Possible space weapons of the future 'Rods from God' and beyond

post-gazette.com ^ | Monday, July 28, 2003 | Jack Kelly

[Destro]

'Rods from God'

In April, within 15 minutes of receiving a report that Saddam Hussein had entered a restaurant in Baghdad, a B-1B bomber dropped four 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs on the place.

It now appears Saddam slipped out of the building by a secret exit. But if one space-based weapon now being researched had been orbiting above Iraq -- and had worked as envisioned -- Saddam almost certainly wouldn't have got away.

[Destro]

Jerry Pournelle's "Janissary" trilogy is one of my all time favorite reads.

[StatesEnemy]

I give humanity (well... at least modern living hominids) about 100 years.

At near 6,400,000,000 carrying capacity, we're due for a massive die-off. And for the grandchildren of those that survive, it'll be "spring".

[Pyrion]

12,000 ft/s?

Hmm...

12,000 x 60 (seconds per minute) = 720,000 ft/m.

720,000 x 60 (minutes per hour) = 43,200,000 ft/h.

43,200,000 / 5,280 (feet per mile) = 8,181.8 mi/h.

8,181.8 / 761.2 (mach 1 in mph at sea level) = Mach 10.74.

*whistles*

[Coyoteman]

The technical term is "SPLAT"

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Servant of the Nine]

"Rods from God," was technically "Project Thor" back in the 60s and I believe it was one of the programs Pournelle was involved in. The idea was to drop tens of thousands of smaller steel rods unguided into the Fulda Gap as the Soviet tanks came through.

So9

[hoosierham]

A tungsten rod bouncing around a hundreds of miles per hour inside a tank or bunker would be like a giant blender.

[EBITDA]

I'm curious as to why they would splat. If they can maintain their integrity to make it through the atmosphere, why wouldn't they simply make a hole in the target about the diameter of the rod itself?

I am sure some Freeper physicist can answer this.

[UNGN]

The rod isn't drilling a hole through the tank, it's impacting the tank. The tank's metal that wounld be in the hole caused by the rod would be turned into supersonic projectiles that will continue the destruction started by the rod.

The exit wound could be the size of the tank.

[LonePalm]

This idea was written up under the name 'crowbar' in the book "David's Sling" back in the seventies along with a version of the World Wide Web.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[BenLurkin]

DON'T FORGET:

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Even if the rods remained intact on impact--which would take quite a leap of faith--the kinetic energy dissipated would be gi-normous, meaning you'd have a veritable fountain of earth, masonry, Saddam-McNuggets, etc. flying around at huge speeds, plus a shock wave from the thing's passage that would probably flatten a fair area all by itself, plus the tungsten rod would probably be white-hot from the atmospheric entry. Tungsten is dense hard stuff. I would not want to be within a mile of one of these puppies' points-of-entry.

Pournelle (with Larry Niven) conjectured a similar kinetic-energy weapon--space rocks--as the Earth-pacifying weapon used by the aliens in A Mote In God's Eye.

[eno_]

That number is only correct if you believe the limits-to-growth crowd.

If we attend to being free, humanity will reach 10 billion, be well-fed, have light and heat, be well housed, be healthy, and prosper.

As Africa has amply demonstrated, the only thing that can kill lots of people is political corruption.

[Sparticus]

How much mass does a 1 X 25 foot tungston rod possess and how many can a Saturn V put into orbit (if any)?

[eno_]

From orbit they make a nice hole.

From farther out, like halfway across the solar system, they'd make a h-bomb sized hole.

"There was SUPPOSED to be an Earth-shattering 'Kaboom!'"

[ahadams2]

I may be wrong, but I believe the whole "tungsten rod" idea is just an upscaled version of the current antiarmor rounds referred to as APFSDS - Armor Piercing Fin stabilized Discarding Sabot fired by the M1A1 and M1A2 tanks...they look like giant lawn darts.

[general_re]

A key advantage of a space plane, the writers said, is its weapons could enter the atmosphere over a target, so there would be no need to seek overflight permission from other countries.

Okay, somebody help me out with this. A true space plane would be one that leaves the atmosphere, which means that there are no aerodynamics to keep it up there. So in order to stay up, it's essentially going to be assuming a low-earth orbit. But in order to maintain a stable orbit, it's going to have to be moving along at a serious rate of speed, which means that anything it releases to drop down to earth is probably going to have a hell of a long glide path before reaching the ground. So how can you possibly guarantee that a bomb will "enter the atmosphere over a target"? Strap an engine on it and bring it to a dead stop, so you can drop it straight down?

[BenLurkin]

Another good one!

[GladesGuru]

Before the Un types, lawyers, and assorted socialist scums can bring a case, there must be hard evidence that such a territorial "invasion" took place. Due to national security, we certainly will not be producing any such evidence for such a "trial".

The second or third world plaintiff will have to bear the burden of proving their case. Poor Dears.

[Destro]

Basically, a flechette round from hell? (or from heaven in this case)