E.M.Ps

I have it on very good authority Jim that the biggest threat is the cyber one rather than large scale disruption due to EMP’s, although they are obviously a major concern. The people who live in a very large country in Asia could shut this country down completely without a shot being fired, this is not some future threat perception, they could do it right now. As usual we are waking up to this threat rather slowly….

D.W.
Dave.
WOW!! He certainly does know.
I think from what he has stated, IRAN, could be a great cause for concern for the Western World.Having Nuclear capabilities.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

D.W.

Many thanks Dave, for the Link.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

You could start here http://works.bepress.com/george_h_baker/. This guy knows his stuff.

DW.
Dave, So I may have a look at the info you posted, can/am I able to follow it up further, ie, the testing of the EMPs etc.WWW? etc.
Thank you,
Jim.
Lincoln .7

I believe radar, when it was developed in the 1930’s was originally devised as an EMP device. It was supposed to disrupt the ignition systems etc of enemy aircraft. It wasn’t powerful enough but they found out to our lasting gratitude that they could see the reflected waves, and thus the BofB was won.

The efforts of various nations to protect their assets against EMP are of course of the highest classification. EMP’s are immensely powerful. In the Starfish tests in the 60’s the US detonated a hydrogen bomb above the atmosphere in the Pacific region, it blew out the street lights in Hawaii a thousand miles away.

Dave Wilson.
Hi Dave. Cheers, for the info, it’s a very little discussed subject, which I find very interesting, but very little to be found on the subject. I suppose, myself, and others like, (God forbid) me, who are old school, find it hard to believe, that something such as a mere pulse, could do so much damage.
I often wonder what the “Boffins” had up their sleeves, during WW2 that we never knew about?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

There are whole departments in the Armed Forces that are interested in whether stuff is EMP proof…..I would sleep soundly in your bed Jim.

One of the standing jokes when I worked on Firestreak/Red Top was that the Firestreak was sunshine proof as it was all valve technology.

The US was originally laughing at the parts of the airframe that were stainless steel (where the US would have used titanium)… until they did testing of a copy shape and realized that where high heat was generated titanium was used, where high-strength but low temp was present SS was used, and where neither was present aluminium was used… meaning that in every case the cheapest material that could be used, was… despite its greater weight.

This explained how they could make aircraft so much cheaper than we could (and thus build more than we could)…

I doubt that cost was ever much of a consideration when selecting materials for the MiG-25…..after-all the Soviet Union used to build submarine-hulls out of titanium!

I’m not sure also how price-comparisons between Western and Soviet aircraft could be accurately made; although the large numbers produced would certainly lower unit costs. For example, I had no idea that nearly 1,200 MiG-25 were produced.

‘Cheaper’ has to be qualified because at one stage during the Cold War (if I remember correctly) the Soviet Union was spending nearly 50% of GDP on defence! No Western nation has ever spent anything approaching that.

But I wholeheartedly agree that cheap, simple or crude doesn’t necessarily mean inferior.

Your car (if it is under 20 years old) will be EMC tested to 30 volts/meter over 20mHz to 2GHz in a similar way to above. An EMP is estimated to be in the region of 50 – 100 V/m. Having said that I’ve not seen a vehicle fail in 9 years of testing. I’ve seen the cameras in the lab have serious wobblies if the Faraday cage is not grounded properly though.

The spikes are there to absorb the RF energy that would reflect off the walls. As the antenna emitting the energy is directional anything reflected off the floor will be absorbed in the anechoic cladding. These places are called Semi-anechoic chambers and are weird to be in as there is no echo and all the noise is deadened!

Hi Bager 1968, The Mig, when was this?. Thanks for the input, and it’s very plausible that what you have said would still be possible today, as I know an old chap, (Myself not in that league yet;), who has a shed full of WW2 old valve radios, from, mainly Lancs. Indeed, I very well remember the days, when domestic radios were made with valves, and had a glass accumilator for power.
As you quiet rightly said, sometimes the best is not always better.
Just take for example “Old cars” yrs ago I had a Sierra 2,0, and I could do almost any repair to it from top to bottom, I now have a Mini, and if you tried, you may just be able to change the oil and filter. Modern technology has moved on in leaps and bounds, but I sometimes wish I could get my hands dirty, by doing my own repairs.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

The MiG-25 was a masterpiece of “minimum necessary” engineering.

The US was originally laughing at the parts of the airframe that were stainless steel (where the US would have used titanium)… until they did testing of a copy shape and realized that where high heat was generated titanium was used, where high-strength but low temp was present SS was used, and where neither was present aluminium was used… meaning that in every case the cheapest material that could be used, was… despite its greater weight.

Similarly, most of the electronics was vacuum-tube (“valve”) technology. “Why didn’t they use much lighter solid-state circuitry” we asked… then it dawned on us that since the aircraft was capable of carrying all that weight while still carrying all the fuel & weapons it required for its mission, the Soviets had simply went for the cheapest way of building the electronics as well.

Yes vacuum-tube circuits ARE much less vulnerable to EMP than solid-state circuits… and integrated-circuit “chips” are even more vulnerable… we were sure that that also factored into the Soviet decision (the pilot, Belenko, said during his debriefing that the Soviet pilots had been told that their electronics were much less vulnerable to interference than Western stuff was).

This explained how they could make aircraft so much cheaper than we could (and thus build more than we could)… they settled for “good enough”, while we always went for “the best”.

And, it turned out, “the best” sometimes had important disadvantages!

Any Ideas as to what these valves were for exactly, I can’t imagine the U.S. stating they were for protection of an EMP.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

I seem to remember some years back when a Foxbat pilot defected to Japan that the US were all over the aircraft before giving it back. There was much scoffing at the valve technology employed, until it dawned that it was to prevent EMP damage to the electronics?

Warren, I thought they would be the same as in a recording studio, to deaden noise, I take it that the EMP waves that are generated in these chambers produced no sound.
Still baffled, excuse the pun.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

They are to absorb energy, most usually sound, but possibly other sorts (radar for example) of radiated energy too; the chambers the aircraft are in are expensive and therefore probably multi-purpose. I’m not sure the cones are anything to do with EMP.

Rick, Agree. Would you happen to know what all the conical cones are for?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

EMP however offers a nuclear-capable state the opportunity to ‘attack’ the UK without killing anybody; imagine if every computer in the UK suddenly stopped working, not to mention every car, mobile phone and TV.

Not to mention knocking the entire electricity grid off line & shutting down ALL business… wouldn’t matter if your car wouldn’t start, you wouldn’t be able to buy fuel anyway..

Garyw.
Thanks for the info, are the pyramid shaped forms one sees in the shots, “Baffles, there seems to be a lot of them on the walls floor etc.Why?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

you don’t need a nuke to generate an EMP, a nuke just has the added bonus of an EMP shockwave which is why exo-atmospheric detonations are valid methods for disrupting enemy electronics.

An indoor emp test lab is simply a shielded box that throws out EMP ‘noise’. This is something that’s been standard in civilian circles for some years.

For example, Airbus do electrical interference testing.