The Air Force Is Deploying Its First Drone-Killing Microwave Weapon (popularmechanics.com) 41
An anonymous reader writes: Drone attacks, including the recent swarm strike in Saudi Arabia, are increasing, and so is the Pentagon's interest in killing them. This week, the Pentagon notified Congress of its purchase of a microwave weapon system designed to knock down swarms of enemy drones with pulses of energy. The purchase comes with an intent to deploy the PHASER system overseas for a year-long assessment, making it the first directed energy defense weapon to ever be fielded. The U.S. Air Force spent $16.28 million for one prototype PHASER high power microwave system for a "field assessment for purposes of experimentation" in an unspecified location outside the U.S. The test is "expected to be completed by Dec. 20, 2020," making the overseas deployment "against real-world or simulated hostile vignettes" imminent.
There are several directed energy weapons that the Air Force is buying to test their effectiveness in the field, and officials say some will be on the frontlines in tense areas of the globe where enemy drones are becoming a threat, includes North Korea, Africa, the Ukraine and -- most recently -- the Middle East. "At the moment we have awarded multiple DE systems for use in our field assessment overseas and are working to support multiple bases and areas of responsibility," says Michael Jirjis, who is lead on the PHASER experiment, told Popular Mechanics. "We can't say which specific locations at this time."
There are several directed energy weapons that the Air Force is buying to test their effectiveness in the field, and officials say some will be on the frontlines in tense areas of the globe where enemy drones are becoming a threat, includes North Korea, Africa, the Ukraine and -- most recently -- the Middle East. "At the moment we have awarded multiple DE systems for use in our field assessment overseas and are working to support multiple bases and areas of responsibility," says Michael Jirjis, who is lead on the PHASER experiment, told Popular Mechanics. "We can't say which specific locations at this time."
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Can't wait (Score:3)
"designed to knock down swarms of enemy drones with pulses of energy."
I bet it works also to down a 747 during the start with the gizmos that will get 'lost'.
The drone-sized ones are already avilable (Score:3)
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The man portable ones work by interfering with the drone's communications which usually causes the drone to safely land. This is a pretty trivial task, albeit questionably legal as far as the FCC is concerned, because in most cases it only requires jamming communications in the 2.4 and 5 GHz ISM bands and perhaps jamming 1.5 GHz satellite navigation at close range. A commercial drone could be designed to be resistant to this type of attack but there is little demand for such a thing.
Incidentally, it is po
"We can't say which specific locations at this tim (Score:3)
"We can't say which specific locations at this time."
Meaning the White House for starters.
In related news (Score:4, Funny)
The Air Force has also announced its first line of field MREs featuring Hot Pockets.
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RF is fun to play with so no doubt someone will.
Our WCS troops microwaved a pizza by placing it in an F4 Phantom (i'm old) radome then turning on radar. I and many others lit up the lights on turned-off NF-2 light carts by aiming the radar at the reflectors. Those focused enough energy on the elements to make them glow.
The 2020 Democratic response... (Score:3)
Kamala Harris just promised to support building a drone-killing convection oven.
Saudi Arabia (Score:2)
That's the keyword. They got attacked by Houthi drones and want to buy an extra layer of defenses (you need diffferent defenses to protect against different types of attacks) . The Russians offer to fill the gap. The US yells 'don't buy Russian!'' but doesn't have anything suitable. So they dig up something they are working on and say "it's ready". Missiles are steel boxes. Microwaves don't penetrate steel boxes. They can blind them though, because missiles need sensors.
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Most missiles are metal tubes with a nice big microwave-transparent window on the nose, for either a radar or an IR sensor. Microwaves work fine on them.
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Most missiles are metal tubes with a nice big microwave-transparent window on the nose, for either a radar or an IR sensor. Microwaves work fine on them.
It is not quite that easy because their electronics and receiver are designed to be resistant to overload. The metallic missile body protects the rest like a good Faraday cage; a powerful signal is easily defeated with beryllium-copper finger stock protecting every seam. Missile jamming is of course feasible although this risks creating a target which can be tracked passively merely inconveniencing a determined attacker.
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The Houthis, in my opinion, didn't attack Saudi Arabia. The evidence is currently under lock and key in SA. If I had to guess, SA attacked their own oil fields to fool The Rube in the White House into attacking Iran for them. Dumbasses, they believed the WH hype about The Rube and now look like idiots with Iran bellowing about keep the West out of the Gulf.
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Luckily you don't have to guess. Saudi Arabia know they are vulnerable and when they accuse Iran that is more a diversion than anything else, because war would mean the end of Saudi Arabia. Their immediate problem is with the Houthis who have been attacking them with missiles for years and they're clearly getting better at it and now they are able to really hurt the Saudi economy. Maybe Iran is helping the Houthis with it but they are not in control . This has to be negotiated with the Houthis.
Seems Fancy (Score:2)
Why not just use a Phalanx CIWS? I'm sure that would work much better, and it already exists and is battle-tested. The people downrange from it certainly won't be complaining after you use it, so it seems like a win-win.
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a DE weapon, it can keep firing as long as the electricity supply is on. Of course, slew rates and how long does the beam need to stay on one target before that target is fried and it can slew to the next target are issues to be worked out.
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the Phalanx fires physical bullets, so it needs to be reloaded
Worse, those bullets need to land somewhere.
Drone defences need to work in urban areas too.
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Is the CEP on Phalanx's cannon sufficiently small that you could fell a swarm of e.g. 100 or even 1000 small drones, approaching from random directions, before they get close enough to release their payload? On a land-based platform, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility, especially if you have more than one. I also wonder if a more accurate, single-barreled system would be an effective companion to hopefully thin them out before the Phalanx starts working and generating sensor-boggling chaff.
They are more worried about longer range drones which are larger.
Land based CIWS uses fused projectiles which detonate before reaching the ground to prevent collateral damage so attacking smaller targets is not a problem. The results can be more like a firehose or shotgun than a stream of projectiles if proximity fusing is included.
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one benfit being you do not need to lug about ammo refills everytime you use it, just a generator or hookup to any good electrical source.
This system takes down things smaller than a scan eagle or the smae size, so a total
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Even 150 years ago, in the U.S. Civil War, they had heavy-duty shotgun rounds, fired from cannons, called "grapeshot and cannister". They were very effective in mowing down lines of soldiers.
It shouldn't be hard to create a new class of ammo for the Phalanx and similar weapons that could create a curtain of lead in the sky that would be im
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Phalanx fires ~60 rounds per second. Its effect is pretty close to the effect of a shotgun already.
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Land based CIWS generally use fused rounds anyway to prevent collateral damage. Change the fusing to create clouds of flack at the target although given their velocity it is more like cones of destruction.
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because shells for the Vulcan cost $30 a pop at 3000 shells per minute. With the DE system its just cheap 9volt alkalines...
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Why not just use a Phalanx CIWS? I'm sure that would work much better, and it already exists and is battle-tested. The people downrange from it certainly won't be complaining after you use it, so it seems like a win-win.
CIWS systems are expensive and not a suited to smaller and low level targets. Or perhaps CIWS systems are not expensive enough when it comes to selling something new.
Popcorn (Score:3)
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Ha!
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These weapons are guaranteed to make popcorn out of any flying Colonel.
FTFY
Phasers!!! Star Trek was right. (Score:1)
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but air force brass like the "phaser" name better.
works? (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
remember slaughter bots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Try and stop hundreds or thousands at once.
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The microwave beam is creating an arcing in the electronics, a persistent beam is not needed to disable a drone. Hugging contours won't be as effective as you think, line of sight is all that is needed for a kill shot and these will be deployed in open areas with little cover. Depending on the Duty cycle and beam width 1000's of drones could be wiped out in seconds.
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We''ll, that's nice and all for a drone hovering 100 feet in the air unmoving with a "shoot me down" sign... but in the real world these things hug contours and can hide behind obstacles and will come in mass.
Right now the threat is what are effectively smaller cruise missiles. But eventually even these will be able to fly below the level of common obstacles like structures and overhead wires.
20 Mill? How do I get in that racket? (Score:2)
Watching too much movies? (Score:2)
At least it seems to get you some government dollars to play around with.
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Gotta love when we're always right but then people still make fun of us.
Actually,like Pizzagate, you're usually wrong
Like the one that killed John Kennedy Jr? (Score:1)