The really scary part is that much of the newer military equipment, at least in the USA, is COTS; aka Commercial Off The Shelf in order to save money and development time; in other words, absolutely no EMP hardening at all!
There are also classified ways to generate a localized non-nuclear EMP. There were (rumored) EMP Tomahawk missiles used during Gulf War 1 to knock out Iraq's computer systems.
Actually one nuclear weapon of sufficient yield (we're talking strategic rather then tactical, although low-yield nukes can be modified to enhance the EMP effect) would cause these effects. I don't care who your uncle is, there's plenty of literature out there that backs me up on this point... One is enough.
Military Information Technology article on the "Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack,"
"Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century"
"Thus, a single nuclear weapon could produce an EMP attack that damages or destroys electronic systems across the entire continental United States. Satellites in low Earth orbit would also be damaged. "EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the report stated. "It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."
"The EMP commission has provided Congress with the equivalent of a detailed blueprint for safeguarding our nation against a catastrophic EMP attack. Commission recommendations provide specific strategic, operational, tactical and technical guidance for improving the security against EMP of U.S. military forces and civilian infrastructures, including the infrastructures for power, communications, transportation, government, finance and banking, emergency medical services, and food and water. The destruction of these infrastructures and our inability to recover them would kill millions of Americans the old-fashioned way, through starvation and disease."
The US Navy reportedly used a new class of highly secret, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse warheads during the opening hours of the Persian Gulf War to disrupt and destroy Iraqi electronics systems. The warheads converted the energy of a conventional explosion into a pulse of radio energy. The effect of the microwave attacks on Iraqi air defense and headquarters was difficult to determine because the effects of the HPM blasts were obscured by continuous jamming, the use of stealthy F-117 aircraft, and the destruction of Iraq's electrical grid. The warheads used during the Gulf War were experimental warheads, not standard weapons deployed with fielded forces.
you guys are no fun. you keep referring to official documents and stuff. everybody knows all you need to know about science you learn from top-billed blockbuster films such as the Terminator trilogy, Star Wars, Star Trek, Matrix trilogy, Aliens quadrilogy, and JohnWoo/JohnTravolta stuff such as Broken Arrow and Face/Off.
The spread of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles raises fears of atomic attacks on the global satellite system
On July 9, 1962, U.S. military researchers on a tiny Pacific atoll called Johnston Island fired a thermonuclear weapon into outer space. Code-named Starfish Prime, the launch onboard a Thor ballistic missile was the latest of a series of similar classified tests the U.S. Defense Department had begun four years before. But as the rocket rose on its smoky plume, few on the launch team realized that the forthcoming 1.4-megaton orbital burst was to yield surprising long-term results.
Hotel operators in Hawaii, some 1,300 kilometers away, were expecting a good show, though. Word had leaked of this latest "rainbow bomb" test shot, so a few enterprising resorts had organized rooftop parties from which guests could better view the distant fireworks. When the warhead detonated that evening at an altitude of 400 kilometers, it produced a brilliant white flash that momentarily lit up sea and sky like a noonday sun. Then, for about a second, the heavens turned light green.
Other Hawaiians witnessed some less welcome aftereffects. Streetlights suddenly blinked out on the island of Oahu. Local radio stations shut down, and telephone service failed for a time. Elsewhere in the Pacific, very high frequency communications systems malfunctioned for half a minute. Scientists later realized that Starfish Prime had sent a strong, disruptive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sweeping through the vast region below the blast.
During the next several minutes, a blood-red aurora spread across the horizon. Scientists had anticipated this stage of the process; each previous orbital test had left an artificial cloud of charged particles in space. Eventually the planet's magnetic forces molded the energetic clouds into globe-girdling belts that resembled its natural Van Allen radiation belts. But almost no one expected what happened during the following months: the intense man-made belts crippled seven low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, a third of the planet's fleet at the time. U.S. military researchers went on to conduct three more high-altitude nuclear explosions (HANEs) later that year but then stopped when the Cuban Missile Crisis led to the signing of the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty.
Continues on the homepage
By the way, I work with satellites.. I woulda thought I woulda known more about how our sats are sitting ducks.
FYI 10billion dollars worth of satellites is about 30-40 sats... don't get over exceited ;-)
And right now, we have so much over capacity of satellites that sats from different orbital positions could be relatively quickly redeployed in order to cover the destroyed ones.
And right now, we have so much over capacity of satellites that sats from different orbital positions could be relatively quickly redeployed in order to cover the destroyed ones.
so what would be the number of satellites that need to be destroyed to say, truly screw the NATO countries? 100? 1000? just curious here...
well.. geee.. Im not really an expert, but there are so many up there.
You have GPS satellites which are in low earth orbit which are constantly moving and orbiting. I'd guess about 1/3rd of those birds would die from the blast, effectively killing most navigation for the world. Unless, of course, given that GPS is under the control of the DoD and is fundamentally a military toy, they could be not only EMP/Nuclear hardened, but EMP-proof. I have no idea. Many of the satellites that make up GPS have been replaced over the years. I believe that by 2008-2010 most of the GPS fleet will have been upgraded to Gen2 or 3.. maybe even more modern.
There are also some communication satellites at low earth orbit, but very few.
The big birds, are all at Geo Stationary (+/- 36,000km in orbit).
right.. to get to your question, I'm guessing that to really fuck up NATO/The West you'd need to knock out a good 2/3rds of available sats. How many is that? I'd say, ball park figure, about 40-50 birds (that are at the service of North America/Europe, not globally, at GEO orbits). In case of emergency of that scale, there would be surely international displacement of capacity in space which would mean re-allocating satellites from other parts of orbit into postions that can cover previous important positions in order to reestablish communication infrastructure. This would take, possibly in case of such a drastic emergency, about a weeks time at best. In the mean time you'd have only cable services (for inter linking) but forget about live TV broadcasts and TV in general. Your cable TV is fed by satellite.
To totally screw NATO and friends, you'd probably have to kill off about 90% of all satellites that cover these areas. Thats probably in the hundreds of birds (between GEO and LEO orbit).
In the meantime, you have, about on average, 2-3 communication satellite launches per month world wide every year. These would likely be reallocated to repopulating the destroyed birds.
A lot of internet is done via submarine/land cables anyway, not much by satellite (costs about 100x more).
I'm *pretty* sure my company along with NATO and the various defense ministries from USA/NATO have contingency plans for these kinds of scenarios. At least I freaking hope so.
I'd actually say that the biggest threat is the destruction of a good third of GPS satellites orbiting any given part of the hemisphere at any time. That would truly not only have the NATO/West grind to a halt, but probably a good part of the world. The Russians have a GPS of their own (GLONASS, only military) while the EU has had EGNOS up for a while but limited. Galileo is still nowhere, so, can't be counted.
This has actually gotten me really curious... I'm gonna go ask some people in the office what we have in place in case of such a strike. Sorry kids, but ain't gonna tell you what they say If its classified that is...
[B]Actually one nuclear weapon of sufficient yield (we're talking strategic rather then tactical, although low-yield nukes can be modified to enhance the EMP effect) would cause these effects.
A EMP is caused my a verylarge electrical surge in a large circit or specifically made explosive charge. A NUKE DOES NOT GIVE OUT A SIGNIFICANT EMP
and by the way all important information is backed up in the bottom of Mt. Shian, right below the buildings.
Um, you mean Cheyenne Mountain, where NORAD is located?
And sorry Nutty, but unless my physics profs (one of whom co-wrote the Swedish human radiation exposure standards) were all goofy, you've got something a little off in your statement.
Comments
There are also classified ways to generate a localized non-nuclear EMP. There were (rumored) EMP Tomahawk missiles used during Gulf War 1 to knock out Iraq's computer systems.
Military Information Technology article on the "Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack,"
http://www.military-information-tech....cfm?DocID=639
"Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century"
"Thus, a single nuclear weapon could produce an EMP attack that damages or destroys electronic systems across the entire continental United States. Satellites in low Earth orbit would also be damaged. "EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences," the report stated. "It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."
"The EMP commission has provided Congress with the equivalent of a detailed blueprint for safeguarding our nation against a catastrophic EMP attack. Commission recommendations provide specific strategic, operational, tactical and technical guidance for improving the security against EMP of U.S. military forces and civilian infrastructures, including the infrastructures for power, communications, transportation, government, finance and banking, emergency medical services, and food and water. The destruction of these infrastructures and our inability to recover them would kill millions of Americans the old-fashioned way, through starvation and disease."
And to back up iPoster
From http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...itions/hpm.htm
The US Navy reportedly used a new class of highly secret, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse warheads during the opening hours of the Persian Gulf War to disrupt and destroy Iraqi electronics systems. The warheads converted the energy of a conventional explosion into a pulse of radio energy. The effect of the microwave attacks on Iraqi air defense and headquarters was difficult to determine because the effects of the HPM blasts were obscured by continuous jamming, the use of stealthy F-117 aircraft, and the destruction of Iraq's electrical grid. The warheads used during the Gulf War were experimental warheads, not standard weapons deployed with fielded forces.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/hane.html
Also here's an excerpt that continues on the origin homepage:
http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspac...explosions.htm
The spread of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles raises fears of atomic attacks on the global satellite system
On July 9, 1962, U.S. military researchers on a tiny Pacific atoll called Johnston Island fired a thermonuclear weapon into outer space. Code-named Starfish Prime, the launch onboard a Thor ballistic missile was the latest of a series of similar classified tests the U.S. Defense Department had begun four years before. But as the rocket rose on its smoky plume, few on the launch team realized that the forthcoming 1.4-megaton orbital burst was to yield surprising long-term results.
Hotel operators in Hawaii, some 1,300 kilometers away, were expecting a good show, though. Word had leaked of this latest "rainbow bomb" test shot, so a few enterprising resorts had organized rooftop parties from which guests could better view the distant fireworks. When the warhead detonated that evening at an altitude of 400 kilometers, it produced a brilliant white flash that momentarily lit up sea and sky like a noonday sun. Then, for about a second, the heavens turned light green.
Other Hawaiians witnessed some less welcome aftereffects. Streetlights suddenly blinked out on the island of Oahu. Local radio stations shut down, and telephone service failed for a time. Elsewhere in the Pacific, very high frequency communications systems malfunctioned for half a minute. Scientists later realized that Starfish Prime had sent a strong, disruptive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sweeping through the vast region below the blast.
During the next several minutes, a blood-red aurora spread across the horizon. Scientists had anticipated this stage of the process; each previous orbital test had left an artificial cloud of charged particles in space. Eventually the planet's magnetic forces molded the energetic clouds into globe-girdling belts that resembled its natural Van Allen radiation belts. But almost no one expected what happened during the following months: the intense man-made belts crippled seven low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, a third of the planet's fleet at the time. U.S. military researchers went on to conduct three more high-altitude nuclear explosions (HANEs) later that year but then stopped when the Cuban Missile Crisis led to the signing of the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty.
Continues on the homepage
By the way, I work with satellites.. I woulda thought I woulda known more about how our sats are sitting ducks.
FYI 10billion dollars worth of satellites is about 30-40 sats... don't get over exceited ;-)
And right now, we have so much over capacity of satellites that sats from different orbital positions could be relatively quickly redeployed in order to cover the destroyed ones.
Originally posted by ZO
.......
And right now, we have so much over capacity of satellites that sats from different orbital positions could be relatively quickly redeployed in order to cover the destroyed ones.
so what would be the number of satellites that need to be destroyed to say, truly screw the NATO countries? 100? 1000? just curious here...
You have GPS satellites which are in low earth orbit which are constantly moving and orbiting. I'd guess about 1/3rd of those birds would die from the blast, effectively killing most navigation for the world. Unless, of course, given that GPS is under the control of the DoD and is fundamentally a military toy, they could be not only EMP/Nuclear hardened, but EMP-proof. I have no idea. Many of the satellites that make up GPS have been replaced over the years. I believe that by 2008-2010 most of the GPS fleet will have been upgraded to Gen2 or 3.. maybe even more modern.
There are also some communication satellites at low earth orbit, but very few.
The big birds, are all at Geo Stationary (+/- 36,000km in orbit).
right.. to get to your question, I'm guessing that to really fuck up NATO/The West you'd need to knock out a good 2/3rds of available sats. How many is that? I'd say, ball park figure, about 40-50 birds (that are at the service of North America/Europe, not globally, at GEO orbits). In case of emergency of that scale, there would be surely international displacement of capacity in space which would mean re-allocating satellites from other parts of orbit into postions that can cover previous important positions in order to reestablish communication infrastructure. This would take, possibly in case of such a drastic emergency, about a weeks time at best. In the mean time you'd have only cable services (for inter linking) but forget about live TV broadcasts and TV in general. Your cable TV is fed by satellite.
To totally screw NATO and friends, you'd probably have to kill off about 90% of all satellites that cover these areas. Thats probably in the hundreds of birds (between GEO and LEO orbit).
In the meantime, you have, about on average, 2-3 communication satellite launches per month world wide every year. These would likely be reallocated to repopulating the destroyed birds.
A lot of internet is done via submarine/land cables anyway, not much by satellite (costs about 100x more).
I'm *pretty* sure my company along with NATO and the various defense ministries from USA/NATO have contingency plans for these kinds of scenarios. At least I freaking hope so.
I'd actually say that the biggest threat is the destruction of a good third of GPS satellites orbiting any given part of the hemisphere at any time. That would truly not only have the NATO/West grind to a halt, but probably a good part of the world. The Russians have a GPS of their own (GLONASS, only military) while the EU has had EGNOS up for a while but limited. Galileo is still nowhere, so, can't be counted.
This has actually gotten me really curious... I'm gonna go ask some people in the office what we have in place in case of such a strike. Sorry kids, but ain't gonna tell you what they say
Originally posted by Electric Monk
[B]Actually one nuclear weapon of sufficient yield (we're talking strategic rather then tactical, although low-yield nukes can be modified to enhance the EMP effect) would cause these effects.
A EMP is caused my a verylarge electrical surge in a large circit or specifically made explosive charge. A NUKE DOES NOT GIVE OUT A SIGNIFICANT EMP
and by the way all important information is backed up in the bottom of Mt. Shian, right below the buildings.
And sorry Nutty, but unless my physics profs (one of whom co-wrote the Swedish human radiation exposure standards) were all goofy, you've got something a little off in your statement.
zo: "so... i have this, um, friend, that is like, wondering, how many sats to whack to cause mass chaos in the western hemisphere...."
bosses: "oh, really, and does your friend have a name?"
zo: "nah, just some 'guy' on the internet called sunilraman"
bosses: "hm, i see....."
If you dont hear from me these next few days... its probably because I'll be stuck at the Apple Expo