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North Korea Developing Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
North Korea just can’t seem to exist in the world without kicking up some dust to rankle other nations. The latest in a long line of preemptive strike deterrents conjured up by NK is Electromagnetic Pulse Weaponry, created to disrupt or destroy anything electronic, rendering modern warfare weaponry useless.

Electromagnetic pulses are the ultimate weapon against anything electronic — from telephone wires to the power grid to the computer chips that control cars, planes, and smartphones.
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Maybe when they test it/ They'll knock out their only power plant putting them in the dark ages for good.
 
There was an article in Popular Mechanics a couple years ago that stated that anyone with access to an electronics shop like Radio Shack can make an EMP device. Even terrorists with knowledge how to make electronic circuits on the cheap could build one. It also mentioned that such a device if detonated in a place like Wall Street in NYC would be completely devastating. Seeing NK announcing they'd build one, means they can literally afford it. It isn't that hard to build considering you could think of it as a "poor mans" WMD like a dirty bomb, but with more accessible materials and parts.
 
h94160DEE
 
Galvin said:
Maybe when they test it/ They'll knock out their only power plant putting them in the dark ages for good.
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That is precisely the problem. This is a despotic regime that continues to murder and enslave any opposition as well as starve their own people to death in order to use all available resources for weapons and military research. If this happened, hundreds of more thousands would die.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I didn't realize that telephone wires were "electronic"
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A big enough pulse will damage unprotected devices on both ends of the wire.

However, most telephone systems can absorb a lightning strike, which far exceeds any non-nuclear blast.
 
Qinsp said:
A big enough pulse will damage unprotected devices on both ends of the wire.

However, most telephone systems can absorb a lightning strike, which far exceeds any non-nuclear blast.
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EMPs excite current in the wires themselves bypassing any grounding system. Unless the grounding system also forms s a Faraday cage too.
 
Nukes make pretty good emps, which is why US army kept vacuum tubes around for so long because they are more resistant to emp.
 
Someone's been playing too much Battlefield 4. Just like the US Military plays too much HALO....
 
Do we honestly believe that EVERY country not under the Imperialist American umbrella, isn't trying to strive to create every single thing possible within their means, to put them on equal footing?
 
A little digging reveals this story originated from DPRK news. I found it highly unlikely Russia would be selling N. Korea EMP weaponry, especially considering (to my knowledge) EMP weaponry has never been on the market. The US and Russia stopped open testing of EMP in the 70s and both have kept a pretty tight lid on any development or weapons they have in that field, so it would be surprising to hear Russian selling such a weapon to a blabbermouth / mercurial country like the DPRK. Furthermore any deployment would require a much more advanced knowledge of nuclear science and rocketry than I last heard the DPRK possessed.
 
Emphasize on this having the potential to kill every iPhone in America.

North Korea would be liberated back to the Stone Age by Christmas.
 
All countries have weapons. North Korea looks dumb in the media but when push comes to shove you will see a nuke/emp coming out of a silo when the time comes. Every country has a black budget. Everyone has something under the hood.
 
EchtoGammut said:
A little digging reveals this story originated from DPRK news. I found it highly unlikely Russia would be selling N. Korea EMP weaponry, especially considering (to my knowledge) EMP weaponry has never been on the market. The US and Russia stopped open testing of EMP in the 70s and both have kept a pretty tight lid on any development or weapons they have in that field, so it would be surprising to hear Russian selling such a weapon to a blabbermouth / mercurial country like the DPRK. Furthermore any deployment would require a much more advanced knowledge of nuclear science and rocketry than I last heard the DPRK possessed.
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You can count on the fact that both the US and Russia simply moved what was public knowledge to black projects. Both I'm sure have EMP weaponry that is highly developed. But to think that North Korea can even come close to developing such weapons is absurd. They can barely obtain enough nuclear material to make a single nuclear weapon. EMP weaponry isn't even close to being in their wheelhouse anytime soon.

Russia is insane , no doubt but even they wouldn't do this kind of business with North Korea. I would be more worried that Russia would sell EMP weaponry to Syria however..
 
Here's what I can say.

The US has been aware of the issue for more than a decade.

We are no longer in any serious danger.
 
I suspect that if EMP munitions were reliably effective they would probably have been used. It is true that the first really high altitude burst out in the Pacific caused damage to the phone system in Hawaii hundreds of miles away, but my guess is that the effect is kind of piecemeal, one car disabled, another identical one parked right next to it at right angles unaffected, stuff like that.
 
What a coincidence. I just watched the remake of red dawn today (which was surprisingly very good), and this is the exact premise of the movie. I think Kim jong must have seen it too.
 
Having an EMP and delivering it are two different things. Look what we have spent on nuclear weapons, then look at what we have spent on the delivery platforms.

Then again, there really is not danger of an offensive EMP being used by NK against the US. Screwing with US money, is screwing with China's money. Kim may be nutso, but he knows not to piss China off too badly.
 
Having an EMP and delivering it are two different things. Look what we have spent on nuclear weapons, then look at what we have spent on the delivery platforms.

Then again, there really is not danger of an offensive EMP being used by NK against the US. Screwing with US money, is screwing with China's money. Kim may be nutso, but he knows not to piss China off too badly.
 
GORANKAR said:
Having an EMP and delivering it are two different things. Look what we have spent on nuclear weapons, then look at what we have spent on the delivery platforms.

Then again, there really is not danger of an offensive EMP being used by NK against the US. Screwing with US money, is screwing with China's money. Kim may be nutso, but he knows not to piss China off too badly.
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Not just that, but making an effective EMP is not some magically easy thing.

It's much like a laser. Everyone thinks that OOH LASER MUST BE SUPER POWERFUL. No; they take a shit ton of power for a really piss-poor effect compared to the efficiency of conventional weapons. Likewise with EMP. Takes EVEN MORE power, and still your effective radius will not be very good, nor will the effect be that great.

There's no magic to this stuff. It's just physics. And any critical system is remotely backed up anyway.
 
EMP weapons, really? Man, talk about being behind the times. What's next for NK: utmost police/military control over the populace, arm bands, and goosesteeping? Oh, wait...
 
They seem to think that without our electronic gadgets, the US military would be at a disadvantage, since they aren't dependent on such things. They seem to forget that we also have superior training, tactics, and a fully volunteer force that has a lot of passion to defend their ideals, as well as many things that are hardened against EMPs.
 
jwcalla said:
So are nuke plants protected from EMPs?
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In terms of insulation? Possibly. Nuclear plants (well in Western countries) have standards for containment and since an EMP is simply a total form (split into parts) of radiation then its possible. But I doubt that the control rooms are totally sealed. You would need a Faraday cage around the entire complex (especially control systems) minus anything non-mechanical in nature that doesn't conduct well. You would also need a very strong pulse , even detonation in the high atmosphere is not a guaranteed way to propagate the waveform with a non-nuclear source in a way that maximizes its potential. The only (well known publicly) device capable of creating such a strong enough pulse is a high yield tactical warhead.

The only things really hardened against EMP attacks are bunkers and buildings made to be resistant against such attacks. But there is no way to be absolutely sure that something won't get fried.

This is why I doubt North Korea's involvement. Without a nuke there just isn't a way to imagine them getting a hold of anything. Even if they had a nuke their Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system (called "Dong's" *giggle*) is unreliable under the best conditions and a flat out greater danger to North Korean citizens themselves if such a launch failed a weapon was accidentally trigger reaching critical mass.
 
Funny how they waste time on this shit and still can't find a way of producing enough food for its people.
 
Stiletto said:
Funny how they waste time on this shit and still can't find a way of producing enough food for its people.
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They have a way. They don't give a shit. They would rather spend money bolstering the great lord almighty , his superior leader of gods and the universe and was born during the mating of two unicorns inside a rainbow full of cheeseburgers Kim Jong Un's military and of course his own fun habits.

Meanwhile the vastly majority of his nation starves and labors in worker camps (AKA prisons).
 
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