Colonel: US Army has working electropulse grenades Contradicting previous reports, a US Army electronic-warfare colonel has apparently confirmed the existence of working non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) ordnance - apparently so portable that it is even available in hand-grenade size. The revelation came at a blogger roundtable (press conference) held in order to …
I remember many years ago my mate tekkie Jim, electronics genius and slight pyromaniac (cleared the weeds in my front garden using a plant mister, paraffin and a zippo), mentioning about EMP generation by suddenly collapsing a sphere of generated plasma.
At the time he had calculated that the device would fit in the boot area of a Ford Sierra estate (can't remember if you had to lower the rear seats or not)
The weapon would work over an area of about 40 meters sq..
His concept was diesel Ford Sierra estate, weapon in boot, racing Porsche 911's at traffic lights.
Get both parties revving engines, wait for amber light, trigger the device. All electrics die horribly ( including Porsche engine electrics and as a bonus the Porsche drivers digital watch ), diesel Sierra putts away from lights leaving Porsche driver with a big bill and the fact that he was beaten away from a set of lights by a diesel Sierra estate.
I had my doubts but when I saw Jim create a smoke screen using a tweaked stage smoke generator that completely covered 3 blocks of Victorian housing in Bradford in less than six seconds (the Royal Navy would have been seriously impressed), well what can I say....
Suppose this is true.
If the US has it then the 'baddies' (as the US insists on tritely calling them) will have it pretty soon. One or two of those in the middle of a US city or a US power or power control station would be devastating.
IIRC fuel-air explosives were found to be able to produce an EMP. But if you could produce and place a decent-sized working FAE then perhaps the EMP is just a small bonus.
Urgh, the havoc we can make with modern technology. Like a small kid with matches.
I'm pretty sure that with a bank of capacitors hooked up to a couple of miles of copper wire wrapped around a 6' long, 6" diameter iron nail, you could take out a good couple of tens of metres with EM leakage.
It'd get hot pretty quickly, though. And your rifles would probably break your ribs trying to get to the magnet...
Oh well, nothing's perfect.
so you would have to throw this thing pretty exactly to avoid taking out your own equipment..
and seeing as most of the fighting for the foreseeable future is against someone with nothing more high tech than a beard, sandals and/or an AK.. seems like a lot of money for pretty much no good reason
"Nonetheless, despite the apparently authoritative nature of the source, we're going to file this one under "unconfirmed"."
Love your style, Lewis.:-)
* For all you youngsters in El Reg land, that is a play on the Manhattan Project and the Philadelphia Experiment. ....... which are themselves Clones and Tangents of Enigma Finesse and Turing Success.
That would be amazing! Imagine, if you could sneak up to a CP or a TOC, undetected, and lob a pulse grenade into it, knocking them offline until the commo section brings up a replacement radio! If you happened to get a NCS, it would disrupt the entire network, unless one of the radio operators on that network had at some point received the most basic of training, or had a lick of common sense...
So much more effective then doing the same thing with, say, a M-67.
Next up - US Army already has:
The Tricorder
The Matter Teleporter
Grav Tanks
A Real Ogre Mk IV
Bolos. More han one. Honest.
Pearl-handled DeLammeters
Lightsabres (Officers only)
A bug-shaped orbital AI that spots UFOs
A mutual assistance pact with Godzilla
Next year they will also take delivery of the first of what will become a fleet of giant robots that assemble themselves from seemingly normal trucks, planes and whatever to rampage wantonly through the enemy's infrastrcuture in the name of democracy.
I seem to recall articles in New Scientist around ten years or more ago describing sticks of dynamite in charged copper coils being used to generate EMPs. I also thought that an article here on el Reg mentioned the anti-radar pulse bombs used by armed forces.
Are my memory and recall really _that_ bad?
I rather think that a trooper fighting one of our worthy causes armed with a belt-full of EMP devices is going to look pretty foolish when coming across the local Taliban fondling his AK47. Said trooper would be better off waving his dick at the enemy.
Honestly, where do these people get their notions from? They really shouldn't be allowed to watch telly or see movies if they're going to take SciFi quite so seriously...
You can make a mint selling EMP grenades to civvies! Think of all the applications:
-Quieting annoying mobile phone conversations in public spaces.
-Next door neighbor's stereo keeping you up at night? Not anymore!!
-Phone calls interrupting you at work? Light off an EMP grenade next to your router/PBX!
-No more high speed chases once police cruisers come with a built-in grenade launcher
Sounds like an investment opportunity!
If they do exist, echo BlueGreen's points.
Thing is, it is an ideal guerilla weapon and has potential in asymetric warfare. I thought that a central plank of US military doctrine was to create lots of hi-tech toys for boys. EMP flash weapons erode that. Either you build incredibly hardened systems - with, doubtless, an increase in weight - or you go back to "dumb" systems. I know what would be cheaper.
Can the temptation to put this type of weapon into the hands of guerilla forces be resisted? Equipping the mujahadin with shoulder launched guided missles is one thing.
What a brilliant idea if it turns out to exist. Disabling vehicles (at least non-carbureted ones) with EMPs or MBTs, Helis, etc will bring a new dimension to the battlefield.
On the down side...lead lined counter-emp anything is going to weigh ton! :-)
>>>>My coat is the one with cybernetic implants...
...since the Jefferson Airplane's vision of heroic rebels fighting a government equipped with huge IBM computers:
"at the Battle of Forever Plains all my people hand
in hand in the rain the laser way won the day
without one single living soul going down the government
troops were circled in the sun guns found themselves on the
run...
thirteenth battalion of mind raiders three hundred master
computer killers from great platforms in the mountains
twenty mile lasers & great giant trackers..."
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