Still in the laboratory. Not yet field-tested. So is China’s in-development “new high-power microwave (HPM) weapon with power equivalent to electromagnetic energy released by a nuclear explosion,” also said to be “relatively compact,” going to prove a revolutionary drone-killer and satellite-killer (“China tests microwave weapon with nuclear bomb-like power to kill satellites,” Interesting Engineering, January 14, 2025)?
Many nations worldwide are developing their HPMs, with the U.S. reportedly planning to deploy some to the Indo-Pacific region soon. It is reported that the U.S. would plan to use such weapons to target and knock out Chinese satellites should conflict erupt between the two superpowers.
In most cases, though not all, HPMs comprise a satellite-dish-type antenna with multiple degrees of rotation to engage targets at will. The new Chinese HPM, however, uses phased array transmission technology instead.
The South China Morning Post reports that this HPM weapon is hypothetically “capable of generating electromagnetic pulses with an intensity comparable to a nuclear explosion, which can disrupt or even destroy electronic components within enemy weapons systems.”
Vaporware?
“Maybe this is just vaporware or propaganda,” muses Stephen Green at Instapundit, “but Chinese engineering has evolved from ‘cheap crap’…to ‘world-class innovators’ with alarming speed.”
Instapundit reader Fred_Z asks: “What kind of a ‘compact’ weapon housing could withstand even a very small nuke?” Reader MM replies: “The reporter probably heard ‘electromagnetic pulse like that released by a nuclear weapon’ and substituted ‘equivalent.’… ‘Equivalent’ is ambiguous here. It can mean ‘similar in nature’ [to an electromagnetic pulse released by a nuclear weapon] or ‘equal in amount.’ ”
This explanation renders more intelligible the wording of Interesting Engineering but not that of South China Morning Post’s “electromagnetic pulses with an intensity comparable to a nuclear explosion.” Pulses with an intensity comparable to those of the electromagnetic pulses caused by a nuclear explosion?
Thousands of nuclear-like blasts
But the blasts are “nuclear-like.” The SCMP writer says that “China’s energy weapon fires thousands of nuclear-like blasts [but not nuclear-weapon-like in intensity?] in tests [in the lab] and survives. Chinese scientists have achieved the impossible, creating a compact, powerful microwave weapon that could transform modern warfare.” But which is not yet field-tested.
The new Chinese weapon uses phased array transmission technology instead to “precisely focus energy, increasing its effective range and enhancing damage effects, enabling simultaneous attacks on multiple targets,” according to researchers involved in the project.
Such a weapon was once deemed impossible because the pulses it generates could potentially destroy itself.
The electromagnetic waves generated by this Chinese energy weapon can reach or even exceed a total power of one gigawatt.
The rotating electromagnetic waves it generates need to be converted precisely into a more stable state and evenly distributed to eight independent channels for phased array antennas.
This is apparently an imaginary or a real or almost-real wonder weapon.
Also see:
StoptheCCP.org: “Chinese Wonder Weapons That May Kill Us All or Not”
“Yes, there are real, advanced weapons being stockpiled [by China]—a few. But the proposed weapons that are not part of any inventory are many. And increasing.”
