China Has ‘First-Strike’ Capability To Melt U.S. Power Grid With Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon

[B00M 6416]

6 minutes ago, BigHorn'13 said:

Why are we vulnerable right now as US citizens? Is that a serious, for real for real, question?

 

And FTR I'm over 30, don't work at a tire store and know how to change a tire without the assistance from a person or the internet. 

He said under so ...

[ChiTownDoc 21154]

FML

 

#regard

Edited July 26, 2020 by ChiTownDoc

[RollLeft 5045]

8 hours ago, clapclapclap said:

 

Sociologically, China seems to be moving into a more aggressive position....

Almost all cultures prefer a male as the first child and in China, the eldest male is expected to take care of his elderly parents. ...

[Murfdogg21 4413]

1 hour ago, RollLeft said:

They should look into it over there

[Guest]

This should embolden the haters of America.

Day of celebration...

[berlinerbaer 678]

Only an upper-atmosphere nuclear explosion is capable of generating a long range EMP that could effectively cripple most of the country. Smaller scale non-nuclear weaponry would be restricted to battlefields and local theaters of hot conflict. Somebody educate me if this is not the case.

I don't see this as being anything other than a fancy name for a nuclear attack. Therefore, due to MAD, it has as much a chance of happening as a more conventional nuclear exchange. If we see ballistic missiles headed our way, we won't bother to wait and see if these warheads are meant to turn our cities to rubble or just fry a bunch of circuit boards. 

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

4 hours ago, Lobo said:

I'm assuming we have some sort of anti-EMP weapon defense capability of our own?  One that we'll probably be giving to Russia for $50 and a handjob rather soon?  

I’m guessing our anti EMP defense is just like our anti Covid defense.  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to start studying Mandarin 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

4 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I’m guessing our anti EMP defense is just like our anti Covid defense.  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to start studying Mandarin 

Yeah, no.  One thing we do really really well is war technology shit.  I think that's what keeps us as the technological masters of the world.

[mulletpelini 5211]

2 hours ago, BigHorn'13 said:

Why are we vulnerable right now as US citizens? Is that a serious, for real for real, question?

 

And FTR I'm over 30, don't work at a tire store and know how to change a tire without the assistance from a person or the internet. 

Sarcasm and reading comprehension meters are all that appear to not be functioning correctly ya gotdamn millenial

[Tailgate 3022]

10 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Hope we go on letting them think they have the upper hand, but they don’t.

Ya brat...my dad was Air Force...so I’m a “wing nut.” But the planet wouldn’t believe what the U.S. could do if we decided to pull out the big toy chest.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

6 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

Ya brat...my dad was Air Force...so I’m a “wing nut.” But the planet wouldn’t believe what the U.S. could do if we decided to pull out the big toy chest.

This right here ^^^^^.  I mean we got Roswell crash site technology....

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

21 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Yeah, no.  One thing we do really really well is war technology shit.  I think that's what keeps us as the technological masters of the world.

You mean like the war technology that kept the Bonhomme Richard from burning to a cinder while sitting in port

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 minute ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

You mean like the war technology that kept the Bonhomme Richard from burning to a cinder while sitting in port

That's not war technology, that's just basic shipyard worker shit.  It's been going on since there were shipyards.

[washparkhorn 9939]

3 hours ago, Xian said:

Any ambiguity to what our response would be is dangerous.  If we plan on responding to an emp attack with nukes, it needs to be known. 

Fry our grid and we are largely defenseless. We have made it very clear to the Chinese that we nuke if they EMP. Of course we die in that scenario, but they know that will be our response. MAD world.

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

That's not war technology, that's just basic shipyard worker shit.  It's been going on since there were shipyards.

So China doesn’t need to EMP us, they can just wait until all our ships burn up

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 minute ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So China doesn’t need to EMP us, they can just wait until all our ships burn up

I guess so.  I'm all a-skeered.

[Doyle Hargreaves 301]

I was in the shit. 

[washparkhorn 9939]

This point in Sino-US Relations  - the issues:

Quote

 

With hindsight it is clear that the policymakers of the 1990s and early 2000s did get some things wrong. They didn’t anticipate Xi’s restorationist, personality-driven model of CCP leadership. But neither did plenty of Xi’s rivals in Beijing.

Xi is a transformative leader of a conservative kind.

What cannot reasonably be said is that the Clinton or Bush administrations were naive about the ease of convergence with China. The terms of its accession to the WTO were demanding; thousands of Chinese laws had to be brought into compliance. As Blustein recounts, Zhu Rongji, the Chinese premier who negotiated the deal, faced widespread denunciation at home for selling out to America.

The terms of China’s WTO accession were, one senior Communist Party official blurted out, no better than the infamous ‘21 points’ which imperial Japan had tried to foist on the Chinese republic in 1915. The boom in China’s exports in the new century wasn’t the result of a sweetheart deal, but of the extraordinary mobilisation of labour and capital that began in the 1990s. And in that process Western capital played a key role. 

The question asked by the American left, as well as more hard-nosed right-wingers, is not whether the US negotiators were naive or incompetent, but whose interests they were representing. Were they negotiating on behalf of the average American, or American business?

 

Spoiler

If China policy since . . . Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama and Trump got some things wrong with China, what wrongs should we avoid as we uncouple from China? Was the plan to make China a competent military threat and make it long for more territory?

If EMP hits America, then China's currency is worthless. No need for nuke retaliation. China would screech to a halt - slowly at screeching levels of pain, misery and unrest. The Party would collapse. 

[MadBurgerMaker 404]

27 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

This point in Sino-US Relations  - the issues:

  Reveal hidden contents

If China policy since . . . Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama and Trump got some things wrong with China, what wrongs should we avoid as we uncouple from China? Was the plan to make China a competent military threat and make it long for more territory?

If EMP hits America, then China's currency is worthless. No need for nuke retaliation. China would screech to a halt - slowly at screeching levels of pain, misery and unrest. The Party would collapse. 

It's not really about the future of the Chinese economy at that point.

[BigHorn'13 3369]

7 hours ago, mulletpelini said:

Sarcasm and reading comprehension meters are all that appear to not be functioning correctly ya gotdamn millenial

Hey man, you should've expected a snarky response given today's climate. First person you cave to and you're marked. Prison rules and shit...

[RomaVicta 29929]

16 hours ago, Xian said:

Any ambiguity to what our response would be is dangerous.  If we plan on responding to an emp attack with nukes, it needs to be known. 
 

that said, if we don’t plan on responding with nukes, maybe the ambiguity is a good thing. 
 

happy I’m not in charge of defense policy.   I bet it’s a stressful job.  Thankfully we probably have top men on it.  

The country's in the very best of hands.

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by RomaVicta

[Trey3216 15347]

9 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

This point in Sino-US Relations  - the issues:

  Hide contents

If China policy since . . . Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama and Trump got some things wrong with China, what wrongs should we avoid as we uncouple from China? Was the plan to make China a competent military threat and make it long for more territory?

If EMP hits America, then China's currency is worthless. No need for nuke retaliation. China would screech to a halt - slowly at screeching levels of pain, misery and unrest. The Party would collapse. 

Yep.  China literally can not afford to discontinue doing business with the USA in any form of fashion.  It would result in complete and total collapse of their nation.   
 

Speeding it up with an EMP attack would all but guarantee the elimination of their entire country by America and her allies.   

[XYZ 2154]

25 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

The country's in the very best of hands.

I know you are being sarcastic, but I do believe that there are actually competent military people and protocols safeguarding the red buttons that launch the nukes.

[Bigbend1812 12927]

Maybe it’s in the seeds...

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

Speeding it up with an EMP attack would all but guarantee the elimination of their entire country by America and her allies.   

If China hit us with any kind of a first strike our “allies” would fall all over themselves running the other way

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

23 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

If China hit us with any kind of a first strike our “allies” would fall all over themselves running the other way

Why do you say that ?

[Parliament 14260]

If China hit us with any kind of a first strike our “allies” would fall all over themselves running the other way

They jumped to our defense pretty quick after 9-11. Japan, South Korea and Australia would be particularly quick to get in the fight.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[ztejas 43474]

8 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Japan

[Scheiss Meister 8408]

11 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Why do you say that ?

How about facing 1/6 of the planet's human population without our support?  As the Soviets were fond of saying, and showed in WW II, quantity has a quality of its own.

[Parliament 14260]

I believe they'd know China wouldn't stop after roughing America up a bit. Taiwan and the South China Sea would be immediately next and the surrounding nations would be under threat. Australia? They helped us in Vietnam for Pete's sake.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

Space Force and Rods from the Gods. EMP us and we’ll drop kinetic weapons with nuclear like explosive force on key political, military and infrastructure targets while still retaining our nuclear triad. Taking out Party headquarters and other sites, the nuclear missile silos and maybe Three Gorges dam ( if it doesn’t fail on its own) would fairly immasculate them in addition to their creating their own economic collapse. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Bobby_Batronic

[Homercles 10206]

EMP attack depicted here at the 2:00 mark, where all the cars die at once:

Always been fascinated with this movie, lots of interesting tidbits and semi-fringe (at least today) actors...Flounder, played the (epically well done) grandfather from Parenthood, John Lithgow, etc.  But this movie so impacted Reagan that it lead to an IRBM treaty and the famous mushroom cloud effect was done in a water tank.  

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

39 minutes ago, Scheiss Meister said:

How about facing 1/6 of the planet's human population without our support?  As the Soviets were fond of saying, and showed in WW II, quantity has a quality of its own.

Huh ? my question was why wouldn't our allies support US if WE were attacked by China.  I think our allies would support us.  The prospect of a world without the US as a hedge against China, and Russian military colonialism would be a pretty big factor in their minds.

[Mole 4333]

July is almost over; August seems a bit early for the electronic apocalypse - it’s too hot for tat anyway; September is when all the school kids start really spreading COVID and killing their teachers (no CR); November is already reserved for the civil war after the election (again, no CR); and December has the asteroid scheduled.

It looks like we’ll have to pencil in the Chinese EMP attack for October, unless the creepy clown video trend comes back for Halloween. At that point we’d be overbooked. I guess we could move the EMP to concurrently with the civil war, but I really need twitter and Facebook to keep myself angry. Otherwise, why have a civil war anyway?

[Texas_Rocks 346]

When can we expect the 2nd attack?

[Doyle Hargreaves 301]

Order would be

Air superiority, command and control, offensive capabilities, infrastructure. 
 

Then let the Chinese people finish the job. They fear their own people more than any foreign power. 

[BNB 100]

This was a fun read.

https://www.amazon.com/Second-After-John-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765327252

Forstchen based his research for One Second After on the 2004 bipartisan Congressional study of the potential threat to the continental United States from an EMP attack: Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. Drawing on this and other government and private studies, Forstchen explores by fiction what might happen in a "typical" American town in the wake of an attack on the United States with electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) weapons.[2] Forstchen has been invited to make presentations regarding the threat of EMP before members of Congress, and at STRATCOM, Sandia Labs, and NASA.

[RomaVicta 29929]

I recall an informed friend of mine making an interesting observation back in the 70s. 

A Russian pilot defected by flying his advanced fighter (Foxbat?) to Japan and handing it over to the USA. There were a few articles about how engineers were surprised that there was tube technology in the electronics. We all laughed. This friend of mine said the Soviets stuck to tubes because they were not susceptible to EMP failure.

Can anybody confirm that? Or deny it. Whatever works best.

[Rusty Shackelford 414]

Only an upper-atmosphere nuclear explosion is capable of generating a long range EMP that could effectively cripple most of the country. Smaller scale non-nuclear weaponry would be restricted to battlefields and local theaters of hot conflict. Somebody educate me if this is not the case.
I don't see this as being anything other than a fancy name for a nuclear attack. Therefore, due to MAD, it has as much a chance of happening as a more conventional nuclear exchange. If we see ballistic missiles headed our way, we won't bother to wait and see if these warheads are meant to turn our cities to rubble or just fry a bunch of circuit boards. 
 

That’s my understanding as well, didn’t read the longcat OP. I’m gonna stick with this assumption until someone drops some facts to the contrary.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

On 7/25/2020 at 1:53 PM, Stannis said:

The US Navy has 14 Ohio-Class Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines.  Each one of those subs carries 20 Trident submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles.  Each of those 20 missiles is a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), meaning each of the 20 Trident missiles carries up to 12 nuclear warheads (that is, if one Trident missile is launched, it can independently deploy 12 nuclear bombs to 12 independent targets).  In short, our submarine-based strategic nuclear deterrent, by itself, is capable of vaporizing every soul in China many times over.  That doesn't even take into consideration the other two arms of our nuclear triad (land-based ICBMs and strategic bombers). 

I don't think China is going to be taking down our power grid any time soon.

Didn't you say the same thing about Ramsay Bolton?

[B00M 6416]

8 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

I recall an informed friend of mine making an interesting observation back in the 70s. 

A Russian pilot defected by flying his advanced fighter (Foxbat?) to Japan and handing it over to the USA. There were a few articles about how engineers were surprised that there was tube technology in the electronics. We all laughed. This friend of mine said the Soviets stuck to tubes because they were not susceptible to EMP failure.

Can anybody confirm that? Or deny it. Whatever works best.

Can confirm. I mean it makes sense right?

I expect surly to lead the run on farraday pouches for phones. You probably won't be able to charge it, but that ~48 hrs of battery life while the world collapses around you will be the best ever. 

 

[Horn of Gabriel 1614]

This shit is my wheelhouse.  There are 2 questions:

1. How likely is an EMP attack to occur?
2. How bad would it be if it did happen?

On "How Likely," I think the answer is "not very likely," although the % goes up each year.  To perform a high-altitude EMP (HEMP) requires state-level sponsorship, sophistication, and technology.  Right now that means an ICBM or something close to it.  Near peer states like China know it would trigger a MAD scenario, along with how intertwined they are to our economy.  If you're looking for something different to worry about, it's not China doing an EMP, it's the delivery and technology becoming commoditized enough that a shithole country or terrorist group is able to execute it.  Who do we fire our nukes at when some anonymous terror group pilot a container ship in the Pacific or Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico right up to our doorstep and fires off an EMP from there?  Container delivered nukes/EMPs are very possible right now.  I'm a lot more worried about a country with nothing left to lose than I am China.  Which is why it's in our interest for Russia's economy to be better and not so petrol based, but that's a different thread...

On "How bad," the answer is "really, really bad."  At least for a HEMP.  Basically, 90% of the U.S. population could die within two years.  Think about it: our population is completely, totally dependent on technology.  Technology drives crop production, distribution, factories, trucks, internet, everything.  A really strong EMP that fries transformers, sidelines trucking, knocks out farming and production equipment...and what are we back to?  An agrarian society circa early 1900's.  That level of technology doesn't have the carrying capacity for 330M+ people.  You saw what happened with COVID-19 and people freaking out over toilet paper, that's was nothing.  Trucks go down and stores are empty in 2-3 days.  Refrigeration and air conditioning, done.  If you're like me and require temperature controlled medicine like insulin, you're dead within a few months.  The rest die in food riots and civil unrest before the succumb to famine, and then disease.  All those wonderful medical technologies and drugs we've developed?  Useless or inaccessible now.  Live in or near a major city?  The government isn't coming to help, you're on your own.  Oh, you have your own farm/ranch?  Great, I hope you're more than a tank of gas from any major population center because guess who is coming for your shit - everyone.  Anyway, it's not a good picture and I try not to think about it.

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole on this, read the One Second After book trilogy by William Forstchen.  Just don't be surprised when you turn into a prepper.

[Parliament 14260]

90%?  That'd knock us back to where our population was in 1860 when we had maybe 60% of the farmland we have now.  No question our ag productivity is very depended on electronics, but if we lost all of that, crop yields wouldn't fall to anywhere close to 1860.

And I think there's disagreement as to what all an EMP can fry.  Your cel phone?  Yes.  The radio in your car?  Probably?  The battery, starter and alternator in your car?  Maybe?  Maybe not.  Any diesel engine made before 1987 or so would be fine.  Vehicles parked in concrete parking ramps might be fine.  Lots of unknowns, but not as bad as you describe.

[C-Man 27230]

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

This shit is my wheelhouse.  There are 2 questions:

1. How likely is an EMP attack to occur?
2. How bad would it be if it did happen?

 

On "How bad," the answer is "really, really bad."  At least for a HEMP.  Basically, 90% of the U.S. population could die within two years.  Think about it: our population is completely, totally dependent on technology.  Technology drives crop production, distribution, factories, trucks, internet, everything.

Bullshit.  Crops will be just fine.

Keep on dooming and glooming.

[Brisketexan 105154]

On 7/25/2020 at 11:40 AM, BurntEyes said:

China can't afford to shut down the US. We have economic mutually assured destruction.

 

This.

On 7/25/2020 at 12:53 PM, Stannis said:

The US Navy has 14 Ohio-Class Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines.  Each one of those subs carries 20 Trident submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles.  Each of those 20 missiles is a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), meaning each of the 20 Trident missiles carries up to 12 nuclear warheads (that is, if one Trident missile is launched, it can independently deploy 12 nuclear bombs to 12 independent targets).  In short, our submarine-based strategic nuclear deterrent, by itself, is capable of vaporizing every soul in China many times over.  That doesn't even take into consideration the other two arms of our nuclear triad (land-based ICBMs and strategic bombers). 

I don't think China is going to be taking down our power grid any time soon.

And this.

It's just more M.A.D.  Whoopee.

[XYZ 2154]

1 hour ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

This shit is my wheelhouse.  There are 2 questions:

1. How likely is an EMP attack to occur?
2. How bad would it be if it did happen?

On "How Likely," I think the answer is "not very likely," although the % goes up each year.  To perform a high-altitude EMP (HEMP) requires state-level sponsorship, sophistication, and technology.  Right now that means an ICBM or something close to it.  Near peer states like China know it would trigger a MAD scenario, along with how intertwined they are to our economy.  If you're looking for something different to worry about, it's not China doing an EMP, it's the delivery and technology becoming commoditized enough that a shithole country or terrorist group is able to execute it.  Who do we fire our nukes at when some anonymous terror group pilot a container ship in the Pacific or Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico right up to our doorstep and fires off an EMP from there?  Container delivered nukes/EMPs are very possible right now.  I'm a lot more worried about a country with nothing left to lose than I am China.  Which is why it's in our interest for Russia's economy to be better and not so petrol based, but that's a different thread...

On "How bad," the answer is "really, really bad."  At least for a HEMP.  Basically, 90% of the U.S. population could die within two years.  Think about it: our population is completely, totally dependent on technology.  Technology drives crop production, distribution, factories, trucks, internet, everything.  A really strong EMP that fries transformers, sidelines trucking, knocks out farming and production equipment...and what are we back to?  An agrarian society circa early 1900's.  That level of technology doesn't have the carrying capacity for 330M+ people.  You saw what happened with COVID-19 and people freaking out over toilet paper, that's was nothing.  Trucks go down and stores are empty in 2-3 days.  Refrigeration and air conditioning, done.  If you're like me and require temperature controlled medicine like insulin, you're dead within a few months.  The rest die in food riots and civil unrest before the succumb to famine, and then disease.  All those wonderful medical technologies and drugs we've developed?  Useless or inaccessible now.  Live in or near a major city?  The government isn't coming to help, you're on your own.  Oh, you have your own farm/ranch?  Great, I hope you're more than a tank of gas from any major population center because guess who is coming for your shit - everyone.  Anyway, it's not a good picture and I try not to think about it.

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole on this, read the One Second After book trilogy by William Forstchen.  Just don't be surprised when you turn into a prepper.

A bit hyperbolic perhaps? I mean, in this EMP scenario, do Mexico and Canada also get sent back to the stone age? What about south of Mexico?

[Horn of Gabriel 1614]

1 hour ago, slorch said:

Bullshit.  Crops will be just fine.

Keep on dooming and glooming.

We're literally discussing a hypothetical, hop off your high horse.

1 hour ago, Parliament said:

90%?  That'd knock us back to where our population was in 1860 when we had maybe 60% of the farmland we have now.  No question our ag productivity is very depended on electronics, but if we lost all of that, crop yields wouldn't fall to anywhere close to 1860.

And I think there's disagreement as to what all an EMP can fry.  Your cel phone?  Yes.  The radio in your car?  Probably?  The battery, starter and alternator in your car?  Maybe?  Maybe not.  Any diesel engine made before 1987 or so would be fine.  Vehicles parked in concrete parking ramps might be fine.  Lots of unknowns, but not as bad as you describe.

So we have more cropland but we're more technology dependent than ever in ag production, from H20 control to harvest.  Not sure how that farmer is going to do it when his tech dies, no GPS automation, etc.  And even if he is able to do it all manually, in this scenario trucking and distribution is also knocked way down in capacity.

Who knows what a full on EMP attack can actually affect? I hope we never get to find out.  Maybe it's half as bad as I speculated above...we only lose 100M people.  The point is polite society is more on a knife's edge than people appreciate, as illustrated by the COVID panic shopping, the Texas gas "shortage" a few years back, Katrina, and a million other examples.  Only in this scenario the devastation isn't localized to city or state like a hurricane, it's much more far reaching.  The expert who wrote the book I and someone else linked above says (with data to back it up) that a properly executed EMP could knock out a lot more than we think.

Then again, if I were a terrorist with the ability to do an EMP attack, I'd probably just go straight for a nuke attack in a major city; maybe less impactful geographically but more impactful psychologically.

[Horn of Gabriel 1614]

45 minutes ago, XYZ said:

A bit hyperbolic perhaps? I mean, in this EMP scenario, do Mexico and Canada also get sent back to the stone age? What about south of Mexico?

EMP has a "fallout" radius, just like a nuke, depending on size and altitude of detonation.

[Scheiss Meister 8408]

4 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Huh ? my question was why wouldn't our allies support US if WE were attacked by China.  I think our allies would support us.  The prospect of a world without the US as a hedge against China, and Russian military colonialism would be a pretty big factor in their minds.

It may be my cynicism, but I am not convinced that the US would commit to a vigorous defense, and I am very, very certain that we would abandon any ally on a whim.  Our allies know this, too.