Raytheon’s CHIMERA microwave weapon has successfully demonstrated its capability to track and neutralize targets at strategic ranges, marking a pivotal development in cost-effective point-defense solutions against low-cost aerial threats including kamikaze drones.
Defense One reported that the experimental microwave weapon managed to track and maintain a high-powered beam on various static and aerial targets, marking an important step towards a point-defense weapon that can damage or down an incoming missile or its electronics.
The successful development of directed energy weapons (DEWs) could bring crucial cost-savings for US defenses. The US Navy has been using multi-million dollar Standard Missile-2s to down Iranian-supplied drones that can cost as little as US$2,000 per unit.
Defense One says Raytheon plans to deliver two new prototypes this year and another in 2026 to address current limitations of high-powered microwave weapons used in the US military. The report notes in particular that the CHIMERA may be effective against Iran’s Shahed-136 drones.
The recent attacks against US ships and troops in the Red Sea and Syria have shown the urgent need for DEWs including laser and microwave weapons, as the US and its allies are faced with a potentially unsustainable form of warfare.
Asia Times has noted that issues such as technological maturity, lack of suitable naval platforms for such weapons and multiple problems in the DEW industrial base have hindered the widespread adoption of laser weapons aboard US warships.
Moreover, Asia Times has reported that current gun and missile-based defense systems have relatively low shoot-down rates in the case of gun-based systems, expensive interceptors that take a long time to replace for missile-based ones and supply chain dependence on China for missile energetics.
An April 2023 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report compares lasers and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons regarding function, physical characteristics, testing and lethality.
On function, the GAP report says lasers affect physical components by blinding optical sensors or cutting through control surfaces, engaging targets individually.
In contrast, the report mentions that HPM weapons deliver energy to overwhelm critical components that carry electric currents such as circuit boards while penetrating solid objects and engaging targets over a wide area.
For physical characteristics, the report says that lasers have power measured in kilowatts and are usually infrared and visible light while HPMs are in gigahertz and 10,000 times longer than lasers.
In terms of testing, the GAO report says that lasers are sensitive to environmental conditions, which places a premium on testing in an operational environment under a wide range of conditions.
At the same time, it says HPM weapons tests have shown more linear results. The report says it remains to be seen whether the results of small laboratory tests can be replicated at higher power levels in an operational environment.
The report mentions that the lethality of laser weapons depends on the amount of energy transferred to the target, which depends on the time the laser is focused on it. In contrast, it says that the lethality of HPM weapons depends on peak power output, rate of microwave pulses and the frequency used.
HPM weapons have distinct advantages and disadvantages, especially regarding scalability and technological maturity.
In a January 2022 article for the US Naval Sea Systems Command, Kevin Cogley mentions that high-powered microwaves (HPM) can have graduated effects, ranging from jamming electronics to physically destroying electronic systems. Cogley says that HPM weapons are unique in inflicting no external signs of damage to the target during an engagement.
Furthermore, the US GAO notes in a May 2023 report that HPM weapons can affect multiple targets because of their larger beam size, unlike lasers.
In addition, John Tatum, in a 2014 article for the US Defense Systems Information Analysis Center (DSIAC), notes microwave weapons’ scalability minimizes collateral damage, promises negligible cost per shot and leverages the development of electric ships, vehicles and aircraft that can provide the necessary power supply.
Asia Times has noted that until the US DDG(X) destroyer comes into service, it may not have the ideal naval platform for DEWs, as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have already maxed out their upgrade potential due to limited space. The Ticonderoga-class cruisers, meanwhile, have become increasingly obsolete and uneconomical to maintain.
At the same time, HPM weapons have significant drawbacks. Anatoly Belous and Vitali Saladukha note in their 2020 book Viruses, Hardware, and Software Trojans Attacks and Countermeasures that HPM beam weapons have low efficiency, high losses in the air and limited range within the ground levels of the atmosphere.
Belous and Saladukha mention that, in turn, those disadvantages impose significant restrictions on the development of ground-based systems. At the same time, they say that HPM weapons’ large size and massive power consumption limit their use in space-based platforms.
Despite those disadvantages, technological improvements may eventually allow for the fielding of cost-effective and feasible HPM weapons.
In July 2022, Asia Times reported on the US High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike (HIJENKS) weapon, a stealth cruise missile with an HPM warhead, with its development made possible by improvements in miniaturization for components in rugged environments.
The idea behind the HIJENKS was to develop a weapon to neutralize electronic targets and a cost-effective weapon for defeating deeply buried targets that traditional explosives could not.
Such a weapon can create an HPM pulse that can travel through metal protecting underground command centers and burn out sensitive electronics. However, it may not be effective against low-tech, nuclear-armed adversaries such as North Korea.
North Korea relies primarily on aging Soviet-era artillery, which would be unaffected by an HPM blast. It stores its nuclear arsenal in underground facilities hardened against HPM and it is still unlikely that an HPM attack could bring down a ballistic missile in flight.