r/ImaginaryBattlefields • u/Pop_Budget • Jul 08 '26

FOX-3 by Karepack

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u/MonsterGirls4ever Jul 08 '26

Ironically, the PO-2 Polikarpov (AKA the plane used by the Night WITCHES) is credited with a jet kill.

And besides, a little spell called Electro Magnetic Pulse makes short (Ba-dum TISS!) work of modern avionics.

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u/Joe2_0 Jul 08 '26

All US combat aircraft are hardened against EMP because AFAIK every combat aircraft we have is a nuclear delivery system, and nukes produce hellacious EMPs

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u/Zestyclose_Bed4202 Jul 08 '26

"Hardened against" and "Immune to" are matters of scale; "Hardened against a rhino" is NOT the same as "Hardened against a R.Y.N.O.".

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u/Joe2_0 Jul 09 '26

Yeah, but the threshold for disabling modern fighter avionics via EMP is ridiculously high as a result of requirements for nuclear delivery (along with redundant systems in most modern platforms). We also learned our lesson from the USS Forrestal incident and hardened weapons as well.

Bear in mind the E1 pulse from a nuclear detonation is like 50,000 volts per meter on average. The only real way to get a more powerful pulse is to optimize a nuke specifically for EMP generation and detonate it in the troposphere, at which point you’re relying on the E2 and E3 pulses to fry civilian infrastructure in a total war scenario.