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U.S. Air Force Developing Microwave Weapon
Makarand writes "A weapon that uses an intense microwave pulse to fry electronics in computers
and communication systems is being developed by the US Air Force
according to this BBC News article. This weapon is totally harmless to people and could be used in
situations where hitting targets could result in civilian casualties.
This weapon could be carried by an unmanned drone or a cruise missile." EMP weapons have, in general, been under discussion and research for a very long time.
How is disabling electronics completely safe for civillians?
Just imagine this being used near a busy traffic intersection, or near a hospital.
people with pacemakers, or anyone nearby on life support or similar would still be affected.
This weapon is totally harmless to people and could be used in situations where hitting targets could result in civilian casualties
I don't think any army has ever been overly concerned with civilian casualties. The real boon for this is that it leaves strategic buildings intact for use by the bomb's owner.
Much of the work into developing this next-generation weapon is being done at the High Energy Research and Technology Facility.
The $9m lab is located in a canyon in the Manzano Mountains, part of the remote Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
I wish they would check their figures before releasing stories. Could you possibly build a lab like this for 9 million dollars?
SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
From the article:
And US officials have hinted that new developmental weapons technology could be used in an attack on Iraq
Maybe their time has come.
Surely some form of tempest hardening - shielding the equipment in a faraday cage - would effectively protect the equipment (and cats). The article points out a microwave oven, thats just doing the reverse, putting the energy inside a faraday cage. I know that some buildings are shielded in Ottawa, but that has more to do with spying than than anything else.
Semper ubi sub ubi
Despite the emphasis on "totally harmless to people", it should be obvious that this isn't a true smart weapon either--imagine an accidental flyby over a hospital, airport, pacemaker, or computerized traffic light.
Still, this is a valuable weapon, and better than carpet bombing. I just don't want to see it (like sanctions) become a supposedly "bloodless" way to achieve foriegn policy goals.
The article itself is very light on information and does not offer anything other than pure speculation: "A micro-wave weapon may be under development... This weapon may be completely harmless to humans", yadda, yadda, yadda.
I think the United States are kind of pushing up one notch the "psychological warfare" and disinformation on Iraq.
This is not a troll: if you were going to launch a war soon, you'd want your enemies to believe you have several new, exotic and deadly weapons in your arsenal.
In the first Gulf War, Some Iraqi soldiers surrendered as soon as they saw unarmed drones. Drones are now armed, and dangerous, and some Yemenis terrorists learned this the hard way (meaning they were blown to smithereens by a Predator-launched missile.
Add some rumors -- before the conflict -- on how some drones may now carry some super duper microwave weapons and watch even more Iraqi soldiers surrender real quick when a drone flies over them...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The next generation of battlefield will be one where each side tries to take out their guidance systems, command and control systems, game boys, etc. The victor in such a battlefield will be the boys with the best toys, which is the point of development programs like the one in this article.
However, military planners should remember places like Afghanistan (vs USSR) and Vietnam (vs USA), where superior technology didn't mean certain victory. In fact, guerrilla operations by the natives of those contries killed and maimed a great many young men from the "2 world powers". The natives were armed with nothing more than assault rifles, low yield explosives, a few RPG's, and ALOT of desire to succeed.
When you build a system like this, it had better be protected on the back end, or some 17 yr old enemy sapper with a death wish will blow your control systems to hell. Also, you run the risk of thinking that your enemy thinks about these systems the same way you do. Maybe he builds these systems knowing you'll attack them, so he lays a trap.
And, while you are busy figuring out why that command center was undefended, you have a couple thousand guerrilla fighters rush your base of operations. Checkmate.
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
> not so good against the USA's actual enemies
G(W)B (mean both - father and his even 'smarter' *lol* son) are the actual enemy of the USA!
If the USA is dumb enough to support Bin Laden in first place they deserve to get killed over it.
Next Question? Is USA invading Iraq because of the Oil?
Yes absolutly true.
Yup. The news media can be explained simply in one word. Ratings.
People like smart weapons, so the media shows them. People like watching disasters and war, so the media shows them. Best personal analogy is slowing down to take a nosy at a car wreck.
If television news is your primary source of "news", then you simply don't have a clue.
To observe the obvious: the terrorists involved in 9/11 have no objection to "messy" images. They did target the WTC as a symbol of the US's economic hegemony, and the Pentagon as a symbol of the military -- but their specific targets had everything to do with inflicting lots of casualties in a "spectacular" way, too. "Terror" has a lot to do with bodies.
Forgive the lack of a clever twist on this post, but there it is.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
that the article mentioned that we could use these weapons in the war on Iraq...I didn't realize that we are at war with Iraq yet...
SIGFAULT
I'm generally opposed to murder in all it's forms (death penalty, war; holy, political or both) so it's good to see people spending time on weapons that essentially don't hurt anyone.
I'd much rather live in a future where police are armed with neutralizing weapons a la Minority Report, rather than walking around with god damned AK-47s like the police in many countries do today.
If I had to choose, I'd rather be made to puke with a vomit stick by accident than be shot through the heart over a simple Halloween misunderstanding...
for great justice, this sig has been moved
How many casualties have you actually seen in the news these days? From afghanistan or elsewhere?
Watch for casualty pictures in the news during the next gulf war (I hope not, but I'm a pessimist these days). Chances are, you might hear about casualties, but look for any actual dead bodies. They will not show them, because then it makes the war "real", and dirty, and unpopular.
Harmless to humans. Yeah, okay. Go ahead and stand near one of these, go for it! Be a gerbil.
OOPS! That's what the US government uses the military for! Couldn't forget about that, could we?
I'd guess that the US gov't actually uses other countries' militaries for this purpose.
We were wondering what would happen if we used a 'daisycutter' as an offensive weapon (instead of clearing terrain) right?
I am not a sig.
Are we forgetting that there are people who carry around things like pacemakers ? And what if this thing goes off and it hits a nearby hospital or something. They don't ask you to turn off your mobile phone for nothing in those places.
:)
Excellent way to stop the Terminator though
1) Every description so far makes it sound like its just a case of stockpiling Faraday cages. Surely it can't be that simple to protect against?
/. posters suggest, and a simple bit of work with some metal in (1) doesn't protect against them, how powerful a battery-powered one can you fit in a 40ft container on the back of a lorry on Wall Street, in the centre of London, or even, say, a suburb of Redmond as an example? This strikes me as a far more useful weapon of Terror than those messy chemicals and biological agents that Frys or Radio Shack wouldn't sell you.
2) If a high power EMP device is as simple to make as several
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
The problem is the level of shielding needed to protect against low level radiation leaking out of a building is very different from that required to protect sensitive electronics from very high energy radiation.
The other problem becomes apparent when you think of what tactical targets this may be used against.
The first stage of any modern war is to blind your enemy and disrupt thier communications - this means they cannot effectively detect your invasion and coordinate a counter attack.
Currently this is done by an initial attack wave - use radar seaking missiles to destroy air surveilance equipment, cruise/smart bomb/iron bomb to take out communication centers like radio realays and phone exchanges. Maybe use special forces to ensure destruction or imparement of key facilities.
The problem with all of these is you have to physically destroy the equipment - and this means any person near it.
Now if you could use an EMP pulse to destroy electronics then you could argue that that presents a lower risk to humans in the target areas.
The reason that you can't shield this stuff is that radar needs its scanner unshielded to hear its return pulses, radios need unshielded antenna to work, telephone exchanges need miles of unshielded phone cable.
The way to defend against this is to have backup systems in shielded enclosures that are safe from the initial attack, and then connect and use them after it has passed. This is what was done for the civil defence bunkers in the UK - and I presume elsewhere. If it works anything running or connected at the time is toast.
So this is where tactically these weapons can be used - unmanned drones can sneak into the terrotary and destroy comms and survielence systems.
I don't think you could easily get this into a cruise missile - you are going to need a lot of power, probably stored in a capacitor bank to generate a high energy short duration pulse from a directional maser system. Something like the Golden Hawk may do as you have capacity and a large jet turbin to tap for power.
One thing I don't agree with is that these are 'safe' weapons - no weapon is 'safe' it depends on its tactical use. As outlined above it could be used very effecticely - and of course another attraction is that its multi use rather than trhowing away cruise missiles at half a million dollars a shot.
One thing I disagree with in the report (and I'm in the UK) is that it would be good for taking out chemical weapon facilities. No its not.
For a start small scale clandestine chemical weapon manufacture could be carried in small labs by hand - destroying a few PCs, telephones and multimeters doesn't win you anything.
If you target a large automated plant (if the chemical agents are being made in secret at some generally normal chemcial plant) then you had better hope the control systems are totally failsafe, other wise you are going to release those agents, and other noxious substances, in potentially massive quantities.
I mean, look at it this way - would you believe that a safe way of disabling a nuclear power station would be to instantly and simultaneously switch off every control system, every safety system, every hardwired multiple backup system - because that is what a weapon like this will do if it works.
The Russians tried something like that at Cherynobyl - and I think we learned something there.
From the article: ..useful in a wide variety of missions where avoiding civilian casualties is a major concern.
One would think that with the US being the "Good Guys" that avoiding civilian casualties would be a goal of all missions.
It's more than likely an effective way of preserving the real estate.
A neutron bomb without the residual radiation problems and nuke escalation issues.
Megawatts of microwaves?
It would be too awful to brag about their new weapon in terms of frying people like a hot dog in the radarrange
but I'm sure that's what Gen. Amana has in mind. How could they resist?
When every Patriot missed every SCUD last time around I wouldn't be putting my eggs in the 'shoot them down' basket just yet.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Then you'd get the 12 kg of Pu vaporized and in the air causing cancer for the next million years or so. Probably preferable to have it localised where it impacts and more easily recovered. (Unless that's the centre of a city.)
Here's a hint: If the US military considers a project or weapon secret, as they did the F-117 in the mid-80s, you likely won't know about it until the second or third time it's used in combat.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
So now you bring out the EMP weapons first, and fry all the GPS jammers. Your smart bombs have been de-lobotomized, and can find their intended targets again. This has the added bonus of wiping out the enemy's RADARs, etc.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
despite the fact that the US has signed treaties
...cause if someone believed that they can indeed survive a MAD scenario they may actually push the button.
That treaty had an exit clause that we chose to excercise. You can disagree with the policy but we are not doing anything "despite signing a treaty" nor are we "breaking a treaty." We have fulfilled every requirement of the treaty. In either event the treaty did not bar research only deployment in more than one location. (We never deployed any ABM systems despite being allowed by the treaty to do so in one location - IN SOVIET RUSSIA they chose to protect Moscow with an ABM system)
Even before the proliferation of nuclear weapons to many more unstable and unpredictable countries there was a good argument for ABM systems to *preserve* MAD. Prior to the development of precision guidance systems you could nuke your enemies missle silos but the weapons were so imprecise and the silos so well protected that even with nuclear warheads you were unlikely to destroy them. That all changed when the USA and much later the Soviets developed dependable precision warheads. A preemptive attack could have (for the most part) worked. We could have nuked them or vise versa and had a good chance of getting their weapons on the ground - the stability of mutual suicide was already being undermined. ABM would have restored it - nobody thinks or claims it would have been 100% effective but it would have made a preemptive strike infeasible.
In todays world things are different - we are worried about a handful of countries with only a handful of nukes each - There is no MAD balance of power between us and Korea, Pakistan, India, (Iran - soon)(Iraq - fairly soon if not prevented) or even China (for the moment, they're bulking up fast) A preemptive strike on our part against any of these countries would be effective. Right now it would be our only defense against being nuked by them if a crisis turns really ugly. If you don't think our military planning regarding Korea during this current crisis doesn't include nuking the location of the one or two nukes (assuming the CIA knows their location) as a last resort during a war you are naive. And if you don't think that this president (or ANY president) wouldn't use that option if he *thought* the likely alternative was several thousand American and several million South Koreans being reduced to glowing cinders you are very much mistaken. The absense of another alternative is much likely to cause us to rush into using an nightmare option which can only work if we beat them to the punch. Our options in a really nasty crisis with a minor nuclear power could narrow down very quickly to "nuke them... it's the only way to be sure". In the next decade we have no idea what kinds of crises we may be involved in. China is very close to invading Taiwan (which is certainly advanced enough and desperate to have their own nuclear program), A nuclear war between Pakistan and India is frighteningly likely. A preemptive strike by Isreal against Iran or Iraq (whichever gets nukes first) or vise versa will be a real possiblity by the end of the decade. How will we be involved, at what risk to our troops or our mainland (China can already hit us, N. Korean missile development which they will sell to the highest bidder is getting very advanced). I for one would rather we have options other than either rolling over to who knows what nightmares or unleashing a nightmare ourselves.
Why should sick and innocent people suffer?
You do realize that Iraq rapes the wives of political prisoners (with an on-staff professional rapist) tortures its Olympic athletes who fail to perform, and cuts out the tongues of people who criticize the government, right?
The people of Iraq are already suffering - a few may be accidentally killed during the liberation, but the only thing we know for sure is that if we do nothing the suffering will continue. I know of no liberation in the history of the world that has been causualty-free for the oppressed, but I also know of no liberation in the history of the world where the oppressed have asked their liberators to please go home.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This is precisely why I'm glad I know how to fish, start a fire without matches, and otherwise generally survive in the wild.
Imagine if you will your world with no electronic devices. Not a lack of electricity, just a lack of devices that are working currently. No computers, no internet, no car, no stop lights, no elevators, no microwave ovens, no pizza deliver, nothing that requires electronic components.
Could you live in that world were you suddenly thrown into it?
The super market wouldn't have food for very long and of course everyone instantly becomes a looter.
Luckily buildings would still be standing. But could you heat and cool your home?
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
This weapon is totally harmless to people
What about people with electronic replacement limbs, pacemakers, hearing aids, EKGs, hospital machines...
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
I don't know about the taiwan thing. China is offering taiwan businesses crazy labour and material rates and tempting most buisness onto the mainland...
I'm sure that is their plan and it has a good chance of working BUT there is a military stick accompanying that economic carrot. China is bulking up it military across the straight and is willing to use it if that gateway to the west gets too uppity. Those pesky voters are wont to do that every few elections. The election of a more vigorously pro-independence candidate could lead to actions even more aggresive than "training excersises" by amphibious troops across the straight and "missle tests" in Tiawans airspace ("Hey Tiawan is just part of our sovereign territory - of course we can conduct missile tests there") Sure everybody wants a slow reintegration of Tiawan accompanied by slow move from mainland totalitarianism to something merely authoritarian and that seems to be what is happening. But a misstep, or a miscalculation - a little too much freedom & independence in Tiawans actions or a little too much saber rattling to keep them in line on China's part. An accidental firing during one of the periodic high tension stand-offs and all bets are off. The leaders of mainland China will tolerate a fair amount but are capable of tremendous atrocities internally and will risk war externally to keep their people in check - and they consider Tiawan their people. Tiawan for their part is willing to (and must as a matter of necessity) dance with China. But they have a first world military against China's third world one and they don't seem likely to just roll over to unreasonable demands either. Aging Chinese plutocrats accustomed to totalitarian control don't seem the best judges of when their own demands are reasonable or unreasonable - as they march towards reunification there is a lot of risk that they will misjudge the attachment that the Tiawanese have formed with democracy and political & personal freedoms and their willingness to risk war to protect them.
The U.S. Army doesn't "build" such weapons anyway, government contractors do, which are ordinary corporations whose goal is to make and sell products to make a profit and stay afloat. Any old customer will do, so they sell some of these weapons to other friendly nations. Those nations turn around and sell them to somewhat questionable nations. Those turn around and sell them to nations that we would never sell to, such as Iraq (for a huge sum, probably).
So, now, if we and our enemies both have such a weapon, who will sustain the most damage from its use? The U.S. of course! We are more dependent on electronics guidance systems and computers and radios than any 3rd world nation!
Iraq/Palestine/Al Qaeda are probably jumping for joy at this news. Dammit.
You know a material that makes a good mirror in the microwave range, please do tell. And if it doesn't get evaporated by the pulse how are you going to redirect it towards the aircraft, AA systems sure have a hard time tracking modern jets. As to your last comment, if we don't at least research new technology we will stagnate and be overtaken, I don't like big government or the military industrial complex but until we have a world at peace I believe my personal freedom and safety lie in the hands of that iron shield.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This weapon is totally harmless to people and could be used in situations where hitting targets could result in civilian casualties.
Perhaps totally harmless to those amongst you, who DON'T have some sort of Pacemaker or ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator) sewn inside of you. I mean, I'm supposed to avoid HAM radio transmitters fer' Pete's sake (who is Pete anyway?). Oh well -- I'm sure that those of us who do are in the minority. So when this "intense microwave pulse" frys my internal electronics, this would likely be viewed by the military as an 'acceptable collateral loss'.
Time to build that shielded bunker I've been saving my allowance for...
Sigh, you're right about deploying a system and I actually knew that and wasn't thinking of it (From what I understand my father actually did some work on this system). To be fair though a system that was deployed and abandoned the same year doesn't really seem worth much consideration.
All of the countries out there know what the use of nuclear weapons means. None of them are so stupid as to threaten the United States with the handful of weapons that they possess. Any American retaliation would mean annihilation. Yes North Korea is run by an evil man - but he's not insane enough to fire a missile at America.
Many of the nations we are talking about are not exactly the most stable, In North Koreas case neither is the individual in charge. Sure none would intentionally precipitate a crisis that leads to a nuclear exchange but it is naive to suppose that they wouldn't under any circumstances or to suppose that they have the wisdom to avoid those circumstances. Take North Korea for one example - the population is starving off by the hundreds of thousands, China has seen a sharp increase in the number of refugees despite the fact they are repatriated as a matter of course and usually killed or tortured & put into concentration camps. The regime is strong but brittle and has never shown any concern for the deaths of millions - what desperate risks might such a regime be willing to take to preserve itself? A war might be good for moral, a successful invasion of the south might change the situation on the ground in the north? With the US and South Koreas technological superiority such a move would probably be doomed but maybe they figure sheer numbers, suprise and speed could effect a fait accompli before the US could intervene? When their strategem's flaws are revealed with a massive counter attack would they stay their hand or attempt to cauterise the invasion route with a nuclear attack? Would we be so fearful of that possiblity that we preempt? The world is not a stable place, things change in unpredictable ways - history is NOT over no matter what Franicis Fukuyama says. It's getting interesting and that is a very bad thing.
And as the Devil's Advocate in Chief here, I have to ask - why shouldn't other countries have the right to the ultimate protection?
In short, because if they get them they might nuke us, our allies or each other. As a moral issue? As an issue of "rights"? or "fairness"? Since when has international politics dealt with such issues? I'm not really so concerned about being fair to North Korea or Sadaam Hussein who don't seem to hold morality, fairness or rights in very high esteem when dealing with their own people or their neighbors. I suppose it's only "fair" that when dealing with those regimes those pleasant concepts that don't trouble their thinking don't trouble ours either.
I have a foster brother from Cambodia. He was a young teen when he escaped the killing fields - his experiences make me less sanguine about insane Maoists getting the bomb as being "only fair" and I am a little less tolerant of the moral equivalence and lack of seriousnes about the risks involved that underlay such "fair minded" reasoning.
Another argument is that many of the countries that are currently developing this technology don't have the social or political maturity to have developed it on their own without the seepage of technological advancement beyond their native capabilities from countries that ARE more socially and politically advanced. (I may be accused of racism for this argument but it is really culturalism (if there is such a term)) The technological explosion in the west that produces such weapons is made possible by social and cultural and political forces and structures that have other advantages that mitagate against the use and abuse of such weapons. If you don't believe me try having a peace march protesting government policin downtown Bagdad or Pyongyang - try casting a vote against the chosen policy in either of their parliments etc. or just try opening a business without masses of money to bribe local officials. The ideas that the law is superior to the ruler, that government is accountable to the governed, that individuals are accountable to a law superior to clan kinship, the dictates of honor or loyalty to the "supreme leader" are all ideas that on rare occasions are imperfectly realized here but are *completely* alien in some of the nations striving to master a very dangerous technology their culture could never have developed on it's own. Think of it as the "prime directive" arrogant - damn straight, but also prudent and less likely for everybody to end up glowing in the dark.
It seems sometimes that those "against" nuclear ware (as though anyone is FOR it) aren't really against it as such - they seem perfectly fine with nuclear weapons in the hands of anyone other than the western powers - especially the USA. I am deeply worried about our policy towards Iraq but it ultimately is a very aggresive policy of non-prolifieration. Our more tender non-prolifieration policy towards N. Korea obviously didn't work and our more tender non-prolifieration policy towards N. Korea now is the result of the earlier policy not working.
The USA is not the only actor on the world stage - nations are not developing Nukes just because of us but because of their own squabbles and rivalries. China developed nukes and that made it imperitive for India to have nukes which made it imperitive for Pakistan to have nukes. North Korea has nukes and if we listen to the pacifist left and isolationist right we will pull out of South Korea, without the security guarantee of a few thousand US troops on a "tripwire" and a Nuclear opponent South Korea will be tempted to develop nukes, Japan too will be tempted all of which will lead China to enlarge their stockpile. Iran is on a crash program to develop nukes. How long would it take various Arab nations to respons in kind to the shia Persian threat? What are they already doing about the more real Isreali threat" Iraq is likely doing *something* would the Saudi's sit out? Would Egypt? Regardless of what we do proliferation will increase exponentially as various rivals pop up with the nuclear option. Right now some of the most advanced nations aren't bothering because of the USA's conventional security guarantees but will that be enough now that our slaveish desire to avoid offending Pyonyang reveals such guaranatees as toothless in the face of a nuclear opponent? As proliferation increases and various complex "balances of power" are established and increasingly unstable, incompetant, corrupt regimes are involved I think it is very likely that we will see nuclear war in our lifetimes. Hopefully, it will not involve us but that is a real possiblity and one we should be prepared for.
As bush is calling everything a weapon of mass destruction these days. What about microwave weapons. They certainly are indiscriminate! What about loosing control systems for water supply, sewage, hostpitals, pace makers, emergency vehicles, aid agencies, emergency broadcast radios, air raid sirens, etc, etc. All these gone just to take out a SAM site. This weapon effects more civillians than any HE bomb could.
When will "america the unlawful" dismantle it's weapons of mass destruction.