If the US were to use an EMP attack, basically, the North could be crippled, but there would be loss of human life in hospitals (devices no longer working) or the loss of the Electric Grid.
North Korea has 72 submarines. I wonder if EMP devices (aka, bombs) could take these out and what impact being submerged has on the EMP blast.
I figure this is mostly fantasy. In Hawaii, simply a scheme to bring federal money to the state. Can anyone show anywhere a EMP gun or weapon or pulse has been tested or used? While it might, if used, bring a city to a halt, people with guns will not be slowed down, howitzers will still fire.
S Korea is far more advanced and dependent on electronics for their basic economy. An EMP attack by the US would likely hurt our ally S Korea more than our enemy N Korea.
The sub aspect is interesting but, I think, irrelevant.
A sub is a metal shell, like a Faraday cage, so I think it’d be unaffected.
Not if they’re submerged. Electromagnetic fields are greatly attenuated by water. This is why subs must either come to the surface to use radio or rely on VLF comms which penetrate the water but provide only very low bandwidth.
Google “EMP Report” to read more about the effects of EMP, don’t rely on 2nd hand sources. It’s all out there.
A steel cage will block an emp. A submarine is pretty much that.
I doubt that unless you send a little vessel to magnetically "latch onto" the hull. then detonate, you would NOT be able to disable a sub with an EMP. If submerged, you can't get it from above, I'm pretty sure.
[EMP CAN’T STOP AMERICAN NUCLEAR RETALIATION]
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/04/opinion/l-emp-can-t-stop-american-nuclear-retaliation-084377.html
First a Toyota truck, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3552960/posts?q=1&;page=1#1 Now a submarine? Two EMP threads in a couple of hours?!
The submarine hull is basically one big Faraday shield.
>>>North Korea has 72 submarines<<<
With no GDP to speak of, how in the world do they have the resources to maintain and operate a fleet of 72 Submarines?
Same goes for the thousands of Jet Fighters and of course their Missile and Nuclear Programs.
anything enclosed in metal would be protected from EMP
If you have a metal shed, it would be a good place to store a spare generator, radio, etc.
Make sure it is ALL metal and grounded. (Floor too)
WARNING: EMP attacks can work against an enemy too.
If I remember my electronics, a solid state device usually fails in as a short circuit. Walk across a carpet and touch an antenna on a radio and ZAP it is a goner. Not quite an EMP but similar. Would a crystal type radio be able to get stations outside the EMP area? Might be worth looking into. I would think a radio stored in a metal cabinet would survive so spare electronic parts probably would also.
I am an EE with a background that overlaps this area. I think damage to auto ignitions is being overstated. The damage to the grid would be substantial. Big transformers take a long time to replace. This is where a large conflict will go since it gives a nuke more bang for the buck. The best thing is to have lots of dry food and an alternate source of water.
An electro-magnetic rail gun is NOT the same as an EMP.
As opposed to a traditional gun that uses an explosive charge to push a slug down the barrel, an E-M rail gun uses large amounts of power and super cooled magnets to push/ pull the slug down the barrel. The result is much faster muzzle velocity which equals better range, more accuracy, and higher KE destructive force.
It’s estimated that rail guns have a muzzle velocity of approx 8,200 ft/s, by comparison, the WW2 era 16” Mk7 fitted to the Iowa class had a MV of 2,490 ft/s
This technology will eventually make warships safer by removing large amounts of explosives.
I think a sub, being a steel cylinder grounded in salt water would be its own self propelled Farraday cage.
Regardless, I think we could take them out in short order.
I’m an engineer with extensive background in EMP. Generally speaking, a high-alltitude EMP blast could indeed do great damage to the eletcrical grid, likely causing loss of electricity over much of the country. (I have not reviewed lately the state of counter-measures, but suspect that we’re still quite vulnerable.)
Also, all unshielded electronics, paricularly at those points that are connected to long cables (power cords, antennas) will likely burn out.
For you survivalists, shielded electronics do not have to be grounded; probably better if they aren’t.
Underwater and underground locations are much more immune to EMP effects.
Older cars are much more immune as well; EMP more adversely affects small-geometry (miniaturized) semiconductors, which is more true for modern electronics. Older cars are much more likely to survive since they have less-miniaturized or no IC-based electronics.
The good news, which probably will deter any rational government from launching an EMP attack, is that our military installations and equipment are hardened against EMP. Retribution would be swift and massive. So we can probably sleep well and not worry (too much) about this.
Before jumping down the rabbit hole on this, I would want to back off and look at the probabilities.
We are thinking about North Korea here. Who is the biggest dog in Asia? China, with a common border and long political history with the Norks.
Now look at China. Their largest market for their exports is the US:
http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/chn/
The US is their third largest source of imports.
Are they really going to let Kim destroy the Chinese economy by an EMP attack that will take the US back to the year 1800 for as long as five or ten years or worse?
I think the odds are good that the Chinese are not going to let that happen. and they are in a position both to know what Kim’s capability is and to stop him from doing anything drastic to the US economy.
I’m going to take reasonable precautions, because of the likelihood of a Carrington Event. But I’m not going to lose any sleep over a possible EMP attack by the Norks.
Now, would they stop Kim from a ship-borne attack on Seattle or Los Angeles? That’s a tough calculation. If I lived in a West Coast city, I might lose sleep over THAT.
More years ago the I care to remember, I once read a science fiction story that posited that in the far future, various countermeasures had rendered all technological based arms unusable. The result was that in an era of space ships, men went to war with swords, shields, bows and arrows, spears and etc. We do seem to be moving in that direction.