"Hezbollah's new weapon" Topic

Subject: Asgard Systems CEO: Hezbollah's new weapon never used before in history – The Jerusalem Post


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I think there are defensive measures for this in Israel and among the major powers. It is part of the nuclear defense system. But I don't know what this new weapon means, hopefully not able to evade.

This is slightly off topic, I apologize. Is anyone aware of defensive measures that can prevent the targeting of military satellites in the event of a war? I have seen reports of Chinese and Russian programs aimed at disrupting satellite communications, etc. by shooting down satellites. With just about everything relying on satellites (GPS, communications, etc.) would the military become impotent if cut-off from space?

They are working on defensive measures for missiles, but how much is happening recently, I have no idea, nor how much development is really going into it. I believe that was One of the reasons used for creating the space force.

But it needs to be done. We are way too dependent on systems like these.

What a nice weapon, too bad it cannot defend itself from and Israeli air strike. The key is clandestine human intelligence.

Human intel will always be critical.

You can harden electronics. Ordinary shielding will give some protection from an EMP. They do this on satellites because of the things they are exposed to, and I would be shocked if military hardware, especially air defense, isn't hardened. A large or close EMP could overwhelm shielding, but since no one has seen (and perhaps no one has built) an actual, weaponized EMP we don't know how powerful they will be.

Since the strength of the electrical field drops with the square of the distance if you want to be able to destroy electronics at any distance you're going to need a lot of power, and that usually translates to a lot of weight. I suspect the only way Hezbollah could deliver an EMP big enough to matter would be with a truck. Without exotic technology you can't get that much juice into a UAV.

Of course, it's only impossible until someone does it.

I'm wondering how much EMP could be generated by something small enough to put on a drone.

Looking back through my survivability lecture material I see we started to include this in mid 2000, so not that new (although the delivery system was different, drones make obvious sense).

And Bill, yes you can, although the effective range isn't that great

Range vs weight is the big question. Instead of X kg of EMP device you could deliver X kg of explosives. X kg of explosives is going to do more damage to the electronics at range Y until you get to very large X.

EG 10 lbs of explosives is going to do a lot more damage than the EMP device you could put in 10 lbs. 50lb of explosive is going to do more damage than a 50 lb EMP. This continues until mass of Z, which is unknown. I bet a 5,000 lb EMP would damage electronics out to a greater range than a 5,000 lb bomb. So Z is somewhere between 50 lb and 5,000 lb, but no one knows for sure exactly what Z might be. But it's probably greater than you can fit in a drone small enough to get past the air defenses.

So for now explosives are plan A unless you really want to destroy the electronics without killing people and knocking down buildings. And since most of what's going on over there is motivated more by hatred than by sophisticated tactical choreography I would be surprised if we see an EMP, except…

The one scenario that makes sense is a 5,000 lb EMP in a panel truck parked at a carefully selected spot, taking out a segment of Iron Dome prior to a giant rocket bombardment. That makes perfect sense. Except I bet the Israelis are smart enough not to uncleared panel trucks within range of the Iron Dome antennae and batteries.

Here's hoping everything calms down and we never find out.

Satellites are nice, but other means exist to navigate and put ordnance on target. Same for reconnaissance. GPS denied is a common requirement for new weapons these days.

That said, oh what a bother it would be. I remember as a JO a training exercise where we turned off the GPS in the pilot house and the exact position was unknown by the OOD for several days (CIC kept track of actual position). We developed a large divergence in the course over several days. The lesson learned was celestial nav and ded reckoning take practice, but do work.

Given the failure of 300+ drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to impact Israel in Iran's recent reaction to their Syrian annex getting hit, I question the effectiveness of a theoretically more exotic technology being any more effective. I suspect Hezbollah might try something of that nature but I think simply massive numbers would be their most likely tactic.

simply massive numbers would be their most likely tactic.

McKinstry +1