[tacticalogic]

How did we ever get over the thousands of nuclear explosions, many hundred of which were high altitude, from the late 40s until the 80s?! EMP is overhyped, unless it bursts overhead;)

Those tests were conducted under or near ground level. Historically, nuclear weapons have been used to inflict physical damage, and designed and tested for that. Setting one off at high altitute wouldn't give you much in the way of useful data to asses it's shock wave potential.

[DCBryan1]

Those tests were conducted under or near ground level

As someone who has actually touched special weapons as a nuclear materials courier for NNSA/OST there have been LOTS of exploded nukes at high altitude.

Research Operations Hardtack, Argus, and Dominic(sp), and all the Soviet tests at Kapustin Yar or Novaya Zemlya (sp).