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Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 21:45:22 :
In Reply to: Off the wall question... posted by rick pacholski [69.78.90.214] on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 18:56:33 :
That's the idea. Better have a tube-powered radio too.
The catch is that vehicles aren't very susceptible to EMP anyway. It's the power and phone wires, strung in the open above ground over long distances that pick up the EMP and feed it into whatever they're connected to. Vehicles have short wires, which don't pick up too much, and they're at least somewhat shielded by the vehicle body. Generally they figure the vulnerability of solid-state electronics is due not to EMP but to neutrons and gamma rays that mess up the perfect silicon crystals either temporarily or permanently depending on how strong the radiation is. The catch there is that neutrons and gamma rays also tend to mess up people either temporarily or permanently depending on how strong the radiation is.
Your electromechanical voltage regulator, points-type ignition system, and tube-powered radio might survive the gamma ray burst, but within a week your hair has fallen out, you're puking your guts out, bleeding from every orifice, and are soon dead.
When I put on my tin-foil hat (to keep my brain from being scrambled by the EMP) what worries me more with new vehicles in case of nuclear war or other disaster is the ability of the "on-star" system to shut down GM vehicles remotely. It could be very tempting to a government trying to gain control of a messy situation to be able to at least top a large fraction of vehicles by issuing a court order to the on-star operators. No enemy EMP needed.
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