Directed-Energy Weapons to be used in Iraq war?

[osage]

Anybody know about these things?

I know I'd be pissed off when they fried everything with a circuit board with a capacitor in it unusable forever.  My telephone, my car, my PC, my nose hair clipper, my SCUD III...

Might help to cut down on casualties "a bit."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/technology/circuits/20warr.html

EMP ain't in it.

[Russian]

Nah, we don’t need them liberal weapons. Using conventional we’ll kill more of those weazel characters standing around “baby milk factories”

[NUKE]

E-Bomb = VERY bad watermelon happens

This is an excerp from the article..... it was too long to post here, but a very interesting read, especially about the Nuclear tests  in space as the origin of the discovory .

A nuclear blast 800 miles up  will destroy most of a whole continent's electrical devices. Really amazing...and scary.

It will begin with a sharp crack, like the sound of a bolt of lightning hitting its target. In an instant, Baghdad and its environs will go dark. Even though turned off, fluorescent lights and television sets will glow and the smell of ozone mixed with the odor of smoldering plastic will seep from outlet covers as electric wires arc and telephone lines melt. Palm Pilots will feel warm to the touch, their batteries overloaded. Computers, and every bit of data on them, will be history.
Suddenly there will be a deadly quiet as internal-combustion engines shut down never to be restarted. No Iraqis will suffer any harm – they will simply be thrust back in time to an era where electricity and the electronics it made possible were non-existent.

According to a report by intelligence expert Major Scott W. Merkle, then a student assigned to the Air Command and General Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama, a declassified U.S. military report showed that the explosion of a bomb about one megaton in size (the exact size remains classified) eight hundred miles over Omaha, Nebraska, would shower the continental United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico with an EMP capable of disabling virtually every computerized circuit in its potential damaging consequences of such an EMP attack in 1982, when he wrote in an obscure engineering journal

[emodin]

Just out of curiosity, but an EMP burst wouldn't actually destroy a combustion engine, would it? I assume it would fry any electronics in a car, but that you could get that replaced fairly easily (assuming you had an older car without a computer telling it how to funciton, of course).

[UserName]

Originally posted by emodin
Just out of curiosity, but an EMP burst wouldn't actually destroy a combustion engine, would it? I assume it would fry any electronics in a car, but that you could get that replaced fairly easily (assuming you had an older car without a computer telling it how to funciton, of course).

It wouldn't destroy an internal combustion engine. Your lawnmower/chainsaw will work fine. And even older cars won't have a problem with it. It's the new cars with their new fangled computers and whatnot that would suffer.

I'm guessing the EMP burst puts a load through a circuit that can't handle it, even if it is a very small load (ie. 0.2amps (WAG)). This would burn out the traces in most circuit boards.

[Chairboy]

A couple of inaccuracies:

1. Data on a harddrive isn't erased by an EMP.  If the hard drive is on, some of the drive circuitry might be damaged, but the actual data on the platter would be safe.

2. Internal combustion chambers built with electronics fuel injection or computers might be killed, but all the old cars from the 1970s and 80s would be fine (just turn off the key, then back on, maybe replace a couple fuses).

[Rockstar]

old cars from the 1970s and 80s

Cars from the 70's and 80's ARE NOT OLD!



We'll meet again...

[Octavius]

I tried searching but without result.

Someone had posted a link to some research page about a cruise missile capable of immense EMP capabilities... kinda like lightning bottled up in a missile.  

Anyone know something about this?

[osage]

Like I said, EMP ain't in it.

Read the article you handsomehunkes.

You don't need a nuclear explosion to do it.

Its "energy-directed."

[Toad]

I think we'll be directing lots of energy at them.

[Russian]

Originally posted by osage
Like I said, EMP ain't in it.

Read the article you handsomehunkes.

You don't need a nuclear explosion to do it.

Its "energy-directed."

Its asking me to register (which I'm not doing) , post article here plz.

[Sandman]

http://www.airbornelaser.com/

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Russian
Its asking me to register (which I'm not doing) , post article here plz.

Use this:

Username: slashdot_coward
Password: slashdot_coward

[Eagler]

I guess if we used it, the cost of "rebuilding" Iraq would go up? Cheaper to rebuild there structures than their electronics/power grids?

I say use whatever means available to inflict minimum casualties on both sides while still securing a quick victory.. then send Iraq the bill for our time & materials...

[mora]

Originally posted by Chairboy

2. Internal combustion chambers built with electronics fuel injection or computers might be killed, but all the old cars from the 1970s and 80s would be fine (just turn off the key, then back on, maybe replace a couple fuses).

Most 80's cars have electronic ignition, so the control module would be fried. Also ignition coils might be damaged.