Okay, a bit of pre-EMP nostalgia here…
Almost half a century ago as a young enlisted Marine Corps Aviation Fire Control Repairman (MOS 5943), Air Support Officers were controlling the flight of an EA-6B Growler Electronic Warfare aircraft from my radar system. At the time I was a 19 year old corporal responsible for a combat essential critical low density piece of equipment. One has to love what the US Military does to develop young people!
Anyway, the controllers were using my AN/TPQ-10 Radar Course Directing Central fire control system. Fire Control in the military is controlling weapons systems to put rounds on target. Before GPS and small on-board aircraft computers, the TPQ-10 system in Marine Air Support Radar Teams (ASRT) controlled planes to put bombs on target within a 25-meter Calculated Error Probability (CEP). From about 1960 into the late 1980’s, ASRTs were employed whenever pilots could not see their targets. Rumor is they also controlled the lead birds of USAF ARC LIGHT B-52 bombing missions over North Vietnam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_AN/TPQ-10_Radar_Course_Directing_Central
Back to the EA-6B mission. With my trusty TPQ-10 locked on the bird one of the controllers instructed the EA-6B to “Turn on your music”. With that, their jammer saturated my radar! The control screen was white with static and the computer lost the track “lock” on the bird.
“So what” about an electronic warfare aircraft jamming a radar system? The EA-6B was around 15 miles or more away and electrical energy / radio frequency dissipates rapidly in the atmosphere. Did the jammer bother the sensitive tiny chips that the TPQ-10 had? No because that system was pre-transistor with 157 vacuum tubes. In fact the only transistors it had were six large SCR power transistors in a later electric drive modification.
The TPQ-10 electronics were enclosed in metal cases, i.e. Faraday Cages. The control shelter, radar antenna, and all cabling was shielded to a MILSPEC level. Also the control shelter, radar antenna, and power generator were properly grounded. Still, the energy of the far away jammer zapped the scope and made the system break tracking lock.
Had there had been an EMP, those large old technology components would have experienced glitches for a moment in time but then resumed operating. But if a jammer can affect a shielded military system, what would an EMP do to modern electronics with many chips and a lot less shielding?
As long as I am sharing memories,
In the late 80's I served with a Vietnam helicopter pilot. When he learned that I was a technician on the TPQ-10, his eyes lit up. He told me of piloting a MEDEVAC when between thick fog and no moonlight, he could not see a thing. The LZ and injured Marines were on a hilltop somewhere below. An ASRT controlled his flight to the point when the controller instructed him the LZ was 50 feet below. He said he blindly and carefully set the bird down and to his surprise, he touched down exactly where the earth should have been.