• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The E-Bomb

O

Orcprocess

New member
Joined
May 22, 2009
Messages
17
Reaction score
2
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Undisclosed
About this talk about the dangers of nuclear weapons, I've thought of a possible solution - Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) warfare.

EMP's work by sending an intense dose of radio or microwave radiation around them. It's like a radio, the transmitter sends radio waves into the radius around them and are picked up by the radio. But, if the radio waves are highly intensified it can cause unfixable damage to the semi-conductor, and if it is even more intensified, it can do the same thing to power lines as well. This means that a big enough E-bomb would destroy the power grid for an entire city. With the power grid destroyed, an enemy has no electricity to power its factories, military units and government buildings. It would then have no source of equipment and so defeating their army should be relatively simple.

Tanks, ships and aircraft all rely on electricity, so they are unlikely to be available to them. Just a few ground forces with primitive weapons. E-bombs do not directly take lives - they are designed to stop machines from functioning. They can however kill civilians who are on life support, for example though. But, it's still better than killing everybody in the city.

The United States is said to have used a EMP weapons in the invasion of Iraq.

What does everybody else think? are EMP weapons worth researching/investing in?
 
Upper-atmosphere nuclear weapons also produce EMP. Set one off about 230 miles above Omaha and you'll EMP almost all of North America: this is one of our great concerns about the spread of nukes and missle tech to "rogue nations" like NK and Iran.

Conventional EMP bombs either are being developed, or already have been, depending on who you ask.

There are methods of hardening electronics and power systems against EMP. Our military uses these methods to some degree. Our civilian power grid not really, no.

Most of our current enemies are not as dependent on electricity, electronics and high tech as we are, so EMP weapons would be more benefit to our enemies than to us, right now.


G.
 
Goshin said:
Most of our current enemies are not as dependent on electricity, electronics and high tech as we are, so EMP weapons would be more benefit to our enemies than to us, right now.
Click to expand...

But the question of who is our enemy and who is our ally could change instantly. China and Russia use a lot of electricity and they aren't particularly our best of friends. Also, many bomb factories in Afganistan use electricity to run.
 
The issue is still delivery. It usually has to be introduced via aircraft because the high-yield devices are rather large. Someone won't be able to sneak an EMP into the U.S., for example, in their briefcase... not if they want to take out a city. The best defense against this kind of thing is to have a solid air defense network to prevent any kind of missile from delivering such a payload.

Most of the modern invasions launched by developed nations in the past 30 years have been against nations with inferior technology that largely rely on guerrilla tactics as defense. In other words, most modern wars have been conventional and fought between personnel on the ground.

The only time I'd imagine EMP being used on a larger scale would be if two developed powers were to engage one another in a protracted conflict.
 
Yes, but it is perfectly possible for that to happen in the near future.
 
If it gets to the point where developed powers are willing to use EMP bombs against each other, then they'll also be at the point where they are willing to ignore nuclear deterrence, the concept of MAD, and will be launching nuclear weapons as well.

So in other words, I'm not alarmed about EMP weapons because the day I see them would probably be the day of the apocalypse anyway.
 
Use of such a weapon means the internet will be out of service, and there will be no porn available. So, I doubt anyone will be eager to use it.:2razz:
 
UtahBill said:
Use of such a weapon means the internet will be out of service, and there will be no porn available. So, I doubt anyone will be eager to use it.:2razz:
Click to expand...

Not exactly, they can still buy a porn magazine.
 

Yes... and no. There are high yield devices that can be put on a missle, and there is some debate about whether you actually need a very high-yield device anyway. Given some of the research I've heard about, a smaller "enhanced EMP" nuke is possible.

Imagine a merchant ship, a large container vessel, in the Gulf of Mexico. A hatch pops open and a large missle launches, much like our submarine missles. It quickly reaches an altitude we can't readily intercept, and detonates at 230 miles over middle America.

The entire power grid goes down, comms are knocked out for some time, there's plenty of chaos. Who did it? If the crew abandoned ship and scuttled immediately thereafter, would we know for sure?

The damage to our economy could be incalculable. It could take years and massive B$$$'s to restore the power grid. Someone might think it was worth it.

G.
 
Orcprocess said:
Not exactly, they can still buy a porn magazine.
Click to expand...

Given the quality of public schools nowadays, who is going to calculate change when all the electronic cash registers are fried? :2razz:
 
Goshin said:
Conventional EMP bombs either are being developed, or already have been, depending on who you ask.
Click to expand...

EMP weapons are quite real, but currently there's almost never any reason to use an EMP weapon over a conventional explosive, and certainly not a good enough reason to justify the relative cost.

The way they work is cool enough that it's worth posting. Traditional EMP weapons have a coil of wires surrounded by a shaped charge. The explosion compresses the coil which induces current and throws out an EMP. The newer ones are better yet

Link


Basically, under some circumstances if you blow up a magnet it rapidly demagnetizes and throws out an EMP in the process. This can be made more effective by using the fire produced in the explosion as an antenna to channel the energy








... go science :mrgreen:
 

Supposedly we are.

There is a project in Alaska called HAARP - High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program - which according to the book [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Dont-Play-This-Haarp/dp/0964881209/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243472799&sr=1-2]"Angels Don't Play this HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology"[/ame] can
  • Disrupt human mental processes
  • Jam all global communications systems
  • Change weather patterns over large areas
  • Interfere with wildlife migration patterns
  • Negatively affect your health
  • Unnaturally impact the Earth's upper atmosphere
Whether or not this is true is anyone's guess.
 

HAARP is a research program. Weaponizing any of what the program does is nowhere near feasible with today's technology. From wikipedia

Source [[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program"]Wikipedia | High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program[/ame]]


Even producing effects as benign the aurora would take unimaginable amounts of energy. HAARP is to a weapon as examining a gram of radium with a Geiger counter is to a nuclear weapon
 
Kernel Sanders said:
HAARP is a research program. Weaponizing any of what the program does is nowhere near feasible with today's technology.
Click to expand...

Maybe so.

Just remember... it was only twelve years between when physicist Leo Szilard first imagined a nuclear chain reaction, and the Trinity test in New Mexico.
 
SpotsCat said:
Maybe so.

Just remember... it was only twelve years between when physicist Leo Szilard first imagined a nuclear chain reaction, and the Trinity test in New Mexico.
Click to expand...

The principles are nothing new. In order to weaponize them, however, would take energy on a scale such that there are any number of way cooler ways to kill a person. If you're talking beyond an extremely local scale, the things that affect the ionosphere are solar flares and gamma ray bursts and the like. HAARP has a lot of very interesting research going on, but it is not a weapon program
 
UtahBill said:
Given the quality of public schools nowadays, who is going to calculate change when all the electronic cash registers are fried? :2razz:
Click to expand...

They could buy one of those antique mechanical cash registers.

Or a mechanical calculator...



Not quite pocket-sized though,
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…