From: Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2001 - 10:28:56 MDT
On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Chuck Kuecker wrote:
> How does any kind of radio jammer destroy the power grid, or any
> network not relying on radio? It takes a huge level of radiated RF to
> bring down power distribution - NEMP levels - and a smaller, but still
> large power
What's wrong with NEMP? It's just a nuke, or a number of them. Nukes are
cheap.
> level to disrupt a PC sitting on the ground a few thousand feet from
> the plane. A PC network inside a steel frame building would be very
> difficult to bring down with a radio transmitter of the type you are
> proposing, as would the land line phone network. The best you could
> hope for with a power grid is to force it to go to backup
> communications with its' plants.
Cellular base stations are intrinsically vulnerable. They're are great
many, but a NEMP blankets larger areas.
> I get a kick out of the scenario - I think it was on the Discover
> Channel a while back - of a "munition" that could be hand-carried into
> an area and on "detonation" (silent?) would bring down all the
The portable versions high-explosive-pumped, and thus hardly what you'd
call silent. Supposedly, larger versions are gas turbine powered, and can
kill a soft target in front of the radiator by the EMP pulse.
> electrical systems and electronics in a couple hundred yard area.
> Supposedly, the Soviets came up with an "EMP grenade", but I have
> never seen a plausible description of how it would work.The people who
Is http://www.infowar.com/mil_c4i/mil_c4i8.html-ssi plausible enough for
ya? ;)
> propose this kind of thing obviously have never taken a course in
> fields and waves, or even basic electricity. Until I see a technical
> description of one of these devices, or see one deployed, I will
> refuse to believe in them.
EMP ain't NEMP, but it's still useful, especially against a non-hardened
target.
> Of course, one could always fly an AWACS plane into a substation...
-- Eugen* Leitl
______________________________________________________________
ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204
57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:06 MST