Lufteufel wrote:

Entropy Stew wrote:

Bodybag wrote:

I'm sporting wood!

Or, as video games like to put it, EMP. These things are incredibly fucking nasty. High-energy radio frequency discharge (HERF) causes a huge electrical surge in ANY closed circuit it comes into contact with - like they said, this is one of the effect of a nuke going off (that's how they found out about it). Think what would happen if you pointed one of these at the Stock Exchange, or an airplane taking off. It's also difficult to shield against. TEMPEST shielding for instance, is an expensive pain in the assl - I'd hate to see what it takes for an entire building to be shielded against a signal several orders of magnitude greater (a huge Faraday cage?).

-/ES/-

During the cold war, there was speculation that a large H-bomb detonated just beyond the ionosphere could knock out every radio transmitter in the country at once. This was one of the concerns that led to the creation of DARPAnet.