Techno Thirst: E-Bomb – Terror For Future

Techno Thirst: E-Bomb – Terror For Future

E-Bomb – Terror For Future

This article was compiled me when I was studying my 3rd year engineering for my college magzine. I surfed net for some good thechnical article and then I found this one... This is really a interesting article and this was selected for our college magzine Witness - 2004

E-Bomb – Terror For Future

High Power Electromagnetic Pulse generation techniques and High Power Microwave technology have matured to the point where practical E-bombs (Electromagnetic bombs) are becoming technically feasible, with new applications in both Strategic and Tactical Information Warfare. The development of conventional E-bomb devices allows their use in non-nuclear confrontations.
The perfect weapon would literally stop an enemy in his tracks, yet harm neither hide nor hair. Such a weapon might shut down telecommunications networks, disrupt power supplies, and fry an adversary's countless computers and electronic gadgets, yet still leave buildings, bridges, and highways intact. It would strike with precision, in an instant, and leave behind no trace of where it came from. In fact such weapons already exists in the form of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons. As their name suggests, HPMs generate an intense "blast" of electromagnetic waves in the microwave frequency band (hundreds of megahertz to tens of gigahertz) that is strong enough to overload electrical circuitry. Most types of matter are transparent to microwaves, but metallic conductors, like those found in MOS, metal-semiconductor, and bipolar devices, strongly absorb them, which in turn heats the material. An HPM weapon can induce currents large enough to melt circuitry. But even less intense bursts can temporarily disrupt electrical equipment or permanently damage ICs, causing them to fail minutes, days, or even weeks later. People caught in the burst of a microwave weapon would, by contrast, be untouched and might not even know they'd been hit. There is, however, an effort to build a microwave weapon for controlling crowds; a person subjected to it definitely feels pain and is forced to retreat.

How E-Bomb Works?
It consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger copper coil. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," The result is that Field Compression Generators will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks before the final disintegration of the device. The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like a flashbulb by comparison.
The bomb's destructiveness depends on the microwave source and target's vulnerability to electromagnetic attack, among other things, but a 10-GW, 5-GHz HPM device would have a "lethal" footprint 400 to 500 meters across, producing field strengths of several kilovolts per meter. Such an e-bomb would wreak major havoc if detonated over a heavily populated area.

HPM weapons, also known as radiofrequency weapons, have many things going for them: their blast travels at the speed of light, they can be fired without any visible emanation, and they are unaffected by gravity or atmospheric conditions.

Defence Against Electromagnetic Bombs
The most effective defence against electromagnetic bombs is to prevent their delivery by destroying the launch platform or delivery vehicle, as is the case with nuclear weapons. This however may not always be possible, and therefore systems which can be expected to suffer exposure to the electromagnetic weapons effects must be electromagnetically hardened.
The most effective method is to wholly contain the equipment in an electrically conductive enclosure, termed a Faraday cage, which prevents the electromagnetic field from gaining access to the protected equipment.

Limitations of E-Bombs:
The limitations of electromagnetic weapons are determined by weapon implementation and means of delivery. Weapon implementation will determine the electromagnetic field strength achievable at a given radius, and its spectral distribution.
Assessing whether an attack on a non radiating emitter has been successful is more problematic.
Means of delivery limit the lethality of an electromagnetic bomb by introducing limits to the weapon's size and the accuracy of its delivery.

Any nation with a 1950s technology base capable of designing and building nuclear weapons and radars" can build an e-bomb,

Don’t do That:
Wait until everyone else has left the house. Next, take apart the microwave oven, but don't disconnect any of the components; Inside you will find the oven's microwave source: the magnetron. Wrap a tube of sheet metal around it to act as a waveguide. Your power source is the house's ac, so just plug in the oven and point it at your TV. Warning: there's a real possibility that you will burn yourself instead.
E-bombs can unleash in a flash as much electrical power—2 billion watts or more—as the Hoover Dam generates in 24 hours.

The U.S. Air Force has hit Iraqi TV with 'E-Bomb' in an attempt to knock it off the air and shut down Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine