From: Chuck Kuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Date: Tue May 02 2000 - 17:03:04 MDT
At 06:54 AM 5/2/00 -0700, Brian wrote:
>Love HERF guns. I suppose you are aware that HERF guns are on law
>enforcements most-want-to-have list. You should find a ready
>market.
If only they would start knocking on our door. So far, we've sold direct
contact EMP devices for stopping car chases, and not many of those. We are
going to Maryland later this month to do testing for the National Institute
of Justice, but if last time's experience is any gauge, we won't get any
good results from even a glowing report. I think those people are only in
it for the paper they can waste.
HERF weapons are good against unhardened targets, as I pointed out before,
but it is not difficult to modify most equipment to resist easily generated
fields. Extreme fields, such as caused by nuclear detonations, are
definitely unhealthy for the operators of the device.
I think this line of attack will become obsolete fairly quickly as a useful
means of disabling electronic equipment. It will be another arms race
between better filtering and shielding and the ultimate power levels that
can be directed without killing people in the general area.
If you don't care about collateral damage and injury, a way around this
problem might be particle beam weapons. Secondary radiation caused by a
beam hitting shielding can destroy the electronics as thoroughly as HERF
can an unshielded device. Again, this technology needs a large amount of
R+D before even a cobbled-up test device could be fielded.
I find it hard to conceive of any energy weapon being able to compete with
the simple transfer of mechanical kinetic energy of a projectile or an
explosive, at least until nanoweapons are easily possible.
Chuck Kuecker
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