'Rods from God' Weapon System Gets Another Look
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- čas přidán 9. 11. 2017
- Dropping the atomic bombs that essentially forced Japan to end World War II led to a number of weapons and munitions developments. Amongst them was research into the use of a kinetic energy projectile, or basically finding ways to project a really dense piece of metal at ridiculous speeds.
This would lead to damage, but without the explosive effects - similar to the Navy’s work with an electromagnetic railgun.
However, earlier iterations didn’t focus on generating the velocity. Rather, basic physics could come into play by dropping it from really high in the sky.
So, imagine a 2,000-pound tungsten rod dropped from 1,000 miles above the earth. Unlike a bullet, it would actually gain speed as it dropped, eventually hitting its target with power equivalent to an intercontinental ballistic missile, but without the mess of a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. actually used a variation of this tactic in Vietnam. These Lazy Dog bombs were small pieces of non-explosive steel fitted with fins.
They were dropped by the hundreds and reached speeds of up to 500 MPH in penetrating up to nine inches of concrete.
This led to the development of Project Thor, which called for a bundle of 20’ long, 1’ thick rods dropped from high enough that they could reach sound-barrier breaking speeds, and, again avoid the fallout associated with nuclear weapons capable of delivering equivalent damage.
So why haven’t these ‘rods from God’ been released. Two main reasons.
First the actual weight of the projectile by the time it hits the target is still being debated. Just as large pieces of space junk break up and burn as they fall, the same could happen to these metal projectiles.
The other reason - cost. Dropping these hammers from the skies could be 10 times more expensive than equivalent weapons in the arsenal. However, with the commercialization of space taking new steps forward via SpaceX and others, that may not be an issue for long. - Věda a technologie
“A rod touches down 8 times faster than a bullet, and with a force significantly greater than a nuclear warhead. None of the fallout, all of the fun”
The nuclear warheads bit is a massive exaggeration. At best it would be the force of a tiny tactical nuke. What these are actually good for is precision strikes with no visible exhaust. They can be bunker busters because most of that impact force is directly downwards. There's also the fact that it takes an equal amount of energy to get something into space as it will carry downward. With the inefficiency of rockets, Thats made way worse.
Someone’s been watching GI Joe 😂
@@ruthlessrubberducky5729 You would have severe energy losses getting a 1T payload up, and then you would lose mass and velocity on the way back down. All the "flames" in that video would be energy lost.
@@ruthlessrubberducky5729 i hope they drop one on putins bunker
I believe he said ballistic missile, not nuclear
1:10 "Sound barrier breaking speeds" is a bit of an understatement for mach 10
Yeah, I noticed a lot more than that for mistakes in this video. These things don't kick like a nuke. You're gonna a couple of TONs worth of TNT out of one of these things. That's piss weak compared to regular bombs.
@@imofage3947 havent you seen what a small Meteor does to the earth when it hits? look at Russias
Tunguska disaster
Wow the old bow and arrow has become very advanced, I'm sure Robin Hood never had one like this
I rather be hit by that to be honest than have to pick out an arrow that stuck inside me
Legolas if he was related to elon musk
Just read some parts of the mahabharat about their bows and arrows
Ever heard of Tunguska? That was Hood trying to erase communism
@@williamlopez5725 think bigger , the rod of god are 20 foot long titanium telephone pole in size coming at you at 10 times the speed of sound could be coming at you a 10 times less than the speed of sound at 75mph and still splatter you like a bug ..like sometimes you are the windshield sometimes you're the bug ...you could be a louisville slugger but the way it really is you're always gonna be the ball
Tungsten metal has a melting point of 3,422°C. It's not going to break up or melt on re-entry, there have been a lot of classified launches, and a standard JDAM guidance package would work just fine once you are in the atmosphere.
All you need to do is work out how to accurately de-orbit the thing, and you have a very discreet way to take out high value targets with high accuracy and zero warning - it doesn't even have to be that big and a 400 kg rod would devastate any target.
They were never trying for explosive effect they wanted wave affect.
Mobile earthquakes flattens city in seconds or minutes no fallout.
Vacuum acceleration perfect, just orbits then fired hits in minutes or quicker depending on speed.
You can almost guarantee the US has built this thing. First thought of in the 1950s.
Could use rods that have tungsten cores
@@ryankelly4111 Tungsten has two qualities that make it ideal for this.
It's high melting point, and it's high density.
If you had to compromise on material usage, it would make more sense to put the tungsten on the outside, but honestly, while tungsten is expensive, it's not expensive enough to make compromise worthwhile.
@@ryankelly4111 there's probably one up there right now
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Did they try one on wile e coyote?
Bro, just the thought of a 10 ton rod made of tungsten coming at you from above at mach 10 is just absolutely terrifying
A direct hit to you and you wouldn’t even be able to send the nerve response in time to register it. You’d probably be instantly vaporized.
Anyone else came from "The world's finest assasin"?
🙋
🙋
So often the military want big bangs. Another idea for this type of weapon are much smaller rods, perhaps with rudimentary guidance that can identify a ship as a target. Then you send them in bundles of 100 or so. Hitting at Mach 10 from above, a fleet would cease to exist, each rod would pretty well go clean through the ship from top to keel leaving a hole several feet wide. Or have it tell "vehicle" from "not a vehicle" and watch an armoured regiment vanish. (There's a good description of this in Larry Niven's "Footfall".)
Wave effect earthquake maker
A conventional military doesn't want big bangs. They want the enemy to just quit. They use all means available to get the enemy to quit as early as possible. This saves lives on both sides.
Today they want us to fight with restraint. This only leads to more lives lost on both sides because it makes a war last for years instead of weeks.
@@eddarby469 You have to have the big bangs to deal with hardened targets. (I just realised that my comment could be thought to mean nukes, but that wasn't my intent) Earthquake bombs and the like.
And I totally agree with you. The purpose of "war" is to destroy the enemies will or ability to continue. The faster this is done the fewer casualties on both sides.
Good idea! However, I’m not sure if this would be able to take down a ship or if it would just go through it, given how hard the substance is. Maybe it sinks it over time, but I highly doubt it blows up the ship given the velocity and force. Picture it as a giant bullet.
@@catatestrophe7499 That was the idea. Several holes a metre wide from the top deck all the way through the hull. One probably wouldn't sink a destroyer but 3 would. The idea is to smash and sink the ship, any explosion would be a bonus.
Remember that this was simply an orbital version of the hypersonic kinetic projectiles the US Navy is developing now. The difference is that using a gun means you have to accelerate the projectile. A satellite delivery system is already doing 17,000 mph.
"None of the fallout, all of the fun"
I understood that reference
@@ejacpeanut6267 What is it referencing
@@NautilusSSN571 the second GI joe movie. They have these rods in it
Man , you know where the ship is hanging. Above intelligent intriguing photo
There are 10 Zeus satellites orbiting earth! Each satellite contains ten hollow platinum tubes filled with a tungsten rod!
Let's be honest. The US already has 20 of these in orbit.
Probably only one, possibly as part of another working satellite. There have been many "undisclosed" satellites launched over the years. As for treaties, The US doesn't really care much. The world can do nothing when the US violates. But we're probably not the only one to have them. It's just quietly understood. But as mentioned, they are way too expensive to use for anything but an extremely powerful bunker busting weapon. Conventual weapons are far more practical in any other circumstance. These aren't nukes in space either. They just aren't that powerful. More than a moab.. but not city destroying level. Now a really big one.. that could change things. But you'd need a starship or sls to launch it, and that would be a mass destruction device we could never actually use.
So naturally we'll send up a dozen of them. And never use them. The US does that a lot. Likes to have advanced toys it never uses.
@@DJKinney Bro you are no fun at all
DJ Kinney “I know because it’s my job to know” lmao you sound like the airsoft kids who comment on navy seal fan vids.
The US has a large contingent of black project weapons systems of offensive and defensive capabilities in space that were produced during the Reagan years and utilized by the intelligence community. This was at the time dubbed as the ‘Star Wars project’. With the establishment of space force, which has a primary purpose of integrating these black projects into an official capacity to be placed under the direct supervision of the military so that rogue agencies don’t exploit them, these technologies are now entering into the disclosure pipeline. This starts with official patenting of the technology (an example is the Navy inertial mass reduction device). When the patent is issued DARPA then begins ‘researching’ the technology before issuing contracts to defense corporations such as Boeing Phantom Works to build out and sell back to the military. Watered down variations of non military application of the technology is then produced for commercial utilization, an example of this is the wing technology of the B-2 bomber that is now being used in the 787 Dreamliner.
Back when I was training for Cyber, my trainer was a former LT. C. for USAF R&D. According to him, technologies that we have publicly available today, wether it be the smart phone, USB, WiFi, CD and so on, discerns less than 10% of what’s held by R&D, and the average time before disclosure of technology that does make it out for commercial use is 30 years. An example he gave is in-air WiFi. Officially speaking WiFi in general was established in 1999, while in-air WiFi was integrated for commercial use in 2013 via united. However, the USAF has been using in-air WiFi since 1985- that’s 14 years before WiFi was even officially established and 28 years before in-air WiFi was integrated for civilian use.
Alexian Heina umm yes you fucking can, notice how space x has had a few satellite inccedents, people have proved, that they weren’t blown up, just launched, were a country of liars, if you think a treaty will stop us your an idiot
Chris Smith no you don’t, you need someth8ng the size of a satellite, some math, and a fucking metal rod
Don’t mind me, just seeing what to expect in the potential WW3
Yes same
And this in WW4 with aliens.
czcams.com/video/Imi8-rCicaQ/video.html
I am being sarcastic here. In case any extraterrestrial life reads it :-)
Or perhaps avoidi g WWIII
Gaint rods of god
Me too
Before guns were mounted on planes WWI pilots threw "lawn darts" outta the cockpit that could go through an infantry helmet and split a soldier in half.
Same as it ever was.
This is so not true
@@alkatraz5559 It's absolutely true. The French were the first to use them,and they were called flechettes. They even carried boxes of them set in the fuselage noses of certain modified French aircraft. Warparty may have been parodied it a bit,but the concept remains the same(although they did definitely use them for a time after mounted guns)
@@alkatraz5559 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette
WarParty! At the Outpost
Definitely off the map with that comment...look see... czcams.com/video/L499OvlNF_Y/video.html
Sounds like french propaganda.
Wow. Wasn’t that the plot to the second GI Joe Movie.
and call of duty gohst i believe
Both stole it from real life.
anthony ev You think these exists? 😂
Yep.
and 90% of the military in space books on the market today.
Never knew about this until I watched the last episode of the world finest assassin
Let's really have a closer look. Drop a bundle of the Rods of God onto the Georgia Guidestones. Let's see if they say "ouch" in 8 different languages.
I don’t get it.
@@tasteless_5915 Get what exactly?
@@shadowstarr7 everything after Georgia.
@@tasteless_5915 Have you read about them? Just do a search and find a good article with pictures. What is written on them, a type of 10 Commandments, are written in 8 different languages. Read what those 10 articles are. I think you'll understand my comment better then.
@@shadowstarr7 okie dokie.
world finest assassin anime brought me here
Ah so ghosts was technically a reality
Ghosts??
Carson Mckurtis yeah in call of duty ghosts theres an orbital weapons platform called loki and another one called odin and they shot rods that were self propelled rods
@@crusanosicus562 There were two satellites in Ghosts, they did were called Odin and Loki.
@@crusanosicus562 Thor are the old nordic god of war. Odin are the god father or king while Loki are a half god that do a lot of bad deeds. So if you wanted to change the name, but still keep it close Odin and Loki seem like obvious options.
Anyway in real life if they had made project Thor, the first satellite would probably be called Thor, then Odin and Loki are probably coming soon after.
Yeah. Odin was the original US built war satellite that got attacked at the start of the game. Loki was the Federation made rod delivery system reverse engineered from the wreckage of Odin.
Be honest. You saw this from the worlds finest assasin lol
The rods were to be made from Tungsten. Very little ablation of material due to heat was expected.
That has a problem. Tungsten is extremely dense. Max one could bring at once up there would be one or two.
@@paniniman6524 They could segment them but yes, weight is always an issue when you talk about space.
Here after lugh dropped one
one word on this weapon system "Mjolnir"
James Ricker “ODIN”**
It's name was odin
J Feldhacker I was thinking of COD ghost campaign lol
Stormbreaker
Beirut...🤔
Engineering already exists in the "Heat Tiles" developed for the Space Shuttle program. The same material could encase the "rods" as well and protect the projectile long enough to be effective by retaining its weight.
Maybe, maybe not, the tiles on spacecraft are ablative, and one thick enough to do the job might reduce the density of the rod problematically.
A sabot type casing built of high heat resistant material that sheds after so many feet of descent would shield the rod
Do you have no idea what tungsten is?
The space shuttle has a comparatively shallow re-entry angle, with rods from god you want a very quick re-entry to minimize drag losses, those tiles may not hold up to the greater heating
Adjusting the penetrating point and leading face/edge can modulate the position of the bow shock which can keep the superheated reentry plasma field at a safe distance so that there will be very little conductive heat transfer and only irraditive transfer.
That plus a blunt carbon foam nose shell that collapses on physical impact with the target and exposes the pointed tungsten penetrating nose would also work well.
Just hypotheticals and definitely not something that's already been done 😒😒😒
Honestly I would rather have this than ICBM's
Are you here after the Beirut explosion?
Same explosion in Tianjin China and Bejrut.
I am here after debating and arguing the Trump2020 narrative on CZcams videos.
Castyo - Are you here after the Lochnagar mine-bomb explosion 1916?
Yall dumb to think this caused those explosions lmao
@@magnetacyan5032 So do you support Trump2020 or not🤬
Larry niven wrote about the idea of kinetic orbital bombardment a long time ago. But they were using 30 meter tungsten/iron rods with way more mass.
Questionable whether a one ton projectile would even make landfall.
Put a booster on each one to give it a kick, get it moving fast enough so when it hits atmo it won't have time to burn up.
Tungsten has one of the highest melting points of any metal, that coupled with a type of ceramic coating I’m sure that the vast majority would make it to the surface…Our nuclear warhead MIRV’s have a coating on them to withstand reentry so the technology is well established.
Yay! Finally a reference to Larry Niven! Also, In one of his novels, aliens maneuvered a small asteroid into earth orbit - or maybe the LaGrange point, or forget - and threatened earth with it.
This video is unclear. They say 2000 lbs, then talk about project Thor. Project Thor’s rods we 1ft thick 20ft long that would be nearly 20,000 lbs.
@@andrewmeyer8374 most of these videos have the structural form of a sponge with way less integrity.....lol
Reminds me of the Dainsleif weapon from Gundam Iron blooded orphans, a railgun that shoots dart projectiles that can cause massive damage upon impact. It is where they use it on the last episode where they perform an orbital strike on the Tekkadan base.
Thank you for making this comment. This is exactly what I get reminded of. A devastating weapon that should never exist
Im here after the worlds finest assassin used this weapon 😆
The engineering and cost are far from the main reasons why a weapon like this was never implemented. The main reason is that most of the modern world has signed the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which prohibits the use of weapons in space. It's highly likely this treaty has been violated by the US, Russia, and China, but at the very least the treaty would cause any such weapon system to be classified at the absolute highest levels of government.
no, the treaty bans Nukes, not these, actually
Actually, this concept was made as a result of the Ban Treaty, which bans the use of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. Dropping heavy shit from space doesn't fit any of those descriptions.
The "lazy dog bombs" you showed when you referred to them were flechette rockets, commonly called "nails" by the users.
SailfishSoundSystem watch and learn
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Lazy Dog Bombs were actually much, much smaller, the size of a finger, and dropped crates at a time. When they found vietnamese that had been struck, there are reports it went through their head all the way through their body and lodged in their pelvis, or straight through them and then buried in the ground.
My brother was a flight deck operations man on enterprises during Vietnam and brought home some little lead bomb shapped weights told me Thay dropped them from above the clouds verry effective and quite
Forgot to mention a key step: cover the rods in a heat resistant ceramic coating. Avoids silly stuff like the projectile burning up on re-entry.
Yup, just like the retired space shuttles were!!
These rods would be made from tungsten, which is one of the most heat resistant metals we have readily avalible for this kind of use, and is one of only a few metals actually capable of withstanding re entry heating (due to its extreme density compared to other metals) so I think it'd be fine
No dummy face
Basically this rods are made with tungsten for its density and high temperature resistance
Plus stealth under coating, they won't see it coming.
@@clydekamana9531 stealth?
Those rods are kinetic
The only thing they will see is a meteor
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Danielle, Simon and Charlie? Thumbs up
You forgot Scott
A 2000lb rod at terminal velocity hitting the Earth has the explosive equivalence of about 3 tons of TNT. The smallest nuclear bomb ever tested has the explosive equivalence of around 18 tons of TNT.
The "Rods from God" are almost 20,000 lbs each.....not 2,000 lbs. (20ftx1ft tungsten rod would weigh about 18,952 lbs + I assume there will be a steering rocket package too)
@@AndTheCorrectAnswerIs So roughly 20ish tons of TNT equivalence at roughly 5 billion dollars per shot.
Keep dreaming.
@@TexasStormChaser Aren't nukes literally even worse with money efficiency than that through?, all the uranium enrichment, material acquisition, permits, security, job pay, all the eletricity bills would put the cost to make a actual nuke way more than 5 billion no?.
All the more through this would in a way incetivise the space industry more making it develop faster as more money is injected in making the building, launching the shipment, and after all space infrastructure is already built its pretty cheap for a country like America and it would be just feasible in any given war situation to just throw one at a enemy bunker or a spot where it needs to destroy tactical targets without later on completely breaking the territory compared to nukes
Trump: *laughs in space force.*
A orbital plane able to drop these would give the USA the high ground in WW3. Need orbital fighters,too!
I like, might ha e to steal it. WWG1WGA
@@ChrisMontgomery-xtrmagamr whatever you say you lunatic
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@The Saint 👌
i'm here from the future to tell you the first one of these used on US soil was in nashville tn on Christmas morning 2020.
Just a little smaller
This actually makes sense
There's also the ethical implications of placing such weapons in space. These are 100% undefendable weapons that can be deployed without warning and once activated will only take 2-3 mins to hit.
Translation:
"Stop using your high level weapons reeeeeee"
Yes it was called star wars program they said they wouldn't do it 😅🤣😂😂 they did
Except it would take at least 15mins, not sure what crack you're smoking.
@@kirayoshikage4057 Orbiting at an altitude of around 400km at a velocity of 27,600km/h.
An ICBM flight time is roughly 30mins. A rod doesn't include flight time like an ICBM. It is launched at the moment of decent at 8km a second.
@@VegarotFusion orbiting in vacuum is not the same as falling back to earth idiot, space shuttle didn't land on earth crashing at 27600km/h either
To prevent the Tungsten to burn up on re-entry, just have them coated with ceramic plates just like the retired space shuttles were! Not rocket science issue to overcome the re-entry problem. By the way, Tungsten has a very high melting point so it's not that easy to melt it at re-entry, but at those speeds let's assume will be Mach 15 or more similar to an ICBM, such high temperatures will take place since it was noted that plasma engulfed the shuttles at re-entry. But also when traveling at mach 15+ there's little time available for the heat to do its damage to the rod before it hits the target so in general, the re-entry problem might not be a problem at all. ✌
your right about the ceramic plates. Jeez, if the US has this weapon, then its a better bargaining chip than nuclear missiles.
+Lucky Hazard. absolutely. because unlike nukes, you can actually use this weapon without rendering the area around your target permanently uninhabitable.
Why do you morons talk about ceramic plates (melting point ~2000C) to "protect" tungsten (melting point ~3400C)?
The main problem is the targeting system- try to build one in the nose that can still see the target thru the ionization of re-entry
Will have satellite guidance?
Are these the misiles used on the dumbs/underground facilities for the reps?
Space targeting systems will always be the more efficient way of payload delivery. Putting weapons themselves to earth orbit is too costly (weight) and uncontrollable in case of malfunction (micro meteors and space debris, solar weather etc.) A guidance system is less important especially when multiple satellites exist for the same operation. You only lose a guidance system, not the arsenal along with it.
Who else came here after watching the anime : THE WORLD'S FINEST ASSASSIN GETS REINCARNATED IN ANOTHER WORLD AS AN ARISTOCRAT? This was the protagonists most powerful weapon and despite the flaws of the real life rods of god , the ones he used did not cost anything as he controlled gravity to put them in space and he created the tungsten rods using "magic" and they did not burn up in the atmosphere as he used "wind magic " to protect it in its re-entry. Its an interesting concept in an anime and in real life but it needs to be further developed in real life to work properly.
Except it will never work in real life. With no "magic" it is simply impossible for the 2000lbs rod to accelerate above 0.5mach just from free falling
A man in a space suit reached very near to supersonic speed when he jumped from the edge of space... straight metal rod with with a pointed nose will certainly reach 3-4 times that speed. They will impact the ground at 2,500 mph or more.
far more...
@@wildbill6976You maybe right. I don't know the actual speed they reach.
What's wrong with having 20-foot-long versions of these dropped out of the back of a plane from like 80,000 - 100,000 feet with fins to control direction? The front could be the heaviest side, making it automatically tip forwards. There would be an ultra fast rocket engine on the back to essentially launch it downwards vertically as fast as possible.
Accelerated in a vacuum far more effective, basically a meteorite humans can aim perfectly
@@jamesmaralyn6745 I've read that being out in space gives them the capability to place one anywhere on earth in 30 minutes.
The advantage of orbit is you don’t need a rocket motor to accelerate it, it’s using purely gravity. Also it would be stealthy as we have sensors to detect heat plumes from rocket engines. By the time they detect it on reentry they would only have maybe 30 seconds or warning.
@@jerrywilliams578 search x-37b delivery mechanism for all secret weapons and spy satellites.
I actually just tried to answer you and my information got deleted immediately, so will surmise rods earth crackers, wave affect the real danger flattens city in seconds no fallout.
President round 80s wanted star wars program, they said they wouldn't do, 😂😅🤣🤣😅😅 they did
@@ryanhampson673 Except a 2000 pound rod has a terminal velocity of about 500km/h and dropping it from lowest possible orbit would take 14 minutes (at terminal velocity) and it would heat up in way less than a few minutes, giving more than 10 minutes to react.
Just because something accelerated beyond speed of sound in vacuum, doesn't mean it will continue going that fast on reentry. Do you know why things heat up as they fall back into the atmosphere?
Thanks for explaining that....and thanks for the no nonsense report.
Not travelling fast enough to have enough energy to be a replacement for ICBMs.
With initial G being basically 0 due to the fact it's in orbit.
G increases linearly to 9.81 at sea level.
Kinetic potential energy relates to Mgh so g average approx = 5m/s/s
M let's say 50000 kg to be massively optimistic.
Hight of geostationary orbit 35786000m
So KE max = 8.9 TJ
So a factor of 1000 less than a 1 megaton nuclear weapon and the energy isn't dispersed above the target, but into the ground.
This ignores air resistance which will be larger the faster it goes.
If they are in geostationary orbit above a target, they are sitting ducks. Geostationary velocity won't translate as altitude lowers. So aiming will be tricky. Particularly if you aren't along the equator.
If they are in a moving orbit, they aren't easy to target and have a lot of lateral mentum. So impractical to aim without lots of propulsion
Not worth it.
not sure how a geostationary orbit would work for this. i do think modifying a lower orbit to cross over the target would work. would be a simple ballistic math problem on when to release.
@@DavidFRhodes I chose geostationary because it is the middle ground in terms of GPE. LEO wouldn't be as suitable because you want them to stay up for a long time until needed. HEO means G would he a lot lower and I don't want to calculate that. I tried to find a middle ground.
@@markp8295 did not realize you calculated anything. i am a layperson in space ops but assuming its easier to change orbit on a non-stationary satellite regardless of altitude. but why would G be lower for HEO? i know from general physics that ground speed may vary but still that is a basic math problem to target. my other concern is that lower altitude air current would add too much variance enroute to target, regardless of the mach 10 speed. maybe not a factor?
@@DavidFRhodes g drops off as you get further from the centre of mass. Similar to how light from a light bulb drops off as you get further away.
I also spotted a mistake in my first comment. It doesn't drop off linearly, it is inverse square. I assume linear for the first 500km because it is close. At 1000km altitude g is approx 7.2 so at. But geostationary is just under 36000km so I was very wrong there.
For Highly elliptical orbits, you can double that altitude for part of the orbit.
Those are 2.75 folding fin rockets. They are not dropped from high altitude to gain speed. They are fired from the tube launcher you showed in the video and the warhead is full of flechettes. The warhead detonates close to the target showering it with these small metal darts. The effect is closer to using a shotgun than dropping a bomb from high altitude.
Any chance these rods could be re-used if found? I doubt these explode on impact given how hard tungsten is.
New ceramic heat resistant coatings can be applied to the forend of the rod to protect it from burning up on reentry. With proper engineering the of the rod's nose protecting the fins can be achieved so guiding the weapon to the target wouldn't be an issue.
Mike Smith for president of the USA
Thor, first proposed by Jerry Pournelle, Chaos Manor. R.I.P.
amen
Somebody worked out the math on the potential energy of a 2000 pound penetrator and it was not as high as this guy says. It would have taken 10 of them to equal the 15 kilotons atomic bomb. Now does this make it worthless, NO, it just needs to be a bit more realistic. The type of ground composition is also a factor, soft sand or solid rock. It is a weapon worth researching.
Maybe good for localized tactical strikes where use of explosive or conventional weaponry is inadvisable. I've seen vids of fighter jets launching BDUs (bomb dummy units, more or less inert concrete with a guidance system) and when their target is hit, 500 pounds (~250 kilos) going 500+mph is definitely nothing to sneeze at. I have no doubt that in the next 25 years, weapon systems like these will offer more bang for your buck. I'll see myself out 😂
@@rhubarbpie2027 Back in the late 1960's the US Air Force stated in a briefing that a 1000 pound solid iron rod dropped from a SR-71 doing Mach 3 had the potential of hitting a Carrier and going through every deck and setting fires on all decks. It could take out the ship if the Magazine were hit (very possible) or the Reactors were hit, poisoning the ship.
surface friction and aerodynamic drag wouldnt scale if you just made it a 30,000 pound rod....might only take 10 of them but yeah. dropping 20,000 lbs of mass from orbit with 0 fallout in a non stoppable fashion is something.....i guess you can hit it and try to get it to spin and come apart but the velocity the 2 objects would close at would be insane, would need something like a sprint missile again
Well it's not perfect but the best alternative there is to nukes when it comes to say attacking infrastructure deep in enemy airspace where it's unsafe for bombers to go or places where your troops might need to advance to
I think your math is wrong, plus I don't know where he got the 1 ton thing from, its more likely 10 or even 20 ton rods and multiples per satellite, considering they admit to being able to heavy lift 1 million pounds now, so its likely much higher, and US Government had a lot of top secret Triple atlas launches taking some heavy compact stuff up over the last 10 years
Railgun Tungsten rods from space and have them coated with ceramic plates like the Space Shuttles
i bet encasing it in tungsten carbide or ceramic would keep it from melting
The design intent by Boeing was to fabricate these from tungsten.
Omg ty. Someone else gets it
it's just a tungsten telephone pole. it would heat as it made re-rentry( or entry ) and solidify before it hits ground because the air getting thicker the lower it gets. it's a stupid simple idea, all around
Lin Wood brought me here...
Sound barrier breaking speeds lol. No they would hit at a speed around mach 10!
And in the next breath says they would lose mass due to air friction.
Justin Kirk These rods are made of tungsten. They can withstand over 6,000f and be fine. The Space Shuttle Orbiter gets around only 3,000f during re-entry. Well below the temperature tungsten can withstand.
@@resolutesupport3874 yeah but the space shuttle isnt going mach 10 lmao
You tig weld with a tungsten rod. Tungsten wouldnt even get soft entering atmosphere
@Shem Casimir The shuttles, having a high drag coefficient slowdd down in the thin upper atmosphere. By the time they hit the denser air at lower altitudes, they were pretty slow. That wouldn't be the case for these things.
How is the thrust achieved? Gravity/ engine? What guides the rod, to the target?
Rod's from god, that is one of my favorite promotion support from Command and Conquer Generals Shockwave, superweapon general
Space Force weapons!
Past being talked about by geopolitical analysts years ago, the US had to at one time weaponize space. Obama nixed a word from the NDAA and now we can.........with SPACE FORCE!
U mean "Orbital Cannon"?
no this was part of SDI.
And the TR-6TELOS and TR-3B!!
@rockn roll they are already in orbit, produced as far back as 1956. Boeing Project Thor. they are 50foot rods of Tungsten, that keep the heat of "re-entry" and hit at hyper sonic "re-entry" speeds.. anywhere from Mach10-25... that does more than penetrate a bunker. :D that vaporizes anything in it's vicinity and makes a small crater.
when you say the speed will continue to gain speed, what about terminal velocity?
butchtheiw Speed kills?
Look trough your window...
Terminal velocity obviously doesn't apply to military projects 🤣🤣🤣
You don't have a hundred miles from which to drop the bomb--only 40 km or 25 miles (the height of the great metal dome covering the earth), plus the velocity you can make with the original propellant.
The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat brought me here.
If the launching platform is already in orbit, it's in perpetual freefall. The issue becomes one of getting the projectile to slow down enough to hit the surface of the earth first. Secondly, it's got to do this accurately.
That's a pretty tough list of things to do. In addition, it would require each kinetic projectile to have a *huge* rocket engine on it to slow it down fast enough so it falls rather straight-from-above into the target.
Although initially the concept sounds simple enough, the notion is currently beyond our technological and financial ability.
What about just using an ICBM instead of a satellite? Do they want an undetectable bomb or something with the potential of a nuke without the radiation
Who knows? Usually, these fanciful notions come about and gain traction from a large void of basic physics knowledge.
I consider most of them in the category of ignorant investor harvesting machines.
It would take a deorbit burn but that takes a lot less energy from LEO as you can get most of your deorbit from LEO by hitting the atmosphere. Reentry vehicles do this all the time from the ISS. It's within technological reach but it doesn't deliver the punch that is typically advertised because the energy comes from the rocket launch fuel and a very small fraction of that energy can make it through to impact with all the rocket equation losses and atmospheric losses and deorbit fuel mass & number of munitions and command and control bus on orbit mass and divided between all the munitions. So clearly not like a nuke but it would be unique. Presidents would not use it though (weapons in space). They were too squeamish to use the conventional MOAB for 2 presidents over the span of a decade in middle of the wars it was designed for. None of those bedwetters would dare use a "Rod from God". Not that it is a practical weapon, it would have some unique capabilities though.
Just imagine suspending anti-matter within the rod to be exposed upon collision.
I doubt anyone would make an antimatter weapon, let alone an AM-Godhand. That kind of destructive power could literally annihilate the planet.
Yeah 1 gram of antimatter is enough to say good bye earth.
There are a couple good videos on this but a dense telephone poll sized rod of tunkston would have a massive explosive effect actually, that's part of the reason it was pursued so heavily you drop simple solid dense piece of metal at extreme speeds and create the effect of a complex warhead.
The reasons it didn't gain so much traction is to reliably use these satellites you would have to deploy several of them into orbit to have any reliable use. It takes a lot of effort to move that much mass up into orbit in the first place.
So to make these viable you need fully reusable rockets and electromagnetic reentry shielding. Then it’s cheap to get it up there and whilst it would be complicated to make the shielding the magnetic shield would deflect the hot plasma enough to keep its mass
I remember those from the Movie GI. JOE
*Russia* : We no longer abide by the nuclear agreement
*America* : *bet*
Russia: * 16,000mph nuclear wepon*
America;” Russia is bad we must sanction omg russia
it happened the other way around
Thanos Car
Also America: we are in debt and can’t afford a 4billion dollar wall but claim to have have a lot of tech while at the same time calling for upgrades wepons because Russia is more advanced.
Thanos Car
1) you don’t have a space force yet.
2)NASA stopped sending ships.
3) many Russian ships have landed on the moon
4) the United States has f-35 while Russia has su-57. Keep your facts straight.
5) Russia is capable of destroying America without America being able to react.
Thanos Car 6) John Hyten (your Air five general I bet you didn’t know that idiot)
Said that there’s no air defense that can stop Russia’s wepons.
How do they make the heat shells that were on the space shuttle With that
Dr. Jerry Pournelle did some of the original work under the title “Project Thor” for Boeing in the late 1950s. The theoretical basis is quite simple, objects in orbit move at 7km/sec, so have enormous amounts of kinetic energy. For comparison, a 5.56mm rifle bullet moves at a pretty leisurely 900m/sec, while an APDS-FS round from a tank moves at about 1200m/sec. Even the very latest ones likely don’t move faster than 1500m/sec.
We've had this sat plat for years ..Thor platform..
I think that this weapon system should be developed and deployed quickly as it is the best non nuclear weapon we could use and be accepted worldwide. From launch to impact, it would be quicker than nuclear weapons (unless sub launched on depressed trajectories). Every Delta or Spacex launch should carry one into Earth orbit until we have a protective "umbrella". I also propose a serious anti missle defense in orbit, too. I believe this would be cheaper to do than maintain antiquated ground launched nuclear bombs that we have lived with since the 60's. Why? No radiation at the target, but miles of damage upon impact. One impact at Iran or North Korea's main harbor woud shut them down nicely. The threat alone would be a devastating deterrant for "other" locations, too.
And that's why people who start ideas about warfare and spending in CZcams comments aren't lead politicians or engineers at Lockheed Martin.
@@MuddyBubby
..as opposed to the "ideas about warfare and spending" of the *current* "lead politicians", or those of the last 2, 3, or 4 decades (though I could go on for some time)?! Puh-Leaze...
Unless you're also assuming that the guys who invented *this* puppy are discardable brain donors?
The great majority of YT commenters could've given better advice on how to go about leaving Afghanistan than any of the current "lead politicians" 🤡actually *have* done.
PS: Why wouldn't he have the right to speak his mind on the "spending" that's involved? You seem to forget a tiny but essential detail: It gets funded with the money that people had to part with and hand over to the IRS.
Already up there. Lots of human tech up there. Triangular ships & Cigar ships(antigav), weather weapons platforms, directed energy, rods from God, stealth satellites, satellite interceptors, missile platforms, list goes on.
The cost of cleaning up after a nuclear weapon far exceeds the cost of using rods. And now that makes way more sense with the current outbreak of war.
These projectiles have a few flaws the major one is that if you are able to introduce a tumble it will fall apart
hence why they have stabilizing fins.
there are ways to stabilize the weapon. you could either use stabilizer fins, or little rocket motors offset at an angle to generate spin, much like ICBM warheads do.
How would this create such devastation on the ground and not expend most of its energy just digging really far into whatever it hit?
Same reason meteorites do damage at impact
@@ausore9832 meteorites explode. these things are tungsten spears
@@ausore9832 meteorites do very little damage on impact.
Wasn’t this used in Nashville explosion on Christmas Day?
A ceramic coated tip, with cooling fins that double as stabilizers, may solve the overheating issue.
Wonder if this is what was used in Beirut today?
woah that's why im here
facebook.com/hotmesscosmeticscanuteok.585581/videos/2672027583044688/
I think so buddy
That was an obviously chemical explosion. You can see the cause of it in the footage, there are preflashes.
Bubblezov Love a Lot of people thought it was a Terror Attack No It's a Highly Explosive chemical Ingredient Stored in that building from 2014 Used to make Nuclear Bombs And First there was a Fire started by A couple of fireworks Then A chain Explosion killing Hundreds and injuring thousands So Moral Of the story, Dont go to facebook for your morning news
This would be a good name for "Top Gun 2"
Wouldn't the projectie have at least orbiting speed upon being dropped? It could also be sped up at launch through a railgun :D
That's what the ladies call date night with me.
@IBurn TheLanes and hoo are you??
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" The moon colony gained independence from Earth by dropping shipping crates filled with regolith onto Earth.
How did they do it?
@@brucegoodwin634 at least partly mass driver iirc - like shipping merchandise moon>earth (pause in orbit0
wikipedia.org/wiki/Regolith
Regolith (/ ˈ r ɛ ɡ əl ɪ θ /) is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock.It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestrial planets and moons
i had to look it up, i thought it might be some fancy word for reptile poop or something... just sayin'
"Red Dogs" were also used in WW II. A friend who was in the China-Burma Theater (Merrill's Marauders) brought back a couple after the war. He said they were dropped in mass numbers, there was no noise just all the sudden all leaves were gone, huts were flattened, all living things were dead. Light vehicles, like trucks, had holes in the roofs, hoods, bed, etc.
Red Dogs were small cast iron (?) bomb shaped pieces of metal with fins. Approximately the size of a 50 cal bullet, except with fins on the back. One had a simple 4 fined sheet metal fin and the other had a fin cast into it.
Red Dogs are NOT flechettes as insinuated in the video. Red Dogs were dropped from high altitude. Flechettes are shot from canons or rockets, or as a single sabot round as in the SPIW test.
They were called Lazy dogs
@@jthewino1 Yep, another name for them...
and here we are in 2021 and we have them now
We've had this wespon system for years.
I cringe that the announcer keeps saying it “has no explosive effects”. It makes just as much mess as a nuke would make but without the radiation.
Right. But it wouldn't be an explosion. It would be a concussive wave generated by the impact.
It would look very simular with less fire, at least less fire generated by the projectile. Can't say about where it hits not going up in flames from the instantaneous compression of the buffer of air in front of the projectile. That might almost classify as an explosion but I think it is closer to a combustion.
@@dontneedtoknow5836maybe it would act like the meteor that hit earth before.
Yea no that’s pretty much it, it’s like a man made super hard skinny meteor. Plus it’s better because of the fact that it’s a nuke but without the consequences of radiation and pollution
No, these are nowhere near as powerful as a thermonuclear bomb. Your typical tungsten rod would impact the ground at mach 10, which would produce roughly around 50 billion joules of kinetic energy. Not to mention this video gets a lot of things wrong. Due to friction and drag, the rod would lose much of its initial velocity, over half actually, which would drastically alter its kinetic energy. Thats still much much less than even our first atomic bombs. Unless the rods were hundreds of feet long which would be entirely impractical. Rods from god are mainly only good for bunker busting and the fact that they are extremely difficult to shoot down
@@I_DE1FY_I The military now has AI running on quantum computers powering resequencing algorithms working on new molecules. The day when we can produce synthetic materials with properties unimaginable in nature is coming sooner rather than later, and with stuff like this, that's a terrifying thought.
why don't they use the depleted uranium ? It is heavy, dense as tungsten and there are available enough of them to be used as tank rounds already.
Heavy and really expensive to get into space. Plus knowing its going Mach 10 and its Depleted Uranium, it might go through the planet ;)
@@lambdastudios4083 It is just a bit heavier and denser than Tungsten...and it adds a bit of radioactive rays to kill Communists..
rod from god is probably one of the most badass names to call something.
Great we will all now be damocles
What if one of these rods hit right on San Andreas Fault? Consequences?
No California!
tax rates and crime in the US would plummet...
I'm under no illusions. These are already up there. Makes perfect sense.
The envelope to float rods like that would have to be massive
Wouldn't they pierce through the flatness of Earth over to the "Other Side"?
Plot becoming real. Waqe up sleepers!!!
I remember when that history channel segment came out, and our understanding of what would really happen in that scenario was less developed than today
Yeah, they are there and ready with the new heat shielding .... might be making it’s debut pretty soon.
Lol not with biden in charge
Should be called "Gods rods"
That's a good one 😊
What you think it's not up there
Do you think movie writers are that creative
Jeff did a fine job in his video explanation. This has always interested me video subject.
1:17 Jeff...you said "to avoid the fall,,,FALLOUT?" biden COME ON MAN
Is the heat towels that were made for the challenger and the other shadows could be utilized utilized and Is actor Like a shield
Total cobblers. Assuming the projectile does not lose much of its energy from air resistance during the fall (which it will) the energy released on impact with the ground cannot possibly exceed the energy it took to put it into space in the first place. This would be equivalent to only a small fraction of the rocket fuel, most of which is used up in taking the rocket and the rocket fuel together with the launch platform and the other projectiles to that altitude. Although the impact would be fairly impressive, probably equivalent to tens of kilos of high explosive concentrated in a small area it can in no way be compared to a nuclear detonation. To prove this meteorites of similar weight moving at even higher velocities impact the earth every day and if these resulted in nuclear weapon scale detonations we would certainly know about it.
@@valerymonneron9357 The principal of conservation of energy and momentum is one of the most if not the most fundamental laws of physics. The amount of energy released by the projectile cannot possibly exceed the amount put in I.e the gain in potential energy in putting it into orbit, which can only come from the proportion of the chemical energy released by the rocket fuel expended to raise it and it alone to altitude. The addition of a rail gun would also need considerable energy to get it into orbit and to power it sufficiently for it to have any significant contribution to the energy of the projectile, so that solution is not likely to be very efficient. During WW2 the famous British inventor Barnes Wallace developed the Grand Slam bomb, which was partly a kinetic weapon dropped from a great height into hardened targets but like the later American missiles mentioned in the video the kinetic energy was used to provide the penetration needed before the conventional explosives payload was detonated.
@Youre Mahm OK, so lets assume the "rod from god" weighs 1 metric tonne or 1,000kg, which is pretty big, and is dropped from say 400km height, which is the orbit of the International Space Station. Newton's 3rd law states v^2=u^ + 2as. The initial velocity u = 0 which simplifies the equation to v^2 = 2as so the final velocity (assuming no air friction) v = (2as)^1/2. Acceleration is 9.81metres/sec/sec so the impact velocity v = 2,801 metres per second (pretty fast). The kinetic energy released on impact with the ground is 1/2mv^2 = 3,922,800,500 joules, say 4 gigajoules. This equates to a conventional explosive yield of about 1 metric tonne of TNT. So as a rule of thumb 1kg payload dropped from a height of 400km results in an explosion equivalent to 1kg of TNT. As a comparison, the "Grand Slam" bomb of WW2 dropped from a height of about 4km containing 4,300 kg of Torpex explosives had an explosive yield of about 6.7 metric tonnes of TNT and the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had an explosive yield of around 15,000 tonnes of TNT.