U.S. Military Plane Forced Down By N.K. Electronic Attack

This seems a little scary to me. If an electronic attack can force a military aircraft to make an emergency landing what does that say about our hi-tech military's abilities against a hi-tech adversary?

A US military reconnaissance plane came under electronic attack from North Korea and had to make an emergency landing during a major military exercise in March, a political aide said Friday.

The aide said the plane suffered disturbance to its GPS system due to jamming signals from the North's southwestern cities of Haeju and Kaesong as it was taking part in the annual US-South Korea drill, Key Resolve.

Jamming signals -- sent at intervals of five to 10 minutes on the afternoon of March 4 -- forced the plane to make an emergency landing 45 minutes after it took off, the aide quoted the report as saying.

The signals also affected South Korean naval patrol boats and speedboats, as well as several civilian flights near Seoul's Gimpo area, according to the report.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/us-...-electronic-attack-20110909-ncx#ixzz1XStSZ6YP

 

Non nuclear EMP'S are scarier than nukes in my opinion, due to the fact that we would have no way to detect it, before it sent us back into the stoneage.




Non-nuclear EMP Weapons
The United States most likely has EMP weapons in its arsenal, but it's not clear in what form. Much of the United States' EMP research has involved high power microwaves (HPMs). Reporters have widely speculated that they do exist and that such weapons could be used in a war with Iraq.
Most likely, the United States' HPM e-bombs aren't really bombs at all. They're probably more like super powerful microwave ovens that can generate a concentrated beam of microwave energy. One possibility is the HPM device would be mounted to a cruise missile, disrupting ground targets from above.

This technology is advanced and expensive and so would be inaccessible to military forces without considerable resources. But that's only one piece of the e-bomb story. Using inexpensive supplies and rudimentary engineering knowledge, a terrorist organization could easily construct a dangerous e-bomb device.

In late September 2001, Popular Mechanics published an article outlining this possibility. The article focused on flux compression generator bombs (FCGs), which date back to the 1950s. This sort of e-bomb has a fairly simple, potentially inexpensive design, illustrated below. (This conceptual bomb design comes from this report written by Carlo Kopp, a defense analyst. The design concept has been widely available to the public for some time. Nobody would be able to construct a functioning e-bomb from this description alone).


The bomb consists of a metal cylinder (called the armature), which is surrounded by a coil of wire (the stator winding). The armature cylinder is filled with high explosive, and a sturdy jacket surrounds the entire device. The stator winding and the armature cylinder are separated by empty space. The bomb also has a power source, such as a bank of capacitors, which can be connected to the stator.

Here's the sequence of events when the bomb goes off:


•A switch connects the capacitors to the stator, sending an electrical current through the wires. This generates an intense magnetic field.
•A fuze mechanism ignites the explosive material. The explosion travels as a wave through the middle of the armature cylinder.
•As the explosion makes its way through the cylinder, the cylinder comes in contact with the stator winding. This creates a short circuit, cutting the stator off from its power supply.
•The moving short circuit compresses the magnetic field, generating an intense electromagnetic burst.

Most likely, this type of weapon would affect a relatively small area -- nothing on the order of a nuclear EMP attack -- but it could do some serious damage.

In the next section, we'll look at some possible effects of an EMP attack.
The United States is drawn to EMP technology because it is potentially non-lethal, but is still highly destructive. An E-bomb attack would leave buildings standing and spare lives, but it could destroy a sizeable military.
There is a range of possible attack scenarios. Low-level electromagnetic pulses would temporarily jam electronics systems, more intense pulses would corrupt important computer data and very powerful bursts would completely fry electric and electronic equipment.

In modern warfare, the various levels of attack could accomplish a number of important combat missions without racking up many casualties. For example, an e-bomb could effectively neutralize:

•vehicle control systems
•targeting systems, on the ground and on missiles and bombs
•communications systems
•navigation systems
•long and short-range sensor systems
EMP weapons could be especially useful in an invasion of Iraq, because a pulse might effectively neutralize underground bunkers. Most of Iraq's underground bunkers are hard to reach with conventional bombs and missiles. A nuclear blast could effectively demolish many of these bunkers, but this would take a devastating toll on surrounding areas. An electromagnetic pulse could pass through the ground, knocking out the bunker's lights, ventilation systems, communications -- even electric doors. The bunker would be completely uninhabitable.

U.S. forces are also highly vulnerable to EMP attack, however. In recent years, the U.S. military has added sophisticated electronics to the full range of its arsenal. This electronic technology is largely built around consumer-grade semiconductor devices, which are highly sensitive to any power surge. More rudimentary vacuum tube technology would actually stand a better chance of surviving an e-bomb attack.

A widespread EMP attack in any country would compromise a military's ability to organize itself. Ground troops might have perfectly functioning non-electric weapons (like machine guns), but they wouldn't have the equipment to plan an attack or locate the enemy. Effectively, an EMP attack could reduce any military unit into a guerilla-type army.

While EMP weapons are generally considered non-lethal, they could easily kill people if they were directed towards particular targets. If an EMP knocked out a hospital's electricity, for example, any patient on life support would die immediately. An EMP weapon could also neutralize vehicles, including aircraft, causing catastrophic accidents.

In the end, the most far-reaching effect of an e-bomb could be psychological. A full-scale EMP attack in a developed country would instantly bring modern life to a screeching halt. There would be plenty of survivors, but they would find themselves in a very different world.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb3.htm

 

Let's test one of these non-nuclear EMP devices at the IRS data center and see how it works.

Seriously, military integrated circuts are supposed to be hardened/protected from an EMP. They aren't saying how effective the shielding is, though. It obviously has some problems judging from the North Korea event. The rest of us would indeed be sent back to the stone age (well, atleast pre-1960's) as nearly nothing with today's electronics would work after exposure to an EMP.