Posted on 04/19/2009 5:03:28 PM PDT by appleseed
Weapons experts and techno-thriller fans are familiar with the concept of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) — a supermassive blast of electricity, usually from a nuclear blast high above ground, that fries electronic circuits for miles around, crippling computers, cars and most other modern gadgets.
Now comes word that a much smaller EMP device, or “e-bomb,” could be carried in a car, or even on someone’s person — and be used to take down an airliner.
“Once it is known that aircraft are vulnerable to particular types of disruption, it isn’t too much of a leap to build a device that can produce that sort of disruption,” Israeli counter-terrorism expert Yael Shahar tells New Scientist magazine. “And much of this could be built from off-the-shelf components or dual-use technologies.
Shahar says she’s especially worried about two devices — one called a Marx generator, which beams an EMP at a target, and the other with the “Back to the Future”-like name of flux-compression generator.
The latter was developed by the Soviets during the 1950s when Marx generators proved too expensive. Basically, an explosive charge is set off at one end of a cylinder of charged copper coils, and the resulting shock wave sends out a powerful electric pulse as it travels down the tube.
Electromagnetic pulse weapons capable of frying the electronics in civil airliners can be built using information and components available on the net, warn counterterrorism analysts.
All it would take to bring a plane down would be a single but highly energetic microwave radio pulse blasted from a device inside a plane, or on the ground and trained at an aircraft coming in to land.
Yael Shahar, director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, and her colleagues have analyzed electromagnetic weapons in development or used by military forces worldwide, and have discovered that there is low-cost equipment available online that can act in similar ways. “These will become more of a threat as the electromagnetic weapons technology matures,” she says.
For instance, the US and Russian military have developed electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads that create a radio-frequency shockwave. The radio pulse creates an electric field of many hundreds of thousands of volts per metre, which induces currents that burn out nearby electrical systems, such as microchips and car electronics.
Speculation persists that such “e-bombs” have been used in the Persian Gulf, and in Kosovo and Afghanistan - but this remains unconfirmed. But much of what the military is doing can be duplicated by others, Shahar says. “Once it is known that aircraft are vulnerable to particular types of disruption, it isn’t too much of a leap to build a device that can produce that sort of disruption. And much of this could be built from off-the-shelf components or dual-use technologies.”
In Iran, Arming for Armageddon
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501428.html
Ahmadinejad to West: You Are Weak, Your Hands Are Empty, And You Can’t Force Us to Do Anything; Nearly 7,000 Centrifuges Are Spinning Today at Natanz, Mocking You
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD231709
I sure hope those right wing extremist don’t get a hold of any of those things
lol
Well, the "Marx generator" we currently have in the White House is also going to prove way too expensive in the 2000s. Why do we have to keep relearning history over and over again?
I don’t know... I can’t quite see the entire population of the U.S. living in little tin boxes for the rest of their lives... LOL...
True that would protect electronics, but you’d have to build one around your house and garage to save your stuff heh.
Guess what happens when you discharge an EMP device inside of a Farrady cage, or screen....
When you build you house, have copper/aluminum screen wire installed under all the drywall, huh? (just make sure it’s grounded)
Just a question, but what if we were hit by an EMP, may seem like a minute possibility but what if. No computers, telephone, public service etc... I got enough wildlife around my property to keep going for awhile and the means to harvest it. My tinfoil hat programmed me to buy a water filtration system so I could use my lake water for use. I also have a well that I can convert to manual use. Seems like a crazy thing to say all this and I’m sure I’ll be called on it - but what if?
If that doesn't work click and drag this URL http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9041990756671370585
Warning, if like me your on dial up then it can take awhile to load.
Popular Science magazine even had an article on how to make you own non Nuclear EMP bomb.
Intensity drops by 6db as distance doubles. If memory serves, that means that it drops off at an inverse square of distace.
A nuke starts with an incredible ammount of energy, using conventional explosives, they may be able to knock out a couple of city blocks but they are not sending us back to the stone age.
For the amount of exposives and extraneous tech needed, I’m not sure that just loading a truck with explosives and ballbearings wouldn’t have the same effect.
I am concerned however, about N. Korea and nukes that can reach the west coast.
The what-if part — if it happens, means there’s going to be a lot of dead people in this country (not from a blast, but from no food and no utilities, thus starvation and disease) and we’re all going back into the stone age...
Short of a high-altitude nuclear blast, EMP weapons are just a fantasy for sci-fi lovers and survivalists. If we had the energy-density needed to build some kind of compact, non-directed EMP weapon, everyone would already be driving electric cars and their laptops would need recharged once a year. And if it *is* a nuclear blast, well, then we’re all dead from the blast or the radiation, and whether or not our computers still work is the last of our worries.
Instead of tin-foil hats, we may need to wrap it around our electronic items to protect them! LOL.
Good thing our airport screeners are on the job and not me. Looks like an old video camera to me.
Well..., that takes me back to the “bomb shelter days”..., with everyone shopping around for a bomb shelter to live in... LOL...
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