[Ancesthntr]

The EMP from Starfish Prime was not expected. So we have a 1.4 megaton nuke, the percentage of which yield was from fission I don’t know, and which WASN’T “tuned” to put more of its energy into gamma rays than explosive force and heat.

I wouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security by those facts.

[pierrem15]

"The EMP at a fixed distance from an explosion increases at most as the square root of the yield (see the illustration to the right). This means that although a 10 kiloton weapon has only 0.7% of the energy release of the 1.44-megaton Starfish Prime test, the EMP will be at least 8% as powerful. Since the E1 component of nuclear EMP depends on the prompt gamma ray output, which was only 0.1% of yield in Starfish Prime but can be 0.5% of yield in low yield pure nuclear fission weapons, a 10 kiloton bomb can easily be 5 x 8% = 40% as powerful as the 1.44 megaton Starfish Prime at producing EMP."

Well, looks like you were right: the EMP efficiency of pure fission weapons is much higher than the Starfish Prime device.

So if a 10 kiloton fission device is 40% as powerful as a 1.4 megaton thermonuclear device you would only need a 25 kiloton yield from the fission device match Starfish Prime.

That is much more achievable by Chia Pet Kim, so his nuclear program really needs to be stopped at all costs.

Kinda sucks to be South Korean at the moment.