Read Online Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire by Keith Douglass - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Keith Douglass
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room.
Hagerson reached for the pull-down, then stopped and turned and looked at the SEALs. “SEALs of Third Platoon SEAL Team Seven, I welcome you to Washington and Arlington. I’ve asked you to do some difficult work in the past two years. Now it’s time to go to the well once more. The Navy and I appreciate your efforts, and are contrite when you suffer losses. Welcome.” He turned back to the chart and pulled it down. It was an eight-foot-wide map of central Syria, showing the capital, Damascus, half of Lebanon and Haifa, Israel. The map also extended out into the Syrian Desert almost to the Jordan border.
“We have a tremendously dangerous problem with Syria. Have you men ever heard of the E bomb?” He looked over the SEALs. “Commander Murdock, what is it?”
“Sir, that would be the electromagnetic pulse, an EMP, similar to that generated by an atomic detonation.”
“Yes, quite right. Only now we, and some others, have taken the idea a step farther. Mr. Stroh. Would you ask Professor Ingles to come in.”
A moment later a tall man with gray hair and a ramrod in his back marched into the room and to the front.
“Gentlemen, let me introduce Professor Dr. Conrad Ingles of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an advisor to the President’s Board of Science. Professor, would you sketch in for us the basics of the EMP and the FCG?”
Professor Ingles went to the center of the room and faced the SEALs. His dark hair showed touches of silver, but his eyes concentrated on the six men with a thirty-year-old’s intensity. “It all started back in 1925 when physicist Arthur H. Compton was studying the atom. He demonstrated that firing a stream of highly energetic photons into atoms that have a low atomic number causesthem to eject a stream of electrons. This is the Compton Effect and it was fundamental in breaking into the secrets of the atom.
“In 1958 scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb high over an atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The explosion resulted in a burst of gamma rays that, when striking the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, released a tsunami of electrons that spread for hundreds of miles. This force blew out streetlights in Hawaii and radio navigation was messed up for eighteen hours as far away as Australia.
“The scientists latched on to this EMP, electromagnetic pulse, development in an attempt to harness this energy and make a new class of weapon. We have made adequate progress in this field, although most of it is classified. The general thinking is that our best minds are now using high-temperature superconductors to create intense magnetic fields. What worries many of us is that some small nations, or even terrorists, could take an idea that the U.S. has discarded and make out of it a practical, cheap flux compression generator.
“This has been described as a poor man’s E bomb. It is amazingly simple. It consists of an explosive-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger copper coil. It works this way. An instant before the chemical explosive is set off, the coil is energized by a bank of capacitors. This creates a magnetic field. The explosion in the tube starts at the rear and moves forward. This makes the tube flare outward so it touches the edge of the coil. That creates a short circuit.
“The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field while reducing the inductance of the coil. What happens then is that the FCG produces a rampaging current pulse, which breaks before the final disintegration of the device. This can produce ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of millions of amps. The pulse that shoots out makes a lightning bolt look like a flashbulb.
“This pulse radiates in all directions. It can make fluorescentlights and television sets glow brightly even though they are turned off. Electric wires will are and short out, and telephone lines will melt. Laptop computers will overload their
Hagerson reached for the pull-down, then stopped and turned and looked at the SEALs. “SEALs of Third Platoon SEAL Team Seven, I welcome you to Washington and Arlington. I’ve asked you to do some difficult work in the past two years. Now it’s time to go to the well once more. The Navy and I appreciate your efforts, and are contrite when you suffer losses. Welcome.” He turned back to the chart and pulled it down. It was an eight-foot-wide map of central Syria, showing the capital, Damascus, half of Lebanon and Haifa, Israel. The map also extended out into the Syrian Desert almost to the Jordan border.
“We have a tremendously dangerous problem with Syria. Have you men ever heard of the E bomb?” He looked over the SEALs. “Commander Murdock, what is it?”
“Sir, that would be the electromagnetic pulse, an EMP, similar to that generated by an atomic detonation.”
“Yes, quite right. Only now we, and some others, have taken the idea a step farther. Mr. Stroh. Would you ask Professor Ingles to come in.”
A moment later a tall man with gray hair and a ramrod in his back marched into the room and to the front.
“Gentlemen, let me introduce Professor Dr. Conrad Ingles of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an advisor to the President’s Board of Science. Professor, would you sketch in for us the basics of the EMP and the FCG?”
Professor Ingles went to the center of the room and faced the SEALs. His dark hair showed touches of silver, but his eyes concentrated on the six men with a thirty-year-old’s intensity. “It all started back in 1925 when physicist Arthur H. Compton was studying the atom. He demonstrated that firing a stream of highly energetic photons into atoms that have a low atomic number causesthem to eject a stream of electrons. This is the Compton Effect and it was fundamental in breaking into the secrets of the atom.
“In 1958 scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb high over an atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The explosion resulted in a burst of gamma rays that, when striking the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, released a tsunami of electrons that spread for hundreds of miles. This force blew out streetlights in Hawaii and radio navigation was messed up for eighteen hours as far away as Australia.
“The scientists latched on to this EMP, electromagnetic pulse, development in an attempt to harness this energy and make a new class of weapon. We have made adequate progress in this field, although most of it is classified. The general thinking is that our best minds are now using high-temperature superconductors to create intense magnetic fields. What worries many of us is that some small nations, or even terrorists, could take an idea that the U.S. has discarded and make out of it a practical, cheap flux compression generator.
“This has been described as a poor man’s E bomb. It is amazingly simple. It consists of an explosive-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger copper coil. It works this way. An instant before the chemical explosive is set off, the coil is energized by a bank of capacitors. This creates a magnetic field. The explosion in the tube starts at the rear and moves forward. This makes the tube flare outward so it touches the edge of the coil. That creates a short circuit.
“The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field while reducing the inductance of the coil. What happens then is that the FCG produces a rampaging current pulse, which breaks before the final disintegration of the device. This can produce ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of millions of amps. The pulse that shoots out makes a lightning bolt look like a flashbulb.
“This pulse radiates in all directions. It can make fluorescentlights and television sets glow brightly even though they are turned off. Electric wires will are and short out, and telephone lines will melt. Laptop computers will overload their
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