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The electromagnetic weaponry desribed in this article will likely have
an impact on furutre warfare:
from: Electromagnetic weapons: Frying tonight | The Economist
Electromagnetic weapons
Frying tonight
Warfare is changing as weapons that destroy electronics, not people,
are deployed on the field of battle
Oct 15th 2011 | from the print edition
BULLETS and bombs are so 20th-century. The wars of the 21st will be
dominated by ray guns. That, at least, is the vision of a band of
military technologists who are building weapons that work by zapping
the enemys electronics, rather than blowing him to bits. The result
could be conflict that is less bloody, yet more effective, than what
is now seen as conventional battle.
Electromagnetic weapons, to give these ray guns their proper name, are
inspired by the cold-war idea of using the radio-frequency energy
released by an atom bomb exploded high in the atmosphere to burn out
an enemys electrical grid, telephone network and possibly even the
wiring of his motor vehicles, by inducing a sudden surge of
electricity in the cables that run these things.
That idea, fortunately, was never tried in earnest (though some tests
were carried out). But, by thinking smaller, military planners have
developed weapons that use a similar principle, without the need for a
nuclear explosion. Instead, they create their electromagnetic pulses
with magnetrons, the microwave generators at the hearts of radar sets
(and also of microwave ovens). The result is kit that can take down
enemy missiles and aircraft, stop tanks in their tracks and bring
speedboats to a halt. It can also scare away soldiers without actually
killing them.
Many electromagnetic weapons do, indeed, look like radars, at least to
non-expert eyes. Americas air force is developing a range of them
based on a type of radar called an active electronically scanned array
(AESA). When acting as a normal radar, an AESA broadcasts its
microwaves over a wide area. At the touch of a button, however, all of
its energy can be focused onto a single point. If that point coincides
with an incoming missile or aircraft, the targets electronics will be
zapped.
Small AESAsthose light enough to fit on a plane such as a joint
strike fighter (F-35)are probably restricted to zapping air-to-air
and surface-to-air missiles (the air force is understandably reticent
about supplying details of their capabilities). Ground- or ship-based
kit can draw more power. This will be able to attack both ballistic
missiles and aircraft, whose electronics tend to be better shielded.
In the case of the F-35, then, this sort of electromagnetic artillery
is mainly defensive. But another plane, the Boeing Growler, uses
electromagnetics as offensive weapons. The Growler, which first saw
action in Iraq in 2010 and has been extensively (though discreetly)
deployed during the NATO air war against Colonel Qaddafis forces in
Libya, is a souped-up version of the Super Hornet. It is fitted with
five pods: two under each wing and one under the fuselage. Some pods
contain AESAs or similar electromagnetic weapons. Others have
eavesdropping equipment inside them. In combination, the pods can be
used either to spy on enemy communications or to destroy them; to
suppress anti-aircraft fire; to disable the electronics of ground
vehicles; and to make life so hazardous for enemy aircraft that they
dare not fly (and probably to shoot them down electronically, too,
though no one will confirm this). The Growler is able to keep its
weapons charged up and humming by lowering special turbines into the
airstream that rushes past the plane when it is flying. America has
ordered 114 of the planes, and has taken delivery of 53.
By land, sea and air
Nor are aircraft the only vehicles from which destructive
electromagnetic pulses can be launched. BAE Systems, a British defence
firm, is building a ship-mounted electromagnetic gun. The High-Powered
Microwave, as it is called, is reported by Aviation Week to be
powerful enough to disable all of the motors in a swarm of up to 30
speedboats. Ships fitted with such devices would never be subject to
the sort of attack that damaged USS Cole in 2000, when an al-Qaeda
boat loaded with explosives rammed it. A gun like this would also be
useful for stopping pirate attacks against commercial shipping.
Land vehicles, too, will soon be fitted with electromagnetic cannon.
In 2013 America hopes to deploy the Radio-Frequency Vehicle Stopper.
This device, developed at the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate in
Quantico, Virginia, is a microwave transmitter the size and shape of a
small satellite dish that pivots on top of an armoured car. When aimed
at another vehicle, it causes that vehicles engine to stall.
This gentle way of handling the enemystopping his speedboats,
stalling his tankshas surprising advantages. For example, it expands
the range of targets that can be attacked. Some favourite tricks of
modern warfare, such as building communications centres in hospitals,
or protecting sites with civilian human shields, cease to be
effective if it is simply the electronics of the equipment being
attacked that are destroyed. Though disabling an aircrafts avionics
will obviously cause it to crash, in many other cases, no direct harm
is done to people at all.
The logical conclusion of all this is a so-called human-safe
missile, which carries an electromagnetic gun instead of an explosive
warhead. Such a missile is being developed at Kirtland Air Force Base
in New Mexico, and will soon be tested at the White Sands Missile
Range.
There is, however, at least one electromagnetic weapon that is
designed to attack enemy soldiers directlythough with the intention
of driving them off, rather than killing them. This weapon, which is
called the Active Denial System, has been developed by the Joint
Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, in collaboration with Raytheon. It
works by heating the moisture in a persons skin to the point where it
feels, according to Kelley Hughes, an official at the directorate who
volunteered to act as a guinea pig, like opening a hot oven. Peoples
reaction, when hit by the beam, is usually to flee. The beams range
is several hundred metres.
Such anti-personnel weapons are controversial. Tests on monkeys,
including ones in which the animals eyes were held open to check that
the beam does not blind, suggest it causes no permanent damage. But
when a vehicle-mounted Active Denial System was sent to Afghanistan in
May 2010, it was eventually shipped back home without being used. The
defence department will not say exactly why. The suspicion, though, is
that weapons like the Active Denial System really are reminiscent in
many minds of the ray guns of science fiction, and that using them in
combat would be a PR mistake. Disabling communications and destroying
missiles is one thing. Using heat-rays on the enemy might look bad in
the newspapers, and put civilians off their breakfast.
Cold showers are good for you
To every action there is, of course, an equal and opposite reaction,
and researchers are just as busy designing ways of foiling
electromagnetic weapons as they are developing them. Most such foils
are types of Faraday cagenamed after the 19th-century investigator
who did much of the fundamental research on electromagnetism.
A Faraday cage is a shield of conductive material that stops
electromagnetic radiation penetrating. Such shields need not be heavy.
Nickel- and copper-coated polyester mesh is a good starting point.
Metallised textileschemically treated for greater conductivityare
also used. But Faraday cages can be costly. EMP-tronic, a firm based
in Morarp, Sweden, has developed such shielding, initially for the
Gripen, a Swedish fighter jet. It will shield buildings too, though,
for a suitable consideration. To cover one a mere 20 metres square
with a copper-mesh Faraday cage the firm charges 300,000 ($400,000).
Shielding buildings may soon become less expensive than that. At least
two groups of scientistsone at the National Research Council Canada
and the other at Global Contour, a firm in Texasare developing
electrically conductive cement that will block electromagnetic pulses.
Global Contours mixture, which includes fibres of steel and carbon,
as well as a special ingredient that the firm will not disclose, would
add only $20 to the $150 per cubic metre, or thereabouts, which
ordinary concrete costs.
The arms race to protect small vehicles and buildings against
electromagnetic warfare, then, has already begun. Protecting ships,
however, requires lateral thinking. For obvious reasons, they cannot
be encased in concrete. And building a conventional Faraday cage round
a naval vessel would be horribly expensive.
Daniel Tam, of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San
Diego, thinks he has a way to get round that. He proposes to use the
electrical conductivity of the sodium and chloride ions in seawater to
create a novel type of Faraday cage. A shroud of seawater around a
ship, thrown up by special pumps and hoses if the vessel came under
electromagnetic attack, would do the trick, he reckons.
It is an ambitious idea. Whether it works or not, it shows how much
the nature of modern belligerency is changing. Bombs and bullets will
always have their place, of course. But the thought that a cold shower
could protect a ship from attack is almost surreal.
from the print edition | Science and technology
an impact on furutre warfare:
from: Electromagnetic weapons: Frying tonight | The Economist
Electromagnetic weapons
Frying tonight
Warfare is changing as weapons that destroy electronics, not people,
are deployed on the field of battle
Oct 15th 2011 | from the print edition
BULLETS and bombs are so 20th-century. The wars of the 21st will be
dominated by ray guns. That, at least, is the vision of a band of
military technologists who are building weapons that work by zapping
the enemys electronics, rather than blowing him to bits. The result
could be conflict that is less bloody, yet more effective, than what
is now seen as conventional battle.
Electromagnetic weapons, to give these ray guns their proper name, are
inspired by the cold-war idea of using the radio-frequency energy
released by an atom bomb exploded high in the atmosphere to burn out
an enemys electrical grid, telephone network and possibly even the
wiring of his motor vehicles, by inducing a sudden surge of
electricity in the cables that run these things.
That idea, fortunately, was never tried in earnest (though some tests
were carried out). But, by thinking smaller, military planners have
developed weapons that use a similar principle, without the need for a
nuclear explosion. Instead, they create their electromagnetic pulses
with magnetrons, the microwave generators at the hearts of radar sets
(and also of microwave ovens). The result is kit that can take down
enemy missiles and aircraft, stop tanks in their tracks and bring
speedboats to a halt. It can also scare away soldiers without actually
killing them.
Many electromagnetic weapons do, indeed, look like radars, at least to
non-expert eyes. Americas air force is developing a range of them
based on a type of radar called an active electronically scanned array
(AESA). When acting as a normal radar, an AESA broadcasts its
microwaves over a wide area. At the touch of a button, however, all of
its energy can be focused onto a single point. If that point coincides
with an incoming missile or aircraft, the targets electronics will be
zapped.
Small AESAsthose light enough to fit on a plane such as a joint
strike fighter (F-35)are probably restricted to zapping air-to-air
and surface-to-air missiles (the air force is understandably reticent
about supplying details of their capabilities). Ground- or ship-based
kit can draw more power. This will be able to attack both ballistic
missiles and aircraft, whose electronics tend to be better shielded.
In the case of the F-35, then, this sort of electromagnetic artillery
is mainly defensive. But another plane, the Boeing Growler, uses
electromagnetics as offensive weapons. The Growler, which first saw
action in Iraq in 2010 and has been extensively (though discreetly)
deployed during the NATO air war against Colonel Qaddafis forces in
Libya, is a souped-up version of the Super Hornet. It is fitted with
five pods: two under each wing and one under the fuselage. Some pods
contain AESAs or similar electromagnetic weapons. Others have
eavesdropping equipment inside them. In combination, the pods can be
used either to spy on enemy communications or to destroy them; to
suppress anti-aircraft fire; to disable the electronics of ground
vehicles; and to make life so hazardous for enemy aircraft that they
dare not fly (and probably to shoot them down electronically, too,
though no one will confirm this). The Growler is able to keep its
weapons charged up and humming by lowering special turbines into the
airstream that rushes past the plane when it is flying. America has
ordered 114 of the planes, and has taken delivery of 53.
By land, sea and air
Nor are aircraft the only vehicles from which destructive
electromagnetic pulses can be launched. BAE Systems, a British defence
firm, is building a ship-mounted electromagnetic gun. The High-Powered
Microwave, as it is called, is reported by Aviation Week to be
powerful enough to disable all of the motors in a swarm of up to 30
speedboats. Ships fitted with such devices would never be subject to
the sort of attack that damaged USS Cole in 2000, when an al-Qaeda
boat loaded with explosives rammed it. A gun like this would also be
useful for stopping pirate attacks against commercial shipping.
Land vehicles, too, will soon be fitted with electromagnetic cannon.
In 2013 America hopes to deploy the Radio-Frequency Vehicle Stopper.
This device, developed at the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate in
Quantico, Virginia, is a microwave transmitter the size and shape of a
small satellite dish that pivots on top of an armoured car. When aimed
at another vehicle, it causes that vehicles engine to stall.
This gentle way of handling the enemystopping his speedboats,
stalling his tankshas surprising advantages. For example, it expands
the range of targets that can be attacked. Some favourite tricks of
modern warfare, such as building communications centres in hospitals,
or protecting sites with civilian human shields, cease to be
effective if it is simply the electronics of the equipment being
attacked that are destroyed. Though disabling an aircrafts avionics
will obviously cause it to crash, in many other cases, no direct harm
is done to people at all.
The logical conclusion of all this is a so-called human-safe
missile, which carries an electromagnetic gun instead of an explosive
warhead. Such a missile is being developed at Kirtland Air Force Base
in New Mexico, and will soon be tested at the White Sands Missile
Range.
There is, however, at least one electromagnetic weapon that is
designed to attack enemy soldiers directlythough with the intention
of driving them off, rather than killing them. This weapon, which is
called the Active Denial System, has been developed by the Joint
Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, in collaboration with Raytheon. It
works by heating the moisture in a persons skin to the point where it
feels, according to Kelley Hughes, an official at the directorate who
volunteered to act as a guinea pig, like opening a hot oven. Peoples
reaction, when hit by the beam, is usually to flee. The beams range
is several hundred metres.
Such anti-personnel weapons are controversial. Tests on monkeys,
including ones in which the animals eyes were held open to check that
the beam does not blind, suggest it causes no permanent damage. But
when a vehicle-mounted Active Denial System was sent to Afghanistan in
May 2010, it was eventually shipped back home without being used. The
defence department will not say exactly why. The suspicion, though, is
that weapons like the Active Denial System really are reminiscent in
many minds of the ray guns of science fiction, and that using them in
combat would be a PR mistake. Disabling communications and destroying
missiles is one thing. Using heat-rays on the enemy might look bad in
the newspapers, and put civilians off their breakfast.
Cold showers are good for you
To every action there is, of course, an equal and opposite reaction,
and researchers are just as busy designing ways of foiling
electromagnetic weapons as they are developing them. Most such foils
are types of Faraday cagenamed after the 19th-century investigator
who did much of the fundamental research on electromagnetism.
A Faraday cage is a shield of conductive material that stops
electromagnetic radiation penetrating. Such shields need not be heavy.
Nickel- and copper-coated polyester mesh is a good starting point.
Metallised textileschemically treated for greater conductivityare
also used. But Faraday cages can be costly. EMP-tronic, a firm based
in Morarp, Sweden, has developed such shielding, initially for the
Gripen, a Swedish fighter jet. It will shield buildings too, though,
for a suitable consideration. To cover one a mere 20 metres square
with a copper-mesh Faraday cage the firm charges 300,000 ($400,000).
Shielding buildings may soon become less expensive than that. At least
two groups of scientistsone at the National Research Council Canada
and the other at Global Contour, a firm in Texasare developing
electrically conductive cement that will block electromagnetic pulses.
Global Contours mixture, which includes fibres of steel and carbon,
as well as a special ingredient that the firm will not disclose, would
add only $20 to the $150 per cubic metre, or thereabouts, which
ordinary concrete costs.
The arms race to protect small vehicles and buildings against
electromagnetic warfare, then, has already begun. Protecting ships,
however, requires lateral thinking. For obvious reasons, they cannot
be encased in concrete. And building a conventional Faraday cage round
a naval vessel would be horribly expensive.
Daniel Tam, of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San
Diego, thinks he has a way to get round that. He proposes to use the
electrical conductivity of the sodium and chloride ions in seawater to
create a novel type of Faraday cage. A shroud of seawater around a
ship, thrown up by special pumps and hoses if the vessel came under
electromagnetic attack, would do the trick, he reckons.
It is an ambitious idea. Whether it works or not, it shows how much
the nature of modern belligerency is changing. Bombs and bullets will
always have their place, of course. But the thought that a cold shower
could protect a ship from attack is almost surreal.
from the print edition | Science and technology
