That?s incredible.

Not quite as harmless to humans as they suggest, apparently:

"Although not primarily an anti-personnel device, those who have been exposed to HPM report that its effect is agonising. The radiation penetrates below the skin, boiling nerve cells. It can blind. It induces uncontrollable panic (early research into HPM was as a crowd control agent)."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,896930,00.html

The Defense Tech blog mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon was shying away from the e-bomb, because they "are concerned its use could alienate the Iraqi populace by crippling Baghdad's phone and electrical systems and, hence, the city's hospital and emergency-services infrastructure" and "because of the permanent nature of the damage it causes, it would significantly raise the financial cost of rebuilding Iraq's economy once a conflict is over", and "military and industry officials say the use of the experimental weapon could burn out electronics on U.S. military equipment in the vicinity". Regarding the last concern, "Electronic circuitry on most Air Force systems hasn't yet been redesigned to survive a concentrated onslaught of electromagnetic pulses, according to a February 2000 report by Air Force Col. Eileen Walling". And ""The U.S. doesn't want the rest of the world to get their hands on something that we're highly vulnerable to," says Loren Thompson, executive director of the Lexington Institute think tank based in Washington."

Considering that all an e-bomb is is a capacitor-powered, wire-coiled pipebomb that could be built under $400 dollars, and a small e-bomb can power a larger e-bomb in sequence, you can see why the military is concerned.

Sounds to me like the strobe-light equivalent of a microwave oven. High intesity, low duration. Like a karate chop.

What worries me is that electronic circuits don't always react predictably under electromagnetic interference. What happens if an EMP causes a missile launch (or chemical release)?