Military’s New Water Guns Can Rip Through Steel, Disabling IEDs

Need to disarm an IED? Make sure you?ve got your Super Soaker handy. Sorry, make that your ?Fluid Blade Disablement Tool.?

The Stingray, the military?s newest bomb-fighting tech, is a small water gun developed by Sandia National Laboratories and a firm called TEAM Technologies, according to a report in Popular Science. Far from dousing roadside bombs with water, it uses an ultra-high-pressure water beam to slice through steel, ripping bombs open before they can harm troops. Watch below as a propane tank meets an untimely end.

The Stingray involves a clear plastic water tank, about the size of a coffee pot, attached to an explosive charge. The detonation creates a shock wave that propels water toward a concave opening in the reservoir, which shapes the water into a blade. The device works at short range and over long distances, according to Sandia Labs.

Read the full article and see video of it in action by clicking here.