BOFFINS in China have reportedly cooked up a chilling Microwave Cannon “that can down satellites” with waves 68,000 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field.
The terrifying weapon is augmented by four Stirling engines and can reportedly be fitted onto the back of a truck as the East Asian powerhouse flexes its military muscles.
The weapon will be operated by four Sterling engines to boost its overall strength
The cooling properties of the Stirling engines will boost the strength of the powerful microwave weapon, with tests showing it consumes just one-fifth of the energy of other systems.
China has made similar models in the past but none that omit this kind of power – and certainly none that have the capability to operate continuously for around four hours.
If the reports are true, then China’s high-power microwave (HPM) weapon will be the first that uses Stirling engine technology to be openly revealed to the public.
According to the project team, which is led by electronic engineering scientist Xu Ce, the HPM has a continuous, steady-state magnetic field with an intensity 68,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
To put it into perspective, that’s close to half of the magnetic field strength that can be generated by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe – the world’s largest and highest-energy particle collider.
With the weapon system capable of being fitted onto a truck, China can quite literally station it anywhere they want, offering an endless list of possibilities.
And with it being capable of operating for up to four hours without losing power, longer journeys will not be an issue.
The weapon was jointly developed by the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology in Xian and the Institute of Electrical Engineering in Beijing, the South China Morning Post reports.
The project team noted how current HPM weapons driven by strong magnetic fields “suffer from the drawbacks of huge energy consumption and large size.”
Therefore, the Stirling engines are critical because they function as refrigerators, rapidly moving heat away from one location.
However, in a paper published last month in the Chinese academic journal High Power Laser and Particle Beams, the project team explain how the Stirling engine does have a limitation.
A Stirling engine can only cool to 40 degrees above absolute zero, yet low-temperature superconductors that generate strong magnetic fields must operate within four degrees above absolute zero.
Furthermore, if the magnetic field is not strong enough, then the quality of the electron beam generated by the microwave weapon will be compromised.
As a result, it will be unable to travel a long distance.
In order to ensure it can reach its full potential, Xu’s team have used a high-temperature superconducting material called REBCO to achieve zero resistance between 40 and 50 degrees above absolute zero.
They managed to achieved a temperature of 48 degrees above absolute zero and generated a magnetic field exceeding four tesla by combining a superconducting material with the Stirling engine.
According to their published paper, this combination led to an 80 per cent reduction in overall energy consumption compared to traditional technology.
An imminent introduction onto the battlefield is unlikely, though , with Xu and his team noting that certain issues need further improvement.
“Although it meets the basic requirements, there’s still room for enhancement in the overall system, and further miniaturisation is attainable within the current structure,” they wrote.
News of the Microwave Cannon comes just weeks after it was revealed China had created a chilling “dream bullet” that can reach speeds of 5,300mph and change direction via SatNav signals.
Designed for kinetic energy weapons, the bullet can be fired from a formidable railgun and is capable of travelling 8,200 feet in just one second.
And China’s most recent war game simulation posed a chilling threat to the West – with futuristic space satellites and missiles destroying US warships in minutes.
A secretive China lab has developed a space-based electronic war tool for Xi Jinping’s army – and the results are terrifying.
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