The U.S. Air Force is developing a high-power microwave, or HPM, weapon that generates a massive electromagnetic pulse capable of frying the insides of digital electronic systems, disabling enemy military equipment, analysts said.
While the weapon is top-secret and details about it are classified, analysts said its development is far enough along that they expect the U.S. military to use an HPM weapon for the first time in the possible war with Iraq.
"The virtue of high-power microwave weapons is that they can shut down virtually any military electronics system while producing no causalities and minimal physical damage," said military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank. "There's always the possibility that you'll get the scant general with a pacemaker."
These weapons could be used to disable enemy command and control centers, communications facilities, air defense radars, chemical or biological weapons storage or production sites, and sophisticated vehicles, missiles and aircraft, analysts said.
"What that means is that the enemy can't see you coming, they can't hear themselves talking and they can't find their friendly forces. They are essentially deaf, dumb and blind. But they're alive," Thompson added.
The devices generate a momentary, intense energy pulse producing a gargantuan power surge -- millions of watts -- that would fry practically any modern electronic device within a modest range of hundreds of yards (meters).
The weapon, of course, would not distinguish between electronics used by an enemy military or those used in, for example, a hospital. The surge itself would not harm people.
"The footprint of these is not all that big, which has both pros and cons depending on the issue you're looking at. If you want significant military effect, it may be limited. On the other hand, if you're worried about collateral impact, if you know where the hospital is, you can limit that effect as well," said military analyst Mike Vickers of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
High-power microwave could be useful against some of an enemy's most unreachable targets, analysts said.
"A fabulous target would be a deeply buried command bunker or chemical-biological weapons bunker that we weren't certain that we could dig out of the ground with conventional explosives but which would have to have communications and power lines going into and out of it. It's almost impossible to buffer those lines against a power surge," Thompson said.
U.S. defense officials publicly have suggested that a high-power microwave weapon might be used in the near term.
"You never know," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when asked at a briefing about the promise of such weapons.
"The real world intervenes from time to time, and you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it," Rumsfeld added.
