emp

i was watching futureweapons yesterday and it was a future technology episode when then they started talkin bout emps and how they could chutdown the usa and i thought that is the stupidest thing to broadcast nationwide how to shutdown the usa. o ya emps r electromagnetic pulses

I could hardly understand what you're talking about. A bit of spelling and grammar would help perhaps?

An electromagnetic pulse will shut down all electrical devices and services, therefore rendering even the most technological advanced nation defenceless. Even a lot of assault rifles these days have computer chips built into them.

But I see you are saying that it was 'stupid' to broadcast this well-known knowledge on television. Why? How much other sensitive information do you see on tv? Did you know the KGB's primary intelligence sources during the cold war were television and newspapers? That's because the U.S. has a Constitution, and within that Constitution there is a line that states that all Americans have the right of free speech.

EMPs are not classified. Sure, an operational weapon produced by the military would be, but that's only to be expected; I think its a secret how much toilet paper they use every year. Why is it stupid of these people to put this well known fact that EMPs could disable America on tv? Anyone with half a brain knows that already.

well i didnt no that much about them i just thought that if someone with bad intentions against the usa could actually do it. it would pretty much cripple modern america, since most ppl have elctronic devises

[edit on 15-5-2006 by denynothing]

EMp weapons are here. If you detonate a nuke 300 ft above the US in the middile EVERYTHING will be fired. You can already do this with nukes. You can amke compact JDAM like one's however those have a short radius(1000 feet). However with the nuke you'll still get the airburst effect so it could start WW so you need a different alternative.

A nuclear weapons primary method of destruction is heat and blast. The EMP side of things is not very effective. And I don't think that if you detonate one of the mid-U.S. it will wipe out all electrical devices. Why, then, was America not crippled with the tens of hundreds of weapons they detonated in the 50's/60's?

Originally posted by urmomma158
If you detonate a nuke 300 ft above the US in the middile EVERYTHING will be fired.

try 200 miles above the earths surface. that's the optimum altitude for an effective emp from a nuke (and strangely enough, the altitude that iran's missiles keep exploding at during their missile test "failures"). and even that wont shut down the whole US. but if done over the chesapeake bay, it would effectively shut down the east coast which could possibly snowball into the majority of the eastern half of the US. i could go on, but there are at least 4 threads here about emp's that i am aware of. use the tag search system.

[edit on 15-5-2006 by snafu7700]

Yeah, but EMP and its powers have been known about for a long time; at least nothing that hasn't worried leaders before.

Look, EMP weapons exist in two categories, nuclear blast generated EMP and non nuclear EMP devices. The latter currently is relatively weak and would not do any significant amount of damage to the US. Not to mention that to be of any use you have to build a fairly powerful EMP device. And to do that you need two things, money, and know-how, money is the easy part, however the “brains” are most likely watched very closely. So any concentrated and significant effort would not go unnoticed.

Now, the other way is to explode a fairly large yield warhead above center US at the 200-300 mile altitude, this would cause a huge EMP field and likely effect several US states. Unless we're in an all out nuclear war we don't have to worry about premier nuclear powers attacking us in such a manner, however desperate countries such as N. Korea or Iran are another matter.

Currently Iran has no missile of reaching the CONUS and N. Korea has a few capable of getting close enough to inflict an unacceptable amount of damage, this is another reason to support the ABM shield. In the meantime you can take what little comfort there is in the fact that the attacker will get his fair share in our response.

Either way in both cases the people who might orchestrate such an attack have known about it way before any discovery channel program.

Related Sources
High-Power Microwave
Electromagnetic Pulse
EMP Report
EMP Systems
Nuclear Generated EMP

[edit on 15-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

well i had never heard of emp and the fact that it could be used like that scared me a little bit

Yeah, you’re right, its one of those things that the general public isn't aware of and probably still thinks its only possible in the movie or Star Wars. But reality is a bit different, imagine the US without any electrical systems or without any computers.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
An electromagnetic pulse will shut down all electrical devices and services, therefore rendering even the most technological advanced nation defenceless. Even a lot of assault rifles these days have computer chips built into them.

Umm... not quite, in the US at least, all essential military complexes and systems are shielded against EMP. So we would not be defenseless, the civilian sector will get fried but not the military one. Also, those hi-tech guns with batteries and chips in them will still function even if their power goes out, the simple sights will still work so will all the essential functions. Sure, you wont be able to program your grenade for air burst mode but it will still detonate on impact.

[edit on 16-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
A nuclear weapons primary method of destruction is heat and blast. The EMP side of things is not very effective. And I don't think that if you detonate one of the mid-U.S. it will wipe out all electrical devices. Why, then, was America not crippled with the tens of hundreds of weapons they detonated in the 50's/60's?

You're talking abour ground explosions im speaking of one's detonated at an altitude.Westpoint provided the links in his previous post. Lokk in the wikipedia one it has a pic of the area affected by a 300km burst.

[edit on 16-5-2006 by urmomma158]

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
A nuclear weapons primary method of destruction is heat and blast. The EMP side of things is not very effective. And I don't think that if you detonate one of the mid-U.S. it will wipe out all electrical devices. Why, then, was America not crippled with the tens of hundreds of weapons they detonated in the 50's/60's?

You are talking like USA invented one Bomb in the 40's and that was the peak of the technology. There have been over 1000 different models of nuclear warhead tested over the years. Some are specially optimized to release a massive EMP.

Originally posted by WestPoint23Umm... not quite, in the US at least, all essential military complexes and systems are shielded against EMP. So we would not be defenseless, the civilian sector will get fried but not the military one.

I'm no expert on EMP preparedness of United States, but i know that in Finland atleast all the radios, newspapers and TV-stations trained their people how to continue operational after an EMP attack in the 80's. I'd guess that this kind of training is quite common in bigger businesses that are important to the country's defence.

[edit on 18-5-2006 by Ylijohtaja]

Yes, thank you, I know there are well over 2, 000 (in fact) different designs of warhead lurking about. And yes, some are specially tailored to be EMP weapons, but in general if you want to destroy an un-invadeable country you'd blast the crap out of it, not disable its phone systems.

Most military hardware is magnetically shielded. Take the systems on the B-1B for example. While they have less computing power than your average cheapo laptop (512K memory), they are hardened against the effects of a nearby nuke explosion. But as the Bone was originally produced to strike back at the Soviet Union when they attacked, the systems would of course have had to be shielded. The same probably would not go for a handheld GPS, which a lot of units have come to rely on.

In fact, if the GPS sats were taken out (and Im sure there are weapons pointed at them right now) it would just about disable the entire U.S. war machine. I would bet that 90% of the navigators in the navy and air force have never actually had to use a compass and map in a real situation. They would have been trained up, but the only way to see how good their skills are under a defcon 1 situation is to actually go to that situation.

Originally posted by snafu7700
and strangely enough, the altitude that iran's missiles keep exploding at during their missile test "failures"

That's speculation by warmongers in rightwing media outlets. Those tests weren't failures, but standard detonations in missile tests as to prevent the missiles from coming down in one piece onto someone's head. Plus the range of Iran's longest range missiles is greater than the country s large anyway, so no wonder they don't want any useful remains to come down anywhere else.

to prevent the missiles from coming down in one piece onto someone's head.

Haha so now they can come down onto many people's heads?