New missile

[Marin]

From today's news....

Boeing Now Has A Missile That Destroys Only Electronics And Leaves All Else Intact​

Boeing​

While the U.S. geared up for the second presidential debate last Tuesday, a building sat pulsing with computers, electronic surveillance, and security systems in the Utah high desert.

The unoccupied site was awaiting the test of a weapon the Pentagon requested four years agoto the day on 16 October, 2008.

The Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) led by Boeing's Phantom works, promised to change the face of contemporary warfare, and its test was a complete success.

CHAMP flew over the Utah Test and Training Range last Tuesday, discharging a burst of High Power Microwaves onto the test site and brought down the compound's entire spectrum of electronic systems, apparently without producing any other damage at all. Even the camera recording the test was shut down.

Struggling to contain his enthusiasm, Boeing's Keith Coleman says, "We hit every target we wanted to. Today we made science fiction into science fact."

Coleman spoke from a Boeing video that shows the results of the test, inside the computer filled building. Flying over the largest testing range in the country, CHAMPS took out seven different targets before self-destructing over empty desert.

While James Dodd, VP of Advanced Boeing Aircraft says he hopes to implement the CHAMP sooner rather than later, it's just one weapon in a growing arsenal meant to take down increasingly sophisticated foreign radar systems.

Passive radar is being heavily marketed abroad as the system to use if a country wants to identify U.S. stealth planes including the forthcoming F-35. The passive system evaluates a wide spectrum of anomalies to track a jet, but a burst from CHAMPS, or the new active electronically scanned array (AESA) will render that threat useless.

Expect CHAMP or AESA or another radar jamming device on any missions involving those terribly expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.​

 

[Blue Heron]

This is not a good sign for the future. Unless we harden out own infrastructure these types of weapons can cause catastrophic damage to us if used by an enemy.

Genies out of bottles.

 

[Steve]

It makes you wonder why this sort of information is made public in the first place?
Steve W

 

[BaltimoreLurker]

I thought we had this capability long ago. Guess not!

 

[Marin]

I thought we had this capability long ago. Guess not!

Until now the way we (and everyone else) dealt with radar and other tracking signals was to jam them, aka confuse them. What this new system does is simply shut them down. We have known about the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) from a nuclear explosion for decades and what it can do to electronic systems. So critical systems are "hardened" in an effort to protect them in the event of a nuclear explosion.

CHAMP is somewhat the same idea but on a much smaller scale and using a different sort of directed energy to accomplish the task. I may be off on this, but where an EMP can actually damage or destroy electronic components it appears that CHAMP simply turns them off. So says the article, anyway. I would not be surprised if CHAMP does a bit more than this, like messing up the coding for electronic systems so you can't just flip a switch and turn everything back on right away. But that's just speculation on my part....

The other nice thing about CHAMP is that it's deployed in a missile. If the illustration is at all accurate it appears to be a platform based on one of our (Boeing's) cruise missiles. These are relatively cheap particularly when compared to the cost of the attack planes that are often used to physically take out a radar or tracking site.

For people familiar with the Viet Nam war, CHAMP's mission lineage can be traced directly back to that war's Wild Weasels.

 

[Northern Spy]

It makes you wonder why this sort of information is made public in the first place?
Steve W

Because it is obsolete.

 

[RickB]

Because it is obsolete.

Nah, it's just easier to sell a "kinder, gentler" war to the taxpayer so the defence parasites maintain their lifestyle.

 

[FF]

"I thought we had this capability long ago. Guess not!"

We do , as does the rest of the world.

ANY small nuke will stop all electronic devices to the horizon.

That's why the sale of Chinese and Russian selling launchers is of concern.

Iran would love to loft a 5 Kiloton weapon over the US east coast from a ship.

The Neuron bomb has been in the inventory for decades (despite claims to the contrary).
It simply kills the animal life and people leaving most of the infastructure intact.

Many folks have wondered why it was not used on much of the mid east , allowing a clean start .

 

[Marin]

Nah, it's just easier to sell a "kinder, gentler" war to the taxpayer so the defence parasites maintain their lifestyle.

That's right. Being a defense parasite I can tell you it's a wonderful thing to be. It allows us to own and use two boats, fly a cool plane, take trips to Europe to visit good friends over there and fly business class when we do it, and much, much more.

I wouldn't trade being a defense parasite for anything. I've been to some 32 countries so far as part of my work with more to come in the next weeks, seen and done lots of things I never would have been able to do otherwise--- like fishing with cormorants in China-- and had a chance to learn stuff about a whole lot of different cultures. My and my wife's lives are vastly richer as a result of my being a defense parasite.

So if our guys can come up with ways of fooling people into promoting "kinder, gentler" wars--- which means they buy even more of our stuff which means I can put even more diesel in the boat and gas in the other things---- I'm all for it.

 

[skipperdude]

Marin,
Can I be your home boy
I also would love to travel.
I just don't have any rich friends who are defence parasites.

SD

 

[BaltimoreLurker]

Many of my neighbors and most of my friends and associates work for DoD contractors in one form or another. That's the business in this area. I've mentioned before that I've come to terms with some of the hypocrisies and contradictions in my life. The DoD has put bread on my table for 25 years, so I can't complain too loudly. But I won't be voting for either Obama or Romney because, along with other issues I have with both of them, neither is going to rein in the defense spending and neither shows much interest in giving up the, "Policeman of the World" role of the US.

 

[Blue Heron]

The lack of power and grid down experienced right now in New England is an small scale example. Magnify it and take away hope of immediate repair and you can see how dangerous these EMP or "spectrum denial" weapons are.

 

[SomeSailor]

We've had this technology for many years now. EA-6B and now EF/A-18G have been carrying ALQ-99 for decades and EF-111 before that.

The new part of this platform it's ability to come in autonomously. I was an ECM/DECM operator on EP-3A early in my Navy career, and this technology is very real.

I also work for Boeing and am glad we're heading in this direction.

 

[RickB]

The lack of power and grid down experienced right now in New England is an small scale example. Magnify it and take away hope of immediate repair and you can see how dangerous these EMP or "spectrum denial" weapons are.

And exactly how are the billions of $ going into building this missile going to protect the American power grid?

We will spend ourselves into poverty and darkness, we will never build a wall tall enough or strong enough to defend us against the biggest threat we have ... our own greed and ignorance.

 

[SomeSailor]

These are asymmetric weapons designed to deny our enemies of their power grids. However, the development of such weapons does help to understand the vulnerabilities within our own grids. Our enemies will someday have this same technology.

 

[RickB]

...asymmetric weapons ... deny our enemies ...understand the vulnerabilities ...Our enemies will ... technology.

Looks like a keyword search on a Kool-Aid packet.

 

[SomeSailor]

Looks like a keyword search on a Kool-Aid packet.

I'm not following your thought. (sarcasm?)