Posted on 04/28/2012 7:39:01 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Likely true. Our State Dept would be the kind to invite the Iranian navy that close as a friendly gesture.
Put a missle on a container ship and they can get however close they wish and none would be the wiser. EMP. Zap goes the eastern coast which will domino from there.
Without a co-enemy in the WH, his statement is probably true.
So many errors, so little time:
1. Weather balloons usually don't have lift capacity in excess of a ton. Even advanced Nuclear warheads weigh well over a ton and the early Fat Man/Little Boy bombs weighed around 5 tons.
2. Balloons don't get to the altitudes necessary for an EMP to be generated which are well above the stratosphere.
3. Balloons aren't accurate - heck, they don't go anywhere near their intended targets. Remember the great Japanese balloon bomb scare of the '40s? Less than 1% of all the thousands launched made it to the US. And nearly all the East oast prevailing winds are westerly.
No offense, Bud but you should do a little more study on the subject before hitting the "End of the world" button.
Trust me....I’ll never forget.
Compared to Barry Soetoro Hussein, even Bill Clinton in a high school band uniform looks sharp. As to the rest, he cannot even touch a hair.
2) Are you implying that an EMP pulse cannot be generated at ground level. That's impossible? How about a 5 miles? 10 miles? I picked a 30 mile altitude for an EMP attack because the wikipedia article on EMPs has a diagram showing the blast radius for an EMP pulse at 30 miles. If you want to make the claim that no balloon can reach 30 miles, that's fine with me. I would claim that an EMP pulse at 10 miles up would also be a bad thing.
3) Balloons aren't accurate? At 30 miles, the radius of effect is 480 miles. Lower level? Back to a balloon at 10 miles? Fine. I dont think accuracy counts. We're still looking at a radius of over 100 miles. Pinpoint accuracy is not required.
Let's cut to the point I was making: If Iran makes a nuclear deice, all they need is a low tech delivery system to devastate major US coastal areas. Do you disagree with this basic premise?
“Nuclear devices are about EMPs and what they do to advanced industrial societies.”
Post of the day. While a nuclear device will have a devestating effect with it’s heat and blast over pressure, the radius of that devestation is small compared to the damage EMP will cause. Everything electrical/electronic will be rendered useless. EMP is our biggest threat when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Wasn’t it just last year
“somebody” launched a missile off the coast of California?
No need for the navy. Iran could cause more damage inside the USA via Hezbollah.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74298.html
EMP is an effect caused by the ionizing radiation from a nuclear weapon induced from above the Earth's atmosphere. This effect was discovered during high-altitude tests in the 1960s (Bluegill and Bluegill Prime)). Balloons won't get to the altitudes required - in other words, outer space. The balloon required to get a ton-to-5 ton warhead up to the edge of space is gigantic and not that easy to build/launch/aim with any stealth of dependability.
Sending out an scare post is a bit irresponsible, don't you think?
So how big a balloon would you need?
Who knows, they might even surface a boat off Long Island, shoot down an airiliner and our government would pretend it did not happen but was instead a spontaneous explosion of jet fuel, you know, that thick stuff.
Upshot-Knothole Grable: 15 kt from gun type uranium warhead tested as an 803# artillery round in “1953”.
Sorry to be a nervous nellie.
“And my penis is so ENORMOUS that it affects the gravity on the Moon! And I can stick millions of mini-marshmallows in my mouth all at the same time without drooling! And I once broke wind so loudly in Tehran that they heard me in Switzerland!”
At the allowance of soetoro.
that picture says more than a thousand words.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.