EMP Missile Is No Longer Science-Fiction

[rapidoud]

Hate to burst the bubble but the Taliban don't use electronics (outside of cars, and if you took out a few blocks worth of cars in the Middle East I imagine you'd get a lot of pissed off people who just had their lives ruined for lack of transportation), nor do other countries really use drones at all, but hey YOU HAVE AN EMP YOU CAN TOTALLY THREATEN PEOPLE WITH!

I suppose it'd work against anything except helicopters in disabling but not killing the occupants (assuming they didn't crash into something very shortly).

 

[Nurb]

Awesome for preventing casualties

Scary for potential abuse and misuse. The music and movie industries already use anti-terrorsim departments to circumvent the legal system, so the next Megaupload doesn't even have to be raided, they could just get into the airspace above the servers.

 

[beastro]

Nice hype. Too bad anything worth hitting with this will be sufficiently hardened.

 

[MANIFESTER]

Gotta love that rear computer barfing out a still spinning cd after the blast hits...
Though i am wondering, is this just a "stun" or does it actually wreck all electronic equipment caught in the blast?

If I remember correctly, an EMP blast destroys pretty much anything with a circuit board. Scary stuff really. Also nifty for the military though since you would need a nuke to generate such a pulse. EMPs really do scare me though. If I remember correctly, a single nuclear weapon detonated in the upper atmosphere could generate a pulse large enough to cover the Continental United States.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

Question is, are Faraday cages going to become the next hot item in near-future warfare?

All in all, though, this is cool. Should've been kept a secret, though, until its first use. Surprise is a powerful weapon, too.

Yah that.. wouldnt militaries get cages and this just turns into another expensive tool for counter-terrorism or civilian control?

 

[jamesbrown]

Gotta love that rear computer barfing out a still spinning cd after the blast hits...
Though i am wondering, is this just a "stun" or does it actually wreck all electronic equipment caught in the blast?

An EMP operates by disrupting a circuit; When a radio recieves a radio wave, all that radio wave is doing is altering the amount of eletricty in running through te radio

The Crests (or peaks of wave) is high eletricty; the troughs (or valleys of wave) is low eletricty

What an EMP does is it does the same thing except the peaks are very high and the troughs are very low; thus making any circuit have High levels of energy then low levels of energy. KEY: this fluctuates very quickly

this quick fluctuation of High-Low energy literally burns out the circuit (which is why you usually see sparks from electronics in an EMP) and computers are very sensitive to this thing because it takes very little to burn an microchip

 

[SecondPrize]

"Today we turned science fiction into science fact," Coleman continued.
Fuck you.

 

[Saulkar]

Let's hope we manage to stay Onatopp of this technology.

I will be Trevelyan to the next country over if you do not mind.

I fucking love you guys... Such humour is the Bond we share.

Now, now! I will not point a Goldfinger at whomever originated this chain of puns however I will let you No that I will not tolerate your contributions and will M it here.

 

[Starik20X6]

Let's hope we manage to stay Onatopp of this technology.

I will be Trevelyan to the next country over if you do not mind.

I fucking love you guys... Such humour is the Bond we share.

Now, now! I will not point a Goldfinger at whomever originated this chain of puns however I will let you No that I will not tolerate your contributions and will M it here.

You lot are on a Thunderball. Where do I Q to add a pun to the chain? This seems like an opportunity to Live and Let Die for.

 

[Burninator]

I have to ask, how is this news? Like, it is interesting that they found a conventional way to acheive this effect, but since, like, the early 1980s at the latest, EMP has been a thing. You can generate nation-wide, even continent-wide with a nuclear airburst at a super-high altitude, and it is one of the more basic "initial moves" in a theorized nuclear conflict of any sort.

Obviously EMP still has a place in conventional warfare, and I suppose the ability to use less ordanace to wipe out enemy information processing centres while keeping the infrastructure intact is a useful capability.

I'm just saying, the ability to mess with computers and electronic equipment via bombs? Not news.

 

[Sean951]

I have to ask, how is this news? Like, it is interesting that they found a conventional way to acheive this effect, but since, like, the early 1980s at the latest, EMP has been a thing. You can generate nation-wide, even continent-wide with a nuclear airburst at a super-high altitude, and it is one of the more basic "initial moves" in a theorized nuclear conflict of any sort.

Obviously EMP still has a place in conventional warfare, and I suppose the ability to use less ordanace to wipe out enemy information processing centres while keeping the infrastructure intact is a useful capability.

I'm just saying, the ability to mess with computers and electronic equipment via bombs? Not news.

It's the ability to do it via missile without nuking the planet. That's why it's news.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Awesome for preventing casualties

Scary for potential abuse and misuse. The music and movie industries already use anti-terrorsim departments to circumvent the legal system, so the next Megaupload doesn't even have to be raided, they could just get into the airspace above the servers.

That was my initial thought as well. As electronic communications becomes a bigger & bigger part of political dissent & organized protest across the world, it's not a stretch to think it'll soon be used on civilians by their own government.

 

[DTWolfwood]

So it took out the camera recording it too eh? How exactly did we just watch video of the computers going black then? Also why did the one on the bottom right come back on for a second?

 

[The Great JT]

COME AT US NOW, SKYNET!!

 

[Li Mu]

The problem is this...

US uses EMP weapon against some shitty third world country. 50,000 computers go down along with some refrigerators. Most people go on as normal because most people have little reliance on things electrical.

3rd World Terrorists get a hold of it and use it against the US. EVERYTHING GOES DOWN. EVERYONE DIES.


It's as though they are manufacturing their own undoing. Great job guyz.

So it took out the camera recording it too eh? How exactly did we just watch video of the computers going black then? Also why did the one on the bottom right come back on for a second?

ooooh....well spotted. Perhaps EMPs don't work against digital cameras. Ahaha.

 

[Paragon Fury]

This is going to get hit the with the US's "Confiscate a patent any technology associated with it" (actually allowed and accounted for the in Constitution) and a massive gag order/threat of assassination real quick.

Shit like this can't be let loose....and the Boeing guy made a huge mistake announcing it.

 

[Edible Avatar]

Let's hope we manage to stay Onatopp of this technology.

I will be Trevelyan to the next country over if you do not mind.

Looks like this is going to lead to some trevelyations for the rest of the world.

The army has a nick nac for coming up with the coolest new weapons. I hope this does'nt blofeld away the competition. Maybe its just a SPECTRE, a show of force.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

EMP's, while cool, are really over rated because modern militaries EMP harden all their equipment to make sure it still functions in an EMP attack. The offensive technology is behind the defensive counter measures.