onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
This is a tribute to the ultimate weapon of tomorrow, the rock. My question is this: given the ultimate high ground, what can be done militarily. Niven had some good ideas in "Footfall" also.
J
PS For anyone unfamiliar, TMHM is a book, written by engineer and retired military man RA Heinlein, about a revolt in 2076. The moon has been used as a huge prison colony for generations. The scarce natural resource, ice bearing rock, is being used up at a ruinous rate. When it becomes clear that starvation will come very soon a small group, aided by an intelligent, self aware computer, stages a revolution from Earth. This is intentionally pattered after the American revolution in the 18th century.
What is noteworthy about the book is that the primary weapon is basically an oversized slingshot, shooting rocks. It is a largish mass driver of the type popularized by Gerard O'Neill, which drops 2 ton rocks with very nice precision onto Earth. A two ton rock landing at escape velocity generates an mechanical explosion of about 10-20 kilotons, ie small nuke yield, but without the fallout and hard radiation.
"Footfall" by physicist Larry Niven takes the idea a step further. Ten kilo chunks of asteroid metal are dropped, resulting in a superheated moltenmetal ball on impact. These are used as anti-armor. The big dog is a 20,000 ton asteroid, which is used to flush the Indian Ocean to the Himalayas and Tasman. About 1.5 Billion dead. This was the "We are Serious" shot across the bow. The next one would have cracked the world open.
J
PS For anyone unfamiliar, TMHM is a book, written by engineer and retired military man RA Heinlein, about a revolt in 2076. The moon has been used as a huge prison colony for generations. The scarce natural resource, ice bearing rock, is being used up at a ruinous rate. When it becomes clear that starvation will come very soon a small group, aided by an intelligent, self aware computer, stages a revolution from Earth. This is intentionally pattered after the American revolution in the 18th century.
What is noteworthy about the book is that the primary weapon is basically an oversized slingshot, shooting rocks. It is a largish mass driver of the type popularized by Gerard O'Neill, which drops 2 ton rocks with very nice precision onto Earth. A two ton rock landing at escape velocity generates an mechanical explosion of about 10-20 kilotons, ie small nuke yield, but without the fallout and hard radiation.
"Footfall" by physicist Larry Niven takes the idea a step further. Ten kilo chunks of asteroid metal are dropped, resulting in a superheated moltenmetal ball on impact. These are used as anti-armor. The big dog is a 20,000 ton asteroid, which is used to flush the Indian Ocean to the Himalayas and Tasman. About 1.5 Billion dead. This was the "We are Serious" shot across the bow. The next one would have cracked the world open.
