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How Real Is The E.M.P. Threat?

6K views 13 replies 11 participants last post by  brutalsun 
#1 ·
What methods of delivery are these weapon able to be used in?
How large is the area of affect?
What nations possess this technology?
What counter measures are available?
When in modern military conflict have these weapons been used?
To what effect?
Is E.M.P. technology all hype?
 
#7 ·
emp threat from a solar flares is one problem ..but in my book a emp stike from a country like north korea is more a threat than a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb type threat . ..for all the emp stike weapon has to do get to a height where it can take out the socalled electric grid and it back to the 1800 for us..

with so called conex box weapon system that can be loaded onto a small ship and launched off the coast of the states would be a more like threat than a full scale nuclear warfare.. for all they have to do is destory the electric grid and a lot of the people would freak out about that do a lot more damage that would follow up after the stike along with mass scale looting and rioting would over whem the local system ..
 
#8 ·
Considering Iran and N. Korea have been testing long range rockets I think it's a real threat. Not an immediate threat, but a potential that one should prepare for. Prepping for EMP is not that big of an issue or expense.

Many analysts say a nuclear attack of some kind is not a matter of "if" but a matter of "when".
 
#11 ·



Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) is an electromagnetic pulse generated without use of nuclear weapons. There are a number of devices that can achieve this objective, ranging from a large low-inductance capacitor bank discharged into a single-loop antenna or a microwave generator to an explosively pumped flux compression generator. To achieve the frequency characteristics of the pulse needed for optimal coupling into the target, wave-shaping circuits and/or microwave generators are added between the pulse source and the antenna. A vacuum tube particularly suitable for microwave conversion of high energy pulses is the vircator.

NNEMP generators can be carried as a payload of bombs and cruise missiles, allowing construction of electromagnetic bombs with diminished mechanical, thermal and ionizing radiation effects and without the political consequences of deploying nuclear weapons.

The range of NNEMP weapons (non-nuclear electromagnetic bombs) is severely limited compared to nuclear EMP. This is because nearly all NNEMP devices used as weapons require chemical explosives as their initial energy source, but nuclear explosives have an energy yield on the order of one million times that of chemical explosives of similar weight. In addition to the large difference in the energy density of the initial energy source, the electromagnetic pulse from NNEMP weapons must come from within the weapon itself, while nuclear weapons generate EMP as a secondary effect, often at great distances from the detonation. These facts severely limit the range of NNEMP weapons as compared to their nuclear counterparts, but allow for more surgical target discrimination. The effect of small e-bombs has proven to be sufficient for certain terrorist or military operations. Examples of such operations include the destruction of certain fragile electronic control systems of the type critical to the operation of many ground vehicles and aircraft.

NNEMP generators also include large structures built to generate EMP for testing of electronics to determine how well it survives EMP. In addition, the use of ultra-wideband radars can generate EMP in areas immediately adjacent to the radar; this phenomenon is only partly understood.

Information about the EMP simulators used by the United States during the latter part of the Cold War, along with more general information about electromagnetic pulse, are now in papers under the care of the SUMMA Foundation, which is now hosted at the University of New Mexico.

The SUMMA Foundation web site includes documentation about the huge wooden Trestle simulator in New Mexico, which was the world's largest EMP simulator. Nearly all of these large EMP simulators used a specialized version of a Marx generator. The SUMMA Foundation now has a 44-minute documentary movie on its web site called "TRESTLE: Landmark of the Cold War".

Many large EMP simulators were also built in the Soviet Union, as well as in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy.

Post-Cold War nuclear EMP attack scenarios

Typical modern scenarios seen in large numbers of news accounts and opinion articles speculate about the use of nuclear weapons by rogue states or terrorists in an EMP attack. Details of such scenarios are always controversial. It is impossible to know what kind of capabilities such terrorists might acquire, especially if they are aided by state sponsors with access to advanced technology.

Some rogue states have developed an ability to deliver a light missile payload to the necessary altitude for an EMP attack. Nuclear weapons in general have a much heavier missile payload, however advanced weapons design enables larger weapon yields with lighter weight. It is difficult to know if any particular rogue state has the necessary combination of advanced missile technology and nuclear weapons technology to perform an effective nuclear EMP attack over an industrialized country.

A common scenario is the detonation of a device over the middle of the U.S. using long-range missiles that have historically been available only to major military powers. An offshore detonation at high altitude, by contrast, would present less technical difficulty and would disrupt both an entire coast and regions hundreds of miles inland (e.g. 120 mile altitude, 1,000 mile EMP radius).

The United States military services have developed, and in some cases have published, hypothetical EMP attack scenarios that are likely to be much more technically accurate than those that appear in the popular press.

http://www.missilethreat.com/archives/id.11/detail.asp
http://www.iec.ch/cgi-bin/procgi.pl/www/iecwww.p?wwwlang=E&wwwprog=cat-det.p&wartnum=020728
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2007/Sep/HEMP.asp
 
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#12 ·
What methods of delivery are these weapon able to be used in?
To generate an EMP over a large area, you need a nulcear bomb of considerable force, detonated as high up as possible. The conventional, expected means of delivery are missles: ICBMs or the kind of rocket engines used to launch satellites. Although you might be able to get similar effects by putting a bomb on a high flying jet - disguised as cargo, for instance, and put on board as freight - and POSSIBLY a high altitude balloon.

How large is the area of affect?
Depends on the size of the bomb and how high up it's set off. I have heard that three large nukes detonated in the right places over North America could cover the whole continent.

What nations possess this technology?
Russia, the U.S., China, France, England, maybe pakistan and India. North Korea and Iran, despite all the hoopla, probably are NOT capable of pulling this off. Getting a large nuke small enough to fit on top of a missle isn't easy; it was one of the great advances of the Arms Race when both the Soviets and the Americans accomplished it. And of course, NK's nukes are squibs...

What counter measures are available?
None. You can apparently harden devices to withstand an EMP, or protect them by putting them in Faraday cages that will deflect the EMP around them; but once the nuke goes off, the pulse WILL fly.

When in modern military conflict have these weapons been used?
None that I know of.

To what effect?
n/a

Is E.M.P. technology all hype?
The threat of an EMP is nothing to sneeze at. Based on what we know, it could be a crippler. How probable a EMP attack is, is open to question.
 
#13 ·
my biggest fear is this set up three diff small ships sitting off the west coast and the east coast and the gulf of mexico and launching missle with a emp type payload over the US with that many missle going up at once it would be a deadly strike payload for it would cover all the US from north to south --east to west in a large are strike with the new russian k-load type conex box system ..

three ships would all it take to do major damage in the strike ..that my fear in life ..
 
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