[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.

[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.