***This is a reupload***. I had an error in the original video that couldn’t be ignored. It was in the latter half of the video concerning a method in which the insulation between the power lines would be compromised. Error has been corrected and it should be in line with source material. Additional detail was also added in this video.
This was used by NATO back in 99 while bombing Yugoslavia but I remember that the power company would fix the issue really quickly and after that they started bombing substations with explosive munnition. I even saw the remains one of those graphite clusters it was fairly small, a size of a 2L bottle.
As a power system protection engineer I can see many flaws in explanation. Just to mention a few: the filament will evaporate immediately and the auto reclose will handle the arcing fault in fast manner. Also, this proposed ionized cloud of metal is highly unstabe and will repell itself very fast (ionized stuff repell itsel) and it is also carried away by wind. Permanent contamination of insulators by graphite dust would be result problems for much longer period of time.
@@godfreypoon5148it worked. But had other problems. When you provoke power outages the water supply is also down. And that caused all kinds of water transmissible diseases.
@@godfreypoon5148 They were used to disable 85% of the grid in Iraq and 70% of the grid in Serbia. So clearly it does work, and does work well. However, yes, the grid can be brought back online rather quickly. Serbia, for example, was pretty much entirely back online within 24 hours. It is intended to disable and paralyze the enemy during critical moments. Largely during an initial invasion/incursion. Being able to disable power to a whole country, even if only briefly, is incredibly useful for causing panic, confusion, disabling communications, and diverting resources. Incredibly useful. You also have to remember that a great deal of the world does not have anywhere near the same level of safeguards, remote control, and uniformity that is seen in the 1st world. This attack can absolutely destroy critical equipment or cause extensive blackouts in countries that don't have modern equipment and don't have any centralized mapping of their grid. It does work well. And the fact that it can be dropped liberally in populated civilian areas makes it incredibly useful.
Yeah I dont see the point with this either, you'd want to destroy enemy power distribution, since you yourself are likely going to depend on off-grid power generation as the invading force, regardless. concussive munitions to destroy key points would make much more sense here.
There are protective relays that sense every kind of fault that could present on a power line that could damage transformers. The breakers will always be tripped by these protective relays before any damage to major items such as transformers happens
Yeap but what happened in North Carolina sure did some major long term damage to a substation. They are just hoping the illegal immigrants don't catch on. But it was all over the News.
Aug 14, 2003 northeast USA blackout triggered by a hot day transmission line droop and contact with a tree. Should have been just a local blackout but a software bug at a First Energy control room caused a cascading grid failure. On it's own, the grid equipment is robust, the control systems and software, not so much.😢
Britain launched balloons with trailing metal cables to travel into occupied Europe during WWII. The idea was the same, but the technology was much less sophisticated. Apparently the results, although kept from the public, were successful, and thousands of surplus barrage balloons were launched for this purpose.
TH-cam, what are you trying to tell me? I should educate myself in peaceful, law-abiding and totally not sarcastic way about energy infrastructure? Golly, what a great idea!
@@operationalfacts5602 i wanted to say that lol, some fragments are on display in the War Museum in Kalemegdan, Belgrade along side with F117 parts and radioactive munitions
power plant switch yards are most vulnerable especially isolation bus not to mention " unintended consequences " of software driven protection equipment
Yes this is a cleaver aporoach. The naysayers are the ones that always kill good ideas before they ever allowed to takeoff. They are very close minded.
While it disables electrical infrastructure in a way that makes rebuilding easier, it was found during the Gulf War that civilians suffered immensely due to the fact that water and sewage treatment facilities and hospitals were also disabled. In theory, making life for civilians miserable is supposed to make them demand that their leaders end the war, but it can in fact galvanise them against their enemies. Thus, you're just left with causing suffering. Strategically, such consequences must be weighed against the damage it may cause to the military machine. Iraq was still able to launch SCUD missiles everywhere and supply their military, however overwhelmed it was by the vastly superior Coalition forces.
I never knew this was a thing, but I've had ideas about how disruptive chaff could be to power grids. While better than destructive explosives, i still wish we could stop seeing eachother as enemies
This got me thinking, if we constructed powerlines with 3 towers in parallel with a considerable distance we could avoid arcing and have the potential to crank the voltage up almost infinitely for future energy demand
Wouldn't the spools need a special design so they unwind in the air? Or to be spun up before being deployed? And wouldn't just a few restarts of the power line purge most of the filaments?
It depends. If deployed from an unguided munitions dispenser, yes. If the munitions dispenser is guided (IE via WCMD kit) it can be effectively employed from higher altitudes.
But if you don’t cause destruction then Halliburton can’t come in after the war is over and rebuild everything. At a substantial cost of course. All those highly lucrative contracts to rebuild a country after a war would be lost and we can’t have that.
It is way too expensive and takes too long and it more difficult to repair. For larger power lines I'm pretty sure its just straight up impossible because of water from flooding causing short circuits.
Disabling the power grid will lead to cannibalism looting and worse. -__- Most people don't know where their packaged good comes from let alone be expected to forage in a city situation going down.
@@randylahey2242 „However, since water supply systems and sewage treatment systems depend on electricity, widespread outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases, causing large numbers of civilian deaths, have in the past been the direct consequence of this bomb's use.“ That is not what I call life saving
Biggest flaw I see in this explanation is that it only explains a single filament. You’d need thousands to be really effective. Wind alone would blow ionized particles away. Sounds nifty in theory but the explanation is flawed.
Literally useless. They would just periodically switch off all protection circuits and simply burn off/explode anything on the lines. Short-circuits are dangerous if stable for minutes and of high current only.
To correct you on that one, they will not “switch off” these circuits. They will install a bypass conductor in parallel with them. But this is quite the clown representation. At 2:51 they have the protective mechanisms tripping on the wrong side of the transformer.
Not exactly. You’re switching stations and high voltage transformers are above the ground and very vulnerable. But I agree there as wisdom and below ground cables.
@@eeroala5132 they aren’t as maintenance intensive you don’t need to worry about trees shorting them out. All our mains voltages cables run by the side of paths (sidewalks) or roads so tree roots cannot grow around them. If graphite bombs was known about a temporary fine wire mesh can be built over vulnerable switching points or open air wires. All our local substation transformers are covered anyway usually in a brick building or by a box around the transformer but national grid transformers are different but still easily covered if needs be. In the USA it’s much harder since all your national grid is run on pylons above air and your local transformers are all open but still easily covered if needs be. Since the USA is much bigger than the U.K. your national grid transformers and switching points are huge much more difficult to harden against this typer of attack and as a plus our national grid is very rarely effect by CMEs from our sun so it’s much harder to over load. It’s a better system.
@@joeds3775 No it’s not around houses, streets and cities it’s all under ground…. We do have pylons though but trees are no where near them, it’s all in open field’s.
I don’t understand how this would accomplish anything militarily other then creating a minor annoyance. Anything remotely important is going to have backup generators, hell most homes have at least a genset or two. This is very unlikely to actually destroy any grid infrastructure other then a few fuses that would be replaced in a few hours, so it would have to be used immediately before an invasion and even Joe Blow homeowner has a couple days of fuel for his genset, while critical things like hospitals and military installations have weeks or months of fuel on hand.
You’re partially correct this is a fishing article designed to catch people that are already cleared that spill too many beans. The Comet section is monitored to see see if anybody reveals classified information.
@@noimnotarobotcanubeleiveit7024 It may be common knowledge to you but this is the internet. It's better to have a couple of bona fide sources and to take nothing for granted.
Ukraine uses traditional mortars to attack their own nuclear power facilities that are being guarded and ran by Russian technicians. It doesn’t seem like the Ukrainians would be interested in this type of weapon. What tactical advantage would Ukraine gain using this weapon?
***This is a reupload***. I had an error in the original video that couldn’t be ignored. It was in the latter half of the video concerning a method in which the insulation between the power lines would be compromised. Error has been corrected and it should be in line with source material.
Additional detail was also added in this video.
A great update, thank you.
Is this a current US weapon?
@@mm3mm3 Yes. This weapon was used in both gulf wars. Little funfact: attacking of the civilian energy infra structure, is a war crime.
oh my god . we have underground power lines .
@@operationalfacts5602 youtube will delete or hide this reply
Guys, whatever you do
DONT wrap rocks in copper wire and throw them at power lines
Literally 1984
Here go my plans for the night
and definitely DON'T throw bicycle chains over top of transformers
Okay doing it now
@@glaze_tpf9791 youtube will delete or hide this reply
This was used by NATO back in 99 while bombing Yugoslavia but I remember that the power company would fix the issue really quickly and after that they started bombing substations with explosive munnition. I even saw the remains one of those graphite clusters it was fairly small, a size of a 2L bottle.
That’s a BLU-114 I think
If you see spaghetti falling from the sky, you're gonna have a bad time.
That’s what clams see.
*megalovania blasts in the background*
Better tacos than spaghetti.
In Italy, it's called 'harvest season'
Threadfall is the worst.
As a power system protection engineer I can see many flaws in explanation. Just to mention a few: the filament will evaporate immediately and the auto reclose will handle the arcing fault in fast manner. Also, this proposed ionized cloud of metal is highly unstabe and will repell itself very fast (ionized stuff repell itsel) and it is also carried away by wind. Permanent contamination of insulators by graphite dust would be result problems for much longer period of time.
I agree. This thing simply would not work well.
@@godfreypoon5148it worked.
But had other problems. When you provoke power outages the water supply is also down.
And that caused all kinds of water transmissible diseases.
@@godfreypoon5148 They were used to disable 85% of the grid in Iraq and 70% of the grid in Serbia. So clearly it does work, and does work well. However, yes, the grid can be brought back online rather quickly. Serbia, for example, was pretty much entirely back online within 24 hours.
It is intended to disable and paralyze the enemy during critical moments. Largely during an initial invasion/incursion. Being able to disable power to a whole country, even if only briefly, is incredibly useful for causing panic, confusion, disabling communications, and diverting resources. Incredibly useful. You also have to remember that a great deal of the world does not have anywhere near the same level of safeguards, remote control, and uniformity that is seen in the 1st world. This attack can absolutely destroy critical equipment or cause extensive blackouts in countries that don't have modern equipment and don't have any centralized mapping of their grid.
It does work well. And the fact that it can be dropped liberally in populated civilian areas makes it incredibly useful.
Yeah I dont see the point with this either, you'd want to destroy enemy power distribution, since you yourself are likely going to depend on off-grid power generation as the invading force, regardless. concussive munitions to destroy key points would make much more sense here.
@@godfreypoon5148When has "this is stupid and probably won't work" ever been sufficient reason for the military NOT to develop some new weapon system?
There are protective relays that sense every kind of fault that could present on a power line that could damage transformers. The breakers will always be tripped by these protective relays before any damage to major items such as transformers happens
Yeap but what happened in North Carolina sure did some major long term damage to a substation. They are just hoping the illegal immigrants don't catch on. But it was all over the News.
You're counting on the breaker not being bypassed by the arc. But yes, modern grid infrastructure is much more resilient against this attack mode.
Aug 14, 2003 northeast USA blackout triggered by a hot day transmission line droop and contact with a tree. Should have been just a local blackout but a software bug at a First Energy control room caused a cascading grid failure. On it's own, the grid equipment is robust, the control systems and software, not so much.😢
Britain launched balloons with trailing metal cables to travel into occupied Europe during WWII. The idea was the same, but the technology was much less sophisticated. Apparently the results, although kept from the public, were successful, and thousands of surplus barrage balloons were launched for this purpose.
Oh you mean like China is doing to America.
Forbidden confetti...
TH-cam, what are you trying to tell me? I should educate myself in peaceful, law-abiding and totally not sarcastic way about energy infrastructure? Golly, what a great idea!
interesting stuff, didn't they use something like this over baghdad in desert storm?
Yes and also in Yugoslavia.
@@operationalfacts5602 i wanted to say that lol, some fragments are on display in the War Museum in Kalemegdan, Belgrade along side with F117 parts and radioactive munitions
Yes, the United States of Terrorism is always busy hurting civilians. Even as we speak. Even in 10-30 years from now.
@@gordoncordon9779that one f117 was recovered??
@@LukSter18998 It was recovered, then a part of it was unrecoverd in the Chinese embassy, when the Americans dropped a bomb on that too
ferb i know what we’re gonna do today
Why yes, yes we do
power plant switch yards are most vulnerable especially isolation bus
not to mention " unintended consequences " of
software driven protection equipment
Salfware protections normaly just enhance mechanical ones
Fuses are still very whidly used
That's incredibly interesting.
Whoever came up with this nonlethal & non-infrastructure destroying tactic is a genius!
Not really
Theres a reason it's not done that way.
Yes this is a cleaver aporoach. The naysayers are the ones that always kill good ideas before they ever allowed to takeoff. They are very close minded.
While it disables electrical infrastructure in a way that makes rebuilding easier, it was found during the Gulf War that civilians suffered immensely due to the fact that water and sewage treatment facilities and hospitals were also disabled. In theory, making life for civilians miserable is supposed to make them demand that their leaders end the war, but it can in fact galvanise them against their enemies. Thus, you're just left with causing suffering. Strategically, such consequences must be weighed against the damage it may cause to the military machine. Iraq was still able to launch SCUD missiles everywhere and supply their military, however overwhelmed it was by the vastly superior Coalition forces.
I never knew this was a thing, but I've had ideas about how disruptive chaff could be to power grids.
While better than destructive explosives, i still wish we could stop seeing eachother as enemies
this is one way Americans are like Arabs: Neither is prepared in any way to live without an enemy.
These are also used as anti radar countermeasures too. The filsments are silver or aluminum plated graphite fibers .
Chernobyl after the first explosion:
*Graphite bomb*
Did this narrator do some narration for DCS A-10?
This got me thinking, if we constructed powerlines with 3 towers in parallel with a considerable distance we could avoid arcing and have the potential to crank the voltage up almost infinitely for future energy demand
Cheers dude
Death of a thousand cuts.
I will know who to thank when the power goes out.
What's the order of magnitude of the lifetime of the particle cloud?
Words...
Few seconds
Depends on the weather…but less than a min.
Hey feds.
Never let Mylar balloons with metallic fishline attached fly near power lines!
Wouldn't the spools need a special design so they unwind in the air? Or to be spun up before being deployed? And wouldn't just a few restarts of the power line purge most of the filaments?
Doesn't Seem to be very Accurate unless their flying right over the lines at low Attitude?
It depends. If deployed from an unguided munitions dispenser, yes. If the munitions dispenser is guided (IE via WCMD kit) it can be effectively employed from higher altitudes.
I really doubt the particle floating around would stay there longer than the recloser takes to close (typically 10-15 minutes)
why did this show up in my youtube feed
I think that your enemy would simply default to an EMP.
But if you don’t cause destruction then Halliburton can’t come in after the war is over and rebuild everything. At a substantial cost of course. All those highly lucrative contracts to rebuild a country after a war would be lost and we can’t have that.
Good job people…
Now THIS is in the memory banks. I already picture using drones already. Perhaps 🤔 nobody should know this?
Tell me again why our power grid is above the ground, and not in conduit underground?
Lower installation cost and lower transmission loss. Permittivity of air is not the same as soil. Running transmission lines underwater is worse.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Profit$
It is way too expensive and takes too long and it more difficult to repair. For larger power lines I'm pretty sure its just straight up impossible because of water from flooding causing short circuits.
Mr Krabbs I have an idea!
Neat.
Thought about this when i was 14...
They call them Blackout bombs
don't use a .22LR with an Oil-Filter on the end of the Barrel to plink Transformers.
The circuit brakers do not protect the grid.
They protect the source.
Ask any lineman.
Please tell me at least one of these types of bomb is called THOR
THOR uses microwave energy to disable its target while the graphite bomb depends on conductive filaments to disable the electrical grid.
There is a weapon call Stormbteaker. Which is a weapon of thor. But it is a traditional explosive ordanence.
Explane this video to the fbi genius.
I know what I'm doing this Tuesday
although probably not very effective. this is the most ethical method of warfare I have ever seen
ribbon from tape cassette...
Don't use cassette tape for kite string.
*Didn't a test of that prove ineffective?* (Late 1970s)
graphite
Conductor
Disabling the power grid will lead to cannibalism looting and worse. -__- Most people don't know where their packaged good comes from let alone be expected to forage in a city situation going down.
D A N G E R S T R I N G
Love to target civilian infrastructure and act like it's totally normal, fine and not something literal monsters would do.
Temporarily disabling a power grid is much better compared to using missiles with explosive warheads in them.
Better than nuclear weapons and firebombing.
War is hell.
War is monstrous, didn't you know?
@@randylahey2242
„However, since water supply systems and sewage treatment systems depend on electricity, widespread outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases, causing large numbers of civilian deaths, have in the past been the direct consequence of this bomb's use.“
That is not what I call life saving
metal spaghetti
like the chafe bombs in GW1
Biggest flaw I see in this explanation is that it only explains a single filament. You’d need thousands to be really effective. Wind alone would blow ionized particles away. Sounds nifty in theory but the explanation is flawed.
Literally useless.
They would just periodically switch off all protection circuits and simply burn off/explode anything on the lines. Short-circuits are dangerous if stable for minutes and of high current only.
To correct you on that one, they will not “switch off” these circuits. They will install a bypass conductor in parallel with them. But this is quite the clown representation. At 2:51 they have the protective mechanisms tripping on the wrong side of the transformer.
Based on your avatar I conclude that your an Ordnance Expert and military strategist. Your comment is unvaluable.
Which is exactly the inteded use for these, cause distruption in the power grid
You’re
We use underground power cables in the U.K. so we are ok from this device.
Not exactly. You’re switching stations and high voltage transformers are above the ground and very vulnerable. But I agree there as wisdom and below ground cables.
@@eeroala5132 they aren’t as maintenance intensive you don’t need to worry about trees shorting them out. All our mains voltages cables run by the side of paths (sidewalks) or roads so tree roots cannot grow around them. If graphite bombs was known about a temporary fine wire mesh can be built over vulnerable switching points or open air wires. All our local substation transformers are covered anyway usually in a brick building or by a box around the transformer but national grid transformers are different but still easily covered if needs be. In the USA it’s much harder since all your national grid is run on pylons above air and your local transformers are all open but still easily covered if needs be. Since the USA is much bigger than the U.K. your national grid transformers and switching points are huge much more difficult to harden against this typer of attack and as a plus our national grid is very rarely effect by CMEs from our sun so it’s much harder to over load. It’s a better system.
@@Biketunerfy utter bollox. Our grid is above ground.
@@joeds3775 No it’s not around houses, streets and cities it’s all under ground…. We do have pylons though but trees are no where near them, it’s all in open field’s.
@@Biketunerfy i work on the grid. You're wrong. Take a look in the countryside.
👻
I don’t understand how this would accomplish anything militarily other then creating a minor annoyance. Anything remotely important is going to have backup generators, hell most homes have at least a genset or two. This is very unlikely to actually destroy any grid infrastructure other then a few fuses that would be replaced in a few hours, so it would have to be used immediately before an invasion and even Joe Blow homeowner has a couple days of fuel for his genset, while critical things like hospitals and military installations have weeks or months of fuel on hand.
Bro wtf 😮 I’m scared to watch this shit it seems like it was placed by the feds
Don't be. There's nothing they can do about you watching it.
You’re partially correct this is a fishing article designed to catch people that are already cleared that spill too many beans. The Comet section is monitored to see see if anybody reveals classified information.
@@eeroala5132 They should check out War Thunder. I heard a that lot of classified information gets leaked on there
@@eeroala5132you're not the protagonist, man. Nobody's monitoring a random comment section for a video more basic than a wikipedia article.
@@arturjogi6054 Oops, looks like someone gotta re-read their Snowden files again
1999
It vas used by US on Jugoslavia agression!!!
Seems useless against any probably set up powergrid. Just turning that leg off then back on would probably be the extent of the fix.
Ukraine uses them
Source?
@@JZsBFFcommon knowledge they been using them to blackout donbass since 2014 causing hospital shutdowns and major civilian damage
@@noimnotarobotcanubeleiveit7024 It may be common knowledge to you but this is the internet. It's better to have a couple of bona fide sources and to take nothing for granted.
Ukraine uses traditional mortars to attack their own nuclear power facilities that are being guarded and ran by Russian technicians. It doesn’t seem like the Ukrainians would be interested in this type of weapon. What tactical advantage would Ukraine gain using this weapon?
@@JZsBFF our local factory dunarit sells them to Ukraine. Im not writing you a university dissertation on it. Not proud btw
this is disgusting
bad sad should not show this
Sounds like bullshit
W what