[MLB-WIRELESS] [iwar] [fc:Weapons.That.Can.Zap.Electronics.Near.Reality] (fwd)

[sanbar]

Would a melbwireless meeting be considered a high-power microwave weapon?
- Barry

-- 
barry park
http://members.optushome.com.au/barrypark/
http://wireless.bur.st/
-=all your http_get are belong to us=-

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 06:41:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Cohen <fc at all.net>
Reply-To: iwar at yahoogroups.com
To: Information Warfare Mailing List <iwar at onelist.com>
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Weapons.That.Can.Zap.Electronics.Near.Reality]

Atlanta Journal and Constitution
August 15, 2002
Weapons That Can Zap Electronics Near Reality 
By George Edmonson, Staff 

Washington --- With modern warfare so dependent on computers and
communications devices, a weapon that renders them useless could be
invaluable. 

After decades of research, U.S.  scientists and engineers might be close
to fielding an effective technology known as high-powered microwave
weapons.  Recent articles have speculated that microwave weapons could
be deployed if the United States invades Iraq.  But some experts,
including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, say considerable work
remains. 

''It's been this elegant promise for decades that never quite seems to
happen,'' said John Alexander.  ''The check's always in the mail.''

Alexander is author of ''Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-First
Century Warfare'' and a retired Army colonel who directed nonlethal
weapons development at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

The concept behind high-powered microwave weapons is simple.  A burst of
electromagnetic energy is created and directed at an enemy's
electronics.  The force burns them out, much the way a lightning strike
can destroy home appliances. 

Delivery of the weapons probably would be done by cruise missiles or
unmanned aerial vehicles to help get close to the target.  As a result,
the weapons would have to be not only high-powered but also rugged and
relatively small. 

Air Force Col.  Eileen Walling labeled that combination as ''extremely
challenging and technically difficult'' in a paper she wrote in 2000 on
the weapons. 

Another problem is unpredictability, even when everything goes right,
Alexander said. 

''Electrical components are really rather tricky,'' he said.  ''You can
put the same amount of energy into 10 identical targets, and you can
destroy two of them, upset five of them, and, in three of them, nothing
happens.''

Most of the Defense Department's work on high-powered microwave weapons
takes place at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., where
research facilities are designed to handle high radiation and blasts. 

Researchers also are exploring ways to block incoming high-powered
microwave weapons.  That will require something of a super surge
protector, experts point out, because the blasts are so intense and
brief they can escape detection. 

The now-dissolved Soviet Union once was involved deeply in exploring
high-powered microwave weapons, but it is now thought that Russia no
longer is avidly pursuing them.  Other nations believed to be conducting
research are China, Britain and France. 

Earlier this month, Aviation Week &amp; Space Technology printed an
article stating, ''An attack on Iraq is expected to see the first use of
high-power microwave weapons."

On Wednesday, the New York Post, citing unnamed U.S.  military
officials, reported that a preliminary Iraq battle plan ''outlined for
President Bush last week calls for the most extensive use of electronic
and psychological warfare in history, including secret new
electromagnetic pulse weapons to disable Saddam Hussein's entire command
and control structure.''

In December, Michael Booen, vice president of Directed Energy Weapons at
Raytheon Co., told OpticsReport, a journal aimed at investors, that some
of its high-powered microwave systems were ''on the verge of use today''
and ''In the next three to four years, several HPM systems will be out
in the field.''

But last week, when Rumsfeld was asked at a Pentagon briefing about
using directed energy and high-powered microwave weapons, he
characterized them as being in ''varying early stages.''

He noted, though, that unmanned aerial vehicles deployed successfully in
Afghanistan had been in a developmental stage and had not been
authorized for use. 

"The real world intervenes from time to time," Rumsfeld said, "and you
reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental
stage, and you might use it.''


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