Boeing develops directed EMP missile

[Borgholio]

While the U.S. geared up for the second presidential debate last Tuesday, a building sat pulsing with computers, electronic surveillance, and security systems in the Utah high desert.

The unoccupied site was awaiting the test of a weapon the Pentagon requested four years ago to the day on 16 October, 2008.

The Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), led by Boeing's Phantom works, promised to change the face of contemporary warfare, and its test was a complete success.

CHAMP flew over the Utah Test and Training Range last Tuesday, discharging a burst of High Power Microwaves onto the test site and brought down the compound's entire spectrum of electronic systems, apparently without producing any other damage at all. Even the camera recording the test was shut down.

Struggling to contain his enthusiasm, Boeing's Keith Coleman says, "We hit every target we wanted to. Today we made science fiction into science fact."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/beoings- ... z2M1mgs3wb

[Broomstick]

I suppose being able to take down the enemy's radar and other electronic gizmos without actually having to bomb the place to dust is a good... but this notion this is "non-lethal" is a bit of an exaggeration. If you hit a modern hospital instead of a [fill in the blank] you're going to kill some people in places like the ICU and operating room. Sure, they're talking about knocking down radar but it seems to me you could just as easily disable a major power plant.

Reminds me a bit of a rather congratulatory program I watched yesterday with the spouse on drones. Sure, all that cool sneaky-sneaky and blasting people from afar is great... when you're the only one with the tech. What happens when the other guy gets the same thing? What happens when everyone has it?

All of a sudden those "someone trashed the grid and we're back to low-tech/post-Apocalyse" don't seem so whacky any more. Or, to put it another way, not all science fiction has a happy ending.

[Jaepheth]

They didn't name it the Mag Pulse?
Fail.


I didn't realize it'd be possible to power a microwave emitter enough to get that sort of effect over an appreciable range; especially in a package small enough to put in a missile.
I wonder if it'd do any permanent damage to a person on-site?

[Ted C]

They didn't name it the Mag Pulse?
Fail.


I didn't realize it'd be possible to power a microwave emitter enough to get that sort of effect over an appreciable range; especially in a package small enough to put in a missile.
I wonder if it'd do any permanent damage to a person on-site?

The damage to living tissue depends quite a bit on the frequency of the microwave radiation. That said, I wouldn't want to be standing in the target area when that thing went off.

[Magis]

They didn't name it the Mag Pulse?
Fail.


I didn't realize it'd be possible to power a microwave emitter enough to get that sort of effect over an appreciable range; especially in a package small enough to put in a missile.
I wonder if it'd do any permanent damage to a person on-site?

The damage to living tissue depends quite a bit on the frequency of the microwave radiation. That said, I wouldn't want to be standing in the target area when that thing went off.

Microwave radiation is non-ionizing, and the exact frequencies of the microwaves is unimportant. The only damage they can do to tissues is through heating.

[Jaepheth]

Microwave radiation is non-ionizing, and the exact frequencies of the microwaves is unimportant. The only damage they can do to tissues is through heating.

Right,
I was just remembering the stories I've heard of people dying from being too near active radar equipment.

[Broomstick]

Length of exposure is also a factor. I gather that this is a rapid overflight and the pulse needed to achieve the effect is actually quite brief. It might be that the EMP sufficient to shut down all electronics is not of sufficient duration to cook anybody inside.

Needless to say, we don't have enough information to actually make a definitive statement regarding the safety of humans under the pulse. Given that it's a new weapon and the military likes its secrets I don't expect we'll be able to find the necessary data any time soon.

[Sea Skimmer]

Its certainly no direct relevant threat to humans flying overhead. Even nuclear HEMP isn't, or at least at any distance it ever could be, other effects killed you a hundred times over first. Now, military radios and radars you might be around at close ranges, those can mess you up badly. So can a lot of civilian transmission equipment. Military radars also have a lot of long term potential to me made into destructive rather then just disruptive microwave weapons. It wouldn't be with one pulse though, more like thousands. That's also almost certainly how this missile manages to get any effect out of an antenna system small enough to fit. That's the whole reason why explosive driven EMP devices got so much attention, they solve the small antenna problem on paper by being one shot. The antenna doesn't have time to melt before its job is done. Very annoying problem for a multiple shot weapon. The effect of this thing likely has more to do with waveform then power, but of course all is speculation.

An interesting thing is, this project is long rumored, and been reported on for a while, and it was suggested that the cruise missile itself might be entirely new and black. That could be pretty interesting in its own right.

Reminds me a bit of a rather congratulatory program I watched yesterday with the spouse on drones. Sure, all that cool sneaky-sneaky and blasting people from afar is great... when you're the only one with the tech. What happens when the other guy gets the same thing? What happens when everyone has it?

You mean like WW2 when everyone dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs on each other? Most of the history of conventional warfare has involved both sides having more or less equal technology. Its only stuff like colonial campaigns in the 19th century and late 20th century US military history when we saw these dramatic mismatches. We fight someone else with this kind of thing, then we use our 100 million dollar jet fighters, 4 million dollar SAMs and endless incoming laser weapons ect... to shoot the other side down, blowup his bases, same as normal. Think I'd rather my airfield was attacked with 21st century microwaves then a Su-24 regiment with cluster bombs.

[Zaune]

You know, I can't help thinking that this thing's going to be incredibly useful for a couple of months, then turn into a colossal white elephant as soon as everyone learns to store their sensitive electronics in a shielded compartment or Farraday room when it's not in use.

[PeZook]

Then it's a win, because you made the enemy cripple his command and control without firing a shot.

[Zaune]

Not really. How hard would it be to keep a backup radio transceiver or two in a shielded box and drill the troops to switch it out as fast as possible if the primary got fried, or design flip-open handheld units that form a complete Farraday cage when closed? It's not like electromagnetic shielding is a new problem. And can EMP or directed-microwave radiation even damage a powered-down antenna?

[Simon_Jester]

There's two consequences from that.

One, it means that soldiers have to carry two of anything they really want to work. Three or more, if there's a real risk you might shoot twice. That right there limits the total amount of gadgetry they can carry, because any device that weighs one pound means they're carrying two, three, or four pounds of device plus Faraday cage plus spare backup if applicable.

Two, it means that soldiers' equipment can be burned out at a specific moment in time, just to get a temporary gap in their communications. Sometimes in warfare it's worth doing something that will only stop the enemy talking to each other for five minutes, just so that you can then do something decisive in those five minutes when they can't coordinate.

[Broomstick]

Also, it's not likely to be practical to adequately shield all vital civilian electronics and anyone who thinks civilian stuff won't be targeted hasn't been paying attention to actual history. Disrupting civilian populations can be quite useful for messing up military plans.

[madd0ct0r]

I wonder how directional it is?
Assuming the missile didn't fry it's own systems, we could be looking at anti-drone work as well as anti-infrastructure.

[Sky Captain]

How much effective range the microwave beam may have? If it flew over the city would it affect only stuff directly under its path or also electronics hundreds of meters to the sides would fry.

Effectivness against power grids. Those systems already have to be designed to cope with lightning strikes so they should be quite resistant to this kind of attack. Lightning also can generate localized EMP. I have a friend who had a tree few meters from his house hit by lightning and the strike also took out laptop and smartphone even though they both were not connected to anything and laptop was shut down.

[PeZook]

I wonder how directional it is?
Assuming the missile didn't fry it's own systems, we could be looking at anti-drone work as well as anti-infrastructure.

I was thinking special forces: a way to temporarily disable an entire facility's electronic surveillance, or even just part of a sensor-laden perimeter would be pretty great.

Of course, that might still just be disinformation aimed at getting people to spend money on useless countermeasures

[dragon]

I know going through AIT for microwave communications we had several pieces of equipment that was emp resistant. The manual claimed it was protected against the emp of a nearby nuke going off.

Granted it was an old communications system that was phased out in the 80's.