North Korea EMP
- Thread starter waxhaw
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I hope not. I doubt they could get a warhead in orbit then. Have to be pretty small and rugged for their current tech from what I've seen. But who knows for sure? Probably not even Kim - I am sure you don't get far there by telling him no or telling him the truth all the time.
I think this "expert" is just trying to get air time for himself. If Kim is years away from putting a warhead on an ICBM, he is even farther away from putting one in orbit and being able to set it off at will. I think the biggest threat currently comes from his submarine force, he can most likely shoehorn nukes into his submarines and try and get them to our harbors or even just park one in front of an approaching carrier group. I've heard his subs referred to as old fashioned and extremely easy to track and I'm not an expert but one thing I do know is that diesel electric subs are very quiet on battery power and he has about 75 of them.
fishgutzy
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If we set off an EMP over NoKo, for 99% of the population there would be no difference
georgel
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That NoKo satellite that passes over the central US daily at about 300mi altitude has bothered me since the day it went up. Actually there are two. That happens to be optimal positioning for maximum yield. But, I believe at least one is tumbling, which means they probably don't have good communication with it. The other thing is I believe one or both orbits are beginning to decay. That's good and bad news. One, good it will fall relatively harmlessly from the sky. Assuming it doesn't hit anything. Two, if it is active, it could push up a time line if No Ko wanted to do something with it.
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A lot of people think NK couldn't be advanced enough to have put anything in the sats to trigger a EMP. But given the cooperation between them and Iran I think we maybe surprised. Now their subs are something to keep an eye on. But I think if anyone wanted to hit us it would come from a cargo ship in the Caribbean, As we don't have any defense systems on our southern border areas.
There is another thread on this. While maybe not technically impossible for NK to have put a nuke in orbit, it is so unlikely as to be practically impossible and certainly laughable. One satellite is tumbling and presumably lost, the other is in an unplanned, and deteriorating orbit with less solar energy than planned.
Ya'll keep expressing interest in EMP, so I'll ramble about that for a bit.
Optimal height for an EMP attack is of course relative. It needs to be above the atmosphere, but beyond that the EMP effect of the device is a function of the yield (roughly inverse cube). Think of the explosion as a growing sphere. When that sphere hits the upper atmosphere it pulls electrons from the atmosphere and for lots of reasons pushes them to ground. On the way they are attracted by conductors, including power lines and even short bits of wire in cars, computers, etc. creating a current/voltage spike and overloading them.
You can imagine that a small yield device detonated at a very high altitude will create a sphere that has relatively little energy per square meter compared to a high yield device at the same altitude. Remember that the spheres are the same size regardless of yield. The particles are relativistic, that is moving near the speed of light, regardless of yield, the difference is the energy density on the surface of the sphere. Yield also affects how big the sphere can and still be coherent, at some point the energy dissipates.
The area affected by an EMP is a function of altitude (the effect is limited to line of sight, although the power spike could travel over the horizon by way of power lines) so the optimal height for the detonation is based on available yield. Too low and the damaged is limited by line of sight, too high and the energy is too diffuse to be effective. To be effective the detonation must be above the atmosphere to get the downward EMP, but it must also have a high enough energy density to deliver an effective energy spike at ground.
For example, a 1kt explosion in a lunar orbit would affect fully half the earth, but the energy per square meter from the device would be so low when it hit the upper atmosphere that it would not create enough voltage at ground to be effective against anything near the ground.
The math on all this is not terribly complicated, but as far as I know nothing has been published since the early 1980's. At that time the estimates showed that an effective spike, assumed to be 25kv/m as I recall, would be generated in an area with a radius in kilometers roughly equal to the kt yield of the warhead when detonated at optimal height.
If you believe that and accept that NK's largest nuclear device is less than 25kt, then you see that optimal altitude would be 25km and it would effect an area with a radius of 25km. As a practical matter their satellites, at about 300km, can affect a very large portion of the US, but they can't generate enough energy at that altitude to create an EMP that would hurt us.
That's enough for this morning, but the short version is that if NK wanted to attack us then they would get far better results from a near ground detonation in a west coast sea port than they would from a satellite detonation given their available technology.
The risk from NK in the short term is proliferation, not attack, and certainly not an EMP attack.
Just one man's opinion based on the information I've seen.
Ya'll keep expressing interest in EMP, so I'll ramble about that for a bit.
Optimal height for an EMP attack is of course relative. It needs to be above the atmosphere, but beyond that the EMP effect of the device is a function of the yield (roughly inverse cube). Think of the explosion as a growing sphere. When that sphere hits the upper atmosphere it pulls electrons from the atmosphere and for lots of reasons pushes them to ground. On the way they are attracted by conductors, including power lines and even short bits of wire in cars, computers, etc. creating a current/voltage spike and overloading them.
You can imagine that a small yield device detonated at a very high altitude will create a sphere that has relatively little energy per square meter compared to a high yield device at the same altitude. Remember that the spheres are the same size regardless of yield. The particles are relativistic, that is moving near the speed of light, regardless of yield, the difference is the energy density on the surface of the sphere. Yield also affects how big the sphere can and still be coherent, at some point the energy dissipates.
The area affected by an EMP is a function of altitude (the effect is limited to line of sight, although the power spike could travel over the horizon by way of power lines) so the optimal height for the detonation is based on available yield. Too low and the damaged is limited by line of sight, too high and the energy is too diffuse to be effective. To be effective the detonation must be above the atmosphere to get the downward EMP, but it must also have a high enough energy density to deliver an effective energy spike at ground.
For example, a 1kt explosion in a lunar orbit would affect fully half the earth, but the energy per square meter from the device would be so low when it hit the upper atmosphere that it would not create enough voltage at ground to be effective against anything near the ground.
The math on all this is not terribly complicated, but as far as I know nothing has been published since the early 1980's. At that time the estimates showed that an effective spike, assumed to be 25kv/m as I recall, would be generated in an area with a radius in kilometers roughly equal to the kt yield of the warhead when detonated at optimal height.
If you believe that and accept that NK's largest nuclear device is less than 25kt, then you see that optimal altitude would be 25km and it would effect an area with a radius of 25km. As a practical matter their satellites, at about 300km, can affect a very large portion of the US, but they can't generate enough energy at that altitude to create an EMP that would hurt us.
That's enough for this morning, but the short version is that if NK wanted to attack us then they would get far better results from a near ground detonation in a west coast sea port than they would from a satellite detonation given their available technology.
The risk from NK in the short term is proliferation, not attack, and certainly not an EMP attack.
Just one man's opinion based on the information I've seen.
All this talk of North Korea and their nuclear threat. My question is what is to be gained by them attacking anyone? Kim is a little fella with an ego bigger than his hairdo. He's drunk with the power he has at home so why would he destroy that lifestyle by starting a losing war cause he surely knows his country would be wiped from the map and he would be hunted down and killed. There's nothing to win there for him.
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Americans tend to suck at understanding other cultures, and I don't think I'm any better than average in this regard, so I am reluctant to take as firm a stand as I am willing to take on technology issues. That said, yeah, I don't see it at all. He gets what he wants and more by threatening, once he pulls the trigger he loses everything. Surely he knows this.
Cause he is crazy?
That's what he wants you to think but hes not that crazy.....all show and no go. His drunkenness over power in his little fifdom is greater than the level of Crazy that people believe he has.
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drypowder
Les Deplorables
Exactly.
All of NK's rhetoric against the US is a smoke show. The little giant can barely maintain his own population and trumps up America as the boogey man hiding in the Korean's closets. The boogeyman that he alone is keeping at bay by waving his torch into the darkness.
If he ever actually struck out against the monster then the ruse would fall apart.
T
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I wouldn't worry about it.
Some guys on a gun forum said we are safe.
Some guys on a gun forum said we are safe.
drypowder
Les Deplorables
Why, apart from US.gov propaganda and media support, do so many Americans have a hard on for Iran? Were the 9/11 attackers Iranian? Does Iran fund Al Queda or ISIS?
I think it's because Iran really brought the entire middle-east to our attention in 1979. Leading up to that we had the issues with OPEC and so we were aware of the place, but the constant coverage of the hostage crisis just burned the name into our brains. Besides, it is easy to spell.
Conversely, you should worry about it because some guys on a gun forum and articles at various websites that derive revenue from clicks say that we should worry?
This is a VERY good documentary. Recent, too, (April, 2017). A lot of "in the know" people from military officers, Ex CIA, ambassadors, Koreans, Kim Jong Un's childhood chef... but the real key is sprinkled throughout (middle to middle end), where their true capabilities are discussed and their economic/agricultural turnarounds are laid bare. They aren't the Great Famine North Korea of Kim Jong Il. Fat kid is trying to secure a future by feeding his people (better than before at least) and nukes.
Well said
MacEntyre
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Seems like we would have a button somewheres that Trump could push that would eliminate the NK sattelites, no matter what is onboard, no matter if they are tumbling, just <POOF!> they are gone... just sayin'.
georgel
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Well, Space Command is tracking them for sure and I wouldn't be surprised if we could at least disrupt communications to it.
My son sent this synopsis on the NK nuclear threat couple of weeks ago
Corrected link...
My son sent this synopsis on the NK nuclear threat couple of weeks ago
Corrected link...
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All I got was a picture of the u tube arrow ?
ChickenHawk
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They win earth day every year.
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A lot of people seem to forget that we are ultimately responsible for the hostage crises. We did install the brutal dictator that they overthrew after all.
If we can rewrite most of the run up to our own civil war, what makes you think we can't rewrite everything about theirs?
I wonder what that unmanned Air Force space shuttle was doing up there for the past two years. Seems like we could just push it into a spin or decaying orbit, or like you suggest, stick a jammer on it. Maybe even scoop it up and fly it back.
Diesel boats on batteries are difficult to find and track without question.
Their boats are so old and I'd imagine so poorly maintained the auxiliary machinery would be easier to detect.
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Umm... If it's got a nuke on it, we might not want to bring back home. Drop it in their backyard maybe.
Lol right... I haven't taken that option seriously but it can't be ruled out!
Call SpaceX, if they don't blow it up on the pad, they can land their stuff on a moving ship in the ocean.