Growl
Distance to the horizon, in nautical miles, equals 1.17 times the square root of your altitude in feet. There are 1.15 nautical miles per standard statute mile. From the government graphics at the EMP entry at Wiki, the EMP impact radius is 86% of the distance to the horizon. Do the math and draw the circles to scale yourself; doubling the altitude increases the radius 50%.
Does that report specifically state what size of warhead is needed for this EMP effect? I know that the 1962 high-altitude tests had megaton yields to produce the EMP along a 7,000-mile perimeter. And megatons are what the North Koreans don’t have.
I think a lot of people are being fooled- The Norks are making lots of noises with rockets… BUT I think that is just mis-direction.
It takes lots of practice to strap a warhead on a rocket, have the rocket go the full distance, actually arrive over the correct target area and then go off over the target.
Look at the Air Forces own trials back in the day.
My money is on the Norks just slipping it into the US via a ship, much safer way to get a working nuke here than via missle.
Hell have the thing go off while in port, no need to worry about customs inspections.
We know the Norks are sneaky little sh*ts.
Posted by gdonovan
06/27/2009 at 06:57 AM
Macker, according to the scientists quoted at Wikipedia,
small pure fission weapons with thin cases are far more efficient at causing EMP than most megaton bombs.
This analysis, however, only applies to the fast E1 and E2 components of nuclear EMP.
And it’s the E1 pulse that will toast our electric system. You don’t need megatons. Kilotons will do. Further reading shows that fission reactions ("atomic bombs") are more efficient in terms of EMP production than thermonuclear bombs ("hydrogen bombs").
Given those constraints, more bomb will yield more EMP. The bad news is that you don’t need a super-dooper bomb to trigger enough EMP to fry the wiring. It’s pretty complicated stuff, and I’m no expert, so read up as much as you want:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapons#Hydrogen_bombsI’m sure that a good design team could “tune” a bomb for maximum EMP production.
The missle payloads of the sixties were larger due to the inaccuracy of the delivery systems. Modern payloads are much smaller as they are very accurate and with the smaller warheads you can fit more independently targeted nukes on a MIRV.
I agree with Donovan. They’ll slip a nuke suppository up our ass in some port or just off shore: mebbe San Diego - take out the naval base on a twofor? Pearl Harbor - like some kinda Asian Fuc Hu 2 gesture?
Posted by sig94
06/27/2009 at 12:56 PM
Yeah, I’m not really worried about this one.
While you can get a slight EMP effect by lighting off any nuke at specific altitudes, to make a REAL nuke designed to take out wide areas with an EMP effect takes some MAJOR design talent. It was debated for a long time if we could even do it efficiently.
The NKs are barely able to make a Hiroshima-sized bomb and even the last two tests were declared fizzles with the strong possibility that they were faked by filling caverns with high tonnages of conventional explosives.
I highly doubt they have the capability of designing and building a true EMP thermonuke, let along launching them over the mainland US..... at least for the next 10 or 20 years.
I’m much more concerned that some 3rd-world country like NK could put a few pounds of nuclear medical waste in coffee cans with C4 and set them off in our major cities… the EPA would cordon off those areas PERMANENTLY for even minimal radiation leakage.
Posted by TimO
06/27/2009 at 01:57 PM
Look up “Faraday Cage” on the internet. Easy to make.
Posted by Joseph
06/27/2009 at 03:20 PM
Yes, they are. While a Faraday cage could protect your home, it would only work if you had no electricity coming into the house, and no antennas either.
Heck, if you insulate your entire house with foil backed fiberglass, and put a little jumper wire from each bat to the next across the studs, you’ve pretty much got one built. And as long as you physically unplug every device in your house every time you stop using it, you’re protected. Fiber optic cable is impervious, and I think foil shielded co-ax cable is too. I think the most damage from EMP is going to be to the power grid, which will be fried at all the command centers. The transformers and wires themselves should be Ok.
