U.S. Warplanes Get Ray Guns!

Quietly, and without much fanfare, the U.S. Air Force has been equipping some of its fighters with electronic ray type weapons. Not quite the “death ray” of science fiction fame, but an electronic ray type weapon nonetheless. In this case, the weapon uses the high-powered microwave (HPM) effects found in Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar technology.

The air force has said that the larger AESA radar it plans to install on its E-10 radar aircraft would be able to zap cruise missile guidance systems up to 180 kilometers away.

Now has anyone got more details of this weapon system which is distinct from the laser ray gun ? If these ‘EMP’ weapons can zap missile guidance systems and interfere with aircraft avionics beyond visual range, then this seems to be a winner!!


Here..

What do you want to know? I can at least tell you the basics, but I think Janes did a pretty good rundown on it last year. AESA's already out.

It's not really "EMP", though, in 'burn' mode it's what the snippet calls it, HPM. And yeah, I'd say it was distinct from a laser, there's really no relation between the two. Sort of like saying parakeets are distinct from Velveeta.

The next generation of it is already in AFRL and NRL. It's essentially non-interceptable.