Unrest

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: fdcg27

The ultimate solution would be for us as a society to restore civility, which might start with a lessened emphasis on the desirability of firearms as the means of securing civil order.
Firearms as defense are a symbol of a failed social order and we are all responsible for that.

You would have to go back before the American Revolution for that...And oh, btw, the Framers insured we had the right to defend ourselves (with arms) from any and all threats, including the government itself. Fortunately we will never to back to the way you seem to want.


So you think it fortunate that we aren't likely to see a return to civil norms that make the possession of firearms unnecessary?
If that is what you really believe, then I pity you.
It isn't a matter of the right to bear arms either. Rather, it's the perceived need.

 

[Win]

Quote:
.... inside a high yield EMP zone. .... Some lines will melt.


I hate being argumentative, but how?

The doomsday scenario is a high yield device, optimized for the purpose, lit off somewhere above low earth orbit, creating a vast area of highly excited electrons, amplified by other processes in the ionosphere, to kilovolt levels. Maybe as much as 200 kV, assuming the Russian Generals were not just blowing smoke to make us spend bankrupting amounts of money on defense to something that may not exist, just like we did to them with Star Wars. ( Something in the back of a 182 with the seats removed, loaded at a remote GA airfield, or a farm, and flown over a big city seems more likely. What state would risk a space burst inviting near certain potential catastrophic retaliation? Something small has anonymity, invoking the moral pitfalls of wiping out a nation that just might not have been actually responsible for the event, and inviting another, bigger, catastrophic response. )

Our hypothetical power line ( grid, car, refrigerator - pick it ) is not part of this conductive area, however vast and diffuse it may be, but is on the surface of the earth, hundreds of miles away at a minimum, maybe a lot more. It doesn't get direct energy - because it is not part of the conductor of this energy - it is a receiver picking up whatever propagates in free space from the conductor. What it picks up will be less, maybe a lot less, because inverse square does apply to a propagated wave, we don't know how much energy leaks out of the conductor to be available to propagate somewhere else, or how efficient the power line ( car, toaster, whatever ) is as a receiver. If it is resonant, it will be a lot more efficient than if it is not. I would expect almost anything but the internal bits of a semiconductor would be grossly non resonant since these must be extremely short, um type wavelengths, and Faraday boxes are posited as a protection. ( Faraday cages don't work at low frequencies - you need mu metal for that kind of shielding ). I don't see how mutual coupling, or capacitive coupling could apply here. It would be really inefficient, if it did.

Kilovolt potentials aren't going to set a power line, or anything, on fire - kilovolts times current, i.e. heat could. How much current is going to have to be induced to make a steel cable instantaneously burst into fire? ( I wouldn't think they are copper - copper stretches - ask anyone who has made a dipole out of solid copper wire and observed it's resonant frequency lower over time as it stretches under it's own weight ) kilovolt potentials without more do not cause stuff to immediately go up in smoke. There were hundreds of millions of devices in homes with 20 or 30 kilovolts in them all the time. They were called television sets. Fuse the [censored] power line. Fuse the [censored] line coming out of the generator.

Semiconductor junctions certainly are highly vulnerable - a radio or any other device made to deal with voltages in the millionths of a volt up to a few volts or so, will certainly have problems with kilovolts coming in on the antenna. Plug in another radio, control board, or whatever, while you fix the poofed one.

Losing power long term to large cities would be catastrophic no doubt. But I have a hard time accepting that just everything involving electricity is going to poof, not to be put back on line for years.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp


The weather balloon scenario presented is even more ridiculous. A giant weather balloon toting a nuclear weapon, slowly creeping toward the target? That's about the most dangerous attack a nation could launch. Vaporized weeks before the weapon has a chance to reach its target, and then the target nation sends out its slowest airplanes to gently collect the weapons of attack. Its not like military meteorologists didn't figure out this game when the Japanese had a go at it almost 80 years ago.


The idea in the book was to make small enough nuclear EMP bombs to be smuggled into the country, and then launch them with weather balloons at the same time from US soil. As long as you didn't release the balloons into monitored airspace probably no one would notice in time to organize any sort of action.
I suspect making an EMP with any power light enough to be lifted by a common weather balloon is technically impossible, but maybe there are very large balloons available?

 

[DoubleWasp]

That plan is dead on the table. There is just as large of a risk of being caught implementing a doomsday weapon, causing zero damage, and winding up the victim of a US driven overthrow at a minimum. Someone gets caught, someone talks, whatever. This information would be the most valuable information on the planet. How would any nation keep it under wraps?

Smuggling nuclear weapons is not as easy as fiction writers would have us believe, and one simple mistake means the end of the belligerent government.

This is not a matter that will receive any discussion at any level. The rest of the world will cheer us on as we send that nation back to the stone age by more traditional means, or participate in the carnage.

I'd never believe that even Kim Jong Un would engage in a plan that dicey.

But again, that's only after we get past the reality that there's no way anyone gets multiple warheads inside of this nation.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp

With regards to the rest of it, I think you are sorely overestimating the effectiveness of the weapon, and sorely underestimating the response.


I guess folks have forgotten the 50 cruise missiles we sent over Syria. They penetrated supposedly sophisticated Russian air defenses and loitered above while waiting for their brethren to all get there for a simultaneous attack.

I am certain that 500 of them could also be sent simultaneously as a response to any provocation. They have the ability to be rather stupendous...

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp

With regards to the rest of it, I think you are sorely overestimating the effectiveness of the weapon, and sorely underestimating the response.


I guess folks have forgotten the 50 cruise missiles we sent over Syria. They penetrated supposedly sophisticated Russian air defenses and loitered above while waiting for their brethren to all get there for a simultaneous attack.

I am certain that 500 of them could also be sent simultaneously as a response to any provocation. They have the ability to be rather stupendous...

You can bet NK will get at least twice that number.

 

[bigj_16]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp

With regards to the rest of it, I think you are sorely overestimating the effectiveness of the weapon, and sorely underestimating the response.


I guess folks have forgotten the 50 cruise missiles we sent over Syria. They penetrated supposedly sophisticated Russian air defenses and loitered above while waiting for their brethren to all get there for a simultaneous attack.

I am certain that 500 of them could also be sent simultaneously as a response to any provocation. They have the ability to be rather stupendous...

You can bet NK will get at least twice that number.

Currently configured, the Tomahawks are tactical weapons. Sending 500 at once, while possible(maybe), is not the best use.

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp

With regards to the rest of it, I think you are sorely overestimating the effectiveness of the weapon, and sorely underestimating the response.


I guess folks have forgotten the 50 cruise missiles we sent over Syria. They penetrated supposedly sophisticated Russian air defenses and loitered above while waiting for their brethren to all get there for a simultaneous attack.

I am certain that 500 of them could also be sent simultaneously as a response to any provocation. They have the ability to be rather stupendous...

You can bet NK will get at least twice that number.


It's very doubtful NK will ever have cruise missiles...

 

[DoubleWasp]

Kim Jong can probably buy or steal almost anything at this point, but his lifestyle shows me he's not actually ready to give it all up.

He loves his excesses or cars, booze, women, and material things. He's not that guy who's going to throw it all away in a sorry attempt to hurt our nation. He's the guy who gets to spend one more night having drunken parties in his palace by acting like he is that guy.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: bigj_16

Currently configured, the Tomahawks are tactical weapons. Sending 500 at once, while possible(maybe), is not the best use.

Why not? Cheaper than risking aircraft.

Originally Posted By: grampi


It's very doubtful NK will ever have cruise missiles...

I meant we will "deliver" 1000 to them.