Electro Magnetic Pulse - Dumpshock Forums

Electro Magnetic Pulse, The grim reaper of cyber (Except where?)

Da9iel View Member Profile	Jul 12 2004, 10:20 AM Post #26
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 556 Joined: 28-May 04 From: Moorhead, MN, USA Member No.: 6,367	IIRC the non-nuclear EMP was a 2000 lb. bomb (or some such fairly large bomb) surrounded by ferrous iron filings. The sudden expansion of the magnetic cloud of metal created the EMP. No, not man portable, but much better than fission--especially in the SR world where nukes seem to go funny.

Thistledown View Member Profile	Jul 12 2004, 03:52 PM Post #27
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 236 Joined: 14-March 04 From: Cal Poly: SLO Member No.: 6,155	I've used emp's in my games plenty. We ruled that standard and alpha grade cyberw is not immune to it unless you paid more at installation. A guy carried a EMP generator around in the back of his special van, used it when needed.

Nath

Jul 12 2004, 05:18 PM

Post #28

Shooting Target

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QUOTE

After an hour or so more thought I guess I do remember NATO dropping something that cut off large portions of the power grid in Belgrade, and there being a huge stink about it because it's inhumane to cut off power to the hospitals serving the area you're bombing. But would something like this be feasible as a man-portable weapon?

The 'something' was a bomb with a GPS and the coordinates of the local power station. Very efficient to cut off power :D More seriously, those bomb were exploding above the station, causing no or limited blast, but spreading a large amount of conductive carbon filaments. This 'dust' is so thin it enters every transformers, causing short-circuit. No EMP involved.
Obviously, you can keep the concept and reduce the size to make a man-portable missile, shell or grenade. The area of effect and the efficiency would be obviously affected. Plus, it would work well on power line and other big electrical equipment, who are relatively exposed, but a lot less, if at all, on small cased electroni devices.

For non-nuclear EMP weapons, I don't remember how you can make 'bomb' or area-effect, but a simple radar can become a directional EMP gun if you increase the power charge a lot beyond the normal use.

KarmaInferno

Jul 12 2004, 07:41 PM

Post #29

Old Man Jones

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QUOTE (KarmaInferno)

I recall in one of the older books speculating about the effects of sonic attacks on the optical chips used by electronics in SR. Was anything ever developed further on that?

-karma

I guess the answer to my question is "no", then.

Ah well, no frightening the bejesus out of my players by casually asking them to look up a page number.

:|

-karma

Tomahawk View Member Profile	Jul 12 2004, 07:55 PM Post #30
Target Group: Members Posts: 26 Joined: 28-October 02 Member No.: 3,527	There are indeed EMP weapons that the military can use. Not to mention EMP effects that are generated off of technology similar to radar. You are just creating a pulse of energy at a specific wavelength. Actually just the higher powered radar on certain aircraft were capable of frying electronics as well. This was why the Russians continued to use redundant mechanical backups in their aircraft rather than pure fly by wire.

Siege View Member Profile	Jul 13 2004, 04:03 AM Post #31
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,065 Joined: 16-January 03 From: Fayetteville, NC Member No.: 3,916	Sorry Karma - it's interesting speculation but while a crystal can technically be shattered if you hit the right note, I don't recall of any sonic weapons in SR or any dicussion of same. -Siege

Crusher Bob View Member Profile	Jul 13 2004, 05:40 AM Post #32
Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,598 Joined: 15-March 03 From: Hong Kong Member No.: 4,253	BLU-114 Graphite bomb.

Tzeentch View Member Profile	Jul 13 2004, 07:07 AM Post #33
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 746 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 459	-- Actually, the Russian engineers who examined the streamers claim they are fiberglass impregnated with aluminum (and the case markings are CBU-102, and as they have pics of the munitions I'm inclined to believe them). http://www.cadre.maxwell.af.mil/warfarestu...0%20Reading.doc -- As for EMP against cyberware, well, realistically the systems HAVE to be opto-electronic in origin or a lot of that lame-o ICE wouldn't work like it says. This means that the computing and storage elements may be optical, but the power supply and some electronics are still using good old electrons. -- But also realistically, a radiofrequency/EMP weapon that could affect the electronics would probably have to be so powerful that your cyberware wigging out is the least of your immediate problems. We're talking full-on High-Power Microwave Akshun™ in the dozens of GW range (peak power, probably extremely short pulse durations except for ultra-wideband explosive-driven generators).

Nath

Jul 13 2004, 07:12 AM

Post #34

Shooting Target

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QUOTE (Siege)

Sorry Karma - it's interesting speculation but while a crystal can technically be shattered if you hit the right note, I don't recall of any sonic weapons in SR or any dicussion of same.

I do remember for a sonic weapon, as far as I know the only one in SR. There might have been some confusion with the comments behind, who deal with another weapon.

QUOTE (Corporate Download)

Knight Errant has been working hard at developing new non-lethal weaponry, partly in bid to win the orichalcum left in Dunkelzahn's will to the first company to invent a non-lethal weapon that is affordable and accurate to a hundred meters.

> KE already submitted one claim: a riot club with a devic built-in that can generate a directional sonic blast. The harmonics stunned targets, and caused them to suffer incapacitating nausea and cramping. Nadja Daviar blocked it, claiming its accuracy and range failed to meet the Draco Fundation's requirements. Despite the setback, Knight Errant is still working on the project, and it may eventually become a staple of the Knight Errant arsenal.
> Errant Knight

> Sounds nasty, but I'd rather face that than the previous prototype they had on the drawing board: some sort of backpack/rifle unit that ionized air along a targeting path, then released a bolt of electricity at the target. They were having quite a few problems with manufacturing costs however, not to mention its unpleasant effects on targets with cyberware.
> Lab Rat

Nath

Jul 13 2004, 07:19 AM

Post #35

Shooting Target

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Oh, by the way...

QUOTE (Rigger 3)

AN/EDQ-12 AIR-DEFENSE NAVAL DIRECTED-ENERGY WEAPON SYSTEM (ANDREWS)
The AN-EDQ-12 Air-Defense Naval Directed Energy Weapon System (ANDREWS for short) is an energy weapon designed to protect a warship against incoming missiles. ANDREWS use a particle beam to discharge megavolts of electrons charges at the incoming missiles. If the ANDREWS scores a hit, the discharge ether fries the missile's control circuit, causing the missile to fall off target or to detonate in mid-flight. Either way, the ship is safe.
ANDREWS may also be used to attack aircraft and surface ships. Due to its massive power requirements, it may be installed only on ships powered by nuclear power plants.

Emphasis mine.

Tzeentch View Member Profile	Jul 13 2004, 07:53 AM Post #36
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 746 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 459	-- Some of the technical justifications in Rigger are shaky at best (requires a nuclear power plant for the ANDREWS? Bwah?). But in a world with Sparky IC who knows -- maybe it uses the particle beam as a carrier for some software that hacks into the missile control system :)

Austere Emancipa...

Jul 13 2004, 02:01 PM

Post #37

Great Dragon

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QUOTE (Tzeentch)

Some of the technical justifications in Rigger are shaky at best (requires a nuclear power plant for the ANDREWS? Bwah?).

I, of course, understand nothing of how directed energy weapons supposedly work, but how much electricity (Watts) would you probably need to flash heat a cruise missile (the frontal area of which is pretty small) to 1000+ C in a fraction of a second at 5 kilometers?

I don't get how it could possibly cause the missile detonate in mid flight, though. Break apart, sure.

I haven't got a clue how much electricity the kinds of gas turbines warships have can put out, either. Helluva lot, I'd expect, but is it enough to power several of those ANDREWS? A Ticonderoga-sized cruiser could easily have half-a-dozen of them, firing them several hundred times in 10 seconds. Would the 4 General Electric LM-2500s be enough? Or do we credit that to überbatteries?

Tzeentch

Jul 13 2004, 06:16 PM

Post #38

Moving Target

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-- Well, depends on beam efficiency. But whatever it is you could use offtake power from conventional turbines to charge a capacitor/HPG/flywheel bank. Directly powering the beam from a reactor is probably not an efficient use of resources, especially if you want to have more then one.

QUOTE

> KE already submitted one claim: a riot club with a devic built-in that can generate a directional sonic blast. The harmonics stunned targets, and caused them to suffer incapacitating nausea and cramping. Nadja Daviar blocked it, claiming its accuracy and range failed to meet the Draco Fundation's requirements. Despite the setback, Knight Errant is still working on the project, and it may eventually become a staple of the Knight Errant arsenal.
> Errant Knight

-- This exists, sort of, but it doesn't need to be built into a club. IT's one of the things that shows the shizoid nature of SR technology. To quote from a Jane's International Defense Review article titled "Between Baton and Bullet":

QUOTE

In the late 1990s, Primex Physics International Company (now part of General Dynamics) demonstrated such an 'acoustic blaster' with a predicted effective range of 100-200m. The prototype employed a planar array of four acoustic devices, each driven by combustion-detonation devices, that could be fired separately or together. These generated an acoustic pressure of 165dB at a distance of 15m. Based on its testing, the company proposed an 'acoustic cannon' suitable for mounting on a vehicle such as a HMMWV. This would consist of 20-30 explosively driven acoustic sources, evenly distributed over an ellipse, firing simultaneously to generate a 'Mach disk' or 'acoustic soliton' that travels to the target.

The ARL, with support from the US Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (TACOM-ARDEC), has developed an alternative approach that produces impulsive sound waves by purely electrical means. Its Sequential Arc Discharge Acoustic Generator (SADAG) uses high-voltage capacitors to produce discharges between electrodes installed in an insulating tube that is closed at one end and open at the other. The arcs ionize the air within the tube, which is typically 25cm long by 5cm in diameter, causing a sudden expansion that generates a pressure pulse. This process is repeated at rates of 20Hz or above to output an acoustic waveform. Careful tuning of the SADAG results in the formation of toroidal vortices, slightly larger than the diameter of the tube, with a linear velocity of approximately 50m/s. These could be employed in 'vortex guns' as outlined above.

In January 2002, American Technology Corp (ATC) signed a co-operative research and development agreement with TACOM-ARDEC relating to joint work on the company's directed acoustics technologies for applications such as NLWs, psychological warfare and secure communications. Technologies covered by the agreement include ATC's HyperSonic Sound (HSS) and Directed Stick Radiator (DSR).

HSS exploits a property of air known as non-linearity. As the pressure rises and falls in a normal sound wave, such as that caused by someone talking, the non-linear nature of the air itself results in the generation of new frequencies within the wave. An understanding of the way in which air behaves allows these frequencies to be predicted.

In an HSS system, sound from an audio program source (such as a compact-disc player or microphone) is converted to a highly complex ultrasonic signal by a signal processor before being amplified and emitted into the air by a transducer. Since the ultrasonic energy is highly directional, it forms a virtual column of sound directly in front of the emitter. All along that column, the air recreates the sound that was originally converted to an ultrasonic wave (which is itself inaudible). This recreated sound remains tightly locked within the column of ultrasonic energy, rather than spreading out as is the case with a conventional loudspeaker, and can therefore be directed to a specific point in space at the target. HSS can deliver sound over extended ranges (several hundred meters) at volumes of up to approximately 145dB. This is sufficient to induce intense pain, and often nausea.

The DSR is a portable, battery-operated device - enclosed in a tube approximately 1m long by 4cm in diameter - that uses a high-intensity acoustic pressure wave to disorient and disable targeted individuals at shorter ranges. The weapon is highly directional, and could be clipped to a rifle.

QUOTE

> Sounds nasty, but I'd rather face that than the previous prototype they had on the drawing board: some sort of backpack/rifle unit that ionized air along a targeting path, then released a bolt of electricity at the target. They were having quite a few problems with manufacturing costs however, not to mention its unpleasant effects on targets with cyberware.
> Lab Rat

-- The bit about shooting electricity is probably not entirely useful, but otherwise it's similar to an electrolaser or XADS.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?...p?id=ns99996014

Black Isis View Member Profile	Jul 13 2004, 07:11 PM Post #39
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 223 Joined: 24-February 03 From: The Containment Zone Member No.: 4,151	I will point out that "fry the missile's control circuitry" does not necessarily mean that it zaps it with electricity. Anyone who has experienced the wonders of a badly seated heat sink on a CPU can tell you that sheer heat can do a pretty good job of frying circuitry, and I imagine a particle beam would do a pretty good job of generating heat (of course, at the temperatures you're talking, the missile probably loses structural integrity and splashes into the water anyway, but hey....). Detonation could be just because the proximity sensor is fried too, I suppose. I'd agree that needing a reactor is probably not necessary, although not having one may limit the recharge time for the capacitor (and I imagine reduce the speed/range of the ship while it was trying to recharge).

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