The worst time for people to learn about a new weapon is in the middle of a geopolitical crisis. So it is with CHAMP, a long-in-development missile built for the Air Force that is now, thanks to several delays in production, making a popular debut coincidentally paired with fears about North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAMP, or the \u201cCounter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project,\u201d is a missile built to fry computers, with microwaves. It is almost certainly not, despite recent coverage at CNN, NBC and elsewhere, a silver bullet against a North Korean ICBM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what does CHAMP have to do with North Korea?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great question! The short answer is nothing. CHAMP predates the current tensions between North Korea and the United States, and CHAMP will likely post-date them as well. For our purposes, there are only two points about CHAMP worth mentioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first is that, as a weapon built to fry electronics and computers, we\u2019d be hard-pressed to find another conventional military that CHAMP is less useful against. North Korean artillery poses a major risk to military personnel on the DMZ and yet thanks to both the age of the artillery pieces and thanks to the rocky emplacements protecting the weapons, they would likely be unaffected by a microwave blast from CHAMP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, most ballistic missiles are designed or at least stored with some thought to protection against just this sort of attack. So even if the North Korean missiles aren\u2019t protected on the launch pad, they\u2019re likely protected against this in storage before launch. Once on the launch pad, an ICBM is as vulnerable to a CHAMP-style attack as it would be to a conventional cruise missile, and once launched, it would be astronomically unlikely that a targeted microwave beam could fry the ICBM\u2019s circuits, especially while the missile travels through space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What does CHAMP actually do?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHAMP is a missile that can emit targeted blasts of microwaves to fry electronics, without damaging the electronics in the way an explosive might. That alone is a strange and novel capability, and one worth reporting on as such. It is especially novel as the rare weapon that produces an electromagnetic effect, designed to disable computers, that isn\u2019t also a nuclear weapon simultaneously producing some other, more pressing effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is there a cheesy animated video showing how CHAMP works?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
You bet! It\u2019s from 2013, though the graphics scream mid-1990s to me. Also in the video: computers at a demonstration site suddenly fading to black as they\u2019re hit by CHAMP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n