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E-Bombs: Technology Update
vaderhelmet writes "'In these media-fueled times, when war is a television spectacle and wiping out large numbers of civilians is generally frowned upon, the perfect weapon would literally stop an enemy in his tracks, yet harm neither hide nor hair. Such a weapon might shut down telecommunications networks, disrupt power supplies, and fry an adversary's countless computers and electronic gadgets, yet still leave buildings, bridges, and highways intact. It would strike with precision, in an instant, and leave behind no trace of where it came from.' (Story from IEEE Spectrum Online)"
The problem is that most of the generals wear pacemakers, and these bombs would kill them, thus causing the US to respond with nukes. You might not think it's possible, but what if an ebomb was detonated near Washington? How many senators have pacemakers? The President likely has one. It would be a nightmare to all, if such a thing happened, especially the innocent.
Technologically inclined countries would suffer the most from such attacks.However, terrorists would rather use low-cost/high-bodycount methods, like hijacking a plane and flying it into a building; no cost to Al Queda (they just had to pay for training and carpet knives).
Yes ebombs would be horrible if detonated on American soil, but switching to them is currently against terrorist doctrine. And the US wouldn't bother with them because there aren't any circuits in AK-47s, and the collateral damage is too great. Might be good to take out surface-air rocket launchers, and other big baddies, but you end up setting back the country you're attacking technologically on an even scale; there is no target descrimination.
It might make the general population of "liberated" countries like Iraq, even more hostile if you blow up their computers and Internet connections! Nothing worse than a horde of angry Iraqi children denied their Quake time.
It would also strike all hospitals, causing loss of life. Which is particularly bad, because the Geneva convention forbids attacks against medical facilities, which shall be marked with a red cross, and the e-Bomb *would* attack such.
(8-DCS)
But what will it do against a single person with an explosive belt who is determined to die and take as many people with them as they can?
Nothing!
The United States doesn't know how to fight against an idea, it only knows how to fight against a militia...
And in these times when men are willing to sacrifice their lives by crashing planes and strapping bombs to themselves, that EMP won't do you much good. How does an EMP stop the guy in a heavily populated area from emptying an M16 into a crowd, or blowing up a U-Haul full of kerosene and fertilizer? So long as people are dedicated to their cause, they will fight, with or without their Palm Pilots. The Romans did.
do not read this line twice.
"'and wiping out large numbers of civilians is generally frowned upon'
not if you're al qaeda. that's their primary goal."
That's not their goal, it's the means to an end. They have no interest in killing except that it is the best method they believe they have to achieving their goal (destruction of the USA and its allies, radical 'Islamification' of the world).
It's no different than any other war, except that the targets are civilian instead of military units. The goal in most wars is to topple a political power or achieve independence, the fighting is just the method by which nations attempt to get there, not the 'goal' itself.
GL
These wouldn't be, at the moment, effective weapons for the U.S. to use, but they would be highly effective against U.S. forces.
The potato it is uninformed.
> the perfect weapon would literally stop an enemy in his tracks,
> yet harm neither hide nor hair.
Nope. The perfect weapon kills all of your enemies. 'What if' we killed no Iraqis in Bush's war? Instead of 50,000 insurgents, how many hundreds of thousands of guerrilla fighters would we be facing now? Guerilla fighters do not need electronics, just weapons and the ability to talk to each other face-to-face.
Death is preferable in so many things. Suppose you accidentally drive over a pedestrian. Your civil suit fines will be much higher if you maim the person instead of kill him because you're paying for pain & suffering to cover the rest of his life.
Back to war... if you don't kill your enemy, he lives to fight another day and teach his children to hate you too. War is about killing and always will be. If you can't stomach it, don't play that game.
No. It merely eliminates niceties like computer-aimed artillery, guided missiles, guided bombs. It does nothing at all to pistols, rifles, machine guns, grenades, manually aimed howitzers, ballistic missiles, etc.
Hmpf. Funny. These are the very tools being used to great effect in Iraq right now. An e-bomb wouldn't do squat against most of what is being used against occupyers and their supporters.
This sort of weapon is nice nonetheless, so long as you are up against a conventional force. You could take out SAMs, advanced tanks (not older models that rely on human aim), and other computer-heavy armaments. This reduces the relative effectiveness of a modern conventional force. It just doesn't do squat to unconventional forces.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Where it wouldn't work is a place like Afganistan, where a local irregular knows how to use a camel and a kalashnikov. (Unless this device melts guns).
So, in summary, it seems like the perfect underdog weapon, where the underdog is not the US, but, say, Palestinians or Baathists. Terrorists could use it in the US, and we would be virtually defenseless, and it would render our expensive, high-tech army useless overseas.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Like dropping 500 kg bombs on Iraqi homes. Cheap as chips to the US military budget.
There are two versions of EMPs. One is a relativly low powered pulse that would do as you say.
However, the other is the one the military are looking at, and is more of a precision weapon.
Think of the difference between a rifle and a grenade.
According to conventional doctrine a rational terrorists group will avoid killing large numbers of civilian bystanders in order to avoid aleanating the community from which they draw their support (and funding).
You are confusing Terrorist with Guerilla. A terrorist by definition is doing things to cause a general sense of "terror" in his enemies civillian population. This is best achieved if the targets are essentially random so every member of the population is at potential risk and if the attacks are as horrific as possible. So a bomb in a crowded pizza parlor is an act of terrorism while a sniper targetting a soldier is an act of guerrilla warfare. Either act is a matter of tactics so any particular group can be engaged in both kinds of activities.
Obviously as in the case of the IRA bombing in the City of London a single terrorist act can have multiple advantages. It WAS a terrorist attack in that it killed a number of people that belong to the "opinion class" and thus invokes terror throughout that class. It also did financial damage to a much wider group so they felt it have an impact on their lives personally. The whole point of their terrorism was to demoralize the enemy population so that they would conclude that Northern Ireland was not worth the cost of having to live in fear. A technological attack that did even more economic damage may have been effective but part of what the terrorist wants is the graphic scenes on TV of bleeding civillians running from the blast and the sight of all that damage (the City of London bombing was dramatic). Being TOLD about a bunch of computers being disrupted doesn't move public opinion the way that the random and horrific deaths of large numbers of people *just like you* does.
I'm really sorry to hear you were a professional killer. That's sad.
You know what's sad? Idiotic statements like that.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-- John Stuart Mill
I, for one, thank you for your service bigjnsa500. No matter whether or not I agree with the motives of the combat I always appreciate the troops and their sacrifice--and I'm not only talking about the sacrifice of those who died.
Quoth Niccolo Machiavelli: For it must be noted, that men must either be caressed or else annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries, but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.
The only path to peace is elimination of enemies. Think genocide will just make more enemies? Ask the American Indians. No one cares about their plight, because there are so few of them left. And becuase of this, they stopped fighting back. We need not fear his vengence.
Does anyone honestly think that somday the Israelis and Palestinians will come up with a really good peice of paper for the to sign that will lead to peace? The only way there will ever be peace in that region (or anywhere) is if one side decicevly eliminates the other.
Dump the e-bomb, hang on to the h-bomb.
* Which raises the issue of the fraction of ordinance that are duds. It would suck to send in the CIA or SF to retrieve/destroy an intact warhead!!
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
I would like to note that my freedoms do not come from force of strength, but from rule of law
Bullshit. It is the force of strength that makes rule of law work. Next time you think there is no force of strength behind rule of law, try punching a judge.
Laws only work because we can use physical force to punish anyone who violates them. As a society of mostly civilized people we tend not to have to do so, but only because we are well trained. Its easier and more profitable to fine someone for a voilation, but but in the end, if someone absolutely refuses to submit to more civil means, we will physically drag their ass into a cage and lock them up there until we thing they'll play nice.
If you can't fight for what you believe in, then your nothing but a coward.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Having watched my little girl emerge from 8-weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, I don't find the idea of killing computers to be such a wonderful idea.
"In other news, the latest E-Bomb attack on North Korea was, in the words of the Air Force Chief of Staff, 'A resounding success.'
"Initial body counts indicate that civilian deaths , while widespread, were random and uncoordinated; from crashing jet liners to a hospital that exploded when a simple thermostat in the boiler room failed.
"'This is the sort of terror weapon that we've always wanted to have access to.' he is quoted as saying."
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.