Electroshock Bullets Challenge Taser Dominance

A Turkish manufacturer aims to disrupt the worldwide market for less-lethal weapons with its new electroshock projectile, claimed to have been successfully tested in the field on three continents. The weapon offers greater range and rate of fire than existing Taser weapons and may attract military users as well as law enforcement, with the U.S. being a key market.

Tasers are ubiquitous. From selling a few hundred thousand units up to 2005 as Taser International, the company, now Axon Enterprise, now ships more than two millions cartridges a year. The company has no serious rivals in its market.

Tasers fire two darts trailing conductive wires, which attach to the target and make an electric circuit, overwhelming the nervous system for as long as the shock continues. This approach is effective, but even the latest Taser 7 is a single-shot weapon with a range just 22 feet.

For decades researchers have been trying to lose the wires and create an effective self-contained electroshock projectile. The voltage is high, but needs very little power — some Tasers use a couple of CR123 lithium batteries — which can be packed into a shotgun slug.

One of the first such efforts was Jaycor’s Sticky Shocker, invented more than twenty years ago. The main problem with this was the weight; the heavy projectile could cause impact injuries at close range. In 2007 Taser introduced their own much smaller XREP projectile, fired from a 12-guage shotgun with a range of 100 feet. This attached to suspects and delivered an incapacitating shock for twenty seconds.

The XREP was not a success. Apparently it worked well, but was much too costly for police forces at a reported $800 for five rounds. The company has not unveiled another projectile in the subsequent decade.

Now Albayraklar, part of multi-billion-dollar Turkish Albayrak Conglomerate, is aiming for a radical expansion of the market with its Wattozz wireless electroshock gun. (Wattozz comes from the Turkish for ‘stingray,’ hence the ray logo). This is a two-shot handgun which uses a mechanical system — presumably, spring-powered — to fire less-lethal projectiles to 32 feet. As with XREP, the projectiles stick to the target and deliver an immobilizing shock. Radio control allows the firer to turn the shocks on or off remotely.

Crucially, unlike the XREP, the Wattozz projectiles are reusable, as the makers are aiming for a low-cost product which they plan to sell worldwide.

A less-lethal weapon needs to incapacitate a suspect with one shot, and Wattozz claims to deliver that. Tasers are described as “80 to 95% effective in the field,” though reports from police departments appear to show more like 55-80% success rates. A spokesman for the makers of the Wattozz, speaking for Adnan Albayrak of Albayraklar and Benjamin Ballout of ENKS, said that their device has an effectiveness of “more than 90%”.

“The device has been field tested in South Africa, Turkey and Croatia with excellent results,” said the spokesman. “Much better than the Taser.”

Initial market entry should be “by or before the first quarter 2021,” with timing having been slowed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“There are already tens of thousands of units pre-ordered with many hundred thousand units expected to be pre-ordered before end-Q4 2020,” said the spokesman.

Some of the sales are likely to be domestic, but, as the variety of nations in the field testing indicates, Albayraklar are looking internationally. In 2019 the company signed a deal with a Croatian company , they are selling in South Africa, and reportedly talking to partners in Germany, Georgia, and Vietnam. America is a key market and may see early availability according to the spokesman. A partnership company has been set up to market Wattozz in the U.S. which will reportedly be listed on Nasdaq.

Albayraklar are gung-ho in their marketing with videos on YouTube and the slogan ‘The world’s best non-lethal weapon’. But hard details are scarce, with no independent studies available showing either the effectiveness or the safety of the Wattozz. The makers say that it is safer than a Taser thanks to a microprocessor which shuts off power in the event of cardiac arrest or arrythmia, though how it is impossible to confirm how well this works.

Tasers have attracted tremendous criticism, and some continue to question how dangerous they really are. Axon are keen to point out that there have been more than 800 studies carried out on Taser safety, and quote the American Medical Association’s description of the Taser as “a safe and effective tool.” However, they remain controversial, for example in Germany where Tasers are now being rolled out to police in some states and the UK where police use is expanding. Human rights groups say Tasers are linked with deaths and are used disproportionately against minority groups. Axon has weathered the storm so far, although the change of company name may indicate concerns that the word ‘Taser’ may not be seen positively.

In order to succeed, the makers will need to convince the world that the Wattozz is both effective and safe. This may mean surviving a lot of hostile scrutiny by the organisations that log and challenge deaths associated with Taser use. If they can do that, and if Wattozz performs as advertised, it could be transformational, and not just for police departments.

A low-cost electroshock projectile could be a game-changer for the military. Unlike the police, armies cannot use tear gas, CS or pepper spray for legal reasons. This means they have more limited options between shooting and shouting, for example when dealing with crowds throwing stones or tearing down barriers. In 2009 the Pentagon funded Taser International to develop a super-sized version of their XREP projectile. Nothing came of it – possibly due to the cost – or several subsequent efforts. An affordable, reliable weapon which could take down opponents in situations where lethal force is not required would be a useful tool in ‘escalation of force’ scenarios which increasingly occur during insurgencies and situations short of outright war.

Can the Wattozz succeed where others have failed and topple Axon from their long dominance of the electroshock weapons market? How will police forces and the military use, or misuse, the new weapons? The world — and the world’s human rights groups — will be watching closely.