ICBM's as kinetic strikes

[JointStrikeFighter]

Im sure many of you are aware of the US plan to mount a network of satelites in orbit and use them to drop 5m DU rods that will vape anything they hit. Of course this would be very expensive, however as an alternative would it be possible to use an ICBM to deploy instead of MIRV's a bunch of DU rods? Altohugh this would also be incredibly exoensive it would be cheaper and possibly faster reaction than sattelites. Would the KE of a 5m DU rod drop at the height of the ICBM's trajectory be sufficent to vape stuff?

[Shroom Man 777]

A sattelite is much higher, therefore it brings much more destruction on a level greater than that of the ICBMs, and this is the level that best suits the US' needs since they aren't going for the cheaper alternative (and they're such cheapskates).

A ICBM launched rod might be able to violate a wide range of stuff, but for universal violation, a sattelite is the tool because it's so damn high, way higher than the path ICBMs take. Sat > ICBM.

[Dirty Harry]

Im sure many of you are aware of the US plan to mount a network of satelites in orbit and use them to drop 5m DU rods that will vape anything they hit. Of course this would be very expensive, however as an alternative would it be possible to use an ICBM to deploy instead of MIRV's a bunch of DU rods? Altohugh this would also be incredibly exoensive it would be cheaper and possibly faster reaction than sattelites. Would the KE of a 5m DU rod drop at the height of the ICBM's trajectory be sufficent to vape stuff?

DU rods being dropped from orbit?, first i've heard of it. Is there any reading material on the internet on this I can look at?

[JointStrikeFighter]

There was an article in popular science awhile back.

so what would the KE be on a rod released from an ICBM

[Pu-239]

You'll probably make a deep hole in the ground but nothing more. A nuke is better.

[JointStrikeFighter]

the aim is to hit targets, silos, bunkers, armour?, buildings.

surely a 5m rod going mach 20 will destroy it

[Prozac the Robert]

If you lob ICBMs at someone, regardless of the payload, they will probably assume the worst. Doesn't really bear thinking about if they have nukes.

[JointStrikeFighter]

wouldnt a sat based KE strike be mistaken for an inbound nuke as well? especially if the nation dosnt have IR ground monitoring

[Dirty Harry]

the aim is to hit targets, silos, bunkers, armour?, buildings.

surely a 5m rod going mach 20 will destroy it

Such targets can already be destroyed with conventional weapons. If you insist on using an ICBM, then use it with conventional thermo-nukes. Earth penetrating Nuclear weapons are already being looked into. Think about it, if your lobbing around ICBM's to take out armour, your enemy might very well believe your going nuclear (as Prozac the Robert pointed out), that alone makes this idea silly.

[Shroom Man 777]

Even then, they're both rather different and if a country has its own deterrents, it could probably differentiate a fat ass missile from what essentially is a meteor.

[RedImperator]

Lousy idea. It's a tremendous waste of money, an ICBM can't get nearly as high as a satellite and therefore the falling rod will have less KE, ICBMs are imperfectly reliable, and they're not accurate enough to drop a kinetic impactor on a target. This is all ignoring the fact there's no way for anyone to tell the difference between an ICBM with a kinetic kill rod and an ICBM with a nuclear warhead.

[CJvR]

Launching an ICBM at anyone capable of retaliating is a very very bad idea. Even if you only intend it as a kinetic strike. Once the ICBMs take off you are in very deep shark infested waters.

[Dirty Harry]

There was an article in popular science awhile back.

so what would the KE be on a rod released from an ICBM

So is this on the internet or what then? any chance of you finding the article in question if it is?

[Sarevok]

It is not worth it because pf two reasons. Firstly accuracy would be a big problem, it is not easy to hit something on the ground from so far away easily. Secondly the small damage done is not worth the cost of an ICBM. Strike aircraft and bombers can do it for a much smaller cost.

[aerius]

I remember reading somewhere that Lockheed looked into kinetic kill weapons using the SR-71 as the launch platform. In one proposal they'd drop a rod or slug from the Blackbird at mach 3+ which would be used against heavily armoured targets. The other idea was to drop a ton of ball bearings at the same speed which would wipe out anything that's not armoured. Used against a ship for example, the bearings would take out all the radars, sensors, antennas and leave the ship blind, deaf, and helpless. That's the theory anyway, I don't know if they ever tried it out for real.

[Darth Wong]

There was an article in popular science awhile back.

Don't put too much faith in "Popular Science". The very name is a contradiction in terms; by the time you've finished dumbing down science in order to make it popularly accessible, you've probably fucked it up beyond recognition.

The idea of dropping inert DU rods from space in order to hit targets on the ground is silly; you would still need guidance systems in order to hit anything. Satellites in low orbit are not geosynchronous, and even if they were, wind patterns could potentially blow the projectile off course. Add to that the fact that the upper limit for KE for a falling projectile from an orbit of, say, 400 miles is roughly 6MJ per kg. Gasoline releases 60 MJ per kg. And finally, consider the fact that the projectile would be too penetrative, ie- it would likely punch through a building and embed itself in the ground with less explosive effect than a conventional bomb.

[Arrow]

The idea of dropping inert DU rods from space in order to hit targets on the ground is silly; you would still need guidance systems in order to hit anything. Satellites in low orbit are not geosynchronous, and even if they were, wind patterns could potentially blow the projectile off course. Add to that the fact that the upper limit for KE for a falling projectile from an orbit of, say, 400 miles is roughly 6MJ per kg. Gasoline releases 60 MJ per kg. And finally, consider the fact that the projectile would be too penetrative, ie- it would likely punch through a building and embed itself in the ground with less explosive effect than a conventional bomb.

I read the article, and IIRC, they wanted to use tungsten rods (not DU) to take out bunkers that are too thick/deep for normal bunker busters to get too. I think the concept called for the rods to be rocket launched from a satellite and use a JDAM-like guidance system.

Its pretty much your typical DARPA "what if" idea.

[Sea Skimmer]

ICBM's armed with anything but nuclear warheads are just stupid waste of money. DU rods released from them would lack the accuracy it hit anything of value, and being completely inert the only thing they could destroy would be very small bunkers and individual tanks. For the far less money then the 70 million dollar price tag of an ICBM you could fly a great many B-2 sorties completely around the world and unload ten times the weight of more effective ordinance with each one. Satellite dropped kinetic weapons are equally stupid and expensive, anything which they would be necessary to penetrate they won't be able to hit, you can't really have guidance fins with a mach 20 reentry (slow down and what's the point) and such uber bunkers will invariably be too big and well subdivided to be significantly damaged by an inert rod crashing through the roof.

Anyway, we already could get massive increases in the mathematical penetration capability of bombs. The problem is that the casing already begin to liquefy on impact and if we start dropping from say 75,000 feet rather then 30,000 feet chances are the bomb is going to break up and be a dud. The reaction time argument's make little sense. Giant bunkers don't move and they don't get built quickly, and if they happen to hold something time critical, like WMD, then you can simply blow the exits closed with far lesser weapons or annihilate the place with a nuclear bomb.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The DU or tungsten "rods from God" idea was one of Edward Teller's (Project Thor), the guy who also came up with single-use nuke pumped X-ray lasers (Project Excalibur). The concept has been looked at, but for the reasons stated about mistaking it for a nuke strike (even by a neighbouring nation to the one being attacked) and others, it's unfeasible.

-The satellite holding such high-density inanimate objects will take a sizeable amount of energy to get into LEO. This is hard enough and a network going up in chunks may get noticed.

-The satellite constellation needs to be big, either 24 or 36 sats to give any decent coverage. Problem is, that's a heap of spaceflights to get so much mass up.

-The rods - whether guided by a cruciform tale or completely dumb - will be notoriously difficult to use with any real accuracy from an orbital platform. These things are in orbit and will need to be dropped with an extreme foresight ability in order to determine their final impact site. Bad enough for bombing at several thousand feet.

-These rods won't move too fast if just released (infact, they will stay in orbit if just let go of). There needs to be a force pushing them towards the target vector. That means rockets or a mass driver, either way, that's yet more mass that will need to counter the orbital velocity first and increase cost.

All-in-all, may as well use an ICBM that doesn't stay in orbit, is far cheaper and works on a ballistic trajectory. But then, that idea is problematic anyway, so why bother.

Now a network of maser sats...

[Sea Skimmer]

-The rods - whether guided by a cruciform tale or completely dumb - will be notoriously difficult to use with any real accuracy from an orbital platform. These things are in orbit and will need to be dropped with an extreme foresight ability in order to determine their final impact site. Bad enough for bombing at several thousand feet.

When the Soviets developed their Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, they thought they'd be lucky to land the bomb within a 5x3 kilometer impact zone after deorbiting. Things haven't really gotten any better.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Exactly, which is why a great leap in technological ability is needed or better yet, just go with lightspeed weapons for precision strikes. No projectile to confuse with a nuke, instant kill and able to defend itself. It'd be far more worthwhile to produce a maser or X-ray laser system if you want such abilities since replacing an ICBM with something it can already do for greater cost is silly.

[Sea Skimmer]

The problem with a satellite based laser or other similar weapon system is that by the time we can pump out enough power for one to be effective against surface targets, land based lasers will be very common and will far more easily have the power to reach up to space and blind or destroy the firing platform.

[JointStrikeFighter]

wouldnt a staelite borne laser for planetry attack need just as much power as a ground based anti-sat weaopn? it still needs to penetrate the smae ammount of atmosphere

[Sarevok]

wouldnt a staelite borne laser for planetry attack need just as much power as a ground based anti-sat weaopn? it still needs to penetrate the smae ammount of atmosphere

The thing is ground based lase can have a more powerful powerplant than an orbital laser and so can shoot down the satelite.

[Sea Skimmer]

wouldnt a staelite borne laser for planetry attack need just as much power as a ground based anti-sat weaopn? it still needs to penetrate the smae ammount of atmosphere

You'll cripple a satellite with a far less powerful beam then you'd need to destroy even a truck from space. They do both have to pierce the same amount of atmosphere, but that's not all that huge of an issue.

The thing is ground based lase can have a more powerful powerplant than an orbital laser and so can shoot down the satelite.

Indeed, it has access to more power, it can mass more even if its still truck mobile, and when not in use you can hide it away in a bunker when not needed, while the satellite laser is always orbiting and vulnerable. You could even armor your ground laser, and have the emitter exposed only when firing. Armor on a sat simply isn't practical.