[Infowarrior] - Colonel: Army has working electropulse grenades

[Richard Forno]

Colonel: US Army has working electropulse grenades

By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

Posted in Science, 12th February 2009 13:54 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/electropulse_grenades/

Contradicting previous reports, a US Army electronic-warfare colonel  
has apparently confirmed the existence of working non-nuclear  
electromagnetic pulse (EMP) ordnance - apparently so portable that it  
is even available in hand-grenade size.

The revelation came at a blogger roundtable (press conference) held in  
order to introduce the US Army's new electronic-warfare specialist  
career field. The briefing was reported by the war-hacks at  
Military.com:

     "EMP grenade technology is out there, but I've never had my hands  
on one," said Col Laurie Buckhout, chief of the newly formed  
Electronic Warfare Division, Army Operations, Readiness and  
Mobilization...

     The target may be a small building or a village, she said, and so  
a small jammer could be used, or EMP grenades.

The conventional method of generating an EMP powerful enough to  
disable electronics over a large area is the detonation of a nuclear  
weapon. However, militaries worldwide have long wished to have such a  
capability in less-drastic form. This has led to extensive speculation  
on pulse bombs powered by conventional explosives, or High Powered  
Microwave (HPM) raygun-style kit*.

Even the highly advanced US forces hadn't been generally thought to  
have developed a successful pulse-bomb yet, with most reports  
indicating that such a capability remains a few years off (as has been  
the case for decades). Furthermore, the pulse ordnance has usually  
been seen as large and heavy, in the same league as an aircraft bomb  
or cruise missile warhead - or in the case of an HPM raygun, of a  
weapons-pod or aircraft payload size.

Now, however, it appears that in fact the US military has already  
managed to get the coveted pulse-bomb tech down to grenade size.  
Colonel Buckhout apparently envisages the Army electronic warfare  
troopers of tomorrow lobbing a pulse grenade through the window of an  
enemy command post or similar, so knocking out all their comms.

The existence of pulse bombs one can clip to one's belt would also  
imply that bigger ones have been made. (US military-sponsored efforts  
to develop EMP-proof radars might lend this some credence, it wasn't  
for the agency involved.) It would seem that the unstoppable droid  
assassins, prowling aerial hunter-killers etc of the future have been  
stymied before they even properly got their boots on got booted up.

Nonetheless, despite the apparently authoritative nature of the  
source, we're going to file this one under "unconfirmed".

Read the Military.com report here.

*US Justice Department labs say they have built a "small working  
prototype" portable microwave rifle, potentially able to act as a  
tracking radar unit, a heat/pain raygun, or a millimetre wave through- 
clothes nudie perv scanner of the sort which has caused controversy in  
airport use.