Thanks for that Fenton. However, it should be noted that our grid is not fully
shielded. Yes we know it should be, but it's not, at least not yet. We have had problems with X type solar events when they are aimed at Earth and will continue to have these problem until we address the grid as a whole. A locally deployed EMP device would be much more powerful than the X type flare event that can give us problems now and could very well overwhelm a weakly shielded (and perhaps vital) portion of our electrical infrastructure.
Not near the disaster you see in the apocalypse movies, but still bad. However, many of the nations where we had boots on the ground are not even close to shielded, making EMP weapons an effective thing to develop.
Yea I've given EMP weaponry some thought, and it just doesn't seem practical.
First, any nuclear detonation will give off massive amounts of gamma rays which in turn scatter massive amounts of free electrons into the atmosphere causing oscillating shifts in the Earths natural Electro Magnetic Field thus creating EMP's.
EMP's strong enough to affect large areas and enough to cripple our infrastructure.
If a Country were trying to purposely detonate high altitude Nuclear weapons for this purpose over America, then all pretense to all out Nuclear war would be cast aside as our SSBMs " Boomers" rained in our Country's response on their city's.
A response because a EMP type weapon would be a first strike option to slow down or stop any retalliation.
Why waste a Nuke by allowing all of it's power to be absorbed by the atmosphere in the hopes of targeting our electrical infrastructure when a targeted strike at 500 ft would completely decimate the infrastructure and make reconstruction, at least in that area not feasable for decades ?
My oldest is in the Navy, and I try to get him to give up the goods on the new tech and stuff I'm not suppposed to know about when he comes home to visit, but he's a good kid and just assures me that whatever they have under some of those decks is interesting.
Hmmmmm.....maybe I need to waterboard the boy.
I guess my point is by it's nature, by it's infered reason for deployment, any EMP heading our way would lead really quickly to a escalation that would make its use irrelevent in the first place.