EMP, a term used to describe what was once a weapon only in film and books. Electromagnetic pulse weapons were imagined as a counter to electronic tools of warfare, or even everyday life. They were imagined to destroy or disable electronic devices, with no damage to people or property. This may no longer be just science fiction, Boeing and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have successfully tested an EMP based missile with “little to no collateral damage”.
Named CHAMP (Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project), the missile is designed to be launched from an aircraft, and then fly a pre-determined flight path, emitting bursts of directed high-powered energy towards a target the device has proven that it can knock out multiple targets with no damage to the buildings they are in.
Hollywood has long been in love with the idea behind EMP’s, with movies such as Red Dawn starring Chris Hemsworth, showing off how an entire country could be crippled by removing all those modern inventions and devices that we have come to love and rely on. With CHAMP’s reported success, EMP weapons may no longer be held to our screens and minds as Boeing are keen to continue testing and development with the hopes of deploying the device for active service as soon as possible.
You can see the video statement presented by Boeing below,
Thank you Boeing for providing us with this information.
Image Courtesy of the Daily Mail.
So what would be the best way to protect against an EMP?
Faraday Cages, I believe, but they would still be really impractical. You’d need a sheet copper shield for the Electromagnetic radiation, and a similar made of Mu-metal (A nickel-iron-molybdenum alloy) to block the magnetic fields, and potentially another of lead to block X-rays and near Gamma, depending on the exact type of EMP.
They can be made from several choices of materials, but before you even get to the planning of materials it becomes impractical. A Faraday Cage can’t have any wires leading outside of it isn’t closed off and everything inside will be fried. If you were trying to keep something alive that was powered-on, all of the wires would have to begin and end inside of the cage. You would also not be able to connect wirelessly to the outside (for internet or radio) because the cage would block the signal.
For this kind of attack you could instead just take spare equipment or anything you deem a necessity (phones, shortwave radios, laptops, etc; along with any power cords, antenas, ethernet cables, etc) in insulated boxes and then wrap the boxes in aluminum foil. Again, nesting them in more boxes and foil is preferable.
Should the EMP be the result of a nuclear detonation you’d have to do some more severe planning. Keeping some solar chargers and batteries in the same kind of set up would at least allow you to use the devices, but the rest of the area around you would most likely be fried. This would mean no internet, phones, phone towers, etc. Having a ham radio and knowing how to use it would probably give you your best bet in communicating with someone outside the radius of the blast.