EMP wars!!!!!

One factor I don't see many people entertaining is that if the electrical power were disrupted on a large scale in the US whether due to an upper atmospheric nuclear detonation and resulting EMP or something more benign like cyber terrorism, without proper power to maintain our current nuclear arsenal as well as nuclear power plants then nobody needs to drop a single warhead on the continental US. We would be up to our ears in nuclear waste and fallout sooner rather than later. A precise terrorist strike on a strategic grid location would be far more devastating than an actual nuclear attack and that goes for any major player. The safest places to be at that point are going to be third world nations who don't rely on a power grid for every aspect of their lives. They would be able to go on like little has happened in the outside world whereas in a country like the US where literally everything requires both electricity and devices consisting of transistors for our way of life to function. In the instance that it actually were to happen, a large EMP would not just knock out the grid it would permanently disable anything using transistors that isn't inside a faraday cage. Your cars wouldn't run, computers, smart phones, ATM machines, none of it would work. No factories would be able to produce items let alone deliver them to you. We would go from living in the 21st century to the late 18th in the blink of an eye.

captaintyinknots

f4andHALFtoads
reply to post by captaintyinknots

 

That's a really good point...

So what sort of weaponry are you talking about? LaZers? Or walking through walls Camelot Project #...?

prior to WW2, nukes were an unheard of tech. The only reason they are widely known about is because of that war.

Nuclear weapons where in theory a possibility before WW II. In fact well before.

H.G. Wells predicted nuclear weapons in 1913. Winston Churchill spoke about the same subject in 1924.

en.wikipedia.org...

alldaylong


Nuclear weapons where in theory a possibility before WW II. In fact well before.

H.G. Wells predicted nuclear weapons in 1913. Winston Churchill spoke about the same subject in 1924.

en.wikipedia.org...

Thats not what I said. I said they werent widely known before then. As in, known to the public.

captaintyinknots

alldaylong


Nuclear weapons where in theory a possibility before WW II. In fact well before.

H.G. Wells predicted nuclear weapons in 1913. Winston Churchill spoke about the same subject in 1924.

en.wikipedia.org...

Thats not what I said. I said they werent widely known before then. As in, known to the public.

edit on 22-3-2014 by captaintyinknots because: (no reason given)

Rubbish.

Churchill was writing about atomic weapons in The Strand Magazine in 1931. The magazine was available to the general public.

www.ft.com...

In fact The Strand Magazine was where Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories first appeared.

reply to post by alldaylong


Ugh. This is silly. You are arguing semantics. The idea of nuclear weapons was not widely known among the general population of the world until they were used.

All youre rhetoric doesnt change that.

captaintyinknots
reply to post by alldaylong

 

Ugh. This is silly. You are arguing semantics. The idea of nuclear weapons was not widely known among the general population of the world until they were used.

All youre rhetoric doesnt change that.

Looks like The US public had no idea of nuclear weapons, were as the British public did so.
That about sums it up.

alldaylong

captaintyinknots
reply to post by alldaylong

 

Ugh. This is silly. You are arguing semantics. The idea of nuclear weapons was not widely known among the general population of the world until they were used.

All youre rhetoric doesnt change that.

Looks like The US public had no idea of nuclear weapons, were as the British public did so.
That about sums it up.

man, this is true foolishness. You are arguing that I said that no one knew about them. I suggest you go back and reread what I said. Or stop lying about it. Whichever fits.

On top of that, you are arguing something that is irrelevant to my point. So well done on that.

Good thing the brits were so advanced and could use their tech to win ww2.....

alldaylong

captaintyinknots

alldaylong


Nuclear weapons where in theory a possibility before WW II. In fact well before.

H.G. Wells predicted nuclear weapons in 1913. Winston Churchill spoke about the same subject in 1924.

en.wikipedia.org...

Thats not what I said. I said they werent widely known before then. As in, known to the public.

edit on 22-3-2014 by captaintyinknots because: (no reason given)

Rubbish.

Churchill was writing about atomic weapons in The Strand Magazine in 1931. The magazine was available to the general public.

www.ft.com...

In fact The Strand Magazine was where Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories first appeared.

Well if you won't to be such a stickler perhaps start with your own "facts". The piece written by Churchill is indeed fact, though it was written in 1924 not 1931. It was also a speculative piece discussing the military implications of weaponizing radioactive materials. Prior to Currie discovering Radium, there was no talk of nuclear arms as there was no knowledge or understanding of radioactivity let alone the idea to weaponize it. The piece written by Churchill was based no more on fact than Wells 1914 work or any of the works of Ray Bradbury for example. It was a politician hypothesizing about the possibility of something as small as an orange having the destructive power of 1000 tons of cordite. That isn't remotely the same as discussing real world applications of an existing platform. It was early 20th century science fiction embraced by the political elite. If you want to get really specific we could postulate about whether or not Germany would have completed a working plutonium bomb had they opted not to attack the USSR when they did. Without having to involve themselves in a multi front war they would have been able to expend more resources as they started working on their atomic designs well before the US did. Anyway, I'm digressing way off topic... Churchill writing about nuclear weapons making it public knowledge is like saying because Wells wrote From Earth To the Moon that the US space program was public knowledge in the late 19th century. It's a silly and fanciful take on what wAs really going on IMHO.

Greetings, this is an interesting post and all but I have a couple of quick questions. I'm seeing a lot of posts about EMPs lately and I was wondering if there is anyway to protect small pieces of technology like iPads and such. Is there any special containers you can put them in or material they could be wrapped in until after the EMP so they don't get destroyed? Wouldn't it be nice to be able store some technology away?

reply to post by ODarkThirty


You can build your own faraday cafe for the electronics. If it's something small like an iPad or mobile phone an unplugged microwave will do the trick as well. It's about conductive shielding. For simplicities sake here's the Wikipedia article on faraday cages with examples as well as links-

en.m.wikipedia.org...

What about a non nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Generator? Is that a viable weapon?

I've done some quick google searches and the results are inconclusive, in that, yes we are researching and the airforce has some experiments and we can build a pulse generating machine but I'm not seeing any weaponized versions?

Is it possible or do we now have the capability to build a NNEMP weapon? At least one that would be effective, like could they build a small EMP generator with enough power and catapult it at the pentagon effectively frying all electronics in that building and giving our enemies a huge tactical advantage?

remember they have all ready blown up nukes to try this in Antartica

A few years later under the cover of the international geophysical year, the United States again sent a naval task force to the Antarctic. The use of military force – including atomic weapons! – was "covered" by the ridiculous story that the USA and USSR, in a rare moment of nuclear cooperation during the height of the Cold War, were interested in seeing how much of the continent could be "recovered" for use by warming it with nuclear explosions! Accordingly, it would be necessary to explode a few small nuclear "devices" for above the continent to warm and melt the ice as a proof of concept!


Three bombs were thus detonated at an altitude of approximately 300 miles above the target, one on August 27, 1958, one on August 30, 1958, and a third on September 6, 1958. [Stevens also notes that these bursts may have something to do with the "ozone hole" over the South Pole and the us government's reluctance to discuss the idea or the events that may have caused it. Additionally, perhaps it is possible that one atom bomb from each of the world's then nuclear powers, the US, the USSR, and the UK, were used.

I do not believe that a nuke under 100kt would create a very big EMP pulse.

I believe you would need a 20+ mt weapon to take out the US with a EMP pulse.

Or you would need a smaller enhanced weapon of some type.

At this time i believe only Russia, China, Israel, or the US could build a enhanced weapon.

Iran or north korea would be lucky just to get a small less then 50 kt non hydrogen nuke.

India????

Pakistan

I also believe the US has some enhanced weapons ready to go. IF some country did attack the US with a nuke EMP.

I also believe every US nuclear sub has one or two just in case the US is hit with a EMP only attack.. They are enhanced but can be used like a regular nuke just by changing the target program.

reply to post by ArtemisE


I think that as a weapon, an EMP shock would have limitations as to effectiveness. First of all, the sorts of targets that an enemy would want to take out first, would be the nuclear weapons launch sites of the target nation, denying them the opportunity for swift reprisal. These sites would have to be actually HIT with a nuke themselves, in order to prevent the missiles within from being fired, since the EMP impulse of a high atmosphere detonation would fail entirely to permeate the deeply buried and well protected launch infrastructure of a nuclear weapon launch site.

Also, one would have to launch MANY nuclear missiles, and detonate them over a number of areas. One EMP shock is not going to wipe out an entire large nations electrical grid, no matter how old and busted, or new fangled. To cause that kind of infrastructural havoc, it would be necessary to interact with the grid at key points, on the ground, or blanket the entire country in an umbrella of EMP blasts, and no matter how clever your meteorology might become, you cannot let off that many nukes ANYWHERE on the planet, or within its atmosphere, without a massive risk to your OWN civilian population, let alone that of your enemies.

All in all, unless a method were found to make electromagnetic pulse effects occur without the radioactive fallout, the methods by which they are created make them unwieldy and cumbersome, and therefore they are not what I would call an operations ready solution. Now, turning an entire damned country to glass, such is the thermonuclear devastation wrought upon it? That is an operations ready solution, but that is what MAD is for! To prevent that sort of thing!

reply to post by captaintyinknots


& an EMP causes nuclear meltdown of our nuclear reactors. A very scary situation to be in. 100's of reactors all going into the meltdown stage all at once unless power gets back online.

After the EMP comes Nuclear Meltdown

Nuclear Meltdown?

While modern civilization will rapidly deteriorate into chaos, the worst of it may be just beginning. What happens to the world’s 440 nuclear power reactors (about 700 if you count all research reactors)?

Nuclear reactors while running normally, are essentially in a state of controlled meltdown as they heat water into steam which turns the turbines that produce electricity. Could it be that the only thing saving us from disaster is the constant supply of fresh cool water that keep the nuclear rods from melting down?

The thing is, the flow of water requires electricity, working pumps, and working electronic systems to control them. If these electronic systems are damaged, or the electricity is OFF, well, remember Fukushima??

The nuclear plant operators will be trying to safely shut down the reactors with whatever backup power they have available to them (a SCRAM). Following that, they will need to keep the nuclear rods cool – even when they are not ‘running’ in the reactor process. The problem though with this process is you can’t shut down all radioactivity with the flip of a switch.

For a reactor that is SCRAMed after holding a constant power level for an extended period, about 7% of the steady-state power will remain after initial shutdown due to fission product decay. A long cool down period will be necessary afterwards. The cool down from the residual heat (of the radioactive decay) requires circulating water and operating pumps. Without cooling, the fuel rods will heat up to the point where they can melt.

How long do the rods need to cool after a SCRAM?

To give you an idea, one bit of research revealed that even a week after being shut down, the heat from a reactor core boils water at a rate of nearly 60 gallons per minute; and after a month it’s still boils off 40 gallons a minute (source).

We’re talking months – years.

Separate from the scrammed rods of the reactors, there is the issue of the spent fuel rod Storage pools of the containment facility. They too need a constant supply of water.

Backup batteries will keep pumps running for a day or so.

Diesel generators (assuming they or their electronics are hardened and not damaged from the effects of the EMP) will keep pumps running as long as there is diesel fuel on hand. A question is, do the nuclear plants have enough stored diesel fuel to keep the cooling pumps operating for months and months afterwards?

The fuel (gasoline-diesel) distribution systems will be down (or mostly), so where will the fuel come from? This will obviously be a high priority for plant managers, but will they all be able to scrounge up what they need?

source

leolady

reply to post by peter vlar


Thank you for the reply/tip, Peter. I think that is a very important skill to know. Perhaps it may help me in the future.

reply to post by ANNED


Something as small as 10-20 kt detonated approximately 200 miles above Kansas is enough to disable electronics throughout the entire lower 48 states.

reply to post by ODarkThirty


Absolutely. When I got a new microwave I kept the old one, cut off the cord and have a couple of external hard drives stored in it just in case and built a small cage to hold a spare laptop. It's almost as critical as having food and ammo saved away for a rainy day IMO.

Nuclear weapons are generally designed to detonate in the atmosphere, not on the ground. I suppose tactical nukes could and would be detonated on the ground in certain instances, but with ICBM's the intent is to detonate well above the ground, and thus an EMP will be created. The US military still has many important systems that will not be affected by an EMP, although there is no denying that their power would be severely reduced in terms of coordination, communication, etc, in the event of an EMP.
This is partly why there seems to be "older" equipment still in use in some areas.

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All that another country has to do is hit just a few of our nuclear power plants and Wall Street---that's it, game over. Another quiet way of attacking is making use of HAARP the silent weapon---and then act like it was a totally natural disaster that occurred. All we do is take
a look around at what's been going on with the weather in all parts of the US...and elsewhere around the world...and no, I don't believe it's due to climate change, it's more like these people are trying to play god...