EMP Artillery Shells 202
smartfart writes "Military.com has this story about artillery shells "that can put out such a powerful burst of radio-frequency energy it will destroy or disable electrical and electronic systems for miles around without killing anyone."" Some (not all) modern military equipment is designed to withstand large EMP pulses, so I'm not sure how effective this would be against most armies. But it would sure do a number against civilian computer networks.
HEDP Re:uh, in an army group? Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
Sorry, acronym came out before I could stop it. That means High Explosive Dual Purpose for those unfamiliar with the term. HEDP is designed to be effective against both soft (leg infantry) and hard (mech infantry, armor) targets. It also does a pretty good job of fscking up anything else in the target area like civilians or non-military property...
--
uh oh (Score:1)
Re:Pacemakers... (Score:1)
Re:Computer networks? Try cars! (Score:1)
Re:Local Police: Just what the criminals need... (Score:1)
Cybercrime must be crushed! (Score:1)
--Janet "crush the cybercrime" Reno
Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
So, if you are a criminal, get a low-rider with mechanical distributor ignition :)
Re:GREAT! EXCELLENT! (Score:1)
it has happened in the gulf war (Score:1)
they didn't last long in the desert.
the military grade fax machines our troops were using had no problems
people made a big deal cuz the military spent thousands of dollars on the mil spec
fax machines that didn't have half the features the off the shelf models
Re:More useful than you'd think. (Score:4)
One thing to consider is that the EMP is a pulse. a huge ragged electromagnetic square wave.
The thing about a pulse is that it is has edges. Imagine, a normal ambient low voltage condition suddenly is whacked to tens or hundreds of thousands of volts induced by the pulse, in a time period measuring nanoseconds. And then it gets whacked in the other direction since this is a wave and it goes back and forth.
Smaller electronics are using smaller wires, and are using smaller voltages. this makes them more vulnerable.
Voltage is induced by magnetism is a single wire. Although voltages induced by differances in different parts of the system are fun as well.
People also do not realise that electronic logic now is often edge based. in other words, the ones and zeros are not determined by reaching and settling at 0 volts and 5 volts (or 2.3 or 2.4 volts, etc) but by detecting the edge of the shift from zero to max and vice versa. this has the advantadge of being faster because you do no have to wait for things to stabilize as much.
This is much more vulnerable to noise. Even without any damaging voltage levels, a nice heavy edge (such as found in an EMP)can act as a reset command, or lock the system up.
I imagine that high frequency systems are going to have a problem, even if the voltage does not actually fry the system.
I imagine that older technology, like non-digital cars, would have a problem with this. Tube based technology, relay logic, etc. tends to be more robust, but this is not proof against the effects described above.
Re:Sadly (Score:1)
You need a Major magnetic field to do an effective job. The off-the-shelf Bulk Tape Erasers have to be buzzed right up against a VCR tape for quite a while for the tape to actually be wiped clean.
A concealed coil in the doorway likely wouldn't have any affect, particularly with a hard drive in a somewhat magnetically shielded case, and being carried through the doorway for just a moment.
Re:GREAT! EXCELLENT! (Score:1)
Re:EMP devices (Score:1)
Bring along a grocery bag full of dollar bills. Have fun reasoning with the teenage vandals about how they should share the dollar bills amongst themselves. Maybe you can play a game of chess with some of them at the coffee house.
More useful than you'd think. (Score:2)
The reason is obvious enough--people glibly assume that there's some way to shield electronics from Bad Things(tm) like EMP blasts, particle beams, X-ray lasers, and so forth. In reality (and I'm not an electrician, so this is only roughly accurate) you can either completly isolate it from EVERYTHING (effectivly impossible), or enclose it in active shielding, like an electrified cage (sometimes called a Faraday shield, IIRC). Neither is perfect, and neither works well for systems in planes, missiles, or handheld devices, many of which are, from an EMP point of view, just like your Palm, except MUCH MORE VALUABLE.
In any case, vulnerable is relative. Your Palm has tiny wires, so it's difficult for any major potential difference to be set up. What's vulnerable is big long wires. Power lines, telephone cables, networks, and anything connected to them, including telephone exchanges and sub-stations. The old sub-orbital EMP burst is crippling because it turns all of your power liness into antennas--thereby frying everthing connected to them. In theory, an EMP burst might cause a poorly run/designed nuclear power plant to go boom--not by messing with the electronics in the control room, but by inducting big currents in the outgoing power lines. These EMP shells work on a different scale, but the principle is similar.
The short of it is, magnetic memory is probably going to be toast, and anything connected to power lines without a surge protector is toast. Anything connected to a copper network is also likely toast. But solid state electronics are (mostly) only as vulnerable as the power supply (that is, they can be toasted by stuff that is vulnerable to EMP, but are not themselves directly vulnerable), unless the flux levels reach a level so high that metal starts melting, in which case your probably going to be more concerned about your fillings, not your computer.
Or to be blunt: Of course the military is vulnerable. No, there's nothing anyone can do. But no, these shells aren't really that useful, since the area of effect will be so much smaller.
Some more information about EMP (Score:2)
Here [spyking.com] is an interesting link about "HERF and other Radio Weapons".
Some of the links are dead, but those who are not give a really interesting read, about things like:
have fun!
cheers
mike
Re:Pacemakers... (Score:2)
Ever see those signs that say MICROWAVE OVEN IN USE?
Ever wonder why such warnings are posted?
Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
Beyond that, there are probably thousands of other ways in which people would die as a result of such a blast, from failed traffic lights on busy roads and control signals on trains, to machinery or even weapons going haywire. The really nasty deaths would follow later on though if the blast is not just a local one, as society's threads start to unravel after the failing of the primary services which these days are entirely dependent on electronics.
EMP pulse? (Score:1)
Electromagnetic pulse pulses? Are they like PIN numbers?
Likely a Hoax (Score:1)
I don't really have the inclination to do the proper back-of-the-envelope, but consider the amount of electromagnetic energy contained in a half-sphere several miles in diameter; and consider the amount of energy in an artillery shell. There's simply not enough energy available for the effects claimed.
In addition, I remind everyone that military equipment undergoes rigorous testing for EMP. At one point in time the world's largest wooden structure was a ramp used by the US military to elevate airplanes during EMP testing. And the size of the generators needed to generate a sufficiently large EMP burst is nothing to sneeze at.
I have seen demonstrations of very small-scale EMP burst devices that could generate sufficient power to disable a single vehicle -- if the device is adjacent to the vehicle. A stand-off device requires a van full of equipement. Again, nothing that would fit into an artillery shell.
Power souce? (Score:1)
these scientists must play cnc (Score:1)
The company's work on the system won the scientists a gold award for innovation from the BAe Systems chairman.
games like redalert/total a have had this idea for along time, and i would suspect that it has been in science fiction literature for much longer. i wouldnt call this an innovation by the scientists.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Principles Behind EMP Bursts (Score:3)
The general idea is to set up an L-R-C circuit and destabilize it. For example, we know the change in emf (E) is related to the ke quantities (L = indcutance, R = resistance, C = capacitance) by:
L (d^2 I(t) / dt^2) + R (dI(t) / dt) + I(t)/ C = dE(t)/ dt
where I(t), and E(t) are time-variable
Under suitable conditions (cf. Spicer, 'Solar Physics', v53, p. 305, 1977) it is possible to induce a voltage 'spike' which is the equivalent of a HERF burst. In his Fig. 4, Spicer shows a profile of such a burst, generated using an ST-tokamak.
Of course, ST-tokamaks are not needed to accomplish this. It is fairly well known that *all* electrical circuits containing an inductance (L) are intrinsically explosive (cf. Alfven, 'Cosmic Plasma', p. 34, Dordrecht-Reidel, 1981).
Thus, if such a circuit is somehow disrupted, there is an explosive release of magnetic energy, of order:
W = 0.5 LI^2
Where L is the inductance (say of the inducting coil in the circuit) and I is the current. Say, for example, that L = 10 H (10 Henries) and I = 20A, then:
W = 0.5 (10H) (20A)^2 = 2000 J (Joules)
This is a fair amount of energy.
In practical HERF circuits one would incorporate a 'double layer' say by using a capacitor across which some maximum value of voltage V(D) might be applied. As the current is made to exceed a threshold value I(D), a voltage drop V(D) occurs across the capacitor up to the current I(ex) when it explodes and disrupts the current (cf. Alfven, ibid.).
When switched on, the current increases at rate:
dI/dt = (V(b) - R I/ L)
(V(b) is intrinsic emf of circuit)
Without the 'double layer' (capacitor) it reaches saturation at:
I(s) = V(b)/ R
If I(D) I(D) is given by:
dI/dt = [V(b) - V(D) - RI]/ L
The current will tend towards a saturation value:
I(s)' = [V(b) - V(D)]/ R
If I(ex)
The explosion will generate a high energy radio frequency pulse.
This pulse, if proximate enough to an electronic device (i.e. computer) will render it inoperable
Re:EMP devices (Score:1)
Re:Computer networks? Try cars! (Score:1)
Re:Power souce? (Score:1)
The only problem is that cold fusion doesn't work. (or does it??)
--Mike--
Re:U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Paper! (Score:1)
Re:EMP threat is exaggerated (Score:2)
Magnetic force is not important in itself unless it's so strong that it moves things. It's what is induced that is important. CMOS chips are not so bad - they have really short internal leads, so you need only concern yourself with what comes in on a wire. CMOS chips generally include diodes to power and ground at every I/O pin.
I've seen HIPOT testing with a spark gun. It crashed the workstation being tested, but did not damage it. We could probably have gotten rid of the crash, too. Nice big 1N4007 diodes to the power supply rails at all of the I/O pins might have done it.
It's pretty easy to suppress phone line EMI. Chokes, MOVs, gas tubes, all help. Good ones are too expensive for consumer equipment, but most modems I buy have two chokes, a few MOVs, and a gas tube that looks like a neon lamp.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:More useful than you'd think. (Score:1)
Re:EMP threat is exaggerated (Score:1)
Also, since these pulses work by induction (as other posts mentioned) you would have to be close by the source for it to be damaging, Wouldn't this have to do with the magnetic component of the wave? - i.e. intensity of wave is inversely proportional to the square of the distance to the source, whereas RF strenght is just inversely proportional to the distance? (I'm too lazy to look up the details.
I think that EMP is as much of a psychological weapon as it is a physical one, and largely overplayed - even for a nuclear one. After all, people are going to be (or should be!) more worried about their relationship to ground zero than if there radio is going to survive.
That being said, hams like you and myself come from a different day. Our equipment was mostly transitorized using discreet components - a lot more sturdier than the low voltage CMOS that everything is using nowadays. It is hard for us to imagine how stuff can die being close to what is nothing more than a glorifed lightning strike. As chip densities increase, that insulating layer for the CMOS Fet junctions grows thinner and thinner, and easier to puncture...
EMP threat is exaggerated (Score:2)
My local area net uses shielded cables with only one end grounded (to avoid ground loops). This is to keep interference out of the radios, but protects the net from outside RF as well.
I have put choke coils (a toroid with a few turns of AC wire around it) in a lot of the electrical outlet boxes (again for interference reduction). But I could do a lot more work on that.
Re:these scientists must play cnc (Score:1)
Innovation involves, at a minimum, an actual working bench-top prototype.
I think the word you wanted to use was 'inspiration.' And thoughts are really cheap compared to prototype materials.
humans (Score:1)
Faraday Cage (Score:2)
The main reason faraday cages are useless for this kind of situation is because you're not dealing with unearthed objects in isolation. As soon as you have conduction, you are no longer talking of static point charges.
We all must move to Zion now! (Score:1)
Re:GREAT! EXCELLENT! (Score:1)
The inspiration (Score:2)
Not all that useful (Score:1)
EMP weapons make excellent strategic or even operational weapons, as they can do serious damage to non-tactical military power (i.e., by screwing up the support units' ability to support the troops in the field).
But as for supporting the tactical battle, which is fought by infantry, armored fighting vehicles and tube/rocket artillery, I just don't see it being of much use. I'd much rather have HE blast/fragmentation rounds coming down on the bad guys. Hell, even smoke so I can close with the enemy and kill him with personal weapons.
It's a cool toy, but still pretty much just a toy. EMP isn't a tactical weapon of too much use.
Being lit off in the middle of downtown Chicago from the back of a Ryder truck, however, it would be much more effective. Definately a terrorist weapon.
First buyer would be (Score:1)
Re:humans (Score:1)
The fields, however, are orders of magnitude larger and much more coherrent than those found in an EMP pulse.
No problem (Score:1)
The article is a little wrong (Score:1)
:)
hmmmm :) (Score:1)
Backpack EMP (Score:2)
Ironies abound (Score:2)
Tube baed equiptment is 100% immune to EMP, so maybe they were right after all
"rad hard" (Score:1)
Re:Principles Behind EMP Bursts (Score:1)
Re:Come On, "British Scientists"? (Score:2)
(all Scottish, too)...
EMF has been dropping passenger planes, maybe (Score:1)
Re:EMP Pulse... (Score:1)
Re:Pacemakers? (Score:1)
On the other hand, if something bad was going down, maybe hidden safe away in the corner of an elevator isn't such a bad thing.
I believe, for elevators to be allowed past inspection, they must have a mechanically operated brake shoes that activates if the elevator passes a certan speed(or meets some other mechanically determined criteria). The EMP probablly wouldn't affect those, you'd freak out, and see your life flash before your eyes, then you'd be stopped halfway up the shaft.
Who knows, maybe they've moved these emergency systems to rely on electronics now... in which case, nice knowing you.
Re: (Score:1)
EMP effects (Score:1)
The lesson was the in a real nuclear exchange with a sophisticated enemy, there are many nuclear effects short of direct blast damage that are completly debilitating. Our government and the soviets have taken such effects very seriously for many decades. (As I recall, Sandia labs has had a big EMP simulator in the field since the sixties.)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Europe is old, corrupt == gangs and their turf. (Score:1)
"
You see... WE are really the mature nation in the world. It is you, who have yet to find a system that works. European nations don't want to give up their gang turf and are drunk on their own penny-ante power trips. Look at the debacle over the FAILING Euro to see the all the squabbling chiefs in action. Waaaa! We're not giving up our money! That's why you're still a pile of tiny separatate nations and monarchies. And you're telling us to grow up and mature? Sire? Lord? Or whatever the hell title separates the l33t from the squalor.
"
Obviously the Euros should take lessons from the longer established Yanks.
Lesson 1 :
Great ways to decide on your next president.
We need to fix some of this (Score:2)
When the US was bombing Bhagdad, Iraq might have retaliated by using EMP attacks against a few key targets, like the major stock exchange data centers and their backup sites, the VISA/MasterCard switching centers (there are only two for VISA in the US), and two or three of the major power grid control centers. This is a good strategy for a beleagured third-world country; it's not too expensive, it won't kill enough people to invite massive retaliation, but it will make it clear to the US population that the enemy can hit back. Merely demonstrating such a capability with a single incident would likely generate substantial opposition to U.S. military adventures.
So we have to prepare for this, and Slashdot readers involved with critical infrastructure should be thinking hard about this. Protection is quite feasible, but has to be designed in when a building goes up and the equipment goes in. For example, reinforced concrete has rebar and metal mesh inside, but it's not customary to weld them together for electrical continuity. If they are welded, you get the big parts of a Faraday cage for quite low cost. Military sites have used this technique.
Cables going in and out need to go through what a telco calls a "central office grade protector", the gas-tube device mentioned previously. Power isolation is also needed, and there are standard devices for that. It's cheap if you design it in; EMP won't go through a transformer, so if you integrate the data center's main transformers into the EMP system, it just costs you some shielding. And fibre optics are immune to EMP.
With a little prodding, the Bush administration might provide some financial incentives for EMP protection. The Heiritage Foundation has a report on EMP threats [heritage.org], although they're still thinking it takes an ICBM and a nuclear weapon.
Computation immune to EMP (Score:2)
I want one in my car! (Score:2)
Re:You should talk. (Score:2)
Re:Useful in the war on copying? (Score:2)
Re:Pacemakers... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that most pacemakers are highly insulated and shielded against radio, electrical, and magnetic interference. Although I just looked around and it said a high level of EMP could disable a pacemaker ( Radio-Frequency Radiation ) I don't know how high of a level the EMP would have to be.
Well, in most hospitals they ask you to deactivate your cell phone because the location-tracking signal could interfere with equiptment. I would expect a powerful EMP field to produce several times as much magnetic radiation as my mobile telephone.
Pacemakers may well be shielded, but I sure-as-hell wouldn't like to be on life support in hospital when an EMP-based weapon is used.
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
What? (Score:2)
Some factoids about EMP weapons (Score:3)
Three concepts for EMP shells:
1) launch a blast of microwaves toward the target just before impact. Advantages: uW can be directed forward, can penetrate small openings in the target
2) generate high freq RF just before impact. Advantages: can couple into wires and cables such as between radar dish and control van. Disadvantage: requires deploying long antenna wires.
3) directly connect to building and pulse it with MegaVolt DC or AC. Advantages: effecient connection, lots of power.
The microwave shell used an explosive to crush a magnetic field and shoot it past a coil that generated KiloVolts and 100's of KiloAmps, then a transformer stepped it up to MegaVolts and fed a klystron-like device. I saw the model for 155mm shell and nothing looked like a circuit...just some very simple shapes in metal, plastic and explosive...beautiful engineering!
The HF shell shoots wires out from the nose to form an antenna and uses the Megavolts to generate and impulse around 30 MHz
The direct connect shell shoots wire our towards the target and puts the MV directly on the wires. The Volts jumps the air gaps and penetrates to the internal wiring of the building and fries everything inside.
The article missed one of the most important threats...EMP rent-a-trucks. Load a set of large HF emp generators in the back of semi-trailer and drive it into a high density business area. The energy couples into the power and network wiring and fries all the computers.
On the subject of susceptability for HERF...The published literature varies widely. Some tests claim that 100's of Watts per square cm will create damage but others say it requires 10KW/cm2. The equipment design literature tends to assmue the threat can generate huge power. On the other hand, it's not possible to generate that much power over a wide area. The question becomes...if you need to get a 100 lb shell within 10 feet of the target...isn't it better just use high explosives?
Bottom line...these weapons will damage civilian infrastructure (business, not the phone company) but probably have little military use except to slow the adoption of high technology by increasing the number of special requirements for military systems (just what the old Soviets would want)
It's a HERF gun (Score:2)
It was also previously mentioned on slashdot here [slashdot.org]
It's different from an EMP pulse in that it doesn't actually fry the electronics, it just disrupts them. So it'll stop a car's engine, but you'll be able to start it up again...tho that's not much of a comfort if you're on the highway when it hits you.
EMP Pulse... (Score:2)
EMP = ElectroMagnetic Pulse
EMP Pulse = ElectroMagnetic Pulse Pulse
This has been an English lesson.
Re:GREAT! EXCELLENT! (Score:2)
For instance, all the trains would run on time, and there'd be no anti-Semitism to worry about any more.
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Re:read the article (Score:2)
Imagine this in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, or any other high value electronics concentration. For network administrators it means that they have to military harden their networks *right now* and hope that they keep ahead of the kooks.
Vain hope.
DB
Your own High Power Microwave Weapon (Score:2)
Here [eskimo.com] is an article about a guy who build such a weapon, mostly out of commercially available tools.
*pretends that he is not into these things*
cheers
mike
Trend towards COTS (Score:2)
Go into most military communications vans and what you see is Cisco routers just like you have back at the office.
This saves money but makes the equipment vulnerable to exactly the threat described, EMP. The military no longer "drives the train" on technology and they recognize it. It remains to be seen whether or not this becomes false economy. Sure the router works great in an air conditioned building but put it in a tent in Kuwait at 120F in a sandstorm for a few days and see how it holds up
Re:You should talk. (Score:2)
Re:Come On, "British Scientists"? (Score:2)
Sir Isaac Newton - the laws of physics
James Clerk Maxwell - the laws of electrodynamics
Stephen Hawking
Re:Pacemakers... (Score:2)
Re:More useful than you'd think. (Score:2)
Yes, there would be serious crippling of communications, and high-tech reliant weapons, systems, early warning, perhaps air defenses. But that by no means eliminates any forces. A grunt with an M16 is still a grunt with an M16. Most grunts don't even carry a radio. GPS, sure, but communication at the platoon level would still go on as normal.
I'm guessing stage 2 of this war would be something like, the US responds with a massive wave of high-altitude bombers, nuclear and non. Stage 3, Oog, the former communist uses flint and stone to start a fire in his cave to cook the wild deer he just killed with a flint spear. .
Use one of these around me and I will whomp you. (Score:2)
Plus, you don't get enough range to sneeze at.
If you want to do it correctly, look up magnet pulse creation by explosive realignment. Anybody with half a smidgeon of physics should be able to convert this into a reasonable EMP device. Obtaining the materials to build one, however, is left as an exercise for the reader. Good luck and when they come knocking on your door, I don't know you...
Re:Computer networks? Try cars! (Score:2)
Re:Come On, "British Scientists"? (Score:2)
(sorry, it had to be said).
Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
(well, that, and cheap oil that George W.'s buddies will get to drill out of the prisine Alaskan wilderness).
Re:humans (Score:2)
Re:Use against civilians (Score:2)
So all those restored low-riders and such wouldn't be effected, yet souped-up Hondas would? Hmmmm.
Re:HEDP Re:uh, in an army group? Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
Those same rounds would be fairly ineffective against personnel (oh, they'd kill people obviously, just not as many as you could otherwise). What you want with squishy targets is an explosion that maximizes concussive force and shrapnel distribution over a larger area. You just want to get in the right general area and take out everything adjacent. Napalm, cluster bombs - things like this can kill large number of infantry, but your average tank just wouldn't notice them at all.
Electromagnetic Bombs (Score:3)
ELECTROMAGNETIC BOMB - A WEAPON OF ELECTRONIC MASS DESTRUCTION [abovetopsecret.com]
It's a very interesting read. Explains everything, with many pictures (;-))
cheers
mike
Re:My vacuum tube equipment kept working just fine (Score:2)
So is my 58 Chevy pickup immune to the EMP. It's got this wierd carbeurrated engine and mechanical points system.
IMO, transistors and silicon chips were GIVEN to us by an Evil Alien Race. You see, they wanted to conquer Earth. And while possessing superrior space travel ability, they possessed inferrior weapons.
Our ferrite bead core memories and grid-plate electron vacuum tube technology and mechanical points/carbeurrated car engine designs were totally impervious to their EMP discharge device and all our warplanes and defense systems were based on this robust technology (Planes that dropped atomic bombs were unaffected by the EMP from its detonation and kept on flying).
So the Evil Aliens deliberately crashed a "UFO" loaded with technology int New Mexico in 1947, hoping that we would capitalize on it and grow massively dependent on the technology within and abandon all of our old indigenous Earth technology. Once we were totally relying on transistors and silicon, like we are now, the Evil Aliens could EMP the entire planet from orbit, and then easily move in and conquer a chaotic and decimated society.
Well, I'm on to you Kotos!
Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
Useful in the war on copying? (Score:2)
Pacemakers? (Score:4)
As mankind becomes more and more dependent on electronics and begins to integrate with it, statements like the above will become ever more meaningless. In fact, they're meaningless right now, even without thinking about the plight of people with pacemakers: one of those pulses would probably kill many people simply because they happen to be in planes or lifts/elevators at the time.
Sigh. But then, I guess loss of life isn't a severe worry to weapons manufacturers.
Re:Computer networks? Try cars! (Score:2)
Peacemakers? (Score:2)
As mankind becomes more and more dependent on electronics and begins to integrate with it, statements like the above will become ever more meaningless. In fact, they're meaningless right now, even without thinking about the plight of people with pacemakers: one of those pulses would probably kill many people simply because they happen to be in planes or lifts/elevators at the time.
Sigh. But then, I guess loss of life isn't a severe worry to weapons manufacturers.
Most EMP effect is only temporary. (Score:2)
On the other hand, interruption takes far less power, and can be useful to deny the enemy immediate use of comms and fire control. It is not going to take out hardened facilities, however.
EMP hardening of equipment is not nearly as difficult as it might seem, especially if you don't have other engineering constraints to worry about (portability, weight, time to field repair, etc.) Just remember that electrical ground is king, mu metal foil is your friend, and fiber optic links are the preferred way of getting in and out of the cage. Testing is, of course, the difficult part 8)
And all you folks out there who are burying lead-foil-wrapped PC parts in the woods, stop it. If there is enough radiation or EMP around to make an integrated circuit stop working, then you had better start worrying about the operator as well.
Matrix (Score:2)
They happened to imagine such devices in the Matrix.
Anyway I am not sure this would be that painless as electromagnetism as generated by a cellular phone is supposed to be harmful so, why wouldn't these weapons harm people too ?
Who says the truth here : the ones who say cellular phones are harmless or the ones who claim it is dangerous ?
PS: Happy New Year, pals !
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Computer networks? Try cars! (Score:2)
cell phones (Score:2)
Cell phone radiation is down in the 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz range... far below the many many terahertz of even visible light. So, each photon coming out of your cell phone just doesn't have enough energy to strip electrons off of your molucules. About the only thing it might do is resonate some of your water molecules, heating them up exactly like a microwave oven, except that the power is on the order of 0.1 Watts, so you don't even feel it.
So there can't really hurt you, to the best of our (current) knowledge
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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Paper! (Score:3)
It's 467 pages long and talks about electromagnetic impulses and how you can shield your facilities.
Get it here [army.mil] (pdf, directly from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Homepage [army.mil]) or here [jya.com] (text format).
cheers
mike
Wow, life imitates Tribes :) (Score:2)
--
Remove the rocks to send email
Re:What a load of bull! Y2K all over again? (Score:3)
Knocking out the enemy's televisions would probably make their society more productive, and cost you the war in the long run.
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something's not right (Score:2)
I hope no one thinks I'm crazy for saying this, but if electrical and electronic systems are disabled for miles around, who are they to say that it won't kill anyone? People use machines frequently every day, and some are big, fast, or some other adjective that could potentially compromise the health of anyone nearby in case of a sudden disabling. Perhaps, then, they only meant to say that they *can* do it without killing anyone. This doesn't mean that the positions the people are in when they activate the charge won't compromise themselves. I guess they didn't care to include that detail.
Utility would depend on the opposing force (Score:2)
Naturally the effects on the target will vary depending on the overall technical level of the army (e.g. a T-55 probably has less onboard electronics than an M1A1). Still, even relatively low-tech armies will more than likely depend on radios for C-cubed-I (command, control, coordination, and intelligence), at the platoon level and above, and you can bet said second and third world (mostly the latter) armies are using radios old enough and/or cheap enough that EMP sheilding isn't in them. On an operational level this yields them just as inactive with functioning unit-level equipment as a more modern grouping with nonfunctioning unit-level equipment.
Collateral damage from the device could be extreme (Manhattan) to practically non-existent (rural Africa). Of course, if you wear in-the-ear hearing aids like I do, it might not be fun to be around in any locale... ;-) (*bzzt* ow ow ow ow...)
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The army isn't the one we should worry about... (Score:4)
Anyways, whenever I hear about EMP weapons, I always think of the terrorist aspects of them.
Just my $.02
P.S.: A properly directed EMP gun can also stop annoying bragging about uptimes and stability.
it would.... (Score:2)
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Most fighter aircraft designed to withstand EMP (Score:3)
If you do a little searching with Google and friends, you'll see that US fighter aircraft (and their components) are designed -- and tested -- to withstand significant amounts of EMP radiation. EMP is a well-known problem, and the engineers have been designing-in solutions for it for decades. Over a decade ago, in fact, I worked for a defense contractor on fighter aircraft, and EMP was one of the standard things upon which the aircraft were tested.
Basically, an aircraft near an EMP acts like an antenna, building up a voltage of about 8V/ft of aircraft size. There are fairly standard ways to design around this kind of build up. It might seem like a nasty problem after the fact, but if you know about it when engineering aircraft (and other military hardware), it's not the uncrackable nut it's made out to be.
See, for example, this [navy.mil] reference that Google turned up. This is textbook stuff now.
Re:GREAT! EXCELLENT! (Score:2)
I always thought "Geeks" were very right-wing in most aspects of life but this confirms my thoughts that you are all just a bunch of lefty trendy PC dogooders.
No, dumbass, it was sarcasm; if America wasn't good at making war, there'd be no anti-Semitism because the Nazis would have slaughtered all the Jews.
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uh, in an army group? Re:Pacemakers? (Score:2)
Not likely. Now if the weapon was deployed to supress a target group in or near a city it may be a different story. But then again, considering that really the only way to make a large EMP previous to this was a nuclear package, which would you prefer going off in your backyard?
WRT weapons manufacturers and caring about loss of life: of course not. It wouldn't make business sense (many are working on non-or-low-lethality systems but this is only to satisfy demands by governments that wish to appear enlightened to their governed; I can guarantee you that the same company that would market this would just as cheerfully market HEDP to people like the Taliban).
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