During the 2000s, the US Air Force Research Laboratory developed ammunition whose operational potential was not based on the use of kinetic energy or a large explosive charge, but on the emission of an impulse Electro-Magnetic likely to destroy nearby electronic equipment. In 2012, Boeing carried out a demonstration test of the Counter-electronics High-Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, by destroying the onboard electronics of 7 targets with this new missile. However, if the effectiveness of the technology was indeed proven, its constraints prevented it from being used effectively in the military, since the dimensions of the on-board Electro-magnetic pulse generator required the use of a missile of more than 6 meters long. i.e. 50% more than the JASSM airborne cruise missile for example (4,5 meters).
However, the USAF RL, but also the US Navy, considered that it was interesting to persevere in this way, in order to develop ammunition as effective but lighter and smaller, capable of being embarked in missiles. existing, precisely like the JASSM-ER, but also in other smaller ammunition that can take place in particular in the holds of new generation fighters, but also on board drones or guided rockets, while continuing to exploit CHAMP technology . This new program, designated High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike Weapon or HiJENKS, will give rise this summer on the Californian naval air base of China Lake, to a phase of tests marking the end of its technological development, paving the way, if the success is with go, with an entry in service in the years coming.
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