posted on Jul, 21 2008 @ 05:24 PM
Well, I'm sure we all know about the Electro Magnetic Pulse devices and their potential usage as weapons of mass destruction via aerial detonation.
The idea goes, it would fry all electrical and computer systems. This is fine and I understand the logic behind this conclusion.
My question is, what about all of the electrical and computer equipment which is not connected to the power grid, or any other power source, or
otherwise "on" or running in any form whatsoever (in other words, disconnected and grounded, like think of a laptop that is off and disconnected
from the battery recharger, or think of a cell phone which was off and not being recharged during the EMP detonation.), what happens to that
equipment?
Have we all seen the History Channel (or was that Military Channel?) demonstration of this with a car? How the guy drove under the device with the
car, and the car goes dead right as he drives underneath the device? Well, what about all the cars that were parked on the side of the road and not
running?
Essentially, will it fry circuit board and electrical systems that are not connected to any power source whatsoever, not storing any power, or
if they are storing power, are in a completely OFF mode? It seems to me that just like when a Thunderstorm hits your area, turning off the
computer would save the computer from the EMP detonation. I came to this conclusion by reasoning that the electro magnetic pulse would need some
conduit to the system to destroy that system; that you could save entire systems and even facilities to provide back up emergency functions and
services by simply leaving them off, grounded, and protected from the EMP detonation at the time of detonation. Even if there is no back up system
laying in wait, a certain percentage of vehicles, computers, and communications systems would have to be OFF at the time of detonation, providing
some post EMP-detonation function of these things. These things are the very targets of the EMP device, and one can quickly come to the idea
that a nation could prepare for such an event by having an entire system that shadows or mimics the current communication systems, being kept off and
protected, laying in wait for this potential time to occur.
So, is it really that simple?