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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)"
"guess what I'd like to see is a combination E-Bomb/MOAB. "
Already on the drawing-board: mini-nukes - you get the destructive power of several MOABs and an EMP into the bargain.
that is what ruined Revolutions for me ...
.. and the humans seemed to survive no problem.
if EMP's were their only real line of defence against the machines why wouldn't the tunnels leading down to Zion and Zion itself be loaded with them.
I mean when the one hovercraft finally came through the EMP wiped out every single machine
You would think that EMP's would be preferable to poorly designed mechs that are hardly mobile and need unarmed kids to run ammo out to them in the middle of the battlefield.
That would depend on who the teroists are. Al Queda are not the only teroist group, and they are considered unusual because they are prepared (even eager) to commit attrocites with a high civilian death toll.
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). For such a teroist group, a weapon capable of causing billions of dollars of economic damage to an enemy, while killing few if any civilians would be quite attractive.
An example of and economic attack would be the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombs in the City of London financial district, which killed few if any people, (I can't remember the details) but did close to a billion dollars of damage. Had microwave weapons been avalable to the IRA at the time, it is likely that they would have used them.
Exactly. I view this as perhaps the most fundamental mindset mistake of the US - we assume once the technological problem is solved, we are done and the problem is over. We deal in technology and discount people. This is true even in our regular society - our business culture, for example, is not know for it's awareness or sympathy for the human condition. Television replaces human contact (says the slashdot geek :-/). As a consequence, we forget what human beings are capable of even without technology. 9/11 was a wakeup call, but I expect everything but the horror and hate of the crime was lost on US. The lesson that people always have some power to impact the world around them wasn't and isn't likely to be heeded, because it makes us less powerful. It makes us vulnerable. We don't like the feelings, and thus ignore the truth.
Part of the problem is peace is an inherantly fragile condition. We want a peaceful society, but there is a line from the Lord of the Rings I've always liked that sums up the facts well: "We learned long ago that those without swords can still die upon them." The US hasn't learned this. We have tried to create the concepts of civilian and soldier, but when you get right down to it we are all a part of this civilization, and if someone wants to do damage to the civilization they won't hit the strong points first. The concept of civilian is a luxury - in the ultimate scenario of doom, we all must either fight or die. Our thinking and strategy militarily has always centered around repeling a conqueroring invasion. That is no longer a possibility, thanks to the nuclear deterrant. But the conventional thinking then assumes because enemies can't conqueror, they will give up. Coming to terms with the different reality is not something we appear to be ready to do. People fighting hopeless fights is something we seem to have forgotten, or assumed that the bad guys won't do.
The truth that we can't do anything about certain threats is a bitter one, but not recognizing it leads to things like the Patriot Act. We must accept the vulnerability of being human and peaceful, or give it up and accept a police state. People have long said that democracy is worth dynig for, but the context has always been war or battle. I think it has to be taken beyond that - democracy is worth dying in a terrorist attack for. If we can't make that decision, we can't maintain a reasonably open society. Right now we're on the fence, hoping we won't have to decide. Certain of the political elements are salivating at the power of a police state, and they are also very dangerous. I would rather die as a consequence of our being an open, free society than see the US become something other than the last, best hope of mankind. If someone wishes to kill there is no way of peace, but I would prefer we keep trying than become another closed, fearful, government controlled footnote in world history.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Err, dunno what planet you're from. Welcome to Earth. Have you ever heard of dambusters ? WW2 ? Bunch of Lancaster bombers, the bouncing bomb, etc. etc.
:-)
The explosion caused by the bombs wasn't that great, but because it blew up right next to the dam, and because water is relatively incompressible, they broke (two of the three, I think) the dams.
You certainly don't need a nuclear weapon to blow up a dam!
as for "natural disaster", that depends on the flow-rate when it hits civilisation. I'd argue "natural" as well
If the dam bottles all the water up, and someone's built a city in the shadow of the dam walls, then yes, lots will die. If on the other hand, the dam is relatively far away from the nearest civilian population, the water has time to order its flow again, the immediate damage to civilians can be minimal.
The long-term effects can be enormous, however, but doing something like this is no different to bombing any other infrastructure within a warzone (eg: the Gulf war, where most of the comms, power, water etc. were all utterly destroyed). Funny thing - no war crimes were mentioned...
I'm not sure (I've only driven over it a few times) but the Hoover dam might be a good target - the cities are miles away, the kinetic energy can greatly dissipate, and the cities are completely dependent on the water. Excellent choice for a target, if I'm right about those premises, and if I was a terrorist/enemy agent in the US.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
You know folks, the scary thing i see about this is... what if the enemy had one of these microwave devices and were able to deploy it around a vital target. The second we tried to bomb the target, that very bomb or cruise missile would be disabled in no time flat, and the bomb would fly off course and blow up a children's hospital... Of course this would also be a very cool way to stop an enemy's missile attack, it would probably make a far better missile defence system than those lasers they have mounted in 747's
The military must prepare for The Next Enemy, whomever that may be. That's how you stay ahead of the curve and assured your not blindsided by something (say Sputnik and the possibility of living under a Commie Moon). Most nations out there have a varied mix of irregular and regular land, sea, and air branches. Predicting their national government, culture and outlook (and their possible hostility towards us and our friends) 40 years into the future is the domain of the State Department and think tanks.
So, yeah, an e-bomb might just gather dust... now. But in 10 years when it's in production? 20? Back in 1983 could anyone here predict the path of events that lead us to now?
Politicians start wars. Armies finish them. The military is just preparing for any contigency our governments decide to point and click them towards.
What is music when you despise all sound?
The disabling all electric devices and motors by an alien from outer space was the gave the title to this 1950s movie, consider among the best in the genre. The alien could show more discrimination in turning off devices than an e-bomb. The movie was considered a metaphor for the cold war, where the alien represented a powerful Soviet Union.
"Gort, Klaatu barada nikto"
This reminds me of an interview I saw one with some BASE jumpers. They said that when jumping off microwave towers, you can't hang around on top very long becuase you can feel your fillings heat up.
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
It doesn't matter how many of them there are. We've got all the force multipliers. They live but through our boundless compassion and grace. If they cannot find a way to be peaceful by the time our paitence wears out, they will, rest assured, be exterminated. And they won't even get museams or reservations.
Seriously, you should get out more. Talk to more working slobs. Even the occasional PhD, MD. Make sure to include a few who fled the holocaust as children. See what they think should be done. There are many people who with their friends, and other company where politness isn't demanded, who'll freely talk about resuming above ground testing in the middle east.
My favorite scenario was a proposal to steal a play from the fudementalist muslim play book, but scale it up. Hold them, their whole world hostage, and give them one year to kill all the asshat, or else. Starting with Mecca, then proceeding through the list of muslim holy cities and population centers. Moving up the timeline in response to terrorist attacks. Brilliant, they're judged on their own morality, by their own morality, according to their methods, but they alone have the power to throw or not throw the switch. Maybe they'd call the West's bluff on Mecca, but after that? If I were a muslim, I'd be all about militantly preaching love. That religion has let itself be dragged out onto the thin ice. How much time is left for the sensible among them to get back to shore before the word comes to kill their God, and punch their tickets en masse?
I don't care about the ethical debate. Not any more. They've spent that charity. Now, while Might might not make Right, it does make the rules. And there is no getting around that.