[Road Glide]

May I ask an impertinent and uniformed question...

We’ve all heard about how a single upper atmospheric nuclear detonation could wreak havoc due to EMP (electro-magnetic pulse, if I have that right).

This device is detonated about 2 miles overhead, and directly underneath are cameras and a tape recorder to record the reaction of the men on the ground.

Why doesn’t the EMP from the blast wipe out the tape recorder, at least? Or the camera along with it?

No, tape recorders back then did not have microchips, and were relatively basic devices, yet the signal from recording head to tape should have been susceptible to an electromagnetic pulse of that size at a relatively close distance? If not, why not?

My point is — looking at the results of this test, it makes me wonder if all the talk about “an EMP attack” is just so much more hype and nonsense, lots of speculation with little to back it up?

Educate me....

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Off the top of my head that missile was a low yield warhead, too low to cause an EMP that would reach them.

[Strategerist]

EMPs are fairly complex (there are actually multiple kinds, there are EMPs from SURFACE bursts, called SREMP (Source Region EMPs) which are quite powerful but have limited range.

In this case the issue is that you sort of need to be at some sort of boundary to generate the currents an EMP - an explosion in the middle of the atmosphere doesn’t generate an EMP - but you do get one in the upper atmosphere (HEMP, High-Altitude EMP) or right at the surface, but not in-between.

It’s much more complicated than this and I’m not a physicist. Recently came up at work though.

And if you are wondering if EMP is real, Google the “Starfish Prime” nuclear test.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

It's also altitude. The higher the better with an EMP. It's explained here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

[semaj]

From what I have read about EMP weapons, the warhead would need to be encased in a heavy iron casing to produce a large pulse.

[moonshot925]

The weapon used in this test was a 1.7 kiloton W25 nuclear warhead detonated at 18,000 feet.

The explosion was not powerful enough and not high enough to do any damage.

But the EMP theory was proved true by Operation Dominic in 1962.

On 9 July 1962 a Thor IRBM carrying a 1.44 megaton W49 nuclear warhead detonated 248 miles above Johnston Atoll in the Pacific.

The EMP from this explosion sent power line surges throughout Hawaii, knocking out street lighting, blowing fuzes and circuit breakers, and triggering burglar alarms.