i believe most systems have been rad hardened by design for quite some time now, military anyway...
Posted on 05/26/2009 5:56:11 PM PDT by LiveFreeOrDieUSA
Sunlight fills the bedroom. It's past 8 a.m., and it's cold. Why didn't the alarm go off? The bathroom lights are out. The house is without power. The battery-operated radio plays nothing but static. The phone is dead. What on earth has happened?
In fact, what happened was not on Earth. It was above it. A nuclear weapon has detonated high over North America, an explosion so far up that neither the flash nor bang disturbed anyone slumbering in darkened bedrooms across the United States. Electrical systems and computers from New York City to San Francisco cease to function. City streets turn into chaos. Fires break out, and no communications are available to send trucks to fight them. The sick and injured perish in overwhelmed, energy-sapped hospitals. Survivors, unable to fill their gas tanks, slowly walk away from the dead zone, unsure where to go or what they will find.
This scenario may sound like the plot of a science-fiction movie, but Bill Graham, former science adviser to President Reagan, says it's a realistic portrayal of what would happen to the United States after a massive electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage.org ...
Well, we shall see (or hopefully not). I think you will be surprised by our recuperative power. If not, I will light a lantern.
“Anyone interested in this possibility should read “One Second After.” A VG quick read about a community in the US during the year following an EMT attack.”
This community in the story is actually MY little town. Even more powerful to read about this from that perspective.
Bill Forstchen, the author, lives here and is a professor in military history and technology.
From the article:
The former deputy administrator for NASA now chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States From Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. In July 2008, Graham testified before the House Armed Services Committee on the commission’s latest report. Only a handful of the committee’s 60 members showed up for the hearing.
I can picture Obama kneeling before Zod.
I’m thinking it would be bad but not so bad as to bring about the destruction of America. Some folks would die as a result of not having electricity but I think things would begin to return to normal fairly quickly.
Probably so. Paralyze, then pulverize...
:look to our strengths. We are surrounded by huge natural barriers. We are rich in intrinsic wealth. An invasion would end in catastrophe for the invader. We might suffer, but they will die by the millions (assuming they could get them here at all).
i believe most systems have been rad hardened by design for quite some time now, military anyway...
“I’m thinking it would be bad but not so bad as to bring about the destruction of America. Some folks would die as a result of not having electricity but I think things would begin to return to normal fairly quickly.”
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Its not as simple as you think. Hospitals, Gas Stations, Stores, Water, everything will be knocked out. And the EMP will be folowed by a real Air-to-ground nuclear attack.
Our real enemies lie within our borders.
Then you’re talking about an outright nuke attack which is a far cry from an emp.
Very good and absolutely scary as hell to contemplate.
Bingo!
That's what those who worry about an EMP forget. To destroy a large area of American territory, the nuke must detonate high in space... and we would know who launched the missile. A nuke over the US is cause for retaliation by Strategic Command.
A 25-megaton nuclear airblast only has a viable destruction radius of about 30 miles. After 20 miles, "Residences are moderately damaged. Commercial buildings have sustained minimal damage. Twenty-five percent of the population between the [20 and 30 mi radii rings] are injured, mainly by flying glass and debris. Many others have been injured from thermal radiation -- the heat generated by the blast. The remaining seventy-five percent are unhurt."
A 20 mile radius (1256 sq mi) barely covers the state of Rhode Island (1212 sq mi). Exactly how does that equate to eliminating entire nations?
And again, that is for the biggest nukes. Pakistan has, as its largest nuke, a few 36-KILOton nukes. That means they need 695 such nukes just to make this small impact of a 30-mile radius with an airblast. (Hint: they don't have 695 of them. Estimates say 30-55 total.)
Further note: A 1-megaton surface blast has an effective radius of about 7 miles. The Pakis need about 28 of their top nukes to match just that. Again, the earth doesn't crumble away when these things go off. With a global total of only 5000 megatons, we can barely fully-evaporate Texas (266,000 sq mi), and that's only if we space the nukes out perfectly. The globe won't even have a divot the size of the Grand Canyon if we, as a global community, go all-in against the Lone Star folk.
The Russian’s Tsar Bomba was designed to be a 100 megaton yield but was tested at 50 megatons. Even at 100 megatons it would have only taken out an area the size of a couple of counties. Fallout would be the biggest killer.
The TV show ‘Jericho’ also covered this. ‘One Second After’ is pretty much the same as Jericho when it comes to the loss of power.
Agreed. And if anyone doubts it would get bad, all you have to do is look at what happened in NOLA after Katrina. That scene should scare every single American.
Do we have an electrical engineer to comment?
Field strengh decreases by the square of the distance. In addition, the grid is not a perfect antenna and would only absorb a fraction of the EMP pulse. In addition, there are multiple ground safeties designed to take lightening pulses to the ground.
Although I have no doubt an air burst would take out regional power, I’m not sure a N. Korea sized nuke exploding in space has the ability to take out the entire U.S. grid.
Anyone here familiar with the math?
No way does one EMP blast hobble the entire United States. Maybe 10-20 powerful EMP blasts would
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