Fascinating to consider North Korea's missile efforts aimed at delivering a nuclear EMP rather than traditional nuclear ordnance.
Explode high in the air w/o requiring the precision or re-entry capability of traditional ICBMs.
Changes whole flavor of the aperiodic missile launches from NK into Sea of Japan.
Interesting writeup / sources:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193908
Great Frank Rieger writeup:
https://medium.com/@frank_rieger/some-wild-speculation-6fbcf856007d
@Mudge I must disagree: modern thought on EMP is that Starfish Prime was rather (well) overstated not to mention the difference between a MT-class warhead (Starfish Prime) vs. a low kT-class warhead (unboosted implosion).
Even an ICBM with low CEP would be sufficiently menacing. The range to Japan is barely IRBM-class and, again, CEP is not so dramatically important.
Choice of trajectory for the tests has been analysed in depth in academia (e.g. see http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/).
@cynicalsecurity not surprising to hear that modern thought on Starfish Prime is that it was overstated.
Do you have any pointers or references to these interpretations?
I'd like to read more.
Tnx!
Mudge
cynicalsecurity ->@bsd.network