The United States Air Force has reportedly deployed 20 new advanced missiles capable of neutralizing the electronics of enemy ordnance. The move comes as tensions are escalating in the Middle East, and with North Korea. The new weapons were revealed this week by investigative journalist Ronald Kessler at The Daily Mail.
“Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the missiles were built by Boeing’s Phantom Works for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and tested successfully in 2012,” according to The Daily Mail. “They have not been operation until now.”
The CHAMP missiles were not operational under the Obama administration, but were subsequently funded by the Pentagon during the Trump administration, which ordered “Air Force training worldwide to deploy and operate the missile systems,” according to Kessler.
The missile reportedly has a range of 700 miles, flies at low altitude and delivers “sharp pulses of high power microwave (HPM) energy” which can allegedly destroy electronic systems buried deep inside mountain bunkers and underground military facilities, such as those housing weapons in North Korea and Iran. It also reportedly neutralizes radar on its way to and from a target, making it impossible for an aerial defense system to detect the missile on its way in.
HPM reportedly leaves intact civilian facilities needed to sustain life, unlike an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack created by a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere.
