed using only tens of thousands of volts at every stage.
Lawrence has already built devices of this type to study the atom, which can accelerate an electron to the speed of tens of millions of Volts.
To create a fast beam of electrons with a small mass, we need to discard the idea of a circular (or rather spiral) trajectory and use a linear trajectory.
Let us examine figure 1.
Figure 1 shows the diagram of the device.
The electron projector (П) creates a 1-5 MA beam of electrons with a small initial speed on the order of 1 million volt. The beam will have a speed of about 0.95 times the speed of light. Then, the beam enters the long cylindrical endovibrator (T) which will contain standing electric waves with a wavelength of 10-15 cm, created by ultra-short wave generators (Г), a few hundred kilowatts in power.
While passing through the pipe, the electron beam will speed up, and its energy will grow (the opposite of the principle of operation of a klystron.
Since the speed of the beam will increase from 0.95 times the speed of light to approach the latter, the absolute increase in speed will not be high. The wavelength of the standing waves can remain the same. The increase in the electrons' energy will happen, according to Einstein's theory, due to the increased mass of the electrons as they approach the speed of light.
If the potential difference in the pipe is, let's say, 10⁵ Volt, then in order to obtain the necessary speed of the electrons (50-100 million Volt) we will need a 50-100 meter long copper pipe. The electron beam, accelerated to the necessary speed, will exit the pipe and strike its target. Of course, the pipe will be filled with vacuum, and the electrons will exit through a special window, composed of, for example, two metal plates with a layer of coolant in between. The system will also have focusing devices.
The advantages of the described weapon include the fact that the electron beam has a very high velocity, and the trajectory as it comes out of the gun is linear, so an optical sight will require almost no correction.
The design issues that need to be solved are as follows:
- Generation of VHF radio waves (10-15 cm wavelength) with the power of hundreds of kilowatts.
Currently, we have klystrons that produce several kilowatts of power. The issue can be solved by combining several generators that feed pipe T at several points. - Focus of the electron beam at long distances.
Here, we can use the results of electronic optics research. - The design of the exit window.
- The overall design of the device (either as an immobile installation or mobile).
- A source of several thousand kW of power. The immobile variant can use a city's electric grid, and ships can use the ship's generator.
Prof. Dr. Tetelbaum
I agree with Prof. Tetelbaum's ideas.
Prof. Dr. Naumov."