Missile defense shield?

I've been doing some reading on the missile defence shield and I have a question:

Why are they using normal missiles? With all the stuff about EMP weapons, would it not be possible to put an EMP bomb on a missile, get it in range of the ICBMs and just fry all their control systems (including the detonation mechanisms)?

Forgive me if i'm just being dumb here but i'm hoping some of the military buffs on the forum can help me out on why this wouldn't work.

well there is no actual EMP weapon made , to my knowledge atleast,
and the energy needed probably wouldnt fit in a missile.
Another problem would be if it was detonated over a city an EMPwould fry the citiies electronics including hospitals.
It is a good idea though, we can really only make an EMP with a nuclear blast but he thats sorta dangerous and would be pointless.

I think the weapons have been made, here's a link to some stuff on them:

science.howstuffworks.com...

(i don't know if they actually have this stuff)

The point about using an EMP over a city would seem to be moot, if you had a choice of an EMP over a city or a nuclear blast, which would you choose?

Um,


The old Nike Herc air defense weapons were once outfitted with small nukes for just this purpose.

The kill vehicle for the missile interceptors being emplaced at Ft. Greely Alaska are a kinetic kill type. They hit thier target head on and the mass and energy destroy both.

More details can be found at
www.acq.osd.mil...

You can shield electronics from a EMP. It wouldnt be good if you invented some type of anti-missile EMP weapon and your enemy just shields their missiles from EMPs.

Most critical Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance facilities have some sort of EMP shielding.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
You can shield electronics from a EMP. It wouldnt be good if you invented some type of anti-missile EMP weapon and your enemy just shields their missiles from EMPs.

Most critical Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance facilities have some sort of EMP shielding.

yeah i've heard of that but i dont really know how thats done any info on it?

Couldn't we just use deep UV, or gamma rays? The amount of shielding a missile would need to stop them penetrating would probably mean it couldn't fly.

I hear China is using similar methods for missile deterrent.

Current rumors suggest advanced laser weaponry... GPS scramblers and anti satellite devices in so called "asymetric" warfare

Basically the idea is that China can't catch the US in it's traditionaly strong areas... so new areas of weaponry are being developed to counter anything the US can deploy.

Originally posted by devilwasp

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
You can shield electronics from a EMP. It wouldnt be good if you invented some type of anti-missile EMP weapon and your enemy just shields their missiles from EMPs.

Most critical Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance facilities have some sort of EMP shielding.

yeah i've heard of that but i dont really know how thats done any info on it?

I think there is wide number of measures which can be applied to harden electronics from EMP attacks. The way you design the electronics ,surge protector.

Copper mesh, like 1 inch chicken wire, worked well in large uses, like covering buildings, and it is still in use today: FEMA headquarters buildings are dome-shaped earth-bermed structures, and under the earth is a copper mesh that extends out from the base and is secured by grounding rods.

Heres a site showing how to build EMP AND FARADAY CAGES. Which would shield your own electronics from a EMP attack. There pretty simple to build.


www.unitedstatesaction.com...

Theres is also a nice list of EMI/EMP Shielding Equipment Manufacturers on the site.

I'm doubting that site because of this quote:

electromagnetic radiation, whether proton or neutron

There is no such thing as protonic or neutronic EM radiation. EM radiation is photonic.

This chicken wire approach will not shield anything from gamma rays. If 1ft of lead won't stop a gamma ray burst, then some chicken wire won't. I can only think they were thinking of alpha radiation which consists of a helium nucleus but won't even penetrate skin.

Gamma radiation can effectively be absorbed by dense materials such as iron, concrete or lead. The thickness of shielding required can be anything between a few centimetres and a few feet. So its not really fair to say a 1ft of lead wont stop a gamma burst because it depends on what level burst you are talking about.

It really depends on how much energy and intensity of the radation. I think grounded copper mesh in a concrete structure under ground could withstand a good deal of EMP.

NORAD uses steel plates for shielding but it still the same basic concept.

If your facing enough gamma radation to go through a few feet of lead I doubt making a Faraday cage to protect your laptop is going to matter.

If you're going to use an underground concrete structure, what's the point of the copper mesh? You might as well paste some newspaper onto a battleship to help stop a missile.

Getting back to the point, if an EMP can produce a high energy gamma ray burst, would the required shielding prevent the missile from flying?

If the gamma burst is of such intensity that it requires 1ft of lead shielding, could a missile fly with that strapped to it's nose?

Originally posted by Chris McGee

Getting back to the point, if an EMP can produce a high energy gamma ray burst, would the required shielding prevent the missile from flying?

If the gamma burst is of such intensity that it requires 1ft of lead shielding, could a missile fly with that strapped to it's nose?

You could make a missile fly with even a 1ft of lead on the nose but it would need more power. If you add more weight you just need more thrust. It might not work if you just strapped all that weight on a existing ICBM but if you designed it around the extra weight I dont think it would prevent it from flying.

So (and sorry to labour the point), do you think it would stop existing russian ICBMs from flying (as an example)?

If it would, it would take them years to re-develop their missiles and would give the US/UK a great advantage in weapons tech.

edit:sp

[edit on 15-10-2004 by Chris McGee]

Originally posted by Chris McGee
So (and sorry to labour the point), do you think it would stop existing russian ICBMs from flying (as an example)?

If it would, it would take them years to re-develop their missiles and would give the US/UK a great advantage in weapons tech.

edit:sp

[edit on 15-10-2004 by Chris McGee]

A thats a good point I think It would require a complete redesign of a ICBM not a good thing if your hurting on funds.

Is lead the best choice or would more dense materials be even better something like depleted Uranium perhaps? I know lead is often used to prevent absorb radiation but is this because its the best material or because its cheap and easy to get?

I think it's because lead is cheapest, but the protection offered by a material is basically determined by it's density so using a more dense material would mean using less of that material but the mass would be the same, only the volume would be reduced.

As a shield against current ICBMs I think it might be quite effective unless they have some kind of failsafe built in. What do you think?

Originally posted by Chris McGee

As a shield against current ICBMs I think it might be quite effective unless they have some kind of failsafe built in. What do you think?

I would think it would be logical to have some type of fail safe built in.I dont know if they exist but would seem the right thing to do.

Without it wouldnt the US and Russia during the cold war just detonate large amounts of nukes over the north pole the path for ICBMs to create large amounts of EMPs to mess up incomming ICBMs.

I never really heard of this as a coldwar tactic but there might have been plans to do this very thing.

If there is no fail safe this might make a effective defense. Perhaps combined with the new laser systems comming out this could make a very effective two layer defense. I think the more layers the better perhaps if anything got pass the EMPs defense the laser could be the last line of defense.

I think the reason they didn't just detonate large amounts of nukes is that an EMP lasts a very short time. EM radiation is light and as such travels at 300000000 metres per second so any pulse would vanish almost as soon as it appeared.

If there was a failsafe to detonate in case of tampering we'd have to get the missiles early, but it seems like it could work.

I have read, though I don't know if it is true or not, but Russia's version of Missile defense would be to launch a missile into the group of incoming ICBM'S and detonate it and, if the EMP itself didn't get them, the blast itself would. This may fry their own ground base computers etc, but it would be better, from their point of view, than to see Moscow glowing in the dark.

As far as gamma ray - does it actually have the ability to fry computer chips as EMP can?

[edit on 10/28/04 by jesterbr549]