"EMP" or "E" Bombs are the rage, who needs Nuclear Boom Weapons !.......It"s amazing how many ways there are to hurt somebody....
MIRVman
of the Vietnam War. The targets were Undetonated "Special weapons" of
which one such device could have been an E" or EMP" type.
I have kept up on the technology these many years past and to be
honest, firmly believe that this weapon will be utilized
indiscriminately during WWIII. As I will discuss there are Nuclear
versions and Conventional technology more readily available to the
neighborhood terrorist
Anyone who's been through a prolonged power outage knows that it's an
extremely trying experience. Within an hour of losing electricity, you
develop a healthy appreciation of all the electrical devices you rely
on in life.
A couple hours later, you start pacing around your house. After a few
days without lights, electric heat or TV, your stress level shoots
through the roof.
But in the grand scheme of things, that's nothing. If an outage hits an
entire city, and there aren't adequate emergency resources, people may
die from exposure, companies may suffer huge productivity losses and
millions of dollars of food may spoil.
If a power outage hit on a much larger scale, it could shut down the
electronic networks that keep governments and militarises running. We
are utterly dependent on power, and when it's gone, things get very
bad, very fast.
An electromagnetic bomb, or e-bomb, is a weapon designed to take
advantage of this dependency. But instead of simply cutting off power
in an area, an e-bomb would actually destroy most machines that use
electricity. Generators would be useless, cars wouldn't run, and there
would be no chance of making a phone call.
In a matter of seconds, a big enough e-bomb could thrust an entire
city back 200 years or cripple a military unit.
The U.S. military has been pursuing the idea of an e-bomb for decades,
and many believe it now has such a weapon in its arsenal. On the other
end of the scale, terrorist groups could be building low-tech e-bombs
to inflict massive damage on the United States.
How does it work?
The basic idea of an e-bomb -- or more broadly, an electromagnetic
pulse (EMP) weapon -- is pretty simple. These sorts of weapons are
designed to overwhelm electrical circuitry with an intense
electromagnetic field.
If your hip on Radio or electromagnets, then you know an
electromagnetic field in itself is nothing special. The radio signals
that transmit AM, FM, television and cell phone calls are all
electromagnetic energy, as is ordinary light, microwaves and X-rays.
For our purposes, the most important thing to understand about
electromagnetism is that electric current generates magnetic fields and
changing magnetic fields can induce electric current.
This explains why a simple radio transmitter generates a magnetic field
by fluctuating electrical current in a circuit. This magnetic field, in
turn, can induce an electrical current in another conductor, such as a
radio receiver antenna. If the fluctuating electrical signal represents
particular information, the receiver can decode it.
A low intensity radio transmission only induces sufficient electrical
current to pass on a signal to a receiver. But if you greatly increased
the intensity of the signal (the magnetic field), it would induce a
much larger electrical current. A big enough current would fry the
semiconductor components in the radio, disintegrating it beyond repair.
Picking up a new radio would be the least of your concerns, of course.
The intense fluctuating magnetic field could induce a massive current
in just about any other electrically conductive object -- for example
phone lines, power lines and even metal pipes.
These unintentional antennas would pass the current spike on to any
other electrical components down the line (say, a network of computers
hooked up to phone lines). A big enough surge could burn out
semiconductor devices, melt wiring, fry batteries and even explode
transformers.
There are a number of possible ways of generating and "delivering" such
a magnetic field. Now let's look at a few possible EMP weaponry
concepts.
The Nuclear EMP Threat
E-bombs started popping up in headlines only recently, but the concept
of EMP weaponry has been around for a long time. From the 1960s through
the 1980s, the United States was most concerned with the possibility of
a nuclear EMP attack.
This idea dates back to nuclear weapons research from the 1950s. In
1958, American tests of hydrogen bombs yielded some surprising results.
A test blast over the Pacific Ocean ended up blowing out streetlights
in parts of Hawaii, hundreds of miles away. The blast even disrupted
radio equipment as far away as Australia.
Researchers concluded that the electrical disturbance was due to the
Compton effect, theorized by physicist Arthur Compton in 1925.
Compton's assertion was that photons of electromagnetic energy could
knock loose electrons from atoms with low atomic numbers.
In the 1958 test, researchers concluded, the photons from the blast's
intense gamma radiation knocked a large number of electrons free from
oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere.
This flood of electrons interacted with the Earth's magnetic field to
create a fluctuating electric current, which induced a powerful
magnetic field.
The resulting electromagnetic pulse induced intense electrical currents
in conductive materials over a wide area.
During the cold war, U.S. intelligence feared the Soviet Union would
launch a nuclear missile and detonate it some 30 miles (50 kilometers)
above the United States, to achieve the same effect on a larger scale.
They feared that the resulting electromagnetic burst would knock out
electrical equipment across the United States.
Such an attack (from another nation) is still a possibility, but that
is no longer the United States' main concern. These days, U.S.
intelligence is giving non-nuclear EMP devices, such as e-bombs, much
more attention.
These weapons wouldn't affect as wide an area, because they wouldn't
blast photons so high above the Earth. But they could be used to create
total blackouts on a more local level.
Non-nuclear EMP Weapons
The United States has EMP weapons in its arsenal, but it's not clear in
what form. Much of the United States' EMP research has involved high
power microwaves (HPMs). I have widely speculated that they do exist
and that such weapons could be used in a NATO consecrated " Nuclear
Police action" in Iran.
The United States' HPM e-bombs aren't really bombs at all.
They're more like super powerful microwave ovens that can generate a
concentrated beam of microwave energy. One configuration is the HPM
device is mounted to a cruise missile, disrupting ground targets from
above.
This technology is advanced and expensive and so would be inaccessible
to military forces without considerable resources. But that's only one
piece of the e-bomb story. Using inexpensive supplies and rudimentary
engineering knowledge, a terrorist organization could easily construct
a dangerous e-bomb device.
In late September 2001, Popular Mechanics published an article
outlining this possibility. The article focused on flux compression
generator bombs (FCGs), which date back to the 1950s. This sort of
e-bomb has a fairly simple, potentially inexpensive design.
This conceptual bomb design comes from a report written by Carlo Kopp,
a defense analyst. The design concept has been widely available to the
public for some time. Nobody would be able to construct a functioning
e-bomb from this description alone.
The bomb consists of a metal cylinder (called the armature), which is
surrounded by a coil of wire (the stator winding). The armature
cylinder is filled with high explosive, and a sturdy jacket surrounds
the entire device. The stator winding and the armature cylinder are
separated by empty space. The bomb also has a power source, such as a
bank of capacitors, which can be connected to the stator.
Here's the sequence of events when the bomb goes off:
*A switch connects the capacitors to the stator, sending an electrical
current through the wires. This generates an intense magnetic field.
*A fuse mechanism ignites the explosive material. The explosion travels
as a wave through the middle of the armature cylinder.
*As the explosion makes its way through the cylinder, the cylinder
comes in contact with the stator winding. This creates a short circuit,
cutting the stator off from its power supply.
*The moving short circuit compresses the magnetic field, generating an
intense electromagnetic burst.
Most likely, this type of weapon would affect a relatively small area
-- nothing on the order of a nuclear EMP attack -- but it could do some
serious damage
Here's some possible effects of an EMP attack
E-Bomb Effects
The United States is drawn to EMP technology because it is potentially
non-lethal, but is still highly destructive. An E-bomb attack would
leave buildings standing and spare lives, but it could destroy a
sizable military.
There is a range of possible attack scenarios. Low-level
electromagnetic pulses would temporarily jam electronics systems, more
intense pulses would corrupt important computer data and very powerful
bursts would completely fry electric and electronic equipment.
In modern warfare, the various levels of attack could accomplish a
number of important combat missions without racking up many casualties.
For example, an e-bomb could effectively
*neutralize:
*vehicle control systems
*targeting systems, on the ground and on missiles and bombs
*communications systems
*navigation systems
*long and short-range sensor systems
EMP weapons could be especially useful in an invasion because a pulse
might effectively neutralize underground bunkers. Most underground
bunkers are hard to reach with conventional bombs and missiles.
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A nuclear blast could effectively demolish many of these bunkers, but
this would take a devastating toll on surrounding areas.
An electromagnetic pulse could pass through the ground, knocking out
the bunker's lights, ventilation systems, communications -- even
electric doors. The bunker would be completely uninhabitable.
U.S. forces are also highly vulnerable to EMP attack, however. In
recent years, the U.S. military has added sophisticated electronics to
the full range of its arsenal. This electronic technology is largely
built around consumer-grade semiconductor devices, which are highly
sensitive to any power surge.
More rudimentary vacuum tube technology would actually stand a better
chance of surviving an e-bomb attack.
A widespread EMP attack in any country would compromise a military's
ability to organize itself. Ground troops might have perfectly
functioning non-electric weapons (like machine guns), but they wouldn't
have the equipment to plan an attack or locate the enemy.
Effectively, an EMP attack could reduce any military unit into a
guerrilla-type army.
While EMP weapons are generally considered non-lethal, they could
easily kill people if they were directed towards particular targets. If
an EMP knocked out a hospital's electricity, for example, any patient
on life support would die immediately.
An EMP weapon could also neutralize vehicles, including aircraft,
causing catastrophic accidents.
In the end, the most far-reaching effect of an e-bomb could be
psychological. A full-scale EMP attack in a developed country would
instantly bring modern life to a screeching halt. There would be plenty
of survivors, but they would find themselves in a very different world.
MIRVman alias FNG
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