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.

Comments

High Power RF @ Microwave Freqs == Heat

[fire-eyes]

High power radio frequency emissions, especially at microwave frequencies, equals heat in flesh. Especially since it has water and that heats up, a lot.

Don't beleive me? Stick a slab of bacon in your microwave. That's likely 500 - 2000 Watts.

EMP weapons are typically hundreds of megawatts (million watts), and the high end ones are in the gigawatt range (billion watts). Throw in that they'll be using an extremely directional antenna, and the effective radiated power could start at hundreds of megawatts into even the low terrawatts (trillions of watts).

You can take a common fighter aircraft's radar, aim it a nearby bird and in a few seconds it will fall out of the sky, dead. And that's 5 - 40 KWatts, effective is of course more.

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?