Posted on 02/29/2012 7:54:36 PM PST by U-238
EMPs!!! You know, the big electronics-frying pulses that accompany nuclear blasts. We’re back to worrying about them again. In particular how does the military protect its electrical infrastructure from an EMP attack.
“Yeah, we have issues there [with the EMP threat] and we have to look at those and we seriously have to understand that in the Army in particular, because we have an awful lot of bases that we look at,” said Marilyn Freeman assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology during a House Armed Services emerging threats subcomittee hearing today. “I work very closely and the folks in my office and accross the laboratory system of the Army work very close with the installations folks as we assess what our vulnerabilities are to power and energy issues and one of the things we’re trying to do is actually set up the ability for our various bases to be more energy self sufficient, more energy secure and to have the ability, not only to be more efficient and effective, but also to be safe and not vulnerable” to attacks from EMPs that would shut down a bases power systems.
If you think it’s easy to harden a base connected to the civilian power grid from an EMP blast, think again, one of Freeman’s fellow Pentagon science officials said in when a lawmaker asked how soon the nation can protect its bases and power infrastructure from EMP attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at defensetech.org ...
Every four months there are a rash of EMP articles. This came up last week too.
Its important. Because many rogue nations are building the atomic bomb. Any prelude to a first strike will be an EMP attack. Another form of EMP attack is from the Sun especually now when the electromagnetic field around us is weakening.
“Any prelude to a first strike will be an EMP attack. “
Yes, if the enemy has lots of nukes and can get a missile 200 miles above the center of CONUS without being detcted and shot down on the first try.
A rogue nation will be far more likely to smuggle the nuke in disguised as a bale of pot or cocaine, and deliver it by van to some city.
Why do you think the electromagnetic field is weakening?
Two more “EMP attacks” would be an explosion of a nearby supernova or a galactic superwave(which is only a theory)
Believe me, the Russians will throw everything in a first strike.Russian doctrine is “Only the offensive leads to the attainment of victory over the enemy. As a type of combat, the offensive has incontestable advantages over the defense. The attacker has broad capabilities for launching surprise strikes, for the rapid exploitation of the results of nuclear attacks” This is from a Russian military strategist Col. Sidorenko
On the Earths magnetic field:http://www.science20.com/make_love_not_war/blog/earth%E2%80%99s_weakening_geomagnetic_force_and_possible_polar_reversal-76775
I have a contact who works in the electronics field who tells me that EMP, or more specifically HEMP and CME-type disruptions are WAY overhyped. The grid, even as tattered as it is, can more than handle a single airburst nuke. Yes, some (easily-replaced) components may be damaged directly under the blast, and there is of course the chance that the odd big stepdown transformer might go, but the grid is redundant enough to route around that kind of thing. Only a synchronized multiple-burst attack could cover enough of the grid to prevent the EM transient from being dissipated. No country that really has a hate on for us has the capabilities or the technology to put multiple nukes in orbit and trigger them all over us with enough simultaneity to do that kind of damage.
Further, the vast majority of consumer electronics are insulated enough that they won’t be toasted permanently. Only things actually plugged into the wall will really be affected at all, and then only slightly. The military only worries about this kind of thing because they’re likely to need to be able to function after a close strike from a nuke, not an orbital one.
A lot of the “information” about the damage caused by EMP is propaganda left over from the cold war, when our scientists vastly overstated the effects as an attempt to make the Soviets think that their stuff was in too much danger to risk a war.
Could China do it?
Go tell your friend that he is an idiot, then kick him between the legs.
>>>Every four months there are a rash of EMP articles. This came up last week too.<<<
Yep. I used to comment on them, then I ran out stuff to say. It’s a threat. Along with all the other threats. I presume that the guys in the military have been preparing for this since it became apparent after the 1962 Johnson Island test near Hawaii, if not before. As far as I’m concerned, I’m following my grandpa’s advice to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. If the scenario in “One Second After” comes about, my family and I will survive. On the other hand, I’ve seen a lifetime of doomsday scenarios, starting with “On The Beach” and “The Population Bomb,” and continuing through “The Day After” and “The End of Nature.” Not to mention “The Late Great Planet Earth.” My guess is that we’ll be gobsmacked out of left field by something that nobody, or very few, have been talking about, and I hope I’m prepared. I can do what I do and the rest is in God’s hands.
This is my EMP simulation:
Suddenly, without warning, nuclear detonations occur simultaneously, high in the atmosphere over different sections of the North American continent and Western Europe. These detonations originate from pre-positioned orbiting satellites armed with atomic weapons.
These high altitude bursts do not affect the surface of the earth with any form of destructive heat, overpressure or radiation, but a phenomenon occurs which is called Electro Magnetic Pulse, or EMP. The Electro Magnetic Pulse out across North America and the detotated N-bomb over Western Europe, collecting on power transmission lines and communication antennas. For a fraction of a second, the EMP spikes the power grid and receiving antennas with a huge surge of voltage. In the process of seeking ground, this surge is so quick and great that it jumps across conventional surge protectors, lightning protection, and even open circuits where the power switches are turned off, burning out and rendering useless all sensitive electronics, computers and communication equipment.The confusion created by the disruption of the national communication network is considerable. .
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p913.htm
This is my EMP simulation:
Suddenly, without warning, nuclear detonations occur simultaneously, high in the atmosphere over different sections of the North American continent and Western Europe. These high altitude bursts do not affect the surface of the earth with any form of destructive heat, overpressure or radiation, but a phenomenon occurs which is called Electro Magnetic Pulse, or EMP. The Electro Magnetic Pulse out across North America and the detotated N-bomb over Western Europe, collecting on power transmission lines and communication antennas. For a fraction of a second, the EMP spikes the power grid and receiving antennas with a huge surge of voltage. In the process of seeking ground, this surge is so quick and great that it jumps across conventional surge protectors, lightning protection, and even open circuits where the power switches are turned off, burning out and rendering useless all sensitive electronics, computers and communication equipment.The confusion created by the disruption of the national communication network is considerable. .
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p913.htm
This is my EMP simulation:
Suddenly, without warning, nuclear detonations occur simultaneously, high in the atmosphere over different sections of the North American continent and Western Europe. These high altitude bursts do not affect the surface of the earth with any form of destructive heat, overpressure or radiation, but a phenomenon occurs which is called Electro Magnetic Pulse, or EMP. The Electro Magnetic Pulse out across North America and the detotated N-bomb over Western Europe, collecting on power transmission lines and communication antennas. For a fraction of a second, the EMP spikes the power grid and receiving antennas with a huge surge of voltage. In the process of seeking ground, this surge is so quick and great that it jumps across conventional surge protectors, lightning protection, and even open circuits where the power switches are turned off, burning out and rendering useless all sensitive electronics, computers and communication equipment.The confusion created by the disruption of the national communication network is considerable. .
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p913.htm
“Another form of EMP attack is from the Sun especually now when the electromagnetic field around us is weakening.”
Then we have no choice. We must launch a preemptive attack on the sun.
Right(sarcasm on)
Because the geeks at NOAA say it's in a decline based on their measurements. NASA is aware of, and adjusts for a particular spot east of South America. It weirds out their satellites, or something.
FedGov is spending billions on EMP protection. They seem to take it seriously.
I'm much less concerned about EMP from nukes than I am from the sun.
/johnny
/johnny
If you have access to an old car (pre-computer), buy a tune-up kit for it - and bury it.
Points, plugs, condenser, coil, wires, battery - assuming a mechanical fuel pump.
Although I did once make a coil wire out of a coathanger - it was just out of necessity, I assure you.
Just put a really big Faraday cage over the US. Problem solved.
Well my FRiend, you need to choose between educating yourself from source documents or listening to idiots like this “contact” of yours who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I suggest education, but YMMV.
Some people just like to make snippy comments on the topic of EMP because either they flunked science (or reading) or because they think it’s cute somehow.
If you’d like some facts, here is a report from the British House of Commons that was released just this year:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmdfence/1552/155202.htm
Like Fox News says, “We report, you decide”. But facts are handy things.
I can and have built crystal radios with a chunk of galena, an empty cigarette pack, a sheet of newspaper, a toilet paper roll and a bunch of wire.
It's good for cooks to know the basics of technology, and how to build them from scratch. You just never know what might happen in a commercial kitchen.
/johnny
Does anyone know whether or not the aircraft that dropped the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were damaged by EMP?
They condenser is the key - most likely to fry, hard to replace.
OBTW, you have listed the makings for the threat ...
The B-29 aircraft that delivered the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not lose power due to damage to their electrical or electronic systems. This is simply because electrons (ejected from the air by gamma rays) are stopped quickly in normal air for bursts below roughly 10 km (about 6 miles), so they do not get a chance to be significantly deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field
You are older than you look.
If bombs had been within the intense nuclear radiation zone when the bombs exploded over those cities, then they would have suffered effects from the charge separation (radial) EMP
Unless one is expecting to get a pulse every freakin day or sumfin, replacement capacitors can be home rolled with wax paper and aluminum foil. In a circuit they can be protected with back to back Zener diodes rated higher than operating voltage but lower than maximum withstanding voltage.
Cat whisker on galena can work, but it is a pain. Better to have a stock of diodes kept wrapped in foil or something.
“Because the geeks at NOAA say it’s in a decline based on their measurements. NASA is aware of, and adjusts for a particular spot east of South America.”
Earth’s MAGNETIC field always changes.
And the spot off South America is the SAA, it has to do with trapped solar particles.
Neither have anything to do with EMP caused by a nuke.
Smartass. ;)
/johnny
Ya know, the Amish might have an unexpected advantage.
They were not. Radios and radars intact. Same is true for the planes that dropped bombs for tests.
But- these were low altitude shots. You get source region EMP (SREMP) but no HEMP, High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse.
Dude, I am going to need you in my bug-out location...
LOL.
“e aircraft that dropped the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were damaged by EMP?”
I don’t think that these aircraft had any computers on board to worry about.
LOL, I thought that might be the case.
I'm not particularly worried about EMP from nukes. But our feral gooberment takes it seriously enough to spend billions of our tax dollars preparing for it.
/johnny
It’s been how long since an above surface nuclear bomb was tested? Those sites would be ideal places to research the effects of associated EMP. But the environmentalists would be way too agog now.
As a civil defense issue, that probably is one of the few things our modern federales are involved in that makes constitutional sense. I can think of very few complaints about that.
One must become one with the lead alloy. Allow one's thoughts to grow heavy, yet hard edged...
And have a butt-load of time to screw around with it.
/johnny
Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) is an electromagnetic pulse generated without use of nuclear weapons. There are a number of devices that can achieve this objective.NNEMP generators also include large structures built to generate EMP for testing of electronics to determine how well it survives EMP
Apparently I achieved the requisite zen with a piece of galena when I had a cat whisker radio kit as a kid. It only brought in one station, however. The slider on the coil was useless. Later radios built with a packaged germanium diode performed better and even tuned in multiple stations. I was never able to get the “safety pin point on a tarnished penny” detector system to work, though it would have looked cool as heck if it did.
Unless somebody has actually been to a blast and done that I would take their pontifications with a large accretion of salt.
In Operation Orange in 1958,was a 3.8 megaton explosion that was launched by a Redstone rocket that occured 250,000 feet However, due to a programming failure it burst directly over the island at the desired elevation making the island the effective ground-zero. It caused temporary blindnes on the island. Wehrner Von Braun was present at that test.
Oh... and I believe galena isn’t an alloy, it’s a compound. Lead sulfide. (II) to be technical about it (there are sulfides with various valences). It itself looks leaden grey, so it’s easy to confuse with an alloy.
Blindness how? From the brilliance of the visible light emitted? Blinding radios through damage? Some interaction between the bursts of ionizing and non ionizing radiation and optic nerves, even of those whose eyes got none of the visible light?
The brilliance of the light. Its like the sun exploding. I have nuclear flash goggles.
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