Some notes on EMP weapons -
EMP -- the worst weapon you will ever survive.
When I was a teenager I was a ham radio operator. I listened to my short wave radio for hours just about every day. I remember one summer in 1962 when I thought my receiver was broken; I even bought new tubes for it. On every band, on every frequency, there was a loud and annoying hiss that lasted for a couple of days. Communication was impossible.
No one spoke about it on the news, nothing was written -- it was "top secret" at the time -- but I later learned that it was the result of an atmospheric nuclear explosion. The 1.4 megaton detonation, called "Operation Starfish Prime"
occurred 250 miles above Johnston Island in the Pacific. Not only did the explosion shut down short wave radio communications in America, but it also overloaded and blew out over 300 streetlights in Oahu, Hawaii -- some 740 miles away!
Scientists learned that nuclear explosions, in addition to the blast, heat and deadly gamma radiation, also produce a strong electromagnetic pulse that is capable of passing thousands of volts of electrical energy to just about anything that conducts electricity.
The pulse is generated by the interaction of gamma rays, released by a nuclear explosion, with the atmosphere and the Earth. Called the "Compton effect", the resulting pulse is like a radio signal and any metallic object acts like a receiving antenna. Whereas a radio signal might produce a thousandth of a volt or less in a receiving antenna, an EMP pulse produces thousands of volts. Antennae, pipelines, underground gas and water pipes, metal fences, iron railroad tracks, power lines, telephone wires, electric cables -- all suddenly act like antennae and become the recipient of huge currents, starting fires, explosions and frying all forms of circuitry beyond repair.
Because our bodies do not conduct this current, the EMP does not directly harm humans or other living organisms. But, as you will see, that's not necessarily good news.
Back to the stone age... in 1 nano-second!
Look around you. Right now you are using a computer. You probably also depend on a cellphone and, most likely, you have a car to get you from home to work or to the market.
Most vulnerable to this high current of EMP are transistors, those small devices that are inside computer chips, radios, cellphones, ATM machines, automotive ingnition systems, the gas pumps, calculators, lights, clocks and just about everything that requires batteries. All of these would be useless after an EMP and repairing them would not be an option. They would all have to be trashed and replaced.
An EMP lasts just 1 nano-second! It radiates at 50 kv/m at the speed of light. At such a high altitude, it could happen in the blink of an eye and might not be immediately associated with any type of explosion or blast.
Imagine surviving an EMP only to find you cannot call your family to see if they are safe, cannot get cash from your ATM or bank (since they cannot access your records), cannot buy food at a supermarket (no scanners) or even drive your car (ignition destroyed). Everything relying on modern electrical technology will be useless.
When you finally walk to your home, city water will not be pumped, lights will not come on, sewage treatment will be off-line, heat and air conditioning will be gone and the production, harvesting and transport of food will have come to a grinding halt. What's even worst is that the lack of radio and television news will keep most people from understanding what has happened or how to respond. Confusion and eventually anarchy would reign. This is the reality of an EMP weapon.
Yes, it gets even worse...
If an EMP device were detonated, most of the electronics that control our many nuclear energy plants would be destroyed. With no way to control the fission reaction these nuclear plants would eventually run away, reach critical states and melt down, releasing nuclear material in explosions similar to those in Fukushima, Japan. There would be no way to shut them down safely or regulate cooling systems. Victims of an EMP explosion would suffer a nuclear nightmare.
[above] In the film "The Day the Earth Stood Still," an alien visitor stopped every electrical apparatus all over the globe as a demonstration of his power. An EMP, although not effecting the entire world, would cause a similar catastrophe.
Can't we shield against this somehow?
It is possible to shield electronic equipment from EMP radiation, but it is extremely difficult. The protected components must be completely enclosed in a copper shield. Even a small hole will allow the radiation to enter and any wires extending outside the shield will defeat the protection. For all practical purposes, this is not possible.
John Kappenman, the chief science adviser to the US EMP commission, believes it would require just $1 billion to harden an estimated 5,000 power transformers around the country to shield them from the impact of an EMP-like event.
"We built this infrastructure without any awareness of this threat. We have no design code that takes this threat into account. We've been doing everything to design the grid to make it greatly more coupled, and therefore more vulnerable, to this threat." [ibid]
Air Force One, the President's jet, and certain other strategic aircraft have been equipped with special shields to reduce the effects of the radiation. Oddly, old radio equipment using vacuum tubes are less likely to be hurt by the radiation than transistor circuitry and many existing Russian aircraft still maintain these old systems for this reason.
[Above] Special Air Force E-4 being tested for EMP shielding.
@sancho
