03.02.11
Cult of EMP Crazy: In Michigan
The Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy encompasses not only the GOP far right but also US arms manufacturing.
For the latter, the electromagnetic pulse ray (or bomb) has been the weapon that has been coming and coming but never quite arriving for the last twenty years. And it’s always deadeningly promised as innovation and technical revolution, a total turning upside down of the way of war.
Today, we get an army solicitation for electromagnetic pulse weapons, mountable on armored fighting vehicles.
And guess where it comes from?
Warren, Michigan, in Macomb county — the same place profiled on Monday and the home of General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, the corporate headquarters and design bureau for the M1 Abrams tank.
Layoffs for teachers, school security guards, policemen, firemen, librarians and people who keep parks and recreations going in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.
But paveway for contracts for notional electromagnetic pulse rays to the usual raft of arms developers, yes!
Even as a minor thing it is nauseatingly depressing in what it says about America as a nation.
From Military and Aerospace Electronics:
U.S. Army tank and automotive technology researchers are surveying industry to find companies able to design and build specialized military batteries for high-pulse-power applications in current and future military vehicles.
Officials of the Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) in Warren, Mich., issued a sources-sought notice (W56HZV11R0199) last week for a high power battery system for pulse power applications.
High-power microwave (HPM) and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons could be used for combat, sabotage, and special forces applications …
The Army is looking for companies able to design and build batteries for high-pulse-power applications in military vehicles … Army TARDEC officials are asking industry for information on innovative concepts, component research and development, and control strategies and architectures related to energy storage systems to produce compact, common solutions applicable to several different fleets of vehicles to meet the growing high pulse power demand.
Companies interested should respond by e-mail no later than 1 April 2011 to the Army …
It is a quest that can never be put down. There must always be money for promised miracle weapons. Even if they’re always either pure snake oil or never quite as billed.
Here is a solicitation from early last year.
And here is another from 2009 on the endless grind and throwing away of taxpayer dollars for electromagnetic pulse bombs, promised since the early Nineties.
The electromagnetic pulse ray gun was also sought. But in almost twenty years it has proven impractical because the power supply must be as big as a freight train. And even then it doesn’t get much done.
And there remains interest in it as a magic wand to defeat IEDs, an initiative which has had mostly indifferent or unnoticeable results.
From 2009:
“It requires a big truck to even bring the unassembled parts to the test army,??? says an Army overseer, a man with an unusually pragmatic air. This particular device “is not a consideration??? for anything, ever.
Why the print space, then?
Well, consider that any theoretical electromagnetic pulse bombs [and rays] are weapons which no longer have much use. Who would the US military sic them on? Somali pirates? The Taliban in Afghanistan? People living in buildings in Swat, Pakistan? Insurgents or rabble and crowds around the globe? Invading Martians?
Which reminds me. I do want to see the Battle: Los Angeles movie.
Dave Latchaw said,
March 2, 2011 at 6:30 pm
I remember reading a scary article about EMP in Popular Electronics when I was in my early teens–more than forty years ago. This crap has been floating around for quite some time.
Chuck said,
March 3, 2011 at 9:48 am
Well, DoD will probably have to buy those batteries from China.
Which the mention of “batteries” and “Michigan” has brought to mind another recent story from the AP:
“A startup California developer of electric cars said Wednesday its first model will be manufactured in China and go on sale in the United States this year.
CODA Automotive Inc.’s four-door sedan will be produced by a Chinese partner based on one of its models that has been adapted for electric drive and to meet U.S. safety standards, said CODA’s CEO, Philip F. Murtaugh. He said CODA will produce batteries in China with another partner and supply technology and engineering skills…”
“CODA’s battery can carry a 34 kilowatt charge, versus with 24 kilowatts for Nissan’s Leaf, with a comparable increase in range, Murtaugh said.
“We won’t be perfect but we will certainly be class-leading,” he said.”
Those cars are made by BYD, the company that Warren Buffet sunk a pile of cash into.
Might as well pack up and turn out the lights, Detroit.