ABSTRACT
Conventional projectile weapons such as guns and missiles destroy targets by kinetic effects, including direct damage by projectile or shrapnel, overpressure, spalling damage, and incendiary effects. The result is structural damage and combustion, which may destroy the target. A kinetic weapon thus uses stored chemical energy in propellants and warhead explosives (Kopp, 2008). Directed-energy weapons (DEWs) also deliver a large amount of stored energy from weapon to target to produce
structural and incendiary damage effects; however, a fundamental difference is that a DEW acts upon its target without the use of a projectile. In addition, it delivers its effect at the speed of light rather than supersonic or subsonic speeds typical of projectile weapons (Kopp, 2008). DEWs destroy their target by bombarding it with either subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves. Such weapons include lasers/masers, microwave radiation emitters, sonic weaponry, and particle-beam generators, among others.
