Iranian Military Leader Threatens to Respond to Enemy Attack With Instant Rocket Barrage

Originally posted by stumason
I don't doubt this guy's threat and to be honest, it is in response to almost constant threats of War coming from the West. One can hardly put the blame for the imminent conflict on Iran when they have been complying with the IEAE, much more than other states have ever been asked to do, I might add.

Your missing the point. IT is propaganda on the iranian side. Im not blaming them, they are being picked on, however, I feel that it is warranted.

Interesting. Care to enlighten me on such a weapon?

There was an article just before the war that talked about the weapon. It was quite and enlightening, interesting read. For instance, nuclear weapons can cause EMP. When a nuclear device is exploded, it emits a powerful EMP that blows transistors and electric circuits for hundreds of miles. A successful EMP will knock out all electrical and communication systems. Cars, trucks etc will cease to work.

Delivered by cruise missiles, the E-bombs can fire millions of watts of energy in microwaves, destroying computers, radios, telephones, and almost anything that uses transistors, circuits, and wiring.
english.peopledaily.com.cn...

America has remained at the forefront of EMP weapons development. Although much of this work is classified, it's believed that current efforts are based on using high-temperature superconductors to create intense magnetic fields. [And it's] an astoundingly simple weapon. It consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger copper coil. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," says Carlo Kopp, an Australian-based expert on high-tech warfare. "The result is that FCGs will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks before the final disintegration of the device. Published results suggest ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of millions of amps." The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like a flashbulb by comparison.
superconductors.org...

The Soviets had several devices designed and working in the 1950's, but they were not practical for battlefield use. The USA had the same sort of designs in the 60's and 70's.

THey can be quite practical, as shown in GW2.

There is apparently some research in the field and there have been isolated, unconfirmed and, I might add, highly speculative reports of their use.

Its a fairly classified weapon, but what have you to make, about the swift defeat of the IRaqi army? what happened to their center of command and control?

Not true in the slightest. The Soviets were the first to realise the threat of EMP as they factored in using tactical nuclear weapons as a matter of course in a war with NATO. To this end, they delayed the introduction of modern electronics to their aircraft and weapons systems and stuck with vacuum tubes and thermionic valves for quite a while.

Nowadays, any military worth it's salt has EMP protection. To think only the US has come up with protection against it is rather arrogant.

Fiber optics are the only known defense against EMP. and I do believe, that it is the US who uses such defenses against such threats, do feel free to try and disprove that.

Even the Serb's had protected their communication's and such from any sort of interference and attack by having a substantial fibre optic network.

I do not believe (or know if) the EMP bomb was up and working during such a conflict. OR if it was even used. Fibre optics are rather complicated and incredibly expensive to use as a defense against EMP attack. To my knowledge, only the US is rich enough to use it throughout their entire military infrastructure.

A rather grandiose assumption their. Basically, your relying on the Iranians to have sat there and done bugger all in preparation for this, when they have had a front row seat on US tactics and weaponry for the past 4 (nearly 5) years.

Do not underestimate the US military, Mr. Stumason.
They are the worlds only, sole superpower. With yearly military expenditure that would equal half of Great Britain's GDP, im sure you havent seen but only the very surface of what that country possesses in its military arsenal

Care to provide some links and evidence of US laser weaponry? Last I heard, most, if not all, the laser weaponry programmes were shelved.

only the primitive, unpractical ones were shelved. Many of the laser weapon programmes have come to a head. Meaning they are already out there, or, at the very least, being tested for use in battle.





[edit on 22-10-2007 by West Coast]

Originally posted by northwolf
Some of you are claiming that Iran needs advanced C3 to launch a counter strike with missiles. Those missile and rocket crews probably have their targets and when the first US bomb hits the target, nearest tactical weapons are launched, causing a ripple effect across the missile force. Creating a wave of missiles. And US cannot hit 11000 targets in a single wave, id say 3000-4000 is the maximum.

It's still an empty boast as most of our assets are well beyond the range of the vast majority of their short range unguided rockets. Sure they can fire them, but look how good Hezbollah did with their Rocket barrage. Firing blindly will not result in much strategic damage.

I don't think the U.S. can even hit 3,000 incoming objects, the point is, out of the 11,000 launched, only only 500 or so will be real threats, which Patriot and other systems will respond to. After that, it's game over for the Iranian Military.

Iran, should it come to conflict with the U.S., Iran will be between a rock and hard spot. If Iran attacks, they get hit, if they wait, the rockets get destroyed before seeing action. It's almost in Iran's best interest to attack early on, even though the results of said attack will result in the loss of the Iraninan military. Like I said, it's not a fair fight. Iran cannot win this fight, why do they seem to want the fight?

C3 will be critical as US forces will be on the move just prior to any hostilites making targeting even harder.

With all the weaponry might of the hanging superpower we are, everybody seems to forget that economically we are nothing than beggars to our bankers the Chinese.

That is what our nation has become, China will never finance an attack on Iran.

Perhaps Cheney and Haliburton with start buying American's debt so we can afford another conflict.

While our Defense budget is very high, it goes to support all the corrupted groups working in the private sector in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps Haliburton and all the other subsidiaries in Iraq under the defense budget will give away their profits for an Iranian conflict.

Is it possible that IRAN has rockets from North Korea with nuclear war heads?

Whats the range, who is the enemy?

Seems totally without merit with out at least give some phony numbers
and intended targets.

Enemies... too vague.

Originally posted by marg6043
With all the weaponry might of the hanging superpower we are, everybody seems to forget that economically we are nothing than beggars to our bankers the Chinese.

That is what our nation has become, China will never finance an attack on Iran.

China has more at stake with the China/US relationship than it does with the China/Iran Relationship. They will look out for their own best interest.

While our Defense budget is very high, it goes to support all the corrupted groups working in the private sector in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You know better than that. Please provide proof showing your claim to be the case, that a majority of our Defense budget goes to what you claim. Halliburton was around during the Clinton White House too. Name other companies who do what they do in volatile regions of the world.

reply to post by pavil

You know better than that. Please provide proof showing your claim to be the case, that a majority of our Defense budget goes to what you claim. Halliburton was around during the Clinton White House too. Name other companies who do what they do in volatile regions of the world.

Blackwater.... how many of them around the world.
That has to be the next response.

Who has to be in a war zone to profit.
Set up a uniform factory in Texas and get funded.

More uniforms please....

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne

Blackwater.... how many of them around the world.
That has to be the next response.

Ok I'll play, how much do they cost? You should be able to provide the dollar amount.

Who has to be in a war zone to profit.
Set up a uniform factory in Texas and get funded.

No, Marge is implying that firms like Blackwater and Haliburton, those who are "boots on the ground" are the one's taking up the bulk of the military's budget. She needs to back that statement up. Yes I am aware that everything is made by somebody, that wasn't the point.

posted by Westpoint
There was an article just before the war that talked about the weapon. It was quite and enlightening, interesting read. For instance, nuclear weapons can cause EMP. When a nuclear device is exploded, it emits a powerful EMP that blows transistors and electric circuits for hundreds of miles. A successful EMP will knock out all electrical and communication systems. Cars, trucks etc will cease to work.

I know about EMP from Nukes and what an EMP is, just wasn't aware of any deployable EMP device in service. Thanks for the info, I'll have a read.

posted by Westpoint
Its a fairly classified weapon, but what have you to make, about the swift defeat of the IRaqi army? what happened to their center of command and control?

Most of their Officers were bribed into walking away, whilst giving the US intelligence on Iraqi deployments, combined with woefully low morale within the Army itself led to the defeat of the Iraqi Army.. I highly doubt that EMP played as major a part as the millions spent in bribes....

posted by Westpoint
Fiber optics are the only known defense against EMP. and I do believe, that it is the US who uses such defenses against such threats, do feel free to try and disprove that.

I don't have to disprove it because it is fact. But, if you don't wish to spend 5 seconds on google checking it, here you go:

Vacuum Tube

Vacuum tubes inherently have higher resistance to the electromagnetic pulse effect of nuclear explosions. This property kept them in use for certain military applications long after transistors had replaced them elsewhere.

As for your "Fiber optics are the only known defense against EMP", thats a bit of a claim. Consider the fact that those wonderful fibre optics HAVE to connect to an electronic device at either end, which is susceptible to EMP.

posted by Westpoint
I do not believe (or know if) the EMP bomb was up and working during such a conflict. OR if it was even used. Fibre optics are rather complicated and incredibly expensive to use as a defense against EMP attack. To my knowledge, only the US is rich enough to use it throughout their entire military infrastructure.

Firstly, I know EMP bombs were first thought of and built, in the 50's, by the Soviets. So, given the info you provided, I would say it would be a fairly safe bet that an EMP would be available in 1999.

Also, just to save yourself the embarrassment of getting into a debate about telecoms with me, I do actual work for a large telco in the UK as a Transmission engineer. That means I work with fibre's.

Your claim of "only the US is rich enough to use it throughout their entire military infrastructure" is poo. Firstly, because you don't have fibre throughout your "entire" military, as lugging it around in the field is impractical.

Secondly, I know a substantial portion of the UK telecoms network is fibred anyway, except for the "last mile" when a coaxial or twisted pair will work just as well, but the same applies in the US or any nation. However, many business do pay for "fibre to premises", which we can provide.

Thirdly, following on from the above, I know that the HM's Government is a major customer of our's and we provide them with a substantial optical network.

As stated above, the claim that fibre optics is some cure-all defence against EMP is also poo. The fibre's need to connect to an electrical device in order to actually be of any use. You have to make sure your devices are shielded. That means keeping them out of harms way. With today's mulit-million amp EMP weapons you linked to, not even faraday cages would help protect devices.

This again highlights the utter ludicrous notion that your "entire military infrastructure" is fibred. You can only harden stuff against EMP so far before it becomes unwieldy. Stuff in the field will only be protected from EMP to a limited extent and I would bet my grandma that your Armoured companies or Infantry platoons will not be dragging a spool of fibre around with them.

posted by Westpoint
Do not underestimate the US military, Mr. Stumason.
They are the worlds only, sole superpower. With yearly military expenditure that would equal half of Great Britain's GDP, im sure you havent seen but only the very surface of what that country possesses in its military arsenal

Granted, you have alot of dosh, but doesn't mean you have super-weapons. You have huge manpower bills, equipment upkeep etc etc. You also appear to be willing to pay 10 x more than anyone for a piece of equipment that does the same thing. You have jets that cost Billions per aircraft. Other countries are developing the same technologies as you but at a much cheaper rate.

Also, the dollar is worth bugger all these day's. You have to pay more for actual materials to build your stuff.

Not to mention a good portion of your equipment is actual designed and built by foreign companies. Go an see who BAe owns and what they've had a hand in designing and building.... You WILL be surprised.

In short, your defence contractors fleece you out of a good portion of your dosh, so whilst I am willing to accept the fact you may have EMP weapons or simple laser weapons, I doubt you have much else that is that far ahead of the rest of the world. Even the EMP/Laser field isn't entirely the USA's either.

Oh, another thing, your DoD budget isn't half of the UK's GDP. Go check your facts. Your 2008 budget is just shy of $650 Billion. That's around £330 Billion pounds. That's around 10x the UK Defence budget, or around 20-25% of the estimated UK GDP in 2008.

EDIT: Thought I'd add a comment on the above Defence budget thing.

Having a budget so goddam huge, which is higher than the next 10 nations combined, but also having the audacity to go round accusing other nations of being warmonger's and building "WMD's" is just such a huge pile of hypocritical poo. It's nothing to be proud of either.

Especially when 30-40% of your own people are without healthcare and an almost as high a number live in poverty, I think you should be embarrassed, to be honest. The UK spends around $220 Billion USD on the NHS every year, whereas we spend around $65 Billion USD on Defence. At least our "elected leaders" seem to care more about the people of the Nation as opposed to "bringing democracy" to others...

[edit on 27/10/07 by stumason]

reply to post by stumason


I do think the US has a variety of EMP weapons based on thier "killing range'. I do recall reading somewhere we tested a small range EMP bomb on some Iraqi TV transmitters when the troops were approaching Baghdad. They managed to fry the systems for a short period till replacement parts came. If I remember correctly it made it sound as if it only struck high output components and not everything. The US just wanted to disable the communications for awhile, not destroy them completely.

I do believe the US ability to mess with enemies communications systems is rather well developed. I bet they can block enemy communications and replace them with "soundalike" orders which really mess with the enemy. Imagine being "ordered" by your HQ to move your Tank division to the wrong spot. That's real power.