Another Star Wars weapon.....

[Dr Mordrid]

HPM = High Powered Microwave

The Pentagon says its latest deadly gadget - a precision-guided lightning bolt of microwave power - would be its most important weapon in a war with Iraq.

The high-power microwave has been under development for years in the black-operations programs at the National Laboratories and the Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Defense experts say the weapon can either be placed aboard a Tomahawk cruise missile or fired from a special radar gun mounted on a C-130 transport jet.

The idea is to send a single powerful magnetic pulse - 2 billion watts or more moving at the speed of light - at an underground command bunker or at a suspected weapons-of-mass-destruction facility.

In short it induces a powerful electric current in anything electronic, frying its circuitry. Even underground. The pulse can propogate along electrical wiring, water pipes, ventilation ducts or antennae.

Sounds like they've developed a very high powered, but small, MASER (Microwave LASER).

Dr. Mordrid

[Byock]

Nice! Sounds like an EMP.

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup, but without the nuclear blast of the original devices.

Of course they also have the E-bombs which do the same thing with conventional explosives, but this directed energy version could end up in all kinds of places...even on HumVee's.

Did you hear about the stun version called "active-denial HPM's"? A wide microwave beam is aimed at human targets, penetrating their skin to a depth of about 1/64th of an inch. This fires every pain neuron in their skin; either stunning them to the ground or inducing panic. In either case they won't be attacking anyone.

Dr. Mordrid

[Jammrock]

Wow...that's wickedly evil!

Jammrock

[Dr Mordrid]

Here's a USAF site on HPM's I just found;

http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/Factsheets/HPM.html

Sheeshhhhh........

Dr. Mordrid

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Jammrock
Wow...that's wickedly evil!

Jammrock

Only dissabling the enemy durring warfare is about as un-evil as you can get.
chuck

[Dr Mordrid]

I agree. This stuff with non-lethals is getting serious budgeting, and rightfully so.

IMO only damaging hardware or stunning humans is far better than blowing everything to smithereens. Hopefull these technologies will mature sooner than later, but until they do smithereens it is.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

Yeah, but I think it will be used less on "the enemy" and more on "WTO protestors and other people we don't like."

[Jammrock]

"A US Marine pointed what looked like a big radar gun at the Iraqi ground forces. Within second the entire ground force was on the ground unconscious. These will be the 40th-thousand prisoners of war the US has taken this war."

ROFL...

Jammrock

[Wulfman]

let me add a word to that paragraph:


"A US Marine pointed what looked like a big radar gun at the Iraqi ground forces. Within second the entire ground force was on the ground unconscious. These will be the 40th-thousand <i>blind</i> prisoner of war the US has taken this war."

mfg
wulfman

[Jon P. Inghram]

They wouldn't use it if it cooked peoples eyes, that's VERY, VERY, VERY against the Geneva Convention.

[Paddy]

toasty

[Sethos]

I believe that in "Ocean's 11" they called this a "Pinch"

~Sethos

PS. I've heard that an insulation of styrophome can block this, does anyone know if that's true? It seems a bit far fetched to me...

[Wulfman]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
They wouldn't use it if it cooked peoples eyes, that's VERY, VERY, VERY against the Geneva Convention.

I'm not sure if that was sarcasm. iirc even weapon like cluster bombs or DU weapons are against this convention, but they are used by the NATO nevertheless.

mfg
wulfman

[edit] added NATO

[Jon P. Inghram]

Yep, you're right, the US is a horde of raving barbarians that's out to rape, pillage, and torture.