JOURNAL: HERFs in the marketplace

HERFs, or high energy radio frequency weapons (particularly microwaves), will become the weapon of choice for many global guerrilla operations (see Homemade Microwave Weapons for more). There are signs that these weapons are just starting to make it into the mainstream. David Giri, of ProTech, is currently building HERFs for the Marine Corps and the LA Police department. Here is more on the device, which has trialed at up to 50 meters away:

The bulk of the device is designed to fit in a car boot and consists of a battery and a bank of capacitors that can store an electrical charge. Flicking a switch on the dashboard sends a burst of electricity into an antenna mounted on the roof of the car. The antenna then produces a narrow beam of intense radio waves that is directed at the vehicle ahead. When the radio waves hit the targeted car, they induce surges of electricity in its electronics, upsetting the fuel injection and engine firing signals. "It works on most cars built in the past 10 years, because their engines are controlled by computer chips," said Dr Giri. "If we can disrupt the computer, we can stop the car." A prototype is due to be ready by next summer

Comments

[chthus]

What sort of burst exposure time would be necessary for these to work? If short (few seconds), it seems planes might be vulnerable just after take off. Any idea if commercial airliners are protected against this type of weapon? Or if some one is at least working on it?

[John Robb]

Depends on the weapon design, but extremely short (seconds or less). Planes are vulnerable and are not protected. However, to hit a plane my guess is that you would need a weapon with significant range (at least a hundred or more meters). That would require a level of technology (expensive parts) and power that is beyond the homemade HERF manufacturers. 50 meter weapons are possible and the number of "computerized" targets at that range are legion.

[WeSaferThemHealthier]

John,

I don't know if you can divulge that information, but here goes: How vulnerable to 0.50 and 0.30 caliber machineguns are helicopters, especially military helicopters like the Blackhawk?

If I were a guerrilla, I’d be going for helicopter crashes. It has a sensationalistic small-guy-reaching-up-and-hitting-big-guy-too-scared-to-come-fight-on-the-ground-and-using-expensive-toys feel to it that’s great propaganda as far as they are concerned.

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

On the one hand, Pro-Tech are, according to the article, planning to try to sell their High Energy Microwave devices to police forces as well as the miltary, thereby increasing the potential that terrorists will be able to purchase or steal professionally made equipment.

Anything that can generate enough power to disrupt the electronics inside a vehicle engine compartment, which already have to be shielded against spark plug and starter motor effects, and which acts as a partial Faraday cage so far as external radio signals are concerned, at a range of 50 metres or so, will be able to disrupt computers etc. at a much longer range.

However, the civilian market for such devices is going to be very limited. Anything with that amount of power also poses a risk to people with heart pacemakers, and, one assumes, that the legal liability and insurance implications of civilian police forces actually using such devices in anything except desert road Roadrunner/Wil.E.Coyote chases will be limited.

Also note that Pro-Tech do not expect to have a prototype of this system available until next year.

There is much better technology for stopping vehicles already available, in the form of plastic spiked net combinations which jam up the wheels and steering, as well as puncturing the tyres, which works on all vehicles, even the older models (or ex-soviet bloc ones) without electronic fuel management systems e.g. Qinetiq's X-Net

http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2004/2nd_quarter/x-net.html

[Mark Grafstrom]

I am no engineering expert, but it seems to me that the entire design of the UH-60 is flawed. In an effort to get a higher flight speed the rotor diameter is too small for such a heavy machine. In an effort to get performance and lift capbability,comprimises have been made in safety.

Soldiers would be much more aware and safe if they actually did foot patrols anyhow. The U.S. military seems bound to the equipment they use. They cruise all over in noisy cumersome equipment and set themselves up for disaster. If more real infantry actually pounded the ground more they would provide less of a target and be more atune to there surroundings. It seems that defense contracters rule the U.S. military.