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

Completely safe for civillians? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is disabling electronics completely safe for civillians?

Just imagine this being used near a busy traffic intersection, or near a hospital.

Re:Completely safe for civillians? I think not.

[JaredOfEuropa]

It isn't completely safe. Even the example from the article about zapping a chemical plant without releasing toxins isn't entirely accurate. Chemical processes don't just stop if the control systems conk out all at once, there might well be a catastrophic reaction.

But in most cases it's safer than conventional weapons: disabling electronics in a hospital, on an intersection or at a chemical plant is better than just pelt those targets with bombs.

Re:Completely safe for civillians? I think not.

[overunderunderdone]

How is disabling electronics completely safe for civillians?
Just imagine this being used near a busy traffic intersection, or near a hospital.

You've obviously never driven or been to a hospital in the third world. In the first case nobody pays much attention to the lights (if they exist or work) in the second electricity is unreliable even without the occasional attack by an EMP weapon.

However, I'll grant it's not *completely* safe but it certainly beats the alternative. Take the example of a battery of SAMS in downtown Bagdad. In the not-so-distant past we would bombed the neighborhood killing hundreds of innocent civilians*, With current technology we would try to take it out with a "smart" bomb maybe killing two or three innocent civilians, unless we miss in which case we may kill a few dozen innocent civillians. With this new technology we blast it with an EMP pulse and everybody's lights go out - not a big deal in most of the third world.

* in the example of bombing the neighborhood to get at those SAMS and killing hundreds (or even thousands) of innocent civilians. It's quit possible that there would be a war crime involved in this scenario, but NOT on the part of the USA. Putting military assets in civilian areas to sheild them from attack is a war crime. Legally the existance of the military assets removes any immunity that target would otherwise have had. A Mosque, church, hospital, orphanage, etc with a SAM battery or Radar installation on the roof is a legitimate target and legally (and morally IMO) the guilt for those innocent deaths is on the heads of the person that made it a legitimate target. The attacker in this situation does still have a general responsiblity to minimise civilian deaths - now that we have precision bombs it would be a war crime to use dumb ones in such a situation but prior to their invention such bombings did occur.

Re:Completely safe for civillians? I think not.

[maetenloch]

But then, water and power plants are protected under Article 54 of the Fourth Protocol of the Geneva Conventions [deoxy.org]. Britain and America are both signatories of the protocol, yet they bombed Iraqi water, sewerage and power systems during the last Gulf War. Neither party has been charged with war crimes.

But then Article 56 has the 'military necessity' clause:

Article 56.
2. The special protection against attack provided by paragraph I shall cease:
a. for a dam or a dike only if it is used for other than its normal function and in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support;
b. for a nuclear electrical generating station only if it provides electric power in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support;
c. for other military objectives located at or in the vicinity of these works or installations only if they are used in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support.

Missile Shield

[nick255]

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)

Re:Missile Shield

[salesgeek]

Even if you fry the electronics at 300M out, that doesn't guarantee the missile will miss... A balistic weapon traveling at 4,600 MPH can't change direction much in 300M... for that matter, a cruise missle traveling at 560MPH can't turn much either. BTW - the millitary has had microwave weapons for some time... Since the '50s - I can't remember the name of the weapon system, but they used to have a device that used microwaves to explode artillery in the air. The shrapnel generated was a problem, but it was better than taking a direct hit...

$G

Re:Missile Shield

[1u3hr]

you'll still have 12 Kg or so of plutonium or some bio/ chemical agent(not to mention the possibility or unexpended fuel) landing somewhere. Blowing them up with another missile still has it's advantages.

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.)

Re:Missile Shield

[mikerich]

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)

Sigh, yes you did deploy a system. It was called Safeguard, started in 1969 at two sites, one in Montana one at Grand Forks in North Dakota. Additional sites were planned in Wyoming and to protect Washington DC.

The signing of the ABM agreement in 1972 limited the USSR and USA to two sites for ABM systems and a total of 100 missiles. The US abandoned plans for Safeguard in Wyoming and Washington DC. Shortly afterwards, the USSR and the USA agreed a further codex to the ABM Treaty limiting themselves to a single site, either around the nation's capital or around a ICBM site.

The Soviet Union chose to protect Moscow with the GALOSH system. The US chose Grand Rapids and abandoned all work on other sites.

Safeguard was declared operational in early 1975 and reached its full deployment of 100 missiles later that year.

In October 1975, Congress declined to continue to pay for the upkeep of Safeguard and the project was dismantled from 1976 onwards.

Your argument about MAD is weak in that you seem to assume that all of the nuclear powers out there, with the exception of the United States are much more willing to use these weapons, whilst on historical grounds it has been the United States military which has countenanced the use of nuclear weapons in a series of conflicts. Richard Rhodes' 'Dark Sun' gives a whole series of deliberately provocative actions by American forces during the Cold War that very nearly ended in disaster.

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.

Those countries faced with any ABM system have one easy remedy. Assuming that few, if any countries out there can defeat America technologically, the only solution is to build more nuclear missiles with multiple warheads. History will repeat itself, except it won't be the US versus the Soviet Union, it will be dozens of countries proliferating advanced weapons like crazy.

Then I'd argue with your claim that the system would decrease the chance of nuclear conflict. The US and UK have already said that they would use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear opponent that they believed was going to use chemical or biological weapons. We have already lowered the threshold for our countries exploding nuclear warheads. President Bush has approved money to the Department of Defense and Department of Energy for the development of 'bunker buster' nuclear warheads - to be used to destroy hardened underground bunkers in an otherwise non-nuclear war. We are already foreseeing new uses for nuclear weapons, they are no longer being seen as the ultimate protection against attack.

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? We seem to need it to uphold our national interests, why should Iran and Iraq be denied the same choice. Its quite clear that North Korea can feel completely justified in its development of nuclear weapons - the West has excluded any attack on the country and chooses a diplomatic solution. Saddam Hussein must be kicking himself that he didn't wait a couple of years before invading Kuwait under the protection of a nuclear bomb.

Finally, we have to consider the (hopefully remote) possibility of an American government that is belligerant, that chooses to threaten other countries with nuclear conflict in the knowledge that it has a working ABM system. Let's hope it never happens, but ABM can be seen as part of an offensive capability.

But let's be honest, NMD is just a Bush pork-barrel pay-back to the defence contractors who poured so much money into his election campaign. At the end of the day I doubt they care very much whether it works on not, just as long as the money keeps pouring in.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Oh goody, no civillian collateral damage (!)

[RMH101]

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...

Re:Oh goody, no civillian collateral damage (!)

[Boiotos]

Precision-guided bombs made up nine per cent of the weapons dropped in the Gulf War. This time, the figure would be well in excess of 60 per cent, allowing more effective bombing with fewer total aircraft, officials say.

Taken from a useful set of articles over at CBC News, including one on new weapons which mentions the microwave bomb. CBC's reporting tends to be less enthusiastic about things military.

Re:Oh goody, no civillian collateral damage (!)

[SkyTech12]

Actually according to this article in the Daily Standard.

"After watching dozens of such slam-cam clips, most observers thought precision munitions were the go-to weapon during the Gulf War, but during Operation Desert Storm, of all the bombs dropped over Iraq, only 20 percent were "smart." And in fact many of those missed their targets because of weather problems or malfunctions. Saddam's destruction of Kuwaiti oil fields late in the war foiled the laser guidance systems of many because the smoke deflected the laser energy the bombs homed in on.

But if America goes to war again in Iraq, close to 100 percent of its bombing sorties will be conducted using smart bombs. And this time, they'll be smarter. Advances in laser technology, targeting systems, and the now ubiquitous global positioning satellite system have revolutionized how America conducts war from the air--and, in many cases, the ground.

During the Gulf War, pilots had to calmly keep a laser trained on their target and wait for another plane's bombs to follow the beam to the bull's eye. Today, targeting pods attached to an aircraft's wings can keep their eyes on the target while a pilot zigs and zags his way out of trouble. A laser-guided bomb dropped on Baghdad during this war will reach its target even during the most severe defensive maneuverings.

However, it's the GPS-guided bomb that has truly changed the face of air-to-ground warfare. An inexpensive retrofit to existing "dumb" bombs, the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, literally screws onto the tail and around the belly of a conventional 1,000 or 2,000 pound unguided bomb, making it in many cases more precise than a laser-guided bomb. The pilot simply programs in the GPS coordinates of a target, sometimes broadcast to air crews from ground forces by radio, and the bomb glides its way to the target, day or night, in clear skies and stormy weather. There are no laser beams to bend or bounce, just the steady signals of America's GPS constellation beaming their coordinates from space.

So apparently we will be using smart tails strapped to dumb bombs, it works for me.

not 'totally harmless to humans'

[tolan-b]

people with pacemakers, or anyone nearby on life support or similar would still be affected.

Not quite EMP

[creepery2kplus]

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).

Re:Coldbringer?

[assaultriflesforfree]

Righto. My guess is that, if this thing ever comes to be reality, they'll start using it on the military targets and save the bombs for the hospitals, schools, trains, and Fox.

Very light on information.

[Noryungi]

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...

Re:Very light on information.

[essaunders]

The Iraqis surrendered to the drones because the drones were being used as spotters for the artilery (or ship guns). They knew that when they saw/heard a drone they would soon get shelled.

oooh, scary

[new death barbie]

Imagine the damage this weapon could inflict on the enemy when all of their popcorn pops at once.

Re:oooh, scary

[sczimme]

Imagine the damage this weapon could inflict on the enemy when all of their popcorn pops at once.

Well, if that 80s vintage documentary showed me anything, it's that...

the house will rapidly fill up with popcorn

the windows will break outward, followed by popped corn pouring out of said windows

the front door will burst open in slow motion, and one of the more annoying antagonists will be engulfed in a mass of kernels as he is propelled down the front steps

eventually part of the foundation will collapse, and the house will list about 15 degrees to port

local townsfolk will rejoice in the corny goodness (also in slow motion)

Terrifying stuff, that is.

Make your own for $150

[Moderation abuser]

EMP "rifle"

http://www.plans-kits.com/

Know all those speed cameras? Congestion charging cameras? CCTV cameras? Whap, they don't work anymore.

Early reports ...

[smallfries]

... indicate that the chinese have already been experimenting with defenses against microwave weapons. So far the most reliable is a metal spoon ...

And in WWI

[MosesJones]

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.

I find it interesting...

[dfj225]

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...

Re:So why are they not used?

[fobef]

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 =)

Re:Missile Shield - ballistics

[caveat]

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.

War is clean these days (hah!)

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

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.

Re:So why are they not used?

[ThaReetLad]

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.

Re:Advantage..

[le_jfs]

Someday we'll be able to use such devices to fry the RFID tags in our tires.

Over 1MT is wasted

[dmaxwell]

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.

pre-war propaganda?

[Goose Bump]

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...

Re:High Power RF @ Microwave Freqs == Heat

[dmaxwell]

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.

The two major questions about EMPs. Anyone?

[iainl]

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?

2) If a high power EMP device is as simple to make as several /. 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.

Blame the enemy...

[telstar]

"How is disabling electronics completely safe for civilians?"

• If their military chooses to put their military targets among their civilian population, then it's not safe for civilians. If their civilian population chooses to allow their military to be there ... then they should accept the risks. If the civilians have no choice, then we're there for the right reasons.

Re:Blame the enemy...

[nuxx]

I take it that you either forget or don't know about the US government putting nuclear missle launch sites hidden in rather urban areas? In fact, from where I sit right now (Auburn Hills, MI, a fairly commercial area) there are old launch silos in the wooded parts of the campus of Oakland University, right next door. (See http://members.tripod.com/nikehercules/d-97.html for more information.

So while I believe you are correct in theory, in practice sometimes the public isn't quite aware.

This is precisely why....

[jhines0042]

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?