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| US Military's "Rods From God" |
| 2005-06-08 |
| Posted by:RG |
| #13 Heinlein covered the boulder thing in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The weapon was negated simply be damaging the computer. The whole Rods from God proposition was discussed at Rantburg within the last year, I think. As I recall, y'all technical types decided there was a better way to accomplish the goal of selectively breaking things. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-06-08 23:00 |
| #12 Lets just put a big computerized Trebuchet on the MOON. Throw bolders at NK and Iraq the size of cars. At escape velocity++ they should work just fine and would not need to lift all those heavy rods. Only problem is 4 days to impact. That is mitigated by lots of available bolders two throw. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-06-08 21:59 |
| #11 Kinda puts a whole new spin on the 23rd Psalm, doesn't it? His rod and staff my comfort . . . |
| Posted by: Mike 2005-06-08 21:38 |
| #10 the actual effect is in my tech paper: "The Depends™ Reaction" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-06-08 20:45 |
| #9 No EMP, per se. In theory, the high speed combined with the action of the atmosphere could generate a localized electrical field. The impact "might" generate x-rays [according to LTC Heinlein]. Massive thermal, sonic energy. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2005-06-08 20:43 |
| #8 Exactly Buwaya. We've done the hard liftin and thinkin let's leave the rest to the calculator set. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-06-08 19:50 |
| #7 Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information standing with hands on hips, tearing up a la Barbara Boxer, with just as much credibility..... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-06-08 19:37 |
| #6 Didn't I see something like this on Babylon 5? |
| Posted by: Jert Flinert7749 2005-06-08 18:17 |
| #5 Slowing them down to 700mph would defeat the purpose of the things. You want them going 30,000 mph because at that speed they are nuclear weapon substitutes - non-radioactive environmentally benign WMD's that can dig a half-kilometer crater. You could indeed do things like drop a string of them along the North Korean artillery bunker complexes north of Seoul without contaminating half of South Korea with fallout. Pretty cool. A 700MPH one would be not much better than an AP bomb (or a concrete one) carried by an aircraft. Its a waste of money putting that in orbit. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2005-06-08 17:51 |
| #4 Teresa Hitchens simply maintains that, "The world will not tolerate this." And who elected her to speak for the world. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-06-08 17:49 |
| #3 I nominate Robert Byrd to stand out in Death Valley with a toaster in his hand. The Air Force can drop one on him and we'll see if the toaster shorts out. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2005-06-08 17:26 |
| #2 I seem to remember reading someplace that kinetic weapons of this scale also produce an EMP effect, albeit of a lesser scale than that of a nuclear weapon. Anyone know for sure? |
| Posted by: Ebbeager Ebbeans6904 2005-06-08 17:00 |
| #1 Furthermore, it may be necessary to slow substantially the rods' rate of speed to prevent them from vaporizing on impact--though retrorockets might offer a solution to this problem LOL. Sure why not. Get it down to say 700 mph, make it survivable and accurate. Does tend to cut down on the energy applied to the target and those retrorockets can get heavy. Or perhaps use a cement bomb dropped from a B1. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-06-08 16:40 |