10. See-through planes

Clearly inspired by Wonder Woman, the MoD wants pilots to be able to see right through their aircraft. Sadly that doesn't mean making planes out of glass with scantily clad lovelies flying them; it means a heads-up display inside the pilot's helmet that projects images from outside, enabling the pilot to 'see' through the metal. The helmets are currently in development for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

11. Invisible tanks

As the old joke almost put it: What's green and invisible? That tank. Last year, the MoD revealed that it was testing invisibility systems for tanks and even troops. It's a simple enough idea - cameras film the tank's surroundings and then project it onto the tank - but it'll be a few years before it's battlefield ready. A proper invisibility cloak is probably decades away.

12. Pain beams

Want a non-lethal but exceptionally painful energy weapon? Then get thee to Raytheon, whose Silent Guardian uses a focused beam of microwave energy to heat up the skin and force enemies to take cover. As Ars Technica notes, rather brilliantly, this is one area where a tinfoil hat really could defend you.

13. HAARP

Depending on whom you believe, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Programme is either a system for better global communications, a space weapon for battling UFOs, an earthquake creator or a mind control ray. The first explanation comes from military men who can't see a piece of cheese without wondering how to kill people with it; the others from the tinfoil hat brigade and Muse's Matt Bellamy. Who to trust?

14. Terminators

We've got exoskeletons. We've got guns. So why not go the next step into Terminator territory and develop robot brains that would enable the exoskeletons to chase us around with their guns? That's exactly what DARPA's SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) electronic brain programme seems designed to do. SyNAPSE? SKYNET, more like. Everybody panic! Again!

Now read about war bloggers and travel bloggers in Battlefields and bikes: blogging from the edge