Electromagnetic weapons

Frying tonight


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While this technology is meant to end wars quicker, and less violently; there is always the precaution of, if we can make this kind of technology, what other technological future super weapon awaits us. Even though America is leading in R&D on bigger and better weapons, eventually China will be there with us, because they're becoming the new superpower. Eventually there will be weapons even more effective and deadly than the high-tech automatic weapons we have right now.


Personally I feel like this is just the inevitable advancement of warfare. Although being able to disable electronics does not do very much good when it is just a human pointing a assault rifle at you, as there are no electronics involved. However in the future if there is a conflict between technologically dependent armies, something like this could give one side a critical advantage. But now the next step is just developing a way to render it useless.


This new technology looks promising. If they can effectively execute these weapons on a large scale, wars would be less violent. I feel however that the amount of R&D necessary for this is going to be expensive. However, eventually our knowledge of this kind of future of modern warfare will eventually expand and we'll find newer, cheaper, and more effective ways to develop these weapons.


I actually enjoy the idea of electromagnetic warfare. I think it’s a great alternative to the bloody warfare we have now that results in so much loss of life. With the way the world in shifting, in terms of technological innovation, this may prove to be extremely useful in future combat.



This new kind of warfare proves how right Einstein was.


I know this sounds bad, but isn't the point of wars to drive enemy moral so low by killing their people that they surrender? I'm all for less killing but if two sides are fighting and only one of them is going for kills, I'd rather be on the side that lives. Electromagnetic weapons can't stop a gun from firing or an explosion from going off.


It's an interesting idea but as others have said, war and ways of fighting will adapt to and find ways to counter or get around it.

These weapons could do a lot of damage to civilians too. Especially if they become easy for normal people to get/make. Like others have pointed out, if a hospital were to be hit it would be devastating. There's also the possibility of it being used to destroy information. Things like research that is stored on computers. Which while not usually life threatening, could be horrible.

The Wall

This new technology is another reason that the United States has the most powerful military on the planet. China may have a larger standing army but we could easily defeat them with the major technology advantages we currently have. These electromagnetic weapons that can completely disrupt other militaries makes it impossible to fight a war with the United States. Without their vehicles they have no chance. Once these other militaries protect against this, The United States or some other country will invent some technology that is even more effective


As other posters have commented; this is a rather easily avoided weapon. Use of diesel engines (which by coincidence are the major vehicle power plant on the battle field and supply lines)would be impervious as they do not use computer controlled injection or ignition. Furthermore most US military as well as others use shielded components and cabling not only for hazardous environments but also for externally induced RF signals (the same signals this weapon is based off). One need only look at the MIL-DTL-38999 to see this. Any plug designed to suppress or limit the RF signal can easily be used to avoid any potential issues on vehicles or portable electronic devices. Similarly many missiles (at least on the US side of things) already are resilient to RF interference and will be hard pressed for successful implementation against such targets making it rather moot to hope to achieve a point of impact from the RF parabolic dish. However compare this to chemical laser apparatus that is specifically designed to target and destroy missiles over an area do not need to worry about focal points or let alone if the vehicle in question has RF shielding (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1 for further details).

This just seems to me, that the US government is again spending tax payer money on easily avoided counter measures that will only effect a major civilian population and have little to no impact on any wars that will be fought. If however, they are able to perfect the active denial system; it would prove quite beneficial in a civilian/urban warfare environment. The avoidance of civilian casualties would definitely instill a stronger resolve from the general public, while also intimating that the tactics currently used would become obsolete. Consequently avoidance or armoring against these sort of weapons can easily (and cheaply)be done. Even testing against such weapons can be done using nothing more than a commercial microwave non-shielded copper wire or aluminum wire, and a point to ground.


A weapon like this may be used too much on civilians and may not discriminate between civilians and military personnel. If a weapon like this was used near a hospital it would be devastating. I feel a weapon like this has more potential to do harm than good.


I have a better proposal for electromagnetic warfare. The US could win any war just by beaming the programs from the cable TV into the enemies electronic devices. They soon will become just like the "civilized world" and will demand to stop all the bloodshed.


Only people who never worked with electronics that was designed to widthstand nuclear explosions will find this as anything new. In fact, electronic warfare was alive and well since the 60es at the very least.

What changed is the attitude about how confident major Western armies became about the whole electronic thingies. Take US Army: in all its stupidity it thinks that drones and smartphone-enabled soldiers are the future of the warfare - as if it is that hard to build a drone-killing rocket that would orient on the drone's constant communication relay!

The notion that the wars of 21st century would look anything like bombing donkeys and old Soviet munitions into the ground in the clear sky is pretty misguided. Even Iraq campaign had a few hickups with Russian-built GPS disruptor - and that's well before the whole drone air warfare started in Afghanistan. True, even if drones are shot down, it would still be a win for Americans - but what if they are shot down en masse? What if, worst of all, they are shot down with weapons that cost a few orders of magnitude less?

Current vision of future warfare is very misguided, to say the least.


Right now I would assume that emp weapons would be effective. However, warfare will adapt.

Building a faraday cage will protect against most emp attacks. However, with enough power, that cage can be beaten. But more protection can be added stop it...

The question is, will it be too expensive to defend everything necessary against EMP attacks. Or will it take too much energy to beat the enemies defenses.


This is a very interesting field of weapons technology. Although it will not be useful for current wars, because we are fighting terrorist groups with very low-tech weapons, it will be very good to have the technology on hand for the future. In case of WW3, it would be very helpful to have defensive weapons that can knock out the enemies electronics. I am also a fan of these technologies because of the less bloodshed that hey would cause if used in actual combat. We could neutralize entire divisions without injuring any people (besides the possibility of a fighter pilot crashing). One issue, however is keeping these technologies a secret from other countries that could develop them. It will not do the US any good if Russia or Korea could develop such weapons. It will be interesting to see if the US develops and begins using these technologies in open combat. I will definitely be keeping up with any updates on the electromagnetic weapons developments in the news. Maybe "set phasers to stun" isn't so far off of where the future of weapons technology is headed.


The more delicate, and unshielded, the electronics the more effective an EMP. As discovered during nuclear bomb testing in the fifties, provided enough energy an EMP can burn through copper wiring. So even the motor on my parent's fishing boat, one you yank the cord to start, could be burned out because there is a wire leading to the spark plug. The equation is simple: anything with a wire, much less a computer chip, can be burned out even if it is shielded in a Faraday cage - it is simply a question of how much power it is attacked with. Note: a sailboat will remain unaffected no matter how much EMP is directed its way. So will a steam engine.

This is one piece of the larger puzzle of modern warfare. In places like Iraq and Afghanistan you can use technology freely. In a conflict with a more sophisticated nation like China you would need to be more circumspect. For example, a report in Wired this week about a new active defense system for vehicles. It uses a combination of radar and lidar to detect incoming projectiles and then fires counter-projectiles. Fighting guerrillas/terrorists this is fine. To a real army, your vehicles can be detected by their radar emissions long before they can see the enemy. The enemy can home in on your emissions and direct fire onto you. On the one hand you need to emit EMF like crazy to find the enemy and detect threats while on the other hand you need to emit no radiation so the enemy cannot find you. Also, EMF can be blocked and sometimes it can be fooled. One solution is to maintain an insurmountable technological lead over all rivals (see Military, US). For those without unlimited funds, you need to make trade offs.

And to the ridiculous statement that you can attack the enemy in his hospital with EMP weapons, they don't just kill the enemy's weapons they also kill pacemakers, incubators, X-ray machines, heart monitors, refrigerators storing medicines, etc... Talking about negative PR.


This is a terrible idea. If we can develop such a device, then so can other countries. It would turn into a massive war just to destroy each other's electronics. How do we know it even works? What if the user misses, and it hits an innocent civilian whose computer gets wiped out? What if it backfires, and destroys the user's electronics instead? I think we should just stick with convential ways of warfare. Plain and simple, war=blood. There's no way of getting around that.


In warfare it has always been the goal to shut down the CPU's (Central Processing Units) of the enemy, be it brains of soldiers, their commanders, leaders or today, their computers.


This could definitely be beneficial in todays wars with all of the electronic equipment. The problem I have with it is that it won't get rid of the enemy, just some of the equipment they use. Guns will still work against these electromagnetic weapons and enemies will just find other ways of fighting to beat these electromagnetic weapons.


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