Here is an awesome thesis, written by Necati Ertekin in 2008
''How E-Bombs Benefits Turkish Land Forces
E-bombs may change capabilities of the Turkish Land Forces both defensively and offensively. Any Turkish Land Forces unit equipped with an e-bomb might engage in a new way of war — with significant operational advantages over nations equipped with conventional weapons only.
Communications and command systems are key elements in C4ISR systems for land warfare as well. Such systems are one of the first targets attacked in order to limit the opponent’s operations. The Turkish Armed Forces could use e-bombs to mount an effective attack against an enemy’s C4ISR systems.
Integrating e-bombs into the existing land warfare doctrine might also increase the accuracy and volume of the Turkish Land Forces’ fire in more complex and diverse environments. As seen from the latest land warfare developments, the probability of fighting in urban areas is increasing. Because civilian involvement and collateral damage are also increasing, conventional weapons in such an environment might be hard to use. This leads to increased importance for precise and tunable weapons. Turkish Land Forces may use the proposed e-bomb, with its nonlethality feature, against a
wide range of targets.
E-bomb-equipped helicopters or unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) could provide close air support for the Turkish Army. In this aspect, such platforms might target critical command, control, and communication (C3) capabilities, sensors and weapon guidance systems.
The Turkish Land Forces will remain an important component for the national strategy and when enhanced with proposed e-bombs, equipped Turkish Land Forces units would gain a decisive advantage over other nations’ armies, which do not take the importance of this future weapon into account.
How E-Bombs Benefit Turkish Naval Forces
Turkey is bordered on three sides by seas: the Black Sea, Aegean Sea, and Mediterranean Sea. This makes the sea power a critical component of national security. Being equipped with proposed e-bomb could enhance the Turkish Naval Forces’ ability to execute its missions.
Some of the possible threats for today’s naval forces have been defined by the Royal Institution of Naval Architects as:
•Aircraft attack
•Ship-based or land-based helicopters
•Ship-based or land-based UAVs
•Ship-launched or submarine-launched anti-ship missiles (ASM)
•Surface ship gunfire
•Torpedoes
•Mines
(Royal Institution of Naval Architects, 2004)
The greatest threat to the Turkish Naval Forces is probably anti-ship missiles (ASMs). Even though use of e-bombs is theoretically possible, it may be more complex in practice. However, the best defense against an opponent’s missile equipped platforms is to disable the delivering platform. In this aspect, the use of e-bombs may be a good defensive measure since it can degrade the effectiveness of ASM delivering platforms such as aircraft and ship-based/land-based helicopters. In addition, the defense of a ship will be limited to several threat/missiles. That is, if the enemy attacks with more than that number at the same time, the ship will not be able to react/defense against all of them. In such a scenario, the e-bomb may provide great advantage as well, since it makes more difficult the orchestration of saturation missile attacks. In addition to these threats, the most susceptible segments of naval ships are high-technology communication, sensor, and navigation systems. The proposed e-bomb may also be a new way of fighting against these systems aboard enemy ships. In the maritime environment, e-bombs might have limitations due to the limited speed of naval ships. The employment of e-bombs on missiles seems the best solution for naval ships. This requires e-bombs loaded onboard. The
complexity of coupling and potential lethality may preclude e-bombs being a superior alternative to conventional weapons.
However, the implication of e-bombs for Turkish Naval Forces may well provide extraordinary advantages as long as their inherit limitations are well understood. A combination of both e-bombs and conventional weapons is likely the best solution for the Turkish Navy.
How E-Bombs Benefit the Turkish Air Forces
Turkish Air Forces seem to be the component of the Armed Forces on which the proposed e-bomb might have the greatest impact – in both the air-to-air battle and the air-to-ground battle. The number of missiles that an aircraft can carry limits air-to-air engagements (Thompson and Goure, 2003). Instead of having a limited payload, e-bomb-equipped Turkish fighter aircraft might be effective against numerous air targets. This is likewise a major advance in Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) operations. In the beginning of anywar, defeating opponent’s air defense system is highly important. The anti-radiation missile is commonly used by the aircraft in such operations. Since an e-bomb has the potential to defeat multiple air defense systems, the capability gained by the e-bomb would be a major development for Turkish Air Forces.
The advantage of e-bomb gained for air-to-air battle is similar to that for Turkish Naval Forces. When there are several aircraft as a threat, the multiplier effect of the proposed e-bomb would enhance capabilities to defeat the threat. In addition, the speed and maneuver limit for the Turkish Naval Forces can be compensated for through the much greater speed of Turkish Air Force assets. This makes different e-bomb employment methods such as bomb, glide bomb, etc., useful for Turkish Air Forces aircrafts. As mentioned before, e-bombs are not yet mature, but they offer increasing capabilities for all levels of war. The country that can explore the benefits of such weapons and make investments in research can reap important advantages against military rivals. Therefore, it is time to seriously consider committing more effort to research and development of the e-bomb.''
E-BOMB: THE KEY ELEMENT OF THE CONTEMPORARY MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not
reflect the official policy or position of the Turkish Republic, the Turkish Armed
Forces, the Turkish Land Forces, the Turkish Naval Forces, the Turkish Air
Force, the U.S. Navy or the Naval Postgraduate School.