traveling at enormous velocities for this to happen. Some scientists propose using railguns to fire pellets of fusible material at each other. The impact of the high-velocity pellets would create immense temperatures and pressures, enabling fusion to occur.
With continued successes such as these, the railgun may one day be the weapon of choice on the battlefield and the propellant of choice on the launch pad.
MAHEM: MAgneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition
Small drones are the ultimate smart bombs. They are potentially portable, personal cruise missiles capable of putting a warhead on target, miles away. Some, like the Israeli Hero-30, are already being deployed. But the next generation of such U.S. weapons will have advanced warheads that can hit targets from tanks to buildings. These will be based on a railgun weapons technology, descriptively known as MAHEM.
With the prospect of railguns replacing heavy artillery, scientists began to focus their efforts on the use of electromagnetic pulse technology in advanced weaponry. The railgun uses electromagnetic force to drive a projectile to phenomenal speeds impossible with gunpowder-style propulsion. With MAHEM, or MAgnetoHydrodynamic Explosive Munition, you could carry the same sort of power in your hand because it weighs about five pounds.
Since 2008, the Pentagon, in conjunction with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, placed MAHEM into a weapons development program. At the time of this writing, virtually all information about the program is classified—at least, all information from the U.S. government. Unfortunately, most of the details surrounding the MAHEM program can be found online at a somewhat surprising source—China. The Chinese, known for their use of cyber warfare to steal our military secrets, may be reverse-engineering this advanced weapons technology.
The Evolution of Warheads
Explosive warheads have worked in pretty much the same way since Henry Shrapnel's 1784 artillery shell, which was designed to explode and throw out musket balls in all directions. The shaped charge was a 20th-century refinement in which the force of the explosion blasted a hollow metal cone into an armor-piercing jet, enabling low-velocity weapons like the bazooka to knock out heavy tanks. A newer technology, the explosively formed projectile, arrived on the scene. Here, the explosion folds the metal into an aerodynamic slug that is less penetrating than a shaped charge, but able to do more damage against lightly-armored targets. Since it's a larger mass at a lower velocity, it makes a bigger hole.
MAHEM is different because it combines explosives with electricity. It works in three stages. The first stage is an electronically modified explosion. The explosion creates an expanding fireball; applying an electrical pulse to the fireball, which increases the velocity and pressure of the blast wave. The addition of the electromagnetic pulse adds to the size and duration of the impact.
In the second stage, the power of the explosion is transitioned into electricity. This builds on previous weapons testing that convert explosive power into an electromagnetic pulse. In MAHEM, a ceramic material produces an intense electric current as the shockwave hits it, in a process known as electromagnetic braking. In contrast to a typical explosion, in which most of the energy is wasted, scientists claim MAHEM has superb energy conversion efficiency.
MAHEM technology has been developing slowly. It came to the public’s attention in 2008, when DARPA's plans for the next year included, "develop and conduct experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of a self-contained MAHEM in the form of an AT4 shoulder-mounted munition," (The AT4 is a small bazooka used by the US Army with a one-pound warhead). This amazing-sounding weapons tech got a flurry of attention back then, including mentions in Popular Mechanics, and was a popular weapon of choice in the video game Call of Duty .
Then,
With continued successes such as these, the railgun may one day be the weapon of choice on the battlefield and the propellant of choice on the launch pad.
MAHEM: MAgneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition
Small drones are the ultimate smart bombs. They are potentially portable, personal cruise missiles capable of putting a warhead on target, miles away. Some, like the Israeli Hero-30, are already being deployed. But the next generation of such U.S. weapons will have advanced warheads that can hit targets from tanks to buildings. These will be based on a railgun weapons technology, descriptively known as MAHEM.
With the prospect of railguns replacing heavy artillery, scientists began to focus their efforts on the use of electromagnetic pulse technology in advanced weaponry. The railgun uses electromagnetic force to drive a projectile to phenomenal speeds impossible with gunpowder-style propulsion. With MAHEM, or MAgnetoHydrodynamic Explosive Munition, you could carry the same sort of power in your hand because it weighs about five pounds.
Since 2008, the Pentagon, in conjunction with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, placed MAHEM into a weapons development program. At the time of this writing, virtually all information about the program is classified—at least, all information from the U.S. government. Unfortunately, most of the details surrounding the MAHEM program can be found online at a somewhat surprising source—China. The Chinese, known for their use of cyber warfare to steal our military secrets, may be reverse-engineering this advanced weapons technology.
The Evolution of Warheads
Explosive warheads have worked in pretty much the same way since Henry Shrapnel's 1784 artillery shell, which was designed to explode and throw out musket balls in all directions. The shaped charge was a 20th-century refinement in which the force of the explosion blasted a hollow metal cone into an armor-piercing jet, enabling low-velocity weapons like the bazooka to knock out heavy tanks. A newer technology, the explosively formed projectile, arrived on the scene. Here, the explosion folds the metal into an aerodynamic slug that is less penetrating than a shaped charge, but able to do more damage against lightly-armored targets. Since it's a larger mass at a lower velocity, it makes a bigger hole.
MAHEM is different because it combines explosives with electricity. It works in three stages. The first stage is an electronically modified explosion. The explosion creates an expanding fireball; applying an electrical pulse to the fireball, which increases the velocity and pressure of the blast wave. The addition of the electromagnetic pulse adds to the size and duration of the impact.
In the second stage, the power of the explosion is transitioned into electricity. This builds on previous weapons testing that convert explosive power into an electromagnetic pulse. In MAHEM, a ceramic material produces an intense electric current as the shockwave hits it, in a process known as electromagnetic braking. In contrast to a typical explosion, in which most of the energy is wasted, scientists claim MAHEM has superb energy conversion efficiency.
MAHEM technology has been developing slowly. It came to the public’s attention in 2008, when DARPA's plans for the next year included, "develop and conduct experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of a self-contained MAHEM in the form of an AT4 shoulder-mounted munition," (The AT4 is a small bazooka used by the US Army with a one-pound warhead). This amazing-sounding weapons tech got a flurry of attention back then, including mentions in Popular Mechanics, and was a popular weapon of choice in the video game Call of Duty .
Then,
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