I don’t have my notes handy, but there were a couple of US based operations that tested gamma yield weapons. In one, it took out the electronics from the Bikini Atoll all the way to Honolulu.
Done correctly, you could detonate only two weapons over the US and take it all out.
Nothing works absolutely, of course, but anything connected to a long conductor would almost certainly be fried. Smaller electronics - some would survive. Ironically, most commercial aircraft would be fine. They are already designed to take lightning strikes and continue to perform.
That just makes what Boeing does all the more amazing, by the way. You can’t ‘ground’ an aircraft, or a spacecraft, like a satellite.
Two weapons of the right yield detonated somewhere like Eastern Colorado and Western PA could do it. On the western side, you might launch a third off the California coast to compensate for any shadow effect offered by the Rocky Mountains.
We’re wide open to this too. I’m convinced we’ve got a ‘kill switch’ weapon in our arsenal somewhere based on the Israeli attack on the Bushear Nuclear Site in Syria. Two Israeli fighter/bombers took off from Northern Israel and entered Syrian airspace. Upon entering Syrian airspace the entire electrical grid went down, including power to the entire integrated air defense system protecting Southern Syria. The aircraft then destroyed the site and returned along the same flight path.
The entire operation happened in less than four hours, from pre-flight prep to debrief. They probably left, bombed the place, then had a snack.
Syrians confirmed that the site was destroyed. Israel confirmed they had made the attack, and nothing more by any government including ours was made on the matter publicly.
As such, I think enough evidence suggests that such a thing exists. It’s probably conventional, since a gamma burst attack in that region is the opposite of surgical.
The Russians, at the time, had lent the Syrians their best air defense technology. Israel shows their hand when they feel they have to, and destroying that site was a priority. Not sure how many aces the Israelis may have left up their very innovative sleeves. I hope there are a few more. They will need them in the age of his Imperial Majesty Obama I.
Thanks for an enlightening response.
Wow. Only 2 or 3! I took an interest in this thread because I do engineering in the Power industry. If you have not read the book "One Second After" yet, it is right up your alley-an EMP strike on America. As realistic as an imagination can get. (I did not know about the commercial aircraft.)
If a small country like Iran or North Korea wanted to neutralize the United States, an EMP strike would be most economical and devilishly practical. But, could these wannabe rulers control the aftermath? No. Nor could they stop the inrushing nuc laden missiles from submarines and hardened silos.
As far as things up the sleeves, I know by plain logical extension that there are many. Black ops research has been going on for decades.