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Electromagnetic pulse weapons that can paralyse a country in a nanosecond are already in the possession of several states. By 2015, North Korea is likely to acquire one. If you are not sweating, check your pulse.
A nuclear weapon explodes 300 km above Nebraska, the geographical centre of the United States. The blast is far too high to kill people by heat or radioactivity. But it does something far worse – it sends the world’s most advanced country into the Stone Age.
This isn’t science fiction. The technology for launching this version of Armageddon exists and is ridiculously low tech. Even an ordinary, low-yield nuclear bomb exploded in the upper atmosphere by terrorists, with help from dysfunctional nuclear powers such as North Korea or Pakistan, would unleash a deadly electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that will take only a nanosecond to knock out an entire country’s electrical grid.
On October 22, 1962, during one of their ABM tests, the Russians detonated a 300 kiloton hydrogen warhead (20 times more powerful than Hiroshima) at an altitude of 300 km over Kazakhstan.
The blast deliberately targeted two cable lines. The first one was the 550 km East-West telephone line – all the fuses in the line which was 7.5 m above the ground were destroyed. The second, the 1,000 km Aqmola-Almaty power line, carried electricity from a power station in the city of Karaganda. It was a lead-shielded cable protected against mechanical damage by spiral-wound steel tape, and was buried at a depth of 90 cm. This cable succumbed completely to the EMP within seconds of the blast, overheating and setting the power station on fire.
The United States military realised EMP’s potential as a weapon the same year, in the Starfish Prime test of a much larger 1.44 megaton warhead at a height of 400 km over the Pacific Ocean. The pulse knocked out street lights and damaged telephones in Hawaii. Four days after the explosion the UK satellite Ariel was unable to generate sufficient electricity to function properly.
Military Infrastructure Damage
Command, Control, Communications (C3)
Weapons Systems
Logistics
Supply
Civilian Infrastructure
Urban services will be severely crippled.
Health services will fail.
Jails and Prisons will be thrown open.
Electricity Grid
Power lines will collect EM Energy, wrecking generation, substations, distribution; anything tied to the power grid, including highrise buildings and individual homes, all will suffer catastrophic failures--including the power lines that collected the EM Energy.
Communications
Telephone and CATV cables will be fused, with repeaters and central offices rendered unusable. Cell phones: towers and handheld units will be damaged beyond repair.
Information
Computers, main frame and personal, will be damaged beyond repair, and Data loss will be massive and permanent.
Transportation
All transportation will cease, cars, trucks, buses, will stop dead, planes will fall from the sky, subways, trains, will be damaged and cease to run.
Energy
Oil and gas pipelines will collect massive amounts of EM Energy, causing catastrophic failures in pumping stations and distribution; as well as refineries and storage will be destroyed.
Utilities
Water mains will collect EM Energy, causing water filtration plants to cease to function, triggering a water crises. Sewers and power lines will collect EM Energy, damaging Waste Treatment Plants, stopping their operation.
Satellites
A less known effect of high altitude bursts, is the artificial "pumping" of the Van Allen belt with large numbers of electrons, which will remain trapped in these belts for periods exceeding one year. All unhardened satellites traversing these belts in low earth orbit could fail in a matter of days to weeks.
Casualties, secondary: Starvation will be the real killer. Food relies almost solely on automation, large-scale, industrialized, vertically integrated food production. From the fields to the table, the one common denominator is automation technology. From the microelectronics in the tractor pulling harrows in the field, to the trucks carrying produce to the processors, and the automated inventory tracking in the food store, the vulnerable links in the chain, are the humble silicon based transistors.
Aircraft will fall from the sky. At any given time, there are an estimated 90,000 people in the air over the U.S. It is believed that most of those would become casualties. This does not take into account the collateral casualties on the ground.
There are millions upon millions of people driving automobiles at any given time. EMP will suddenly and totally disable most vehicles, especially modern vehicles that every function is under electronic control. The number of casualties that would occur would be in the millions--a number impossible to comprehend, let alone take care of.
WASHINGTON – Congress today was told that the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t identified an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, event as a serious national security threat to the nation’s grid system even though testimony revealed it could making living in the United States “unsustainable” for 70 to 90 percent of the population.
And the few billion dollars it would cost to harden systems against such an occurrence is hardly the tens of billions or hundreds of billions it could cost to repair the damage.
The next time a solar flare disrupts radio communications around the world for a few hours, or maybe a few days, recall that man with one nuclear device can outshine the damage old Sol creates by many fold.
Originally posted by zonetripper2065
Do people ever get sick of the fear mongering?
ps: you don't have to worry about trapped electrons in the inner magnetosphere frying up satellites anymore, that's dealt with.
Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by Bedlam
ps: you don't have to worry about trapped electrons in the inner magnetosphere frying up satellites anymore, that's dealt with.
? Dealt with? All satellites are hardened?
Perhaps you could amplify the statement as I am not sure I am understanding your meaning.
Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by heineken
Hi Heineken, long time no see.
Of course it is not ME that is providing the information or doing any maths, but I am curious as to what you are meaning. What maths?
edit on 6/5/2013 by PuterMan because: Green decoration was required.
protected against mechanical damage by spiral-wound steel tape
Originally posted by zonetripper2065
reply to post by PuterMan
Yes, because I'm not a terrified little b*tch; I'm not worthy of ATS. My advice to you, go diesel.