A Boeing depiction of “CHAMP” — “Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project.”
Photo: Chuck Schroder, Imaging Services STL, The Boeing / 2012 The Boeing Company
No, not a REM song, Boeing has set forth the stuff a lot of science fiction movies are based on, eradicating the life out of electronics. They have come up with a missile, that instead of blowing up the target, sends a huge burst of microwave energy instead. This has the effect of shutting down electronics. How many movies and TV shows have used some sort of pulse weapon to start something. There was a great show a few years back about life after a pulse bomb was used, “Dark Angel”. So, Boeing has this missle, “CHAMP”, “Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missle Project”, that looks like a cruise missile and is designed to emit bursts of high-powered energy to knock out electronics with little collateral damage. Tell that to the person wearing a pacemaker who happens to be in the target area.
While I am all for defence and keeping our people safe, at what point? We keep escalating with new and better ways to defeat the “enemy”. I would use this in a heartbeat against Ben Laden. My point is, things start to become a slippery slope. Take drones used in war, they are now being used by police in cities. Come the next WTO situation getting out of hand, in come the pulse weapons to stop their communication. Next step, cities going dark.
There was once an episode of Stargate SG1, where a war was being waged from the safety of a computer workstation in a building back home. Come to think of it, the original Star Trek looked at this too. Will it soon be a reality. I think it is, there is a Company in Langley, VA and a weird shaped building across the Potomac River than can direct military action in front of a big screen.
Don’t get me wrong, the military has given us our GPS, mobile phones, microwave ovens, and even medicines. Their research to better stop the enemy has been a boonfall to modern man. There just need to be some checks and balances.
I am not a sky is falling type, but I see the hardware wars not having a good ending. I remember Rodney King saying “Can’t we all get along”. I know that is a dream until people become tolerant of others differences. Mankind has always been tribal based. It still is today. Just change the word tribe for race, gender, whatever.
This quote by Boeing scares me: “This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works, said in a news release. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive.”
This came from an article in the Seattle PI: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/boeing/article/Boeing-s-new-missile-zaps-electronics-3972360.php#ixzz2A9uF74D7
This is some truly scary stuff. Though even worse is the idea of Terrorists getting ahold of one of those missiles and sending it into a major city.
As well as that technology though is the counter technology. Because we know it, our military presumes others will eventually catch on and develop the same, therefore, we need a counter technology. Interesting stuff, and I was reading about the birth of it when they developed nuclear weapons because one of the first effects is a massive EMP burst that stops everything electronic before the destruction comes.
Now I’m going to read your post on Ham radio, which is an interest of mine.