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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.
At least when the army are out on maneuvers, they can cook up their own rations with it :)
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
How is disabling electronics completely safe for civillians?
Just imagine this being used near a busy traffic intersection, or near a hospital.
I was thinking. Wouldn't it make alot of sense to use these things in the defence shield the US is building? They seem to be having a lot of problems hitting the incoming missile with a convential exploding warheads, but something which could kill the electronics in the missile from within 300m could work better. (I must admit I don't know what sort of radius the convential warheads can destroy missiles over)
Anyone want to bet how high a percentage of ordinance dropped on Iraq is going to be good old-fashioned, dumb heavy lumps of metal filled with explosives? This and other media fluff about smart weaponry seems to be designed to present war as a videogame...
The first thing that comes to mind is what they would do to enemy pilots.
SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
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.
On the other hand, the scary robot plane in the picture is COOL.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I seem to remember reading about a Soviet 50 megaton nuke. A warhead of that size wouldn't be usable against ground targets, as the force of the blast would cause it to bury itself and reduce the actual damage--or something. I'm no physicist.
Anyway, the upshot was that these things would be far less economical in terms of distributed damage than lots of small MIRV'ed warheads.
Instead, supposedly, a Soviet nuclear attack would have been designed to blanket the US with a nationwide series of mega-EMP pulses prior to actual ground target attacks.
I couldn't find a good link, but a description of some Russian/Soviet delivery vehicles is here
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
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?
In the second place, how "harmless" do you suppose these things are if they land next to a hospital full of electronic monitoring equipment? Or if an EMP was set off in the middle of Wall Street?
In the third place, given that the USA has one of the most automated militaries in the world, they'd better hope that Saddam isn't working on the same things!! Ever wonder what a close-range EMP would do to an F-16 at 10000 ft? (yes, I know they're shielded from EMPs, but it's a lot easier to make a 10x stronger EMP than to put 10x the shielding in place)
Finally, keep in mind that these things won't affect any plain old mechanical or chemical reactions, so an AK-47 will keep firing even if an EMP weapon lands right next to the firer. These things can't do everything, and they sure as heck can't win a battle for you.
This not quite an EMP weapon which usually destroys by causing induction and other similar effects. It's more of a maser (m(icrowave) a(mplification by) s(timulated) e(mission of) r(adiation)) which is tuned to silicon instead of water (microwave oven at home). The implied precision that is needed again indicate more in the nature of a uni-directional energy weapon (laser, pulse laser and ilk) rather than a pulse surge weapon system (HERF gun, e bomb, nuclear EMP warheads, dazzlers).
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.
Everyone has heard of "Bunker Busters". Imagine if terrorists cooked off one of these on Wall St. Of course, making a nuke is probably much easier than building one of these but it could have a devastating impact without the messy media images of fried bodies.
I hope we havn't invented the means of our own destruction.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
EMP "rifle"
http://www.plans-kits.com/
Know all those speed cameras? Congestion charging cameras? CCTV cameras? Whap, they don't work anymore.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
... indicate that the chinese have already been experimenting with defenses against microwave weapons. So far the most reliable is a metal spoon ...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Thousands of people died in a day.
In ONE battle (the Somme) 60,000 Allied forces died on the first day. This doesn't include the numbers that the Axis lost.
Part of the point of weapons such as this is to disable the military and reduce the number of dead, this leads to a less pissed off defeated nation than one that has just seen a large portion of its population killed.
Of course given that Iraq use Scuds which have bugger all electronics in them, and North Korea still appear to be point and fire propulsion rockets this would be really effective against the British and the French should they decide to attack the US.
Sort of like the Stealth Fighter, Iraq has bugger all radar that is any good but Stealth Fighters and Bombers still fly at 30,000 feet because Iraqi air defences don't reach that high. But to the British Navy's Radar a golf ball flying at 30,000 feet and 500mph is still at target that can be blown out of the sky.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
For about 55 to 60 years now, one of the biggest threats in the world was the threat of a nuclear attact. One bomb that could wipe out a city in one shot. Just imagine the impact of a wide-spread EMP attack. Obviously it doesn't come close to the devestation of a nuclear weapon, but how much would our lives change? I'm not up much on the technicals of EMPs, but, would this basically wipe out almost any magnetic storage medium we use for computers? Imagine an entire city, like Washington for example, wiped clean of all it's data, this could set back a country during war-time a lot.
tourettes
My father repaired aircraft during the Vietnam War. There was once an accident on his base involving one of the recon aircraft (do not recall its name at the moment). It seems the high-powered microwave transmitters had been left operational when a technician went to service the plane, and he was badly injured (burned) as a result of stepping to close to the underside of the plane.
So even if the microwaves are supposedly tuned to silicon instead of water, I am highly sceptical of any focused microwave energy being 'mostly harmless.'
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
While studying wave physics at the university, a (swedish) defence researcher held a lecture about research in EMP weapons. The ones he had studied were supposed to be used in road blocks to stop vehicles, and when they tested it, it worked very well, and the vehicles were beyond repair.
However, when they tried to use it in Bosnia, the vehicles there were so old, it had no effect because it targeted the electronics in the cars, and the ones they used were too old =)
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
The Electromagnetic Bomb
AFAIK, Tesla was the first to think about EMP as a weapon (I think he called it Death Ray). He even came up with the idea of an EM shield which act as an impenetrable wall against any kind of attack.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
Basically in both cases the default configuration is to be nonlethal, but it wouldn't take a whole lot to change that in a hurry.
A balistic weapon traveling at 4,600 MPH can't change direction much in 300M
No, a ballistic weapon can't change direction at all once it's fired. That's what separates a ballistic weapon (bullet, shell, dumb bomb) from a 'smart' weapon (guided missile, smart bomb); the guided weapons are just that, while a ballistic weapon relies soley on it's own momentum from firing and gravity to put it on target (remember projectile motion from Phys101?). 'ballistic missiles' aren't technically truly ballistic, with final-stage guidance on the MIRVs, but the launch to suborbit is.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
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.
"is being developed by the US Air Force according to this BBC News article."
well according to TIME magazine theses weapons have apparently already been developed and plan on being used in iraq. there was a little article in the recent issue about them titled "america's ultra-secret weapon". frankly if this is considered ultra-secret i'd hate to see what they consider double-ultra-secret!
fact: microsoft > linux
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
Rubbish. EMP's are easy to generate. Some time ago New scientist magazine published details of how to make an EMP bomb out of a metal tube, a long bit of coiled wire, a battery and some explosive. All you have to do is wrap the wire around the explosive, insert it into the metal tube makig sure the two are kept apart by insulators, attach the battery and let it go BOOM. So long as the explosive explodes progressivly from one end to the other, you should get a load of energy quickly compressed into a bit of wire left sticking out of the other end, which then radiates your EMP. Its supposedly fairly easy to built one with a range of a hundred meters or so, which is great for destroying radar, C3 sites etc. Bad at killing people, but that's not what they're for.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
FACT: During the weapons inspections iin the mid 90s enough Antrax and chemical weapons were found to kill the worlds population 3 times over.
FACT: At the time this was found, Iraq said that it had NONE.
FACT: Iraq is the only country to have used Nerve agents/gas in combat. (vs Iran) The effects are still being seen today.
FACT: Saddam ordered the gassing of his own citizens in Northern Iraq.
FACT: Iraq consisently denied a Nuclear weapons program throughout the 90s until the former head of said program defected and laid the evidence before the world.
FACT: During the inspections in the mid 90s, inspectors caught Iraqi officials in the act of driving parts of a Calutron out the back entrance of a facility as the inspectors came in the front. Calutrons are used to refine materials for nuclear reactions.
Also, see the following link Cdi.org for more information.
If you have information that contradicts that posted above then please provide it. If not, then please accept the fact that Saddam is not the cuddly teddy bear some would make him out to be.
WoodSmoke
There is a one megaton threshold of "usefulness" for nuclear weapons. In a surface detonation, the blast from a thermonuclear is powerful enough to send some of the atmosphere above ground zero into space. Once 1MT is crossed it seems that most of the excess force powers this effect leaving less energy for the blast wave and radiation to destroy things OUTWARD of the blast. It isn't as counterintuitive as it seems. Most of the energy output of a bomb is X-rays and gamma radiation. A bomb going off in space is little more than a bright flash and a little puff of gas from vaporized bomb components (It still sucks to be anywhere in the vicinity.).
The devasting effects we associate with nukes comes from the effects this radiation flux has on the atmosphere. It's like a vastly oversized thunderclap. The radiation instantly heats up a large amount of atmosphere and this is what creates the blast wave and starts a lot of the fires. Of course, there's lots of radiation left over to flash fry things further out. Heat a quantity of atmosphere up enough and it's going straight up in a hurry.
That isn't to say that there are NO noticable effects of making the bomb bigger but from a military point of view the law of diminishing returns kicks in with a vengence. There is another threshold around a gigaton or so that makes a bomb a planetary threat with some different effects involved (similar to a large asteroid collision) but who wants to set a Backyard Bomb off? It's called a Backyard Bomb because it doesn't NEED a delivery system. You set it off in your backyard and it fries your enemies anyway.
The 50MT Soviet bomb was the biggest public relations stunt in history. Khruschev literally told Sakarov to make something to "scare the ^$#@ out of the Americans" in time for a conference. It also came from a touch of Texas in the Russian mentality. The worlds biggest church bell sits on the ground somewhere in Russia because no one wanted to build the matching bell tower. It is Tsar Bell (the King of Bells). It is an impressive gesture that is practically useless. Tsar Bomba is same thing: a militarily useless ridiculously oversized weapon intended only as a gesture.
The former soviet union built airplanes (MIG-somenumber, I think) with (radio) tubes instead of sillicon. It was designed to be immune against EMP. A tube does not die if it is hit by EMP, maybe there are some sparks inside, but that's all.
So at least those planes should be immune against that microwave gun. And perhaps even circuits based on germanium instead of sillicon, because the microwaves are tuned for the wrong material.
Denken hilft.
it's not very difficult to shield against the effects of this weapon.
Just for a rough sanity check...
Decent rigid coaxial cable offers about 100dB of shielding
. One-million watts = 90dBm, so that would drop it down to -10dBm interference in a shielded signal. Not enough to damage anything, but definately enough to interfere. Bluetooth and 802.11b run at a max of 20dBm and no cars crash outside when I key up the old bit blaster.
The absorbtion of the radiated power is also an issue. Different circuits absorb different frequencies better than others. If this was a fairly narrowband emission, it would wreak havoc on some things (soft tissue maybe) but not others. If it is very wide band, then you have to jack up your total power so that many different freuquencies have a potent allotment of power.
It would just be a lot easier to interfere (jam) with guidance systems and radar. And GPS is easy jam. At least that was the FCC's standpoint with respect to UWB. But that's another thread...
A microwave oven is tuned to the resonant frequency of water molecules. This government weapon will be tuned to the frequency of silicon atoms. It'll burn people up close I suppose but be mostly harmless to flesh further out while still frying transistors.
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?"
It's more money in the military and less for the American people!
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?
It my understanding that modern thermonuclear devices are designed in such a way to make them difficult to "explode".
I don't have the links around any more, but there is a fascinating discussion of nuclear triggers that shows how this is done and why.
Anyway, the point being, if you had a directed EMP type device and you saw an incoming ballistic missle, wouldn't it be easy to fry the electronics of the missle so the thermonuclear device wouldn't detonate? Sure, you'd have a lot of destructive problems with the missle itself, but I think it would preferrable to have a 10 ton hunk of aluminum dropped on a city than a 10 megaton H-bomb, right?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
From the article
. htm which says There is a metallic net either inside the plastic panel or inside the glass panel, because the holes of the net are smaller than the length wave of microwave frequencies of about 12,5 cm at 2.5 Ghz. the glass panel is essentially opaque to the microwaves so all the energy of the microwaves is reflected inside the cavity of the oven.
The technology behind HPM is based on that used in household microwave ovens
Now even if the microwave rays are many times stronger and even if you use a directional antenna shouldnt it be easy to stop the rays?
From a google search i got http://www.provincia.venezia.it/comenius/eu_oven2
Or I think you can just use an aluminum foil wrapper around your computer to temporarily stop the rays (atleast till the aluminium starts burning, and then you can have fun) , Anyway how long is a drone going to be able to produce some millions of watts of power ? (746 watts =1 horsepower, I think?)
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
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
No, I think that the idea is to use the magnetic component of the electromagnetic wave to produce eddy currents electric circuits. The short duration of the pulse means that the voltage spike is too brief to produce heating, but is big enough to blow transistors etc.
Just my 2c of freshman college physics.
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.
Most military hardware (at least the stuff produced by the US, Europe, and Russia) is already built to withstand EMPs. No one will ever use a weapon like this to knock planes out of the sky, or stop tanks in their tracks.
What it can be used for is for frying radar systems that are switched on, and for frying passive tracking systems that are switched on. For obvious reasons these cannot be shielded against EMPs (ok - if it's not obvious then reason is that a radar system must be sensitive to electromagnetic radiation in order to work).
Why is this a big deal? Several reasons:
(1) Ground based anti-aircraft systems have become very small, mobile, and relatively cheap.
(2) Iraq has taken to placing such systems right next to things that the US does not want to blow up (hospitals, schools, chemical weapons facilities, etc).
(3) Even stealth aircraft are not entirely invisible to radar. Yes they can slip through a traditional perimiter radar network (i.e. the kind of line of radars that many nations have watching their borders), but they cannot remain undetected if they have to fly right over a radar system, as they would have to do if there is a radar system either at or near to their target.
So now the US has a method of blinding anti-aircraft defenses without destroying the stuff around them. Given US methods of conducting war (i.e. heavy reliance on air power), and the obvious synergy between stealth and EMP technology, these weapons are a big deal, and I might add there is no obvious or easy way of defending against them.
. . . or they'd by EMPing us by the city block.
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.
Farley, like the dog on "Fraggle Rock", or Farley as in Chris Farley the dead fat guy, or Farley as in Farley Mowat?
:)
You could imprison any of them in a bamboo cage fer chrissakes.
OTOH, a device remarkably like the one you described exists. It's called a "Faraday Cage", and is named for British Physicist Michael Faraday, the God Father of Electromagnetism.
You can even buy "instant cages" made of mu-copper foil -- the Army has a bunch. These cages are slowly replacing the Aluminium Foil Deflector Beanies that the crazy nutbags out there are wearing as countermeasure for the government's mind control rays. Do a google for HAARP if you're in for a good laugh.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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.
I wonder if the case on my TiG4 would bleed off enough energy to survive one of these things.. I know it absorbs 2.4GHz pretty well!
>The latest technology is a "strap-on" system
....
To some, "strap-on" is an apt description of recent US foreign policy
After the initial hit, you need to rotate the target 90 degrees and hit it again.
Well, I have never seen a really poor person develop a futuristic weapon that may help us win conflicts with less casualities.
We need poor weapons developers! Developers develepers developers developers developers...
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
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.
According to Cybershock (winn schwartau) an EMP payload was used against an Iraqi Air Defense Radar Installation. It was shot from a navy deestroyer in the Red Sea, travelled 450 miles and wiped out the radar center's electronic capabilities.
schwartau testified to congress in june 1991 about HERF guns and EMP/T bombs, mentioning how cheap it would be to build one and take out Wall Street.
What a smart idea, when you've got all the technology, and the enemy is armed with spears and rocks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."