What Weapon is This??

[GarretSidzaka]

what kind of civ unit could this be...

What i know of it, it is called "Rods from the Gods" or somthing like this.

It shoots projectiles downwards that are made of possibly solid tungsten. they shoot like a meteor down to earth at a pre-targeted area (ie. city, naval fleet, ground forces, ect.)

What kind of explosion would this device create?

does anybody else know about this thing? am i in the past already?

 

[woodelf]

I imagine it would make a heckuva crater where it hit if it's shot downward like a meteor, depending on how high up it is. It looks like an attack satellite/railgun combo. Is it a real weapon?

 

[GarretSidzaka]

I imagine it would make a heckuva crater where it hit if it's shot downward like a meteor, depending on how high up it is. It looks like an attack satellite/railgun combo. Is it a real weapon?

I hope not.

I dont know what kind of orbit i would be in, but i would assume you could just put them in polar orbits and be able to strike anywhere.

Im thinking that the blast, if it's like a meteor's, would be semi-conventional, as in not really containing radioactive fallout. But i imagine the dust plume to be high.

Does anybody know anything about meteors? How many tons does how much damage at what speed?

 

[The Great Apple]

Seems to me to be pretty impractical as a weapon - the inefficiency is far far too great.

Firstly you'd have to lift you're high-mass projectiles into space, only to fire them back through a thick atmosphere at your target.

Secondly their relative velocites would be very low compared to a "normal" meteorite strike, as they would start far to low relative to earth, and, unless you want to send your satalite into the middle of nowhere, it would only be powered by gravity.

As for damage caused - it would really depend on how you got it to work. If each was a single shot weapon (rail-gun style - sacrifising the satilite) then they might be able to do quite a considerable damage. Saying that though, I think I read somewhere that meteorites of the order of magdetude of about 1 cubic meter strike the earth every year or so, and these guys would be going much faster - but we don't get massive new crators every year.

In other words... to make a weapon powerful enough to do anything would be far to expensive to be considered practical.

On a related note - I read quite a similar idea in a Sci-fi book a while back. A catapult built on the moon (originally designed to be used for raw material transfer) was turned into a weapon, hurling huge chucks of metal and rock down at Earth from the Moon.

This would be far more feasable, as you wouldn't have to worry about the moon disappearing off into space (much), and the ammunition is already up there. You could fire much larger objects much faster with this method.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

Is it a real weapon?

Actually yes . . . at least they're working on it.

 

[12monkeys]

I investigated a bit.
Lets say those rockets are just peace of metal without a warhead. Lets say they have a mass of 1000 kg and will be accellaterate to 1000 m/s (which is aprox. mach 3). Then there impact will realese about 5.0 E08 Joule (this 500.000.000). (I did calculate that by E_kin=m/2*v^2)

For comparison : 1 kg TNT has 4.6 E06 Joule, Nagasaki bomb had 6.0 E13 Joule.

Let the same mass fall down from an height of 30 km, the energy will be about 3.0 E08 Joule. This is calculated by E_pot = m*g*h. Attention : this calculation is very draft, because "g" is not "g" in 30km height and air drag is not considered. But it shold give us a feeling for the dimensions.

I think such a space installation it is an effective weapon for medium targets. Although its is quite expensive, there are some strategic advatages for such a thing :
- you can hit every point in the world, without moving a unit close to the target (in case you have a polar orbit).
- the missile is hard to find, because in case of a pure ballistic missile, it will be hard to detect when approching.
- even when it is detected, what do you want to do against it.

@TGA : I read the book as well. I'm sure you're talking about Robert Heinleins "The Moon Is Harsh Mistress", aren't you?

 

[GarretSidzaka]

to add, I dont think this thing would put out any fallout or neutron radiation, would it?

 

[12monkeys]

There will be defenitly no fallout, unless there is no nuclear reaction (fusion or fission). And for those reactions you will need a nuclear warhead.

 

[12monkeys]

BTW : nobody can assure that those missiles don't have a nuclear warhead. It is possible of cause. Also, its possible to improve the effectivity by adding a non-nuclear warhead.
Who knows what crazy thoughts the military people have?
And maybe, it is designed for asteroid defense? Ok, just a joke. No polititian would be that reasonable to spend money in that.

 

[The Great Apple]

Let the same mass fall down from an height of 30 km, the energy will be about 3.0 E08 Joule. This is calculated by E_pot = m*g*h. Attention : this calculation is very draft, because "g" is not "g" in 30km height and air drag is not considered. But it shold give us a feeling for the dimensions.

I'm not sure the difference in the acceleration due to gravity would have much effect. It's in the order of 0.1 ms^-2 (varies a bit as to where the satillite is placed, the earth being not quite spherical - at the poles g at 30km is about 9.77, and 9.87 at the surface).

Anyway...

I still think expense is the main problem. Putting one tonne weights into orbit ain't cheap. I can't find exact figures for cost/kg of pushing something up to 30km... but it ain't cheap .

As for damage - you'd probably lose quite a bit of mass, and more importantly, velocity on re-entry, which would lower the energy of the projectile significantly.

Accuracy? It'd have to be used, as you say, for medium sized static targets. Once it's detected (radar should be pretty good at this, espeically if you know where the satallite is & are prepared), it shouldn't be too hard to deflect wide of anywhere dangerous.

Finally, once it's up there who is to say it'll stay up there? All it takes is somebody who doesn't like you RVing with it in orbit with a big hammer (or a big load of explosives) and suddenly you're looking rather foolish.

With cheaper space flight seemingly just around the corner, however it could become a viable weapon... assuming all the other problems could be worked out. It really depends how cheap it gets.

@TGA : I read the book as well. I'm sure you're talking about Robert Heinleins "The Moon Is Harsh Mistress", aren't you?

That's the one! Great book.

 

[snafusmith]

This is my disclaimer:

I am a senior engineering student at a decent university (my program is in the top 20 in the country). I have only taken limited classes on aerodynamics and space flight mechanics (my major is something similar), however, I have come across this exact idea before in my classes.


My $0.02:

I can say that this weapon is not in existence, nor will it ever be any time soon. It was envisioned at one point by the Air Force (of which I am a member, AIR POWER! ) but discarded quickly because it isn't physically possible to have a material strong enough to survive re-entry at that geometry (the atomic weight is impossible because it would have to be insanely dense - they nicknamed the material 'unobtanium', and yes, this was before the movie, 'The Core').

What happens is that the force from the atmosphere during re-entry causes the rod to bend and collapse it along its length. By the time it gets through the atmosphere, most of the material is gone, or deformed to the extent that targeting it is difficult. (Basically, at the speeds it would be going through the upper atmosphere, the rod could be approximated by a beam with an incredible force at one end that buckles it.)

However, if it were to hit the Earth where you wanted, and it was in roughly the same shape as it started out as, you can imagine that there wouldn't be much left of what you hit. There would also be no nuclear radiation of any kind (I know this was said, but just to throw it in).

If it wasn't physically implausible that this worked, expense would do it in instantly. It costs roughly $100,000 (1980 dollars) to put 1 lb of material in space. Given the high density of each rod, the support structure, and the fuel needed to put it in a stable orbit, you're looking at too much money. Just use a smart bomb.

Final thoughts:

From the unit standpoint, I'm not saying no one should make this unit or use it. When I played civ3, I always added attack satellites to the game, as they definitely rock. However, just let it be known that this isn't going to happen anytime soon (until we can make a denser material), nor is anything like this in development.

Again, this is just my $0.02, feel free to rip me a new one.

-Smitty

 

[GarretSidzaka]

smitty,
you sound the voice of reason to me. but what kind of attack satellites could be out there, and who wants to make Civ4 units for them?

...And maybe, it is designed for asteroid defense? Ok, just a joke. No polititian would be that reasonable to spend money in that.

... I still think expense is the main problem. Putting one tonne weights into orbit ain't cheap. I can't find exact figures for cost/kg of pushing something up to 30km... but it ain't cheap ...

...Accuracy? It'd have to be used, as you say, for medium sized static targets. Once it's detected (radar should be pretty good at this, espeically if you know where the satallite is & are prepared), it shouldn't be too hard to deflect wide of anywhere dangerous...

...With cheaper space flight seemingly just around the corner, however it could become a viable weapon... assuming all the other problems could be worked out. It really depends how cheap it gets...

I agree that it would be very very expensive, but the superpower's have wasted money before. I also feel that there might be a very extensive military orbital insertion systems, like many solid/liquid fuel rockets.

To deflect one of these tungsten rods, you would have to posess the most sophisticated missile defense shields. But these exist in us northwest and around moscow.

I was looking into the recent reusable space vehicles, and found it fasinating that private individuals can begin to match the USAF and NASA. Reusable space craft might already be here, but not yet publisized (crackpot theory)

 

[MurdockTheCrazy]

I know a little about this weapon concept.

First off, no, it isn't a real weapon. Well, it could be, but if it is it's a black program we won't be hearing of for a long time.

The idea is pretty simple, launch a satellite into orbit with some kind of reentry vehicle on it. When someone pisses you off, launch said reentry vehicles from the satellite, so they can come crashing back to earth.

Ideas along these lines have been around since then 1960s, the Soviets actually looked into it first, they designed a satellite that would have held six nuclear armed reentry vehicles.

It would have made a perfect first strike weapon. If a nation fires an ICBM, the launch can be detected from space, giving warning to the targeted nation, and a chance for counter-strike. The same is true for SLBMs and even nuclear armed bombers, all those launches can be detected pretty easy, with a fair amount of warning.

A satellite in orbit, however, doesn't give much warning. The first sign that an attack had started would be when the reentry vehicles separate from the satellite... from that point on it's only about 2-3 minutes before they would hit their targets. Not much warning at all.

The United States countered this concept by working on their own designs for such a nuclear armed satellite. In the end neither side actually built one [or so they both claim], due to the political pressure.


Later, starting in the 1980s, someone finally started considering how effective a conventional [non-nuclear] version of this idea could be. A single satellite could hold as many as twenty reentry vehicles, and these could hit anywhere in the world in only a matter of minutes.

After a few military situations in the 1980s and early 1990s showing how helpful this ability could be, the concept went from just an idea to a seriously considered future weapons system. Sometime around this point the name 'Rods from God' came to be. However post-cold-war budget cuts kept this program from going anywhere, there just wasn't any money for it.

The need for a weapons system like this became obvious at the start of the post-9/11 War on Terrorism. The ability to do a conventional strike anywhere in the world in 2-3 minutes would have made taking out Al Queda leadership much easier and quicker.

The photo in question is from one of the newest proposals, involving a 'targeting' satellite and a 'payload' satellite. The targeting satellite would stay in orbit for decades, and provide targeting information. It would actually orbit about 5 minutes [several hundred miles] ahead of the payload satellite.

The payload satellite [or satellites, you could add as many as you want] would basically just be a giant launching canister for the reentry vehicles. Designed to be low cost and disposable, once emptied it would be discarded and replaced with a new one.

A payload satellite could hold many, many reentry vehicles, 20 being about the maximum practical number.

These reentry vehicles, being conventional, would look very different from an ICBMs nuclear reentry vehicle.

It would look, basically, like an ink pen. A long skinny tube [probably 6-8 feet long, 6" wide], it would have a pointy nose, probably made out of reinforced-carbon-carbon. The mid section of the reentry vehicle would be made out of a heavy, high temperature metal, such as tungsten. The tail section would have the guidance system.

A reentry vehicle like this could hit a target on the ground in just 2-3 minutes from the time it's launched. It would hit its target at ~10,000mph, it would leave a very, very deep hole in whatever it hit. Probably 500-1,000 feet deep [depending on ground density], and probably 6' wide at the surface [due to impact shockwave]. Obviously this would make a great bunker buster, not to mention what it would do to any vehicle/camp it hit.

More advanced reentry vehicle designs are possible, such as one that explodes before impact, raining tungsten shrapnel at the velocity of ~5,000mph on a target area about 500' wide.

Or a 'bunker buster' version, which would be about twice the size of the standard reentry vehicle, it would be capable of taking out any bunker on the planet.


The idea hasn't made much headway, for political and budgetary reasons. But the technology is there, this weapon could have been built from any point after about 1990. I think it would make an interesting Civ unit [so would a Military Spaceplane].

Any questions, just ask. This is an area I know a fair bit about.

 

[MurdockTheCrazy]

I agree that it would be very very expensive, but the superpower's have wasted money before.

Actually it wouldn't be all that expensive. It would cost less to launch than a GPS satellite, due to the fact this would be LEO [low earth orbit] rather than geosynchronous orbit.

The cost of designing such a complex weapon system would actually cost more. But really, it wouldn't cost near as much as many of the higher-budget military systems [F-22 comes to mind, take your pick of any aircraft carrier, too]

Also, unlike most military systems, the cost of supporting such a weapon, once launched, would be tiny. 12 men in a command center at NORAD could manage a half dozen of these things, and that's the only support it would need. Compare that to any ship in the US navy.

It's really a very cost effective weapons system.

To deflect one of these tungsten rods, you would have to posess the most sophisticated missile defense shields. But these exist in us northwest and around moscow.

Not really, the current United States missile defense system is a very, very expensive joke. It has about a 1 in 20 chance of stopping an ICBMs reentry vehicle.

These conventional reentry vehicles would be much harder to stop. For one thing they come from a higher angle and much higher velocity [due to the fact they're coming from orbit]. Frankly, it would be impossible for the current US missile defense system to stop even a small attack by these things.

And don't even joke about the defense systems around Moscow. Most of those are in disrepair, and wouldn't be able to do anything in the event of an attack. Even if they were all working, they just aren't designed to stop this kind of weapon. They were designed to kill nuclear reentry vehicles from ICBMs in the upper atmosphere, even against that their odds of a shoot-down are pretty low. A conventional reentry vehicle like that from the 'Rods from God' concept would reenter much, much faster. The defenses around Moscow would not be able to stop this.

It would be possible to make defensive systems to stop these, but it would cost about as much as the Apollo program did.

I was looking into the recent reusable space vehicles, and found it fasinating that private individuals can begin to match the USAF and NASA. Reusable space craft might already be here, but not yet publisized (crackpot theory)

Not as crackpot as it sounds, the USAF has been tossing around the idea of reusable spacecraft since the 1960s. It's very possible that there could be one, locked away in a Black Project somewhere.

It might explain those mysterious high-altitude 'ghost' sonic booms over the pacific ocean in the 1990s, among other things.

 

[MurdockTheCrazy]

I hate to be a jack### know-it-all, but I'm going to pick this post apart.

I can say that this weapon is not in existence, nor will it ever be any time soon.

True, but only due to political pressure to keep space weapons free. Technology wise, this weapon system could have been built from about 1993-onward.

It was envisioned at one point by the Air Force (of which I am a member, AIR POWER! )

Thank you for your service .

but discarded quickly because it isn't physically possible to have a material strong enough to survive re-entry at that geometry (the atomic weight is impossible because it would have to be insanely dense - they nicknamed the material 'unobtanium', and yes, this was before the movie, 'The Core').

This isn't true, consider for example the Mk21 reentry vehicle of the LGM-118 Peacekeeper and LGM-30 Minuteman III. It has a mass of only about 500lbs, and is protected by only a 6" reinforced-carbon-carbon nose cone. The skin of the reentry vehicle is less than .5" thick, the frame is regular steel, 1"x1" beams.

Granted, the Mk21 is designed for a much more shallow, lower velocity reentry. But it still doesn't take much to keep something in once piece for impact.

A solid tungsten rod with a larger reinforced-carbon-carbon nose section would be capable of suviving a reentry from low earth orbit, without major deformation.

If it wasn't physically implausible that this worked, expense would do it in instantly. It costs roughly $100,000 (1980 dollars) to put 1 lb of material in space.

Incorrect, it costs about $5,000 per pound into LEO [low earth orbit].

Given the high density of each rod, the support structure, and the fuel needed to put it in a stable orbit, you're looking at too much money.

You could still launch payload satellites on top Delta 2s for no more than it costs to launch a GPS satellite. Each payload satellite could hold 10-20 reentry vehicles [we could push it to 50+, if we don't mind using Delta 4 Heavys... But they would attract attention]. Obviously, we launch lots of GPS satellites, so the money is there.

Just use a smart bomb.

Smart bombs can't hit a target anywhere in the world in 2-3 minutes.

Nor can they take out any bunker on the planet.

Nor can they be used without putting Americans at risk.

Again, this is just my $0.02, feel free to rip me a new one.

Not trying to, just making my opinions known.

 

[snafusmith]

MurdockTheCrazy,

Thanks for the comments. You wrote one of the best replies to a post like mine that I've ever seen. I disagree with your analysis in some points, but it really doesn't matter (so I'm not going to continue). Thanks again for the imput though.

-Smitty

 

[The_General_86]

This is kind of off-topic, but it has to do with governmment black projects. Ok, so it's Halloween right? I'm sitting on the couch and hear a small bang, and my couch shakes. I immediately thought, "WTH was that?" I got my police scanner and turned it on. They were searching for any sign of an explosion, but weren't finding any thing. It was reported the next day as a minor earthquake. However, my sister's friend's dad works at a nuclear power plant, which has a siesmograph. He said It did not pick up ANY signs of a minor earthquake. This is just me, but I think the government wat testing SOMETHING over Lake Ontario. Give your thoughts on this.

 

[Red Door]

I got my police scanner

You have a police scanner?
Isn't that somewhat illegal?

 

[GarretSidzaka]

thank you crazythemurdoch,

it sounds like you have studied the field very extensively. i agree on all points you have made, asnd you have frightened me.

since these weapons are NOT nukyular, and wouldn't produce detectable gamma bursts, they could be dropping these babies right now on city blocks and calling 'em 'smart bombs'

 

[Neomega]

You have a police scanner?
Isn't that somewhat illegal?

not at all.