[HN Gopher] What you need to know about EMP weapons
___________________________________________________________________
What you need to know about EMP weapons
Author : flyingkiwi44
Score : 95 points
Date : 2025-06-06 11:06 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aardvark.co.nz)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aardvark.co.nz)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| The remarkable form of nuclear EMP is that an exoatmospheric
| explosion creates a pulse of gamma rays which ionize the air in
| the upper atmosphere and create a plasma explosion that creates
| strong EM fields over a wide area
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
| meepmorp wrote:
| > As we sit, possible poised on the verge of a nuclear conflict
| in the Northern Hemisphere, maybe it's time to look at the
| damaging effects of the electromagnetic pulse that follows a
| nuclear detonation.
|
| I guess that's what I get for not doomscrolling like I used to,
| but I wasn't aware we were on the brink of nuclear annihilation.
| Can someone explain that for me?
| closewith wrote:
| Following a devastating recent strike on the air leg of the
| Russian nuclear triad by Ukranian drones, some analysts believe
| the use of nuclear weapons by Russian has become much less
| unlikely.
| hcfman wrote:
| Somehow I don't see those as related. Any use of nukes will
| not be an act of rationality. That's the utter stupidity
| behind this belief in MAD keeping us safe.
| diggan wrote:
| > Any use of nukes will not be an act of rationality
|
| Does that mean past usage also wasn't rational? Or it was
| rational in that case, but impossibly can be rational in
| the future?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| I'm not the person you're responding to, but most of the
| irrationality of nuclear weapons use is when it's nuclear
| weapons use against an entity which also has nuclear
| weapons.
|
| Any use is going to lead to at a minimum an equally
| harmful response.
| closewith wrote:
| > Any use of nukes will not be an act of rationality.
|
| It wouldn't be a rational act. It would be an emotional act
| by an irrational dictator.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| Exactly, there is no official communication that the attack
| on nuclear capable planes is revenged with a nuclear
| attack. What has been very clearly communicated though is
| that the attack on the personal transport trains has been
| counted as a terrorist attack and now Russia is about to
| declare Ukraine leadership as a terrorist organisation. A
| change from special operation to a terrorist hunt involves
| various changes.
| jajko wrote:
| Those are just empty names russian tv is making up to
| amuse less bright part of population. Its just another
| war, has been since 2014, nothing more and nothing less.
|
| Lets not forget in first hours of 2022 invasion there
| were numerous hunting squads deployed in Kyiv with
| explicit orders and training to execute all Ukraine's
| high command, including Zelensky and all his family, and
| cause chaos on civilian and military infrastructure.
| There are numerous videos how those guys failed, were
| caught and mostly executed since they expected a very
| different situation on the ground (which is valid even as
| per Geneva convention, as non-marked combatants behind
| enemy lines would often face). One of many FSB and GRU's
| failures.
|
| If we want to talk about terrorism, list of items on
| russian side is very, very long and new items are added
| every day. As I said, empty words and all know it. The
| closer you look at russia these days at all levels the
| more similarities with nazi Germany you will find.
| History really keeps repeating itself with sometimes
| stunning precision.
| bell-cot wrote:
| I'd replace "some analysts" with "some alarmists". And unless
| you're in the hyped-up headline business, the attack fell
| well short of "devastating".
|
| Plus, the pre-attack triad cred of the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95 bombers was
| pretty limited. Notice that they are turboprops. From the
| 1950's. Hitting hard against the western nuclear powers
| (US/UK/France) ain't in their talent set.
| closewith wrote:
| > And unless you're in the hyped-up headline business, the
| attack fell well short of "devastating".
|
| All other comparable attacks have been considered
| devastating in history.
| XorNot wrote:
| _sigh_ all of that history existed before the development
| of ICBMs and submarine launched ICBMs particularly. Which
| happened around the 1960s-ish depending how you count it.
|
| ICBMs, and in particular submarine based ICBMs, are what
| provide nuclear deterrence in a serious fashion. They
| arrive faster, and are effectively unstoppable at scale.
| closewith wrote:
| An attack can be devastating without harming any military
| capabilities at all.
|
| 9/11 was devastating. October 7th was devastating.
| Pahalgam was devastating.
|
| The drone attacks against Russian airbases were highly
| destructive, caused extreme shock, and were extremely
| impressive - the literal definitions of devastating.
|
| The response will depend on the emotional and political
| reality within Russia. Although they have not lost their
| nuclear strike capabilities, they have lost face and now
| Putin may feel the need to act to retain his strongman
| hold on the country, or risk being Ceausescu'd.
| XorNot wrote:
| And no one responded to any of those with strategic
| nuclear attacks.
|
| Russia certainly hasn't actually ramped up any nuclear
| rhetoric in response, which it's been happy to do at
| other times when it would be taken less seriously (and
| ramped it down significantly in late-2022 after it's US
| back channels communicated their intentions if any
| nuclear weapons or nuclear terrorism was used in
| Ukraine).
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yet the passably professional military news sites I've
| read describe the attack in terms like "substantial",
| "demoralizing", and "temporarily constrain Russia's
| ability to conduct long-range drone and missile strikes
| into Ukraine". _Not_ "devastating", nor any similar
| (emotive or maximal) terminology.
| themadturk wrote:
| The point is that Tu-95s are still an integral part of
| Moscow's aircraft leg of their nuclear triad. They are
| fully capable of carrying nuclear-tipped standoff weapons
| and attacking Europe. They fulfill the same role as the
| B-52 (also a 1940s-1950s design) does for the USAF. Their
| apparent cruising speed is roughly 100kph less than the
| B-52 and they are comparable in range.
|
| Part of the reason it's so critical to Moscow is the
| uncertainty over the viability of their missile-based
| systems (both the land-based and sea-based legs of the
| triad). Maintenance has been so poor on these systems that
| no one is sure how reliable they are.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I think the idea is that Ukraine's attack on Russian nuclear
| capable bombers weakens Russia's nuclear triad (plane, sub, and
| ICBM nukes) and makes the situation less stable.
|
| Can't say I blame Ukraine though.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| It's kind of like WWI.
|
| Where some minor player commits some act and the entire
| Western-Russo world spirals out into war. Only this time we
| use nuclear weapons instead of trenches and cannons.
|
| Would be an interesting case study for Brazilian historians
| in the future.
| hcfman wrote:
| Or New Zealand ones :) I imagine Peter Thiel might be
| spending more time down there these days :)
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Not sure Australia-New Zealand make it? In fact, I'm
| fairly certain they would get hit. Just as certain as I
| am that North Korea would get hit.
|
| I mean, just consider it from our (US) perspective. Any
| Russian naval assets that are harbored in, say, North
| Korea; I'm not sure that we could assume they don't mean
| us any harm. So I'm almost certain our subs launch
| strikes on North Korea despite them not really being
| involved directly in NATO-Russian hostilities. I think
| the same would go for US, (or NATO), bases and NATO naval
| assets harbored in Australia or New Zealand. There's just
| no way Russian sub captains let those targets go.
|
| I think, in general, having had your nation destroyed is
| probably _more_ reason for all those guys to fight each
| other and strike at targets of that nature. Not less.
| tgv wrote:
| The killing of Franz Ferdinand was just the starter shot.
| Everybody was already waiting in the blocks to rush.
| diggan wrote:
| Maybe that's based on the "Doomsday Clock"
| (https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/) being as close to
| "human extinction" as it has ever been? Not sure, but sounds
| plausible the author is reading into that.
| bargainbin wrote:
| Anyone using that exercise in melodramatics as their basis
| for probability of nuclear war deserves to be laughed it and
| subsequently ignored.
| diggan wrote:
| The author is writing about post-nuclear detonation, of
| course it's an exercise in melodramatics and theories,
| that's clear from the onset.
| hollerith wrote:
| Doomsday clock is not an estimate of nuclear risk these days,
| but includes risks like climate change.
| Nursie wrote:
| There's been a lot of rattling of nuclear sabres of Russia's
| Ukraine invasion.
|
| Ukraine managed a pretty effective attack on a few days ago,
| which is the last time it was brought up in a "you should
| probably stop supporting Ukraine with money and arms. Also, in
| unrelated matters, we still have a lot of nukes."
|
| Then there was the short-lived open hostility over Kashmir a
| few weeks back, with newsreaders everywhere reminding us that
| both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers.
|
| Imminent threat of launch? Unsure. But it's definitely a bit
| more ... I dunno, 'present' than it has been for a while.
| polotics wrote:
| classic bully move of saying if you don't hand over the lunch
| money and keep quiet, he's going to plant that knife in your
| belly. Except the bully goes to the same school and his daddy
| (Russian's oligarchy Putin pet masters) really like their
| jetsetting vacations.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| The end of the cold war didn't also end the threat of nuclear
| war. Russia has threatened to use nukes if aid to Ukraine
| continues, while they haven't followed through on those threats
| it's not impossible that they will eventually.
| GJim wrote:
| > it's not impossible that they will eventually.
|
| Please stop believing the ridiculous Russian propaganda.
|
| Using even a single tactical nuclear weapon would be game-
| over for Putin's Russia.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| At some point it could be game over for Putin's Russia
| anyway, then what is to stop them.
|
| Israel has a policy of the Samson option that they define
| as destroying the enemy but they also imply they will
| destroy the world. Russia has made similar statements.
| GJim wrote:
| I despair at such naivety.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOG_7LKWLZo
| Amezarak wrote:
| Why? Because you expect we'd nuke them for it? Hadn't heard
| this before and honestly am not sure why they don't at this
| point, it seems like they have less and less to lose as the
| war goes on. I read in the NYT a few weeks ago the pentagon
| estimated the escalation back in dec/jan had a 50/50 shot
| of going nuclear.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| We aren't really. But people bring it up every time Russia sees
| a setback or embarrassment in the war with Ukraine. Look up
| operation spider web if you want to know the latest. It was
| quite an impressive strike by Ukraine on the strategic bombers
| Russia has been using to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine
| (some parked very deep in Siberia). They are also part of
| Russia's strategic nuclear triad, so some people are concerned
| this could lead to nuclear war.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| 1) Don't worry about it. If one goes off over a NATO country or
| Russia/China, you'll soon have much, _much_ bigger problems to
| worry about.
|
| 2) There is no 2)
| diggan wrote:
| I mean, the article is about the EMP wave following a nuclear
| detonation, I'm not sure there are bigger problems _after_
| that, we 're already pretty deep into "shit has hit the fan" at
| that point.
|
| From the first paragraph:
|
| > maybe it's time to look at the damaging effects of the
| electromagnetic pulse that follows a nuclear detonation.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > I mean, the article is about the EMP wave following a
| nuclear detonation, I'm not sure there are bigger problems
| after that, we're already pretty deep into "shit has hit the
| fan" at that point.
|
| Sure we are in deep trouble, but at that point, but I
| disagree with your "not sure there are bigger problems after
| that": the following problem would be a nuke exploding in
| your direct vicinity (instead of in high altitude/space where
| it caused an EMP).
| muzani wrote:
| But I don't live in any of those places. Also I believe India-
| Pakistan has nukes too. And possibly Israel-Iran. North Korea
| too? The peace loving nations are well within fallout range.
|
| My biggest fear with MAD is that it only takes a single
| irrational leader, and we've seen so many of them lately.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I don't want to jinx it, but even the most deranged leaders
| don't want to rule over a nuclear wasteland. And they
| especially don't want to go down in their history as the
| worst person who ruined everything for their party.
| themadturk wrote:
| No, but some might have a "take the world down with me"
| attitude.
| yabones wrote:
| Yeah, what I've learned from films like "Threads" and "The Day
| After" is that you very much want to die in the first 20ms of a
| nuclear war. Don't dig a hole to hide in, put your lawn chair
| on the roof and hope you're close enough to ground zero to get
| a peaceful and dignified end.
| Gud wrote:
| Fuck that. I'm going to resist dying. I am going to keep
| those around me, alive.
| jamespo wrote:
| for a few minutes / hours I guess
| XorNot wrote:
| Outside of acute radiation poisoning and blast damage,
| it's still a big planet.
|
| The real problem is what happens over the next 3 to 12
| months, since global trade and agriculture would fall
| apart.
|
| Most projections of casualties from nuclear war have much
| higher fatalities from famine then bombardment.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Surviving will be a miserable ordeal. That being said, all
| of my ancestors have survived every major calamity in the
| history of life on earth. The way I see it, I owe it to
| them to _try_ surviving whatever comes next. A few select
| generations lived through much, much worse.
|
| It may sound bizarre, but I don't believe in an afterlife
| so I might as well lean into _something_ to give me
| inspiration. The idea that I exist because my extremely
| distant ancestors survived every mass extinction gives me a
| sense of wonder.
| leptons wrote:
| >Surviving will be a miserable ordeal
|
| Life is already a miserable ordeal for far too many
| people.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Which is why if I ever see a mushroom cloud, I'm running
| towards it.
| mopenstein wrote:
| And you'll survive. You'll build the cornerstones of future
| civilization! They'll erect statues of you!
|
| And then in 100 years they'll curse you and tear down those
| statues because they found out you ate the last kangaroo in
| order to survive.
| andybp85 wrote:
| yup. "the survivors are the lucky ones" is fantasy.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| It is a well understood phenomena of human nature to say
| that "I would rather die then go through X" and then when
| you go through X (or worse) you don't want to die. This is
| well understood because it happens a lot with illness or
| accident. Also its a very adaptive trait that we want to
| avoid terrible situations but most of us don't quit.
| Amezarak wrote:
| I think it's important to understand fictional stories, even
| reasonable speculative ones, will usually have very little to
| do with actual reality. Don't base your choices on what you
| saw in a movie.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Funny that you mention "The Day After", I watched that movie
| in high school then went to lunch in a school that overlooks
| the Kansas City skyline.
|
| No chance that had anything to do with the panic attack I had
| when Putin put his nuclear troops on high alert after
| invading Ukraine. No sir, not at all.
| jajko wrote:
| As we saw puttin' is just empty talk, he is too smart and
| paranoid to fuck up his mafia empire be built so hard, his
| survival in some deep shelter with few bodyguards would be
| very short, person like him doesn't have any reliable true
| friends.
|
| The problem is the person coming after him - if he will be
| an extremist nutjob, everything is possible even if only 5%
| or 10% of soviet missiles still work.
| armada651 wrote:
| If there is a chance at survival, no matter how slim I would
| take it. Even if it brings me suffering at least I tried to
| escape death. Whether my end was peaceful or dignified is of
| no relevance to me, because I won't be around to regret my
| end.
| tintor wrote:
| The problem is how much of your resources and time right
| now will you spend "prepping" for that "no matter how slim"
| chance in the future.
| jajko wrote:
| Its like working out in the gym - if you see it as a
| chore and a must, it is or becomes painful very quickly.
| If you make it fun and self-motivating (and ie get into
| hiking and camping in the wilderness, or practice
| shooting on targets, or training martial arts, some
| people really enjoy gardening and so on), the time is not
| wasted but enjoyed.
|
| But I agree thats hardly a mindset of typical US redneck
| prepper. Although most of them live in rural areas and at
| least some hunting skills are sort of essential to cut
| costs.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > hunting skills are sort of essential to cut costs.
|
| That's the first time I have heard of marauding post-
| apocalyptic biker gangs being called "costs"!
| NotCamelCase wrote:
| This discussion reminds me a beautiful sentence I read in
| 'The Power and the Glory' by Graham Greene: "Hope is an
| instinct that only the reasoning human mind can kill."
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| I truly, really, forcefully recommend reading the novel
| "Warday" by Witley Strieber and James Kunetka It takes place
| in the early 90s, several years after an accidentally limited
| nuclear exchange between the United States and the USSR. The
| story traces the journey of two reporters crossing the
| devastated country and chronicling the stories of survivors
| and how they got by, while also slowly developing the
| journalists' own survival narratives.
|
| In a very well written, visceral way, this novel showcases
| the barbarities that even such a limited nuclear can unleash
| on a society, like few others I've read. On the other hand it
| also underscores the hopeful recovery efforts that people are
| capable of.
|
| For anyone who appreciated those films, I can't imagine them
| disliking Warday. It's also delivers an unusually powerful
| emotional punch with its character development, well above
| the average for apocalypse literature.
|
| One of the frighteningly realistic elements of the storyline
| is how it describes the nuclear bombardment as "moderate", at
| least compared to what was intended by the Soviets. However,
| because a large part of the fallout completely ruins the
| agricultural capacity of the country, the resulting
| development of widespread malnutrition turns a later flu
| epidemic into something truly murderous, causing far more
| death on top of what the bombs produced.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Finally, someone else who appreciates Warday!
|
| It's really good. And as far as I can tell, as a layman who
| reads way too much about this stuff, quite accurate in
| terms of what the sort of limited strike depicted in the
| book would do in the short and long term. (I have quibbles,
| such as what happens to San Antonio and Manhattan, but
| nothing major.)
|
| Highly recommended to anyone who like the genre.
| mopsi wrote:
| One has to recognize the genre of "Threads" and "The Day
| After" - they represent _suffering porn_ that has little to
| do with how actual disasters play out. In "Threads", the way
| people suddenly lose the ability to speak and rapidly turn
| into cavemen after a nuclear strike is comical. Kids grunt
| instead of talk, everyone shuffles around like zombies, and
| basic things like farming or using tools just vanish. How is
| anyone supposed to take that seriously? Is that how Cologne,
| Dresden, Wurzburg and Pforzheim, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki
| looked a decade after they had been destroyed in Allied
| bombing raids? The truth is that even after infrastructure
| gets bombed back to the Middle Ages, life remains
| surprisingly normal, and people quickly rebuild.
|
| Hiroshima in 1957, about a mile from the epicenter of the
| nuclear strike: https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-
| cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,...
| clutchdude wrote:
| Those events happened when widespread support and supply
| were brought into to deal with the relatively limited
| destruction.
|
| This is destruction on a scale that has not been seen in
| the likes of civilization outside the bronze age collapse.
|
| The fact is there is going to be no one coming to help
| replace burned up hoes and shovels.
|
| Threads and the Day after weren't a snapshot of one single
| city - they were a snapshot of what would be happening
| everywhere else at the same time.
| mopsi wrote:
| > The fact is there is going to be no one coming to help
| replace burned up hoes and shovels.
|
| Why?
|
| Why would it be happening everywhere - in South America,
| Africa, Asia, and many other places - at the same time?
| palmotea wrote:
| > Yeah, what I've learned from films like "Threads" and "The
| Day After" is that you very much want to die in the first
| 20ms of a nuclear war. Don't dig a hole to hide in, put your
| lawn chair on the roof and hope you're close enough to ground
| zero to get a peaceful and dignified end.
|
| That's all fine and dandy if you only have yourself to think
| about...
| toss1 wrote:
| That sounds like a good idea but the physics mean you have a
| far greater likelihood of painfully regretting that choice;
| "It seemed like a good idea at the time" will be no solace.
|
| Using an example of a 350kt airburst on NukeMap[0], the
| fireball radius is 700m with an area of 1.53 km2. The Thermal
| Radiation Radius with 3rd degree burns is 7.67 km with an
| area of 185 km2. The Light Blast Damage Radius is 13.9 km
| with an area of 610 km2. While the numbers will be different
| for different yields, the basic ratios will be the same.
|
| This means that your person in the lawn chair is highly
| unlikely to get to unconscious bliss in 20ms. They are 120
| times more likely to enjoy the full experience of 3rd degree
| burns and ~400 times more likely to get significant injury
| while still being alive.
|
| It seems far better to take shelter and do all you can to
| survive intact, and help others. If the situation on the
| other side is intolerably bad, you'll likely be able to find
| ways to end your situation far less painfully vs being naked
| against a nuke blast.
|
| [0] https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
| rl3 wrote:
| > _Don 't dig a hole to hide in, put your lawn chair on the
| roof and hope you're close enough to ground zero to get a
| peaceful and dignified end._
|
| If Sarah Connor's dreams taught me anything, it's that
| there's an optimal middle ground to be had here.
|
| You don't want to be exposed to the flash nor the heat pulse
| seconds later, because it's pretty much instant blindness
| followed by your skin melting off.
|
| What you do want is the blast wave that sends large objects
| plus the pulverized debris with it in your direction, so you
| probably just get crushed instantly.
|
| I'd only recommend the lawn chair part if you've got a
| protective suit and flash blinders, in which case the real
| question is what you're drinking and/or smoking at the time.
| pmontra wrote:
| I have a nice view of the skyscrapers of a large city some 70
| km to the North. Looking at it from my lawn chair probably
| won't kill me but it could make me blind.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Not all uses of nuclear weapons necessarily escalate to the
| doomsday maximum exchange scenarios. There are many interesting
| points of equilibrium in between.
|
| For example - if far right extremists took over Turkey and
| attacked Russia, then Russia nuked a Turkish airbase, what
| would the US/UK/France do? It's not actually that obvious.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| You're going to see the most strongly worded letter in the
| history of human civilization.
| rjsw wrote:
| Turkey is a member of NATO.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| That's the point. In theory Turkey is covered by the NATO
| nuclear umbrella.
|
| But in practice how many Americans would be willing to go
| nuclear in support of a Turkish war against the Russians?
| In circumstances where Turkey was considered the aggressor
| state.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But in practice how many Americans would be willing to
| go nuclear in support of a Turkish war against the
| Russians? In circumstances where Turkey was considered
| the aggressor state.
|
| The question is how many would be willing to go nuclear
| in response to Russia nuking US forces in Turkiye in
| response to a conventional attack by Turkiye, which any
| plausible "Russia nukes Turkiye" scenario would involve.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| It's not obvious how many casualties the US itself would
| tolerate before going nuclear.
|
| In circumstances where there were only a couple thousand
| American casualties, and those were incurred as
| collateral damage rather than as primary targets, it
| might make sense for the US to respond with conventional
| airstrikes and for Russia accept those and not escalate
| further.
|
| This would depend a lot on the individual president
| though, like I could imagine Trump/Obama being much more
| risk averse than personalities like Bush 2 or JFK.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| More than that, Turkey is a member of NATO that
| participates in US nuclear sharing and has substantial US
| forces (aside from the nuclear weapons) deployed.
|
| A nuclear attack by Russia on Turkey would not be merely
| legally and abstractly an attack on the US under Article 5
| of the North Atlantic Treaty which it would do massive
| irreparable damage to US credibility to ignore, but would
| almost certainly be a nuclear attack on US forces in the
| direct and literal sense.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > A nuclear attack by Russia on Turkey would not be
| merely legally and abstractly an attack on the US under
| Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty
|
| In the given scenario above, Turkey attacks first, in
| which case Article 5 would not apply to a retaliation.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| The text of article 5 doesn't distinguish whether the
| attack on the NATO state was justified or even whether
| the NATO state attacked first.
|
| This lack of blaming is partly why Turkey and Greece had
| to sign at exactly the same time, so that neither could
| take advantage of being able to attack the other whilst
| being themselves shielded by NATO.
|
| "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or
| more of them in Europe or North America shall be
| considered an attack against them all..." -
|
| https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The text of article 5 doesn't distinguish whether the
| attack on the NATO state was justified or even whether
| the NATO state attacked first.
|
| Arguably, the text of Article 5 doesn't have to, since an
| act of aggression breaches the obligations of Articles 1
| and 2, as well as the pre-existing obligations which the
| Treaty explicitly does not alter under Article 7.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| I see what you mean - although articles 1 & 2 seem to be
| treated more like guidelines rather than rules.
|
| Otherwise I struggle to understand how any NATO member
| could've engaged in any of the overt or covert
| expressions of military force in Iraq 2003, Vietnam,
| Cuba, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Egypt, or Algeria to name
| but a few.
| euroderf wrote:
| Responding to conventional weapons with a nuke ? Unlikely.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| The USA did it against Japan. Of course those were special
| circumstances, but all wars have their own set of special
| circumstances to some extent.
|
| There's also the argument that using nuclear weapons make
| sense when a nuclear state has a weaker conventional force
| that its opponent. Russia still has a pretty strong
| conventional force, but for example North Korea is in this
| position against most likely adversaries.
| Nevermark wrote:
| The irony is that if your defenses consist of, on the one
| hand, nuclear weapons, and on the other hand, pitchforks
| brandished by several farmers... You are going to be
| very, very respected.
| jnurmine wrote:
| I agree about not worrying about it, but one should be aware --
| awareness about something is not equal to worrying about
| something.
|
| Awareness of something is the first step in adapting. One can
| adapt beforehand, or, one can adapt afterwards; with more
| limited resources, necessitated by circumstances, under more
| time pressure, with more suboptimal tools, and so on.
|
| It is unquestionable that an EMP would have an extreme impact
| in all aspects of society and the lives of people. Preparations
| on macro and micro level can mitigate some of the problems that
| would follow. And preparations require awareness.
| tronicjester wrote:
| To prevent nuclear war YouTube has now blocked videos related to
| faraday cages.
| _nub3 wrote:
| wtf?
| imglorp wrote:
| Not surprised, but is there a source? I guess hiding your
| electronics from The Man is subversive.
|
| And front page today, Jeff discovered that media servers are
| also verboten: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/self-
| hosting-your-own...
|
| Is someone keeping a list of all the various censorship
| triggers on YT?
| flufluflufluffy wrote:
| I think this was a joke related to Jeff's post xD
| tomxor wrote:
| > wrap that in aluminium foil, making sure that the ends are
| folded over and pressed down hard to provide good inter-layer
| contact
|
| I've tried this many times, it's impossible to prevent gaps
| without welding it shut. Obviously I wasn't testing with an EMP
| or nuke, but trying to block 2.4GHz WiFi... But that is well
| within the E1 range the author states.
|
| I think the problem with folding is it's too uniform, it's still
| too easy for waves to propagate through the humanly imperceptible
| gaps with only a few reflections.
|
| The only method I found that worked consistently was to wrap many
| layers randomly overlapping and crumpling previous layers. My
| theory as to why this works is through self interference due to
| creating a long signal path with highly randomised reflections...
| No idea if that would help cancel out EMP.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| I need to test flaky cell phone connectivity issues and tried
| the same thing. Aluminum foil did not cause packet loss. But a
| microwave (not running) in a building with a metal roof in a
| room surrounded by metal filing cabinets did the job.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Let me tell you something from first hand field experience with
| faraday cages...
|
| They attenuate signals, they do not block them. The common
| verbiage is to say "faraday cages block EM radiation", so
| people naturally assume that it _blocks_ EM radiation. But I
| learned the hard way while doing compliance testing that no,
| they do not block EM radiation, they just weaken it (and it 's
| highly frequency dependent on top of that.)
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| That seems intuitive, though. EM radiation is either
| reflected or absorbed, and optimizing for that requires both
| a pretty complex understanding of RF behavior and generally
| knowing that materials are generally radiopaque and
| radiolucent at different frequencies and wattages.
|
| Sometimes we're trying to keep things (eg- information)
| outside from getting in, and other times we want to prevent
| things inside from getting out. There are practices to
| optimize for both that don't rely on "blocking".
| tomxor wrote:
| > EM radiation is either reflected or absorbed
|
| By interfaces yes, but it can also be cancelled out through
| destructive interference as a side effect of reflection,
| which is my theory of how a "big ball of crumply aluminium"
| is so effective compared to less chaotic solutions.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Every time my friends make fun of my hat, every time I
| think of shedding the 'Luminum Life, something convinces
| me to stand fast.
|
| Thank you brother.
|
| Thank you.
| widforss wrote:
| Rough surfaces increase reflection in non-specular
| directions and decrease it in the specular direction. I
| have never heard that it would facilitate destructive
| interference.
| Onavo wrote:
| Well, I am not sure how you expect redneck prepper types to
| pick up on enough RF theory to manufacture homemade
| metamaterials.
| jerf wrote:
| "(and it's highly frequency dependent on top of that.)"
|
| Well, sure. Can people inside the cage see outside? (Or a
| hypothetical person for a small cage.) If so, then clearly,
| not all frequencies are being blocked. A lot of "Faraday
| cages" are explicitly designed for radio and deliberately let
| other frequencies, particularly the visual range, through.
|
| In fact we all have direct experience with that. Our
| microwaves use a Faraday cage to keep them in. But we can
| still see through the mesh, and you can tell that the inside
| can see out because outside light can go in and bounce back
| out. (That is, while there's probably a light in your
| microwave, it's obviously not the sole source of light.)
| Blocks microwaves well, but visible light goes right through
| the holes.
| wat10000 wrote:
| They let out enough to interfere with radios operating
| around 2.4GHz. They'll attenuate the stuff, quite strongly
| if built well (the only reason interference is a problem is
| because the oven is 3+ orders of magnitude more powerful
| than a typical 2.4GHz radio), but it's not a total block.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Anyone interested can test this with an RF bug finder,
| even the homebuilt ones that just increase the intensity
| of an LED when near a source will work to demonstrate the
| leaks.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| 1. google how many lightning strikes are there per day
|
| 2. google how many millions of miles/kilometers of electric
| wires is hanging in air all over the world providing people
| with electricity
|
| 3. do not google how many of those millions of lightning
| strikes PER DAY disabled those billions of miles of wires per
| day, by applying energy bigger than nuclear EMP. do not google
| that.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Do you want to link your answers for comparison? The
| lightning strike issue seems to be mostly fuses with
| occasional more serious events. https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pes/
| lpdl/archive/4_Bill_Chisholm_pa...
| wat10000 wrote:
| Starfish Prime blew streetlight fuses 900 miles away. I don't
| think lighting can do that.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Why not try a large Stanley cup? Double layered, top seals
| shut, pretty easy to get a hold of.
| ttshaw1 wrote:
| You shouldn't need to prevent gaps entirely. You only need to
| make sure there are no holes larger than roughly the wavelength
| of the radiation you're trying to block. Which, for 2.4GHz
| wifi, is about 125mm. I think what you saw is that a single
| layer of foil isn't enough skin depths thick to block radiation
| sufficiently at that frequency.
| hollerith wrote:
| >The world's longest-running online daily news and commentary
| publication . . . The opinion pieces presented here are not
| purported to be fact . . .
|
| No thanks, I'll wait for factual information.
| hcfman wrote:
| Hey don't knock mister Simpson. He's an icon. I'm amazed he's
| still going.
| bollybobthoeton wrote:
| Can't I just chuck it in the microwave and hope no one presses
| start?
| jefftk wrote:
| Frequency is too high. Needs to be solid metal, and your
| microwave uses a mesh. Your microwave is also super leaky
| electromagnetically, which you can see by the effect on 2.4GHz
| WiFi. It's just not leaky enough to cook you.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| chuck what? your desktop pc already is inside of metal
| enclosure designed to minimize EM emissions, per UL/CE
| requirements for electronic devices.
|
| also Voltage is difference between two levels, "potential". so
| that means 5Volt dc device will work if "GND"/minus pole is
| 3000volts "above real earth" and positive pole is 3005Volt
| "above real earth"
|
| difference between + and - is voltage, so 3000 V - 3005 V is 5
| V.
|
| youtubers can film experiment showing this.
| cogogo wrote:
| El Eternauta on netflix is an Argentine sci-fi series based on an
| old comic recently released. It is very well done. Best series
| I've watched in a while. Avoiding any real spoilers it pretty
| much kicks off with an EMP frying all modern electronics and the
| grid.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| A great, but chilling, read on this topic is 'One Second After',
| by William R. Forstchen
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| So the situation in the Eternaut series is possible, man-made?
| amit9gupta wrote:
| The book Nuclear War: A Scenario Hardcover by Annie Jacobsen
| should be essential reading for all politicians and those
| profiteering from the Military Industrial Complex
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-War-Scenario-Annie-Jacobsen/d...
| BryanLegend wrote:
| I read it and it's completely biased to a worst imaginable
| scenario. Not likely to reflect any real world at all.
| andybp85 wrote:
| The book says that that's exactly what it's supposed to be,
| to inspire people to talk about it. But (also from the book)
| the war games the USA runs around these situations always end
| in a massive nuclear exchange. Sure, some specific
| situations, like the Devil's Scenario, I would imagine might
| not reflect a real war, but the case the book is making is
| that reality is far more likely to be closer to the worst
| case than to a "best case" (whatever that means here).
| arethuza wrote:
| I had assumed that if there was a full nuclear exchange
| that _of course_ both sides would target nuclear power
| stations in enemy territory - like anyone would be sticking
| to "rules" in that scenario?
| sbierwagen wrote:
| I read it and was not impressed.
|
| It starts with North Korea launching two ICBMs against DC and a
| nuclear plant in California. Interceptors fail and the warheads
| hit their targets. This is unlikely, but possible. The launch
| is explicitly irrational, the act of a mad dictator.
|
| In response, the US counterstrikes with Minuteman, despite
| having perfectly serviceable air deliverable nukes. Russia
| detects the launch, and the imprecision of their own early
| warning systems along with North Korea being next to Russia,
| they conclude that the US is attacking them. They do a massive
| launch, the US does a massive launch, worst possible
| assumptions for a 10C nuclear winter, four billion dead.
|
| The only thing I learned from the book is that if you roll 1
| over and over and over again, the worst can happen. But we
| already knew that?
| nancyminusone wrote:
| >You can also forget about the inverse square law to protect you
|
| No, you don't get to ignore physics because the source is not a
| point source
|
| >Very large area of EMP
|
| How large?
|
| >Induces currents in any conducting material
|
| So does a magnet falling off my fridge. What magnitude of
| currents, at what distance, in what sized conductor?
|
| >During E1 the frequencies are so high
|
| How high are they?
|
| There can be radio waves strong enough to fry a silicon chip.
| There can be radio waves strong enough to melt glass vacuum
| tubes. This article provides no parameters by which one can make
| these calculations.
|
| You might as well say "don't get nuked" which is admittedly sound
| advice.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yeah, this reads like alarmism with no numbers.
|
| It's been a long time since atmospheric nuclear testing, but
| the US did carry out a bunch of tests to measure such effects,
| and it would be good to dig up the numbers from them.
| jajko wrote:
| I would expect this depends on yield, distance, any existing
| shielding (ie rebar in concrete), height of explosion and so
| on. Article doesn't discuss any specific bomb, hence no need
| for specific numbers.
| ianburrell wrote:
| My understanding is that nearby nuke and high altitude produce
| different EMP. The nearby one destroys electronic, but less of
| concern since close to nuclear blast. The high altitude one
| covers a large area, but it is more like solar flare, causing
| current in large conductors and primarily affecting the grid.
|
| The problem is that the recent government studies that say high
| altitude can hurt electronics are all made by alarmists. When
| we should be focusing effort on grounding the grid, both for
| EMPs and for flares.
| os2warpman wrote:
| EMP weapons do not exist.
| akkartik wrote:
| What about turning devices off, does that protect against one or
| two of the three phases?
| euroderf wrote:
| I see no voltages in the article. But I've read 50,000 volts per
| foot of conductor.
| ctippett wrote:
| Genuine question, what happens to any commercial aircraft in the
| vicinity of such a detonation? Are they at a high enough altitude
| to avoid the EMP blast or can we expect them to lose all
| electronics?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Datacenters hate this one weird trick!
| ufmace wrote:
| I'm not sure about most of this. The great majority of the
| articles and stories about this I've read trace back to layman
| speculation and disaster porn fiction written by people who have
| never claimed to actually be informed about how these things
| work. There's damn little stuff out there that traces back to
| actual experiments with real hardware. Probably most of the
| serious experiments are by various militaries and are highly
| classified. I've seen some more believable stuff suggesting that
| most consumer electronics and automobiles are not vulnerable at
| all to the much-fictionalized high-altitude nuclear EMP.
|
| Either way, the author of this article does not cite any sources
| or relevant experience, and he doesn't include any biographical
| information about himself to judge how qualified he is to speak
| on such subjects. There's not much reason I see to take this any
| more seriously than any piece of fictional disaster porn you
| could buy on Amazon.
|
| I don't know the truth for sure myself, but hopefully we all know
| better than to believe everything we read, especially about
| subjects like this where there appears to be very little hard
| science published.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
|
| > Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that was
| far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of
| the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in
| getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime
| electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the
| public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles
| (1,450 km) away from the detonation point, knocking out about
| 300 streetlights,[1]: 5 setting off numerous burglar alarms,
| and damaging a telephone company microwave link.[6] The EMP
| damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from
| Kauai to the other Hawaiian Islands.[7]
|
| This was a 1 Mt bomb 10x as far from the surface as the article
| discusses.
|
| All that to say, it's plausible.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| It should be understood that the largest impact of the
| Starfish Prime test, knocking out streetlights, was the
| result of a very specific design detail of the street lights
| that is now quite antiquated (they were high-voltage,
| constant-current loops with carbon disc arc-over cutouts, and
| the EMP seems to have caused some combination of direct
| induced voltage and disregulation of the constant current
| power supply that bridged the carbon disks). The required
| repair was replacement of the carbon disks, which is a
| routine maintenance item for that type of system but of
| course one that had to be done on an unusually large scale
| that morning. The same problem would not occur today, as
| constant-current lighting circuits have all but disappeared.
|
| In the case of the burglar alarms, it is hard to prove
| definitively, but a likely cause of the problem was analog
| motion detectors (mostly ultrasonic and RF in use at the
| time) which were already notorious for false alarms due to
| input voltage instability. Once again, modern equipment is
| probably less vulnerable.
|
| Many of the detailed experiments in EMP safety are not
| published due to the strategic sensitivity, but the general
| gist seems to be along these lines: during the early Cold
| War, e.g. the 1950s, EMP was generally not taken seriously as
| a military concern. Starfish Prime was one of a few events
| that changed the prevailing attitude towards EMP (although
| the link between the disruptions in Honolulu and the Starfish
| Prime test was considered somewhat speculative at the time
| and only well understood decades later). This lead to the
| construction of numerous EMP generators and test facilities
| by the military, which lead to improvements in hardening
| techniques, some of which have "flowed down" to consumer
| electronics because they also improve reliability in
| consideration of hazards like lightning. The main conclusion
| of these tests was that the biggest EMP concern is
| communications equipment, because they tend to have the right
| combination of sensitive electronics (e.g. amplifiers) and
| connection to antennas or long leads that will pick up a lot
| of induced voltage.
|
| The effects of EMP on large-scale infrastructure are very
| difficult to study, since small-scale tests cannot recreate
| the whole system. The testing that was performed (mostly
| taking advantage of atmospheric nuclear testing in Nevada
| during the 1960s) usually did not find evidence of
| significant danger. For example, testing with telephone lines
| found that the existing lightning protection measures were
| mostly sufficient. But, there has been a long-lingering
| concern that there are systemic issues (e.g. with the complex
| systems behavior of electrical grid regulation) that these
| experiments did not reproduce. Further, solid-state
| electronics are likely more vulnerable to damage than the
| higher-voltage equipment of the '60s. Computer modeling has
| helped to fill this in, but at least in the public sphere,
| much of the hard research on EMP risks still adds up to a
| "maybe," with a huge range of possible outcomes.
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