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peter2002

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 1, 2002
253
1
Dallas, TX
America has a new weapon about to be used for the first time in war (Iraq and N. Korea later). It is called HPMs or e-bomb. HPM stands for high powerd microwaves. HPM engineers call it "dial-a-hurt. But that hurt can cause unintended problems: beyond taking out a tyrant's silicon chips, HPMs could destroy nearby heart pacemakers and other life-critical electrical systems in hospitals or aboard aircraft (that's why the U.S. military is putting them only on long-range cruise missiles)."

Exact details on how it works is classified, but its effects are similar to the electro-magnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon. HPMs genereates 2 billion watts of energy and destroy all electrical and computer devices within 1,000 feet. The Pentagon doesn't say whether it can be used mulitple times, but since the device doesn't explode, it is safe to assume it can.

Although the Pentagon prefers not to use experimental weapons on the battlefield, "the world intervenes from time to time," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says. "And you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it."

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030127/nmicro.html
 

G4scott

macrumors 68020
Jan 9, 2002
2,225
5
USA_WA
Re: HPMs: USA's secret weapon to debut...

hmm... 1000 feed doesn't sound like much... about 5 football fields... I guess it makes it accurate enough not to take out civilian targets or hospitals... I wonder what it would feel like to be next to one when it goes off... 2billion watts of energy... That's quite a bit...
 

kiwi_the_iwik

macrumors 65816
Oct 30, 2001
1,110
1
London, UK
Simply hillarious!

These devices are designed to blow the enemy back to the Stone Age. Don't you think it's a waste to use it on a country that's pretty much already there?

Ha!

:D
 

iJon

macrumors 604
Feb 7, 2002
6,586
229
Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik
Simply hillarious!

These devices are designed to blow the enemy back to the Stone Age. Don't you think it's a waste to use it on a country that's pretty much already there?

Ha!

:D
no it isnt pointless. if it works as advertised this could come in very handy. blow out their radar so they cant see us. blow out the chips that makes missles launch and stuff like that. they may not have much, but they ahve enough to fight back with us.

iJon
 

mymemory

macrumors 68020
May 9, 2001
2,495
-1
Miami
Based on my actual experience.

Here in my city the first target are the tv stations and antenas. You will need to be very organized to be able to fight without comunications but you can not last like that for too long.

Even transportation will be affected, motorcicles, cars, you name it.

All you can do is surrender.

I think it is a very good weapon to save lives... un less you en up like in a microwave oven.
 

barkmonster

macrumors 68020
Dec 3, 2001
2,134
15
Lancashire
I wonder how many times the people who developed usable EMP weapons have seen the Matrix ?

I think it's cool that they've developed 'weapons of mass annoyance' it's certainly a lot less harmful to people, wildlife etc...
 

pianojoe

macrumors 6502
Jul 5, 2001
461
25
N 49.50121 E008.54558
Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik
Simply hillarious!

These devices are designed to blow the enemy back to the Stone Age. Don't you think it's a waste to use it on a country that's pretty much already there?

Ha!

:D

I'd like to point out that it was only during the early 19th century that Europe, and a little later, North America, surpassed the economical and cultural level of the Islamic world. Quite some distance to the Stone Age after all.
 

MrMacMan

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2001
7,002
11
1 Block away from NYC.
Acually you too can build a small Exectric Magnetic Pulse.

From what I tested mine took out the power in a 3 house radius, well techinally it was more since it affected the transformer, but whatever.

So this new device will take out the power and fry all the computers, heart devices and anything with silicon, YAY!
 

ddtlm

macrumors 65816
Aug 20, 2001
1,184
0
MrMacman:

Overall it's a very clean way to disable enemies. Or perhaps you prefer taking out power and computers with bombs?
 

MacQuest

macrumors 6502a
Jan 18, 2003
902
0
You See Dead People...
A preview of the preemptive...

Don't forget that SoDamn InSane & his Republican Off-Guard recently ordered a huge shipment of scrambling devices aimed at mis-guiding our technologically enhanced weapons.

So I imagine these HPM's would be our preemptive technology strike, as well as a preamble to our preemptive conventional strike.
 

LethalWolfe

macrumors G3
Jan 11, 2002
9,370
124
Los Angeles
Re: Based on my actual experience.

Originally posted by mymemory
Here in my city the first target are the tv stations and antenas. You will need to be very organized to be able to fight without comunications but you can not last like that for too long.

Even transportation will be affected, motorcicles, cars, you name it.

All you can do is surrender.

I think it is a very good weapon to save lives... un less you en up like in a microwave oven.

I think mymemory hit the biggest nail on the head. Take out the enemies ability to communicate w/each other and you've shattered their ability to wage a coordinated war. It's much easier to defeat a number of small, unorganized groups than one large organized group.


Lethal
 

lmalave

macrumors 68000
Nov 8, 2002
1,614
0
Chinatown NYC
Re: Re: Based on my actual experience.

Originally posted by LethalWolfe


I think mymemory hit the biggest nail on the head. Take out the enemies ability to communicate w/each other and you've shattered their ability to wage a coordinated war. It's much easier to defeat a number of small, unorganized groups than one large organized group.


Lethal

Luckily Saddam, like most tyrants, is an idiot. But let me point out that a clever and resourceful enemy will figure out a way to communicate - technology is not the only way. I mean, 800 years ago Genghis Khan was not that far behind modern ground armies in terms of mobility and battlefield communications/intelligence. All of Khan's 250,000 troops were on horseback galloping at full speed, and he employed an extensive network of scouts and messengers. Messengers were stationed 25 miles aparts so they could relay a message basically at the speed of a horse galloping at full throttle. These innovations helped Genghis Khan establish an empire that stretched from Korea to Poland, from the Arctic to the Persian Gulf, India, and China.

Ok, so the Iraquis won't be using horses, but using motorcycle messengers is not so farfetched and was in fact employed in a $250 million computer-simulated wargame against Iraq. Here's a quote about the U.S. military commander that employed such unorthodox tactics:

"Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.

It was at this point that the generals and admirals monitoring the war game called time out.

"A phrase I heard over and over was: 'That would never have happened,'" Van Riper recalls. "And I said: nobody would have thought that anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Centre... but nobody seemed interested."

In the end, it was ruled that the Blue forces had had the $250m equivalent of their fingers crossed and were not really dead, while the ships were similarly raised from watery graves.

Van Riper was pretty fed up by this point, but things were about to get worse. The "control group", the officers refereeing the exercise, informed him that US electronic warfare planes had zapped his expensive microwave communications systems.

"You're going to have to use cellphones and satellite phones now, they told me. I said no, no, no - we're going to use motorcycle messengers and make announcements from the mosques," he says. "But they refused to accept that we'd do anything they wouldn't do in the west."

Then Van Riper was told to turn his air defences off at certain times and places where Blue forces were about to stage an attack, and to move his forces away from beaches where the marines were scheduled to land. "The whole thing was being scripted," he says.
 

drastik

macrumors 6502a
Apr 10, 2002
978
0
Nashvegas
less human casualty is definitely a good thing. The destruction of pacemakers will be by far less than the effects of something like arc lighting, so I saw go with it. I wonder what the long term effects of a radiation blast like that would be. On the other hand, unless our ground guys go in HAZMAT suits, it probably isn't too bad. Of course, our military doesn't have a great record when it comes to our own soldiers saftey.
 

LethalWolfe

macrumors G3
Jan 11, 2002
9,370
124
Los Angeles
Re: Re: Re: Based on my actual experience.

Originally posted by lmalave


Luckily Saddam, like most tyrants, is an idiot. But let me point out that a clever and resourceful enemy will figure out a way to communicate - technology is not the only way. I mean, 800 years ago Genghis Khan was not that far behind modern ground armies in terms of mobility and battlefield communications/intelligence. All of Khan's 250,000 troops were on horseback galloping at full speed, and he employed an extensive network of scouts and messengers. Messengers were stationed 25 miles aparts so they could relay a message basically at the speed of a horse galloping at full throttle. These innovations helped Genghis Khan establish an empire that stretched from Korea to Poland, from the Arctic to the Persian Gulf, India, and China.

Ok, so the Iraquis won't be using horses, but using motorcycle messengers is not so farfetched and was in fact employed in a $250 million computer-simulated wargame against Iraq. Here's a quote about the U.S. military commander that employed such unorthodox tactics:

"Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.

It was at this point that the generals and admirals monitoring the war game called time out.

"A phrase I heard over and over was: 'That would never have happened,'" Van Riper recalls. "And I said: nobody would have thought that anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Centre... but nobody seemed interested."

In the end, it was ruled that the Blue forces had had the $250m equivalent of their fingers crossed and were not really dead, while the ships were similarly raised from watery graves.

Van Riper was pretty fed up by this point, but things were about to get worse. The "control group", the officers refereeing the exercise, informed him that US electronic warfare planes had zapped his expensive microwave communications systems.

"You're going to have to use cellphones and satellite phones now, they told me. I said no, no, no - we're going to use motorcycle messengers and make announcements from the mosques," he says. "But they refused to accept that we'd do anything they wouldn't do in the west."

Then Van Riper was told to turn his air defences off at certain times and places where Blue forces were about to stage an attack, and to move his forces away from beaches where the marines were scheduled to land. "The whole thing was being scripted," he says.

I think yer comparison to Khan is a bit off base. Khan used the best "tech" of the time. He used messengers on horse instead of on foot 'cause horses are faster. If he could have used radios instead of horses I'm sure if would have used radios.

And in small battles motorcycles and visual/audio signals can work, but they are pretty much useless if you are trying to coordinate the defense of an entire country.


Lethal
 

lmalave

macrumors 68000
Nov 8, 2002
1,614
0
Chinatown NYC
Re: Re: Re: Re: Based on my actual experience.

Originally posted by LethalWolfe


I think yer comparison to Khan is a bit off base. Khan used the best "tech" of the time. He used messengers on horse instead of on foot 'cause horses are faster. If he could have used radios instead of horses I'm sure if would have used radios.

And in small battles motorcycles and visual/audio signals can work, but they are pretty much useless if you are trying to coordinate the defense of an entire country.


Lethal

Right, but Saddam only has to defend the area around Baghdad. He's already largely given up control over most of the country - the south is controlled by the Shiites and the north by the Kurds. Which, by the way, is why I think the U.S. will strike sooner rather than later. U.S. commanders know it'd be relatively easy to drop right into northern and southern Iraq and establish a base of operations from within Iraq. Then they can eventually encircle Baghdad and hopefully force the remaining Iraqi government to collapes (by a coup by his generals, for example).

And again, don't take my word for it - a $250 million U.S. military simulation says that a clever low-tech enemy can still be quite lethal.
 

LethalWolfe

macrumors G3
Jan 11, 2002
9,370
124
Los Angeles
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Based on my actual experience.

Originally posted by lmalave


Right, but Saddam only has to defend the area around Baghdad. He's already largely given up control over most of the country - the south is controlled by the Shiites and the north by the Kurds. Which, by the way, is why I think the U.S. will strike sooner rather than later. U.S. commanders know it'd be relatively easy to drop right into northern and southern Iraq and establish a base of operations from within Iraq. Then they can eventually encircle Baghdad and hopefully force the remaining Iraqi government to collapes (by a coup by his generals, for example).

And again, don't take my word for it - a $250 million U.S. military simulation says that a clever low-tech enemy can still be quite lethal.

I'm not debating the lethality of low-tech, I'm just saying that low tech isn't enough to coordinate troops over a large area. And urban warfare is a whole 'nother bag of nails, but I think the probablity that Iraqi troops will be as unwilling to fight now as they were during the Gulf War is the best "weapon" we could ever hope for.


Lethal
 

noht*

macrumors member
Jul 22, 2002
76
0
* hidden between worlds
Re: HPMs: USA's secret weapon to debut...

Originally posted by peter2002
(...)
Exact details on how it works is classified, but its effects are similar to the electro-magnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon. HPMs genereates 2 billion watts of energy and destroy all electrical and computer devices within 1,000 feet.
(...)

2 billion watts of energy? man, that thing must be heavy - at least 2000 metres or so ;)
 

iGod

macrumors member
Aug 16, 2002
44
0
Er...as good as an idea as it appears to be...most weapons that the US invents (and yes, the US invents almost ALL of them - and ships them out too) end up in the WRONG hands.
Imagine one of these bombs in New York City or Washington DC used by, say, Bin Laden? And don't tell me terrorists or 'terrorist nations' will never get hold of them...once the US has these crazy bombs, other countries will have to follow and then everyone will have the power to destroy the basis of modern civilization. Great. Whatever it takes to get you re-elected, George.
By the way. anyone see the picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein on the front page of a NYTimes section a few months ago - yep, that was when the US supplied technology to Iraq against Iran...and then they did it with Saudi Arabia against Iraq...narrow-minded politicians and narrow-minded defense policies make any new bomb technology a BAD idea.
Better to keep it in the closet. Use it when you really need it, NOT during a 'casual' war against Iraq.
 
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