Arthur J. Villasanta – Fourth Estate Contributor
Washington, DC, United States (4E) – The United States plans to make use of a brand new electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon that destroys an enemy’s means to command and management to spearhead future assaults on North Korea’s nuclear weapons websites and the defensive techniques defending them.
The U.S. Air Force has developed CHAMP, the acronym for “Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project.” To be deployed in 2020, this non-lethal weapon shall be mounted on a specifically modified AGM-158B JASSM-ER (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range), a low observable standoff air-launched cruise missile at present in Air Force service.
Mounted on a JASSM-ER, CHAMP emits highly effective electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) because it zooms over the battlefield. The Air Force describes CHAMP as an air-launched directed-energy weapon in a multi-shot, multi-target, high-power microwave (HPM) bundle.
CHAMP destroys as an alternative of jams enemy digital warfare tools and digital techniques. It’s particularly potent towards and command and management facilities in buildings completely depending on electronics to do their job.
The EMP generated by CHAMP overloads digital tools quicker than circuit breakers or surge protectors can reply to the huge surge of energy. CHAMP is able to as much as 100 pictures per sortie. Future iterations of CHAMP will see it mounted on hypervelocity missiles.
The CHAMP cruise missile could be launched at stand-off distances by manned fighters such because the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Northrop Grumman B-2 strategic stealth bomber, or by unmanned aerial autos (UAVs) or aerial drones.
“The capability is real … and the technology can be available today,” stated Major General Thomas Masiello, the Air Force Research Laboratory. “That’s an operational system already in our tactical air force.”
Boeing efficiently examined CHAMP in late 2012 throughout which the weapon destroyed computer systems on the Utah Test and Training Range that had been its goal.
CHAMP fired EMP bursts at seven targets, destroying their electronics. It even destroyed the digital cameras recording the exams.
Boeing claims CHAMP opens a brand new period in trendy warfare by destroying an enemy’s digital and information techniques even earlier than the primary troops or plane arrive.
“It would be very useful in the Korean theater because it wouldn’t require the presence of significant numbers of ground forces,” stated retired Air Force intelligence officer Col. Cedric Leighton, who additionally stated CHAMP may very well be a game-changer with North Korea.
“It wouldn’t require Special Operations forces. And it wouldn’t require kinetic bombing attacks … In essence, what could happen is an attack can occur, and not a single person on the enemy side would lose a life.”
Leighton stated CHAMP can disable a North Korean missile on the launchpad or in flight.
Article – All Rights Reserved.
Provided by FeedSyndicate
