[MLB-WIRELESS] US unveils chip-zapping 'lightning bomb' to tackle Saddam

[Toliman]

At 10:19 PM 21/01/2003, Barry wrote:
>And I thought a microwave bomb was feeding rik a couple of large tins of 
>baked
>beans. Oh well.
>- Barry
>
>US unveils chip-zapping 'lightning bomb' to tackle Saddam
>By John Leyden <mailto:john.leyden at theregister.co.uk>
>Posted: 21/01/2003 at 10:26 GMT
>Remember the neutron bomb, the radiation-rich atomic weapon of the 1980s
>designed to kill people while leaving buildings intact?
>
>Well now we have a weapon suited for 21st century war - designed to fry
>electronics while leaving people, mostly, unharmed. Allegedly.
>
>High-Power microwave bombs are "man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise
>missiles", Time (somewhat breathlessly describing the bomb as potentially the
>next "wonder weapon") reports
><http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030127/nmicro.html>.
>
>More at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28942.html

my fear with this kind of munition, is how close you want to be to the 
impact/blast zone when the EMP/HPM-P goes off. regular military built 
circuitry is unreliable in the field when it's been designed and 
battle-hardened by army-engineers, but if a tank, radio or a friendly 
platoon is in the blast zone, it might effect them, and not effect the 
equipment inside the concrete/steel mesh and toughened bunker defenses.

but it did remind me of "e-bombs".... from 6 months ago, a strange article 
popped up... which seemed familiar
http://english.pravda.ru/world/2002/08/27/35356.html

I do know that the US Mil has some "wonder" weapons, such as the 
"soft-bombs" that can kill large turbines and switching relays they use in 
power plants, by flooding the air surrounding the interior with micro-thin 
pieces of graphite which create large amounts of static and disperse static 
fields, arcing transformers and relays, which can then burn out the 
turbines. its called a graphite-bomb, "soft-bomb", blackout-bomb or G-bomb. 
and... here's the specs.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-114.htm

and this one....
http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/2001/9/e-bomb/

This extract from Popular Mechanics was intriguing, they even tell you how 
to build your own microwave bomb, with no intricate wiring or actual oven 
parts needed: A Poor Man's E-Bomb. What makes this one interesting is that 
it can be set like a firework...

"An FCG (Flux Compression Generator) is an astoundingly simple weapon. It 
consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger 
copper coil. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the 
coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The 
explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares 
outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short 
circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic 
field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," says Kopp. "The 
result is that FCGs will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks 
before the final disintegration of the device. Published results suggest 
ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of 
millions of amps." The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like 
a flashbulb by comparison."

Toliman


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