Electromagnetic Pulse - Non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse

Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) is an electromagnetic pulse generated without use of nuclear weapons. There are a number of devices that can achieve this objective, ranging from a large low-inductance capacitor bank discharged into a single-loop antenna or a microwave generator to an explosively pumped flux compression generator. To achieve the frequency characteristics of the pulse needed for optimal coupling into the target, wave-shaping circuits and/or microwave generators are added between the pulse source and the antenna. A vacuum tube particularly suitable for microwave conversion of high energy pulses is the vircator.

NNEMP generators can be carried as a payload of bombs, cruise missiles (such as the CHAMP missile) and drones, allowing construction of electromagnetic bombs with diminished mechanical, thermal and ionizing radiation effects and without the political consequences of deploying nuclear weapons.

The range of NNEMP weapons (non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse bombs) is severely limited compared to nuclear EMP. This is because nearly all NNEMP devices used as weapons require chemical explosives as their initial energy source, but nuclear explosives have an energy yield on the order of one million times that of chemical explosives of similar weight. In addition to the large difference in the energy density of the initial energy source, the electromagnetic pulse from NNEMP weapons must come from within the weapon itself, while nuclear weapons generate EMP as a secondary effect, often at great distances from the detonation. These facts severely limit the range of NNEMP weapons as compared to their nuclear counterparts, but allow for more surgical target discrimination. The effect of small e-bombs has proven to be sufficient for certain terrorist or military operations. Examples of such operations include the destruction of certain fragile electronic control systems of the type critical to the operation of many ground vehicles and aircraft.

Information about the EMP simulators used by the United States during the latter part of the Cold War, along with more general information about electromagnetic pulse, are now in papers under the care of the SUMMA Foundation, which is now hosted at the University of New Mexico.

The SUMMA Foundation web site includes documentation about the huge wooden ATLAS-I simulator (better known as TRESTLE, or "The Sandia Trestle") at Sandia National Labs, New Mexico, which was the world's largest EMP simulator. Nearly all of these large EMP simulators used a specialized version of a Marx generator. The SUMMA Foundation now has a 44-minute documentary movie on its web site called "TRESTLE: Landmark of the Cold War".

Many large EMP simulators were also built in the Soviet Union, as well as in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy.