New Weapon: Boeing CHAMP

Naty1

Boeing CHAMP weapon

Anyone have insights into the technology behind this new electromagnetic
pulse weaponry?….

Here are some [incomplete] descriptions I’ve found…[ Just when I thought antivirus programs were finally protecting my computer, now this!!]

Overview
from
http://www.army-technology.com/featu...ammer-grenades

Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project [CHAMP]

“..the premise of the missile is relatively simple; to remotely disable enemy systems with minimal collateral damage. Devices such as electromagnetic pulse bombs threaten to affect a large area and remain indiscriminate in doing so, putting at risk hospitals and other buildings that offer crucial services to innocent civilians. The CHAMP works by directing a precise beam of high-energy microwaves at the target building, disabling the electronics inside within seconds….
Boeing reported the results of the successful test…... The missile flew for an hour and targeted seven buildings, disrupting computers while limiting collateral damage…"Inside rows of personal computers and electrical systems were turned on to gauge the effects of the powerful radio waves. Seconds later the PC monitors went dark," which marked success.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-boeing-...style.html#jCp

Making the jammer portable
“..On a much smaller scale, but bearing a similar ethos, comes Netline Communications Technologies' Portable Jammer Packs. The Israel-based company has produced one of the smallest jammers ever made, roughly the size of a hand-thrown grenade, responding to a request for a portable jammer ..


Technology

“..In order to keep the device small enough to be hand-held, existing jamming modules have been miniaturised and antennas printed upon circuit boards inside the grenade.

http://www.boeing.com/Features/2012/..._10_22_12.html

CHAMP, which renders electronic targets useless, is a non-kinetic alternative to traditional explosive weapons that use the energy of motion to defeat a target.

(Phys.org)—The Boeing "non-kinetic" missile passed its test flight earlier this month…

CHAMP can zap an enemy's electronics and data systems via fired bursts of high-power microwaves structures with little to no harm to people or buildings. [LOL]

Cannot tell if this is related to the weapon:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/200...my.electronics

“Researchers funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) at the University of Michigan invented a new type of magnetron that may be used to defeat enemy electronics…
This invention exploits some plasma physics principles…as well as an innovative, new geometry to overcome the physical limitations of conventional magnetrons…. "The vision is to explore both a high power version of the magnetron invention and a separate higher frequency (mm wave) embodiment."

berkeman

Wow!

sophiecentaur

Back to Valve equipment for backup, in every military establishment, I think. They only need to fire it at the GPS satellites and we're really in trouble.

Naty1

I am now wondering if I posted my query in the wrong forum section here.....maybe a moderator will move it.

I came across the following and wonder if it might be related to the weapon technology [of course the purpose above is to cause damage and the purpose below is to avoid it]:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/...t-like-a-metal
Laser pulse makes insulator conduct like a metal

"An international team of physicists has shown that an extremely short pulse of light can be used to convert an insulator into a metal, allowing an electrical current to be switched on and off for intervals as short as a few femtoseconds. The technology could be used to create transistors that are 10,000 times faster than those available today. ...
The work is reported in two papers by the team that appear in the journal Nature. In the first paper, Agustin Schiffrin and Ferenc Krausz of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Germany, Mark Stockman of Georgia State University in the US and colleagues describe what happens when you fire short yet intense laser pulses at a sample of silicon dioxide.

Silicon dioxide is an insulator with an energy bad gap of about 9 eV separating its valence and conduction bands. In contrast, the band gap in silicon is about 1.1 eV; this means that, in principle, a switch made from silicon dioxide could operate much faster than a conventional silicon switch. The problem, however, is that a silicon-dioxide switch would have to operate at very high electric fields, resulting in a destructive electrical breakdown.....

One way round this problem is to apply a strong electric field for an extremely short time, so that breakdown does not occur. When the field is applied, some of the electron states in the valence band increase in energy while some states in the conduction band decrease. The upshot of this is a significant reduction in the amount of energy required to create a conduction electron and the material becomes an electrical conductor...."

Is it possible some sort of a magnetron can be pulsed like this??

f95toli

I know someone who did his military service in the air defence force outside of Moscow, this was about 15 yeas ago. In his unit they had varios AA guns and SAMs.

They were always told by their commanding officers that most of their equipment was EMP proof; and the reason was simply that a most of the electronics was still valve based...

sophiecentaur

I also heard that Soviet military aircraft were built with very sturdy undercarriages because if the expected state of the runways they use. No one clears them of clutter like the USAF do.

Enthalpy

Military equipment is already protected against strong electromagnetic fields, because these weapons exist and have been used since long, for instance against Al Jazeera in Bagdad. That's part of the standard demands for military equipment.

Whether a missile can target more precisely some equipement doesn't change fundamentally the way to protect this equipment. They are shielded and contain normal circuits.

I wish other objects were made resistent. Not just military toys, but also commercial airplanes especially. EMP weapons are very real, small (a suitcase) and efficient, and spooks have and use them necessarily.

Reports of failures at the city of Aoste (Italy) match very well the effects of an EMP weapon.

berkeman

Do you have a link to the Aoste (Italy) incident?

justsomeguy

They are. Every modern aircraft is EM resistant to all manner of fields far beyond those required for vehicles, and in the 2008 EMP report they concluded that it was likely (but untested) that most commercial aircraft would benefit from "significant protection in the event of an EMP attack" due to the other EME hardening they undergo.

They did test 37 passenger cars and found that 8 of them had no problems at all, 25 experienced nuisance malfunctions that required no operator intervention, 1 had dashboard damage that required repair, and 3 of them shut down and had to be started back up. None suffered catastrophic failure of any kind.

Most of the damage and mayhem is infrastructure related, such as Street lights and ATC in the case of the two examples.

What?