The Warrior of the Wasteland ...
The Ayatollah of Rock-and-rolla ...
Posted on 02/23/2012 8:49:06 AM PST by chessplayer
Most Americans do not know this, but a single EMP attack could potentially wipe out most of the electronics in the United States and instantly send this nation back to the 1800s. If a nuclear bomb was exploded high enough in the atmosphere over the middle part of the country, the electromagnetic pulse would fry electronic devices from coast to coast. The damage would be millions of times worse than 9/11. Just imagine a world where nobody has power, most cars will not start, the Internet has been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any phone calls and virtually all commerce across the entire country is brought to a complete stop. A nation that does not know how to live without technology would be almost entirely stripped of it at that point. Yes, this could really happen. An EMP attack is America's "Achilles heel", and everyone around the world knows it. It is only a matter of time before someone uses an EMP weapon against us, and at this point we are pretty much completely unprepared.
(Excerpt) Read more at endoftheamericandream.com ...
250 miles over Kansas?
Called Nuke um from Orbit.
But again that was only IN the effected area. Dallas didn’t freak out.
The economy probably wouldn’t collapse. The western US economy is a lot more dependent on CA than NYC. Things would be a little lumpy for a few weeks while we got up a new stock market, but we’d get that together. Data these days is spread around. Martial law might be declared in the effected area, but again the rest of the country would go on.
It’s a waste of time to consider EMP. It’s an ineffective attack that we have no indication anybody actually wants to use. Anybody with a limited supply of nukes will go for ground or near ground explosions, much more effective. It takes a very specific combination to make an EMP attack that would be effective: a big nuke and the ability to get it 250 miles in the air. Not many have it, and even the ones that do don’t consider it an effective form of attack.
I may be a patriotic fool, blinded by pride in my fellow countrymen. I do not believe any nation could coordinate a successful invasion of the US mainland. As long as they have to put armed boots on the ground, I believe in us.
I believe in America where if war came to my backyard, I’d be perched in an upstairs window armed to the teeth along with my neighbors in their windows. The wife and kids might be elsewhere.
“...A gun behind every blade of grass.”
“I seem to recall that the single largest atmospheric nuclear test ever conducted was by the Soviets and was a stratospheric detonation of something around 50 megatons yield. “
Ah, yes. The TSAR bomba, over the islands of Novaya Zemlya, in 1961:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q0hzSnKQoE
Is there any possibility that you can develop an ability to use herbal/naturopathic medicine that would replace this one vital med?
In our experience, the doctor has been after my husband to get him on diabetes medication for a while now. - Thing is, his blood sugar level is not high. Very rarely, it will get a little over 100, but most times it runs well under 100.
He takes chromium, benfotiamine (a B vitamin), and sometimes cinnamon. Has lost a lot of weight lately.
I take blood pressure meds, and it seems like they keep ramping the “normal” BP numbers down to ridiculously low numbers, almost like the drug companies intend to eventally get EVERYONE on their drugs no matter how low their BP is. 120/80 used to be the norm, and always what mine ran when I was younger and skinnier.
I tend to agree, but you never know about warfare and the technology behind it.
I’m quite positive the Japanese felt similarly until we dropped the bomb on them - twice. One time to show we could do it, and against everything Truman was as a person, one more time to show we’d be willing to keep on dropping bombs.
Combine a technology that could be used to disable or render useless our existing armed force with something as devastating to a local populace as a 20KT bomb and we’d likely surrender. You could levy terms around paying a tribute of certain types of commodities with the promise that if we didn’t pay the enemy would pick a new city to waste. We’d surrender.
Hell, if Russia hit us with an ICBM right now, I’d say it’s only a 40 percent likelihood Obama would retaliate.
What you gonna do for gasoline?
I am not convinced that anything less than 2 dozen weapons at high altitudes (nothing like 250 miles) would be necessary to completely destroy our power system and immobilize our population.
It is not a simple matter to evaluate. Depends on the device targeted and the weapon design. Not just Kiloton blast size. EMP weapons are low yield nukes in terms of blast. Frequency of pulse generated. distance does deteriorate the electromagnetic pulse. Especially outside out ozone layer.
This type of weapon is not a magic bullet.
And there is the question of what price the aggressor will pay in our retaliation. That is a serious deterrent. Unless Obozo is successful in reducing the numbers like he plans. Talk of reducing our inventory to 300 weapons. (all types) Insanity!
Can you say "Northeast Blackout" of 1965 and 2003?
One of the studies has been posted here already, the State of Washington also has a study posted online.
There are many variables. Any nuclear weapon can generate a EMP spike. They can be designed to create a larger EMP so the smaller bombs are seen as more efficient.
Its one of many threats we face. However it is real and is something to be aware of.
Didn’t southern california have a black out a few months ago because of a simple mistake some guy made?
Throw my lot in with the Great Humungus.
The Warrior of the Wasteland ...
The Ayatollah of Rock-and-rolla ...
I don’t see that the blast radius would be linear as that maps suggests.
For one thing, the strength of the pulse would be inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the earth, just like any electromagnetic force.
The other thing is, the earth is not flat. The curvature of the earth would make both the east and west coasts even further away from the center than the map suggests and the pulse would be further weakened by then.
This comes up every four months, like someone wants the story to stay alive. It is a very unlikely attack scenario.
The attacker would need to not only make a 100% reliable thermonuke, he’d need to deliver it and have it detonate at just the right altitude over CONUS. Oh and it would need to be completely stealthy so AEGIS, THAAD, Standard Missile 3, BSTS, and GMD systems would not see it and zap it.
Then, if they manage all this, they will have hurt commercial and public systems, but would leave potent military systems still running and ready to backtrack the missile path and respond.
Far more likely that they’d smuggle in their warhead disguised as cocaine, put it in a Cessna, and fly it over New York (maybe over Yankee Stadium dragging a banner).
“What you gonna do for gasoline?”
Ever hear of casinghead? There are those who still know how to make it here. We have oil wells.
And, none of this is going to happen. If it were to, the effects would be on a much smaller area.
Should we ignore this? NO
Should be scurry into a dark corner and quake? NO
Prepare and let the cretin know we will make glass parking lots out of all of their country if they try. And we can.
Sure, that report said 70-90% of every is going to DIE!!!!!!!
OK, enough of the BS. That report has been debunked so many times it is just plain stupid that you bring it up again.
Glad to see there are at least a couple of people here who know what they are talking about.
The danger is real — not theoretical.
I have imagined a scenario that would accomplish the result describe in “One Second After.” Take a terrorist state like Iran that has the funds. Manufacture three small, high-yield EMP nuke warheads, and attach to superscud type missiles. Buy a handful of Club-K missile launchers from Russian, throw out the cruise missiles and replace with nuke-armed scuds. (Or have the Ruskies attach them for you.) (For those who don’t know, Club-K launchers look exactly like shipping containers. Deploy containers via ship and truck at multiple points of entry. Once in position, all they have to do is point and click. War heads explode at set altitude. No need for sophisticated satellite tracking etc.?
America is thrown back to the stone age. Forget the 1800s. The people in the 1800s had tools and technology suitable to live in the 1800s. We will become cave men with personal fire arms...and that’s about it.
Those of you who doubt this better 1) shut up about it being exaggerated, 2) read “One Second After”, and 3) read the 2001 Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
If I were an islamic terrorist with access to Iran-level funding I would focus on nothing else BUT an EMP strike. Nothing — NOTHING — else comes close. Entirely feasible right now, today.
The other day at the library, I checked out “One Second After” for another read but was unable to find “Patriots” by Rawles. Imagine that, someone had not returned it. That evening a friend called to say their brother had lent them his copy of “Once Second After” and was going to give them “Patriots” in a few days. Strange coincidence or are people are slowly beginning to wake up?
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