Do you guys think this will work ?

[hey_moe]

A recent weapons flight test in the Utah desert may change future warfare after the missile successfully defeated electronic targets with little to no collateral damage. Watch the video, pretty cool. >>>>> http://www.boeing.com/Features/2012/..._10_22_12.html

[Willy]

Sounds like it's using EMP.

[SSI01]

It IS an EMP weapon, apparently it's designed to deliver its "doses" of high-powered pulses at selected points on a preprogrammed course. This means the targets can be selectively struck by an EMP, rather than immobilizing an entire society. It's like the neutron bomb in reverse - it doesn't target people and leave the infrastructure intact - it neutralizes only certain portions of the infrastructure, thus making command and control difficult if not impossible, while leaving most of the legitimate civilian electronic infrastructure intact and not affecting the man in the street. No human being is harmed. This weapon now means in order to achieve the effect of an EMP, it is no longer necessary to detonate a nuclear or thermonuclear weapon, or pattern of them, above a target nation and indiscriminately "fry" everything. You can target electronics used by a certain government facility or weapons factory and leave everything else untouched. Send a dozen or two over an unfriendly nation or potential threat nation and you can neutralize the threat they pose by severely degrading command and control. My guess is this is what the DOD is going to use against certain nations when the time comes.

[Allen]

Dose it work on vacuum tubes?

[Willy]

I don't know about the missile, but nuclear EMP will somewhat work on vacuum tube equipment.

[yank51]

Wonder if they've been testing that on our internet lately. been acting kind of screwed-up around here....

[Dynasaur]

It seemed to work on a group of what seemed to be basic desktop computers. Would it work on dedicated military computer hardware ? Which has, as far as I am aware, some protection against an E.M. pulse.

[stiz]

is the EMP protection is as good as their firewalls it'll work on 90% of em

[Naismith]

Cue the conspiracy theorists. They'll pontificate for weeks over this one.

[Dangerousdave26]

Wonder if they've been testing that on our internet lately. been acting kind of screwed-up around here....

Interesting it has been doing that here in Florida and out in California at the very same time.

[SSI01]

It seemed to work on a group of what seemed to be basic desktop computers. Would it work on dedicated military computer hardware ? Which has, as far as I am aware, some protection against an E.M. pulse.

That's just the rub - most folks who suspect they'll be the target for something like this are already going to great lengths to "harden" their systems against an EMP attack. Some nations are more tech-savvy than others, who will either trust to luck they won't get zapped, or will buy what they need to install to harden their most important installations. Bottom line - it is a viable threat that needs to be guarded against. BTW there is legitimate concern in the US about our vulnerability to an EMP attack, most of the power grid would go off-line and it's not vacuum tube technology. This stuff is evolving so fast, and remember - you're seeing only what they'll let you see.

[pfflyers]

I can see a real threat to our infrastructure from terrorists once this technology escapes from the lab. We and our economy are probably more vulnerable to disruption by this sort of thing than almost anyone else.

[SSI01]

You gotta point. If you're not very sophisticated with your technology base you don't have as far to fall when everything crashes. SAC had a boss at one time one of whose favorite phrases was "Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age." Sounds pretty threatening until you realize if you're bombing someone who's just emerging from the Stone Age, they won't hardly notice the retrograde step. We darn sure would, though.

[TeaSea]

Good against "soft" targets....easily defeated by hardening.

Good ole' fashion Kinetic Energy...a bit old school I suppose....but you just can't beat it.

[stansdds]

Good against "soft" targets....easily defeated by hardening.

Good ole' fashion Kinetic Energy...a bit old school I suppose....but you just can't beat it.

Yep. Using a microwave burst to fry electronics is a good idea, but now that information regarding this weapon is known, you can bet government agencies,terrorist organizations, and some businesses will implement protection for their electronics. Joe Shmuks like us won't be able to protect ours so if there is an EMP blast, our computers, tv's, etc. will be toasted and we'll have to buy new ones.

[pfflyers]

I can see many gov't and commercial enterprises creating hardened systems for data storage (many may already have), but the cost to replace all the desktop units would be massive. The factory I used to work in had thousands of Dell desktops and laptops. All our operations and inspections were logged on them, we got all our work instructions, drawings, and tech specs through them. If they all went down at once the company would be paralyzed until they could be replaced. I think the company would balk at the cost of replacing all of them with "battlefield" terminals. Same goes for my bank and the local Walmart, even the corner drug store.