HPM weapons

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

If we got rid of the idiotic space station, and dumped the Shuttle
program and its replacement, we could afford to do a lot of serious
science.

It seems a bad case of deja vu, with NASA replaying its glory days 50
years on. Maybe the space station could be renamed "Skylab"?
Give it another 50 years and they'll be talking about a reusable space
plane.

--
Dirk

http://www.onetribe.me.uk - The UK's only occult talk show
Presented by Dirk Bruere and Marc Power on ResonanceFM 104.4
http://www.resonancefm.com

 

[Rich the Philosophizer]

If we got rid of the idiotic space station, and dumped the Shuttle
program and its replacement, we could afford to do a lot of serious
science.

Imagine what we could do if we were to redirect all that US military
spending to exploration of strange new worlds, etc?

Cheers!
Rich

 

[martin griffith]

Imagine what we could do if we were to redirect all that US military
spending to exploration of strange new worlds, etc?

or health care?


martin

 

[Jim Yanik]

Tight is a relative term. The 1mm circle from your red laser pointer
is a good 1500 wavelengths across. It can get much tighter. (Even
sloppy CO2 cutting lasers, at 10um wavelength, get a kerf of 0.004"
(100um), or 10 wavelengths. Admittedly, not necessarily at a few
hundred meters distance from the nearest optics.)

There's no reason, then, that microwaves at perhaps 10GHz can't be
focused into a beam (or at least a spot) of perhaps 300mm, which
easily covers the surface of any general aviation or fighter or bomber
aircraft several times.

Uh,the tighter the beam,the harder it is to AIM over a distance.
Any HPM RF "beam" is going to be -at least- as large as the entire AC.

300mm is about 12 inches.what AC is 12 INCHES across?

Sure it can. Light is just RF that thinks it's really fast (high
frequency). The only difference is what model (particle/optical or
wave) you use to illustrate it on any arbitrary scale.

Tim

Not when it concerns the effects once it hits the target.
RF induces high electrical currents that do the actual damage,unlike lasers
that heat the target right at the area the beam hits.

 

[Jim Yanik]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array


0.05 arcseconds, better than Hubble, but that's only a 36 km baseline.

John

Yes,size does matter.

 

[Jim Yanik]

Imagine what we could do if we were to redirect all that US military
spending to exploration of strange new worlds, etc?

Ah,more Utopian wishing.
All that US military spending is what keeps you free.

Cheers!
Rich

right now the US military is busy exploring the strange old world of
Islamic terrorism.

 

[Mike Monett]

It doesn't take .05 arcseconds to disable an incoming missile,
especially when you have 10's of gigawatts to invest.

John

So how big an antenna do you need, and how do you shield your own
electronics from the blast?

I can see using a laser to damage sensors on an incoming missile, providing
it is fairly close. But the claims floating around about the F-22 frying
enemy electronics 100km away just aren't realistic.

Of course, this propaganda is great when it helps congress votes money for
more F-22's. But it isn't the first time such claims were used, and it
won't be the last.

Regards,

Mike Monett

 

[John Larkin]

So how big an antenna do you need, and how do you shield your own
electronics from the blast?

Design it to be hard from the outset.

I can see using a laser to damage sensors on an incoming missile, providing
it is fairly close. But the claims floating around about the F-22 frying
enemy electronics 100km away just aren't realistic.

I haven't seen that claim anywhere. I have seen unofficial statements
that F-22's, F-35 JSF, and some F/A 18's now have distributed-array
radars that can spot stealthy objects at 100 miles, and that close-up,
focused RF levels can be high enough to disrupt electronics on other
planes or missiles. The BAE type gigawatt emitters are the next
generation. See AW&ST, Jan 22, p 42.

Of course, this propaganda is great when it helps congress votes money for
more F-22's. But it isn't the first time such claims were used, and it
won't be the last.

This time it looks real. Laser-triggered closing switches have been
improving rapidly in recent years. google it.

John

 

[Richard The Dreaded Libertarian]

Ah,more Utopian wishing.
All that US military spending is what keeps you free.

Free of what, Exactly?

Free of Taxation without representation?

Free of The threat of being skin-searched by armed thugs at the airport?

Free of Anti-drug warriors threatening to haul me away in the middle of
the night, without a warrant?

Free of Gun-control nuts who want to disarm the citizenry so that we
have no means to defend ourselves against said armed thugs at the door?

If you believe so devoutly in the 2nd amendment, why do you wipe your
ass with the rest?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Tim Williams]

Uh,the tighter the beam,the harder it is to AIM over a distance.
Any HPM RF "beam" is going to be -at least- as large as the entire AC.

300mm is about 12 inches.what AC is 12 INCHES across?

Well, presumably you would have these arrays phased so directionality is
good without RF optics (which are notoriously bulky to drag along outside an
aircraft at Mach 3). I don't know a damn thing about HPM, but I know RF
engineers know their shit about these things.

Incidentially, the larger the A/C, the tighter the beam, because the array
can be bigger. A small array (especially comparable to the wavelength)
loses a lot of accuracy to diffraction.

Not when it concerns the effects once it hits the target.
RF induces high electrical currents that do the actual damage,unlike lasers
that heat the target right at the area the beam hits.

Not really. RF is conducted along arbitrarily dimensioned wires. Laser
light is conducted along arbitrarily dimensioned groups of atoms. For
quantum reasons, the path RF takes can be a whole lot more complicated (due
to wires being more than 10^20 atoms long), and has the side effect of
roasting the electrical equipment thus attached, but that's just the
frequency band at work. Either way, electrons bounce back and forth in the
target. It all comes back to Maxwell's equations, really...

Tim

 

[Mike Monett]

Not when it concerns the effects once it hits the target.
RF induces high electrical currents that do the actual damage,unlike
lasers that heat the target right at the area the beam hits.

Also high voltage, which causes semiconductor junctions to break down. Then
a high enough current will fry them.

O.T. Jim, you used to be in the NRA. Here's something you might enjoy:

http://www.micom.net/oops/BearArms.jpg

Regards,

Mike Monett

 

[Jim Yanik]

http://www.micom.net/oops/BearArms.jpg

When he lights up the afterburners,he's not gonna have a garage anymore!


I recall where one guy who owned an aircraft maintenance company bought a
"scrapped" T-38 airframe,and restored it to flying condition,the only
privately owned flying T-38 in the US. It seems that the salvage people
were supposed to cut the airframe into pieces,but neglected to do
it,leaving the plane restorable.
Others own their own military helicopters,and some old tanks and APCs.
Mostly they rent them out to movie companies.

 

[[email protected]]

When he lights up the afterburners,he's not gonna have a garage anymore!


I recall where one guy who owned an aircraft maintenance company bought a
"scrapped" T-38 airframe,and restored it to flying condition,the only
privately owned flying T-38 in the US. It seems that the salvage people
were supposed to cut the airframe into pieces,but neglected to do
it,leaving the plane restorable.
Others own their own military helicopters,and some old tanks and APCs.
Mostly they rent them out to movie companies.

Over here in South Tampa, this weekend, the Blue Angels were
having an air show at McDill and I was wondering what one would look
like parked in my driveway. Now I know.

 

[krw]

Free of what, Exactly?
Burkas.

Free of Taxation without representation?
Canard.

Free of The threat of being skin-searched by armed thugs at the airport?

You don't have an absolute right of any freedom. It's an impossible
wish.

Free of Anti-drug warriors threatening to haul me away in the middle of
the night, without a warrant?

Society has the right to protect itself. We may not agree with what
we're being protected from but society has to have that right.

Free of Gun-control nuts who want to disarm the citizenry so that we
have no means to defend ourselves against said armed thugs at the door?

Well, there you got me. ;-)

See above. Vote them out.

If you believe so devoutly in the 2nd amendment, why do you wipe your
ass with the rest?

Why do you believe so in absolutes?

 

[Ian]

When he lights up the afterburners,he's not gonna have a garage anymore!


Others own their own military helicopters,and some old tanks and APCs.
Mostly they rent them out to movie companies.

My next door neighbour bought an ex-military helicopter for his own
private use. It turns out that the military version is specified differently
from the civilian one, so the commercial type airworthiness certificate
doesn't apply, it can't be used for commercial purposes, so he got
it cheap (for helicopter size versions of "cheap" ;-)

Regards
Ian

 

[Jim Yanik]

My next door neighbour bought an ex-military helicopter for his own
private use. It turns out that the military version is specified
differently from the civilian one, so the commercial type
airworthiness certificate doesn't apply, it can't be used for
commercial purposes, so he got it cheap (for helicopter size versions
of "cheap" ;-)

Regards
Ian

Those private companies got around that somehow.The guy with the T-38 has
his flying.
Maybe the FAA is just jerking your neighbor around.

 

[Mike Monett]

When he lights up the afterburners,he's not gonna have a garage
anymore!


I recall where one guy who owned an aircraft maintenance company
bought a "scrapped" T-38 airframe,and restored it to flying
condition,the only privately owned flying T-38 in the US. It seems
that the salvage people were supposed to cut the airframe into
pieces,but neglected to do it,leaving the plane restorable.
Others own their own military helicopters,and some old tanks and APCs.
Mostly they rent them out to movie companies.

He was lucky!

Four F-14's were sold for $4,000 each in the late 1990s without being
demiled. Here's how they do it:

"The demilitarization process, which makes the aircraft unusable as a
weapon, involves removing all classified military equipment from the
aircraft (especially electronics), as well as the engines (which makes the
surplus aircraft much easier to move). Finally, the fuselage is cut in
half, usually just behind the cockpit. This is expensive, as it requires a
special cutting machine. Then, in another expensive procedure, the fuselage
is welded back together, and evidence of the process, on the outer surface
of the fuselage, is hidden. This process means the aircraft can never fly
again, because the welds are not as strong as the original, uncut, interior
metal framework of the aircraft."

More info:

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/2007324290.asp

Regards,

Mike Monett

 

[Ancient_Hacker]

A recent issue of Aviation Week had some articles on
high-power-microwave weapons. There's a blurred photo of a
BAE-developed switching gadget that looks like a coffee-stirrer-sized
slab of white ceramic with some dark strips deposited on top. The
strips may be something like GaAs or possibly amorphous diamond. It's
the heart of a 4x4 inch "tile" emitter.

Each tile apparently has a dc/dc converter and a storage capacitor.
The cap is charged to 9KV and the strip thing is blasted by a
diode-pumped yag laser. It switches on in picoseconds, dumping 30,000
amps (270 megawatts) into a wideband antenna built into the surface of
the tile.

Laser and RF weapons are unlikely to ever be worth the trouble. Basic
physics.
Take all the power you can generate on a plane. Say you have a 50,000
hp turbine
driving a generator, giving say 50 megawatts. Now put that into a
maser or laser.
Typical efficiency of maybe 10% on a good day. So you need a pretty
big fan to blow away the 45 megawatts of heat.
Now you have 5 megawatts of coherent energy. If it's light or
infrared energy, you can warm up a tank at quite a distance, assuming
no clouds, dust, or turbulence. But you won't melt it very quickly,
and countermeasures cost about 1/1000000 of your costs (aluminum foil
is quite inexpensive). If it's RF energy, the directionality is
limited by the size of the antenna you can carry on a plane. At best,
you're going to warm up a batallion. And maybe cause some cataracts.

Meanwhile you've been hovering or circling, making yourself a huge IR
or RF target for any energy-seeking $400 missile. Not a good tradeoff
as your plane and lasers probably cost a million times that.

Cool in theory but doesnt make it past the first stage of any war
game.

 

[John Larkin]

Laser and RF weapons are unlikely to ever be worth the trouble. Basic
physics.
Take all the power you can generate on a plane. Say you have a 50,000
hp turbine
driving a generator, giving say 50 megawatts. Now put that into a
maser or laser.
Typical efficiency of maybe 10% on a good day. So you need a pretty
big fan to blow away the 45 megawatts of heat.
Now you have 5 megawatts of coherent energy.

The numbers are more like 10 gigawatts of peak radiated RF. Average
power is still low. Electrical to RF efficiency can be well over 50%.

If it's light or
infrared energy, you can warm up a tank at quite a distance, assuming
no clouds, dust, or turbulence. But you won't melt it very quickly,
and countermeasures cost about 1/1000000 of your costs (aluminum foil
is quite inexpensive). If it's RF energy, the directionality is
limited by the size of the antenna you can carry on a plane. At best,
you're going to warm up a batallion. And maybe cause some cataracts.

Making heat isn't the object. Frying electronics is.

Meanwhile you've been hovering or circling, making yourself a huge IR
or RF target for any energy-seeking $400 missile. Not a good tradeoff
as your plane and lasers probably cost a million times that.

When a Sidewinder, designed in the 1960's, slams into 10 GW of rf,
it's going to forget what it was sent to do. As far as breaking
Stealth, these things aren't fired until they're needed. Droping bombs
breaks stealth, too.

Cool in theory but doesnt make it past the first stage of any war
game.

It's being done now, on real planes, and will be a lot more effective
in a few more years. The trend is to non-lethal weapons, unmanned
combat vehicles, and lots of electronics. WWIII will be a video game.
The losers won't be dead, they'll just be living in tents in the dark.


John

 

[Rich Grise]

My next door neighbour bought an ex-military helicopter for his own
private use. It turns out that the military version is specified differently
from the civilian one, so the commercial type airworthiness certificate
doesn't apply, it can't be used for commercial purposes, so he got
it cheap (for helicopter size versions of "cheap" ;-)

Howcome he can't just have an FAA inspector come out and certify it
to his (the inspector's) own standards?

Thanks,
Rich