Formulaterp,
Not that I am particularly fond of the "rods from god" idea myself, but I take issue with some of your assertions:
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1) What is the intended use of this weapon? As I see it the rod's only utility is as an effective bunker buster. And it's rather limited at that. If the yield of the weapon is in the 100 tons of TNT range, we dare not use it to attack say a government/military HQ or bunker located in a populated area. Sure we'd vaporize the bunker, but how about the children's hospital across the street? Or the housing development one block over? We wouldn't need it to take out a single tank, or SAM facility. It's overkill. Besides, the US military has already proven it's ability to wipe out entire Iraqi tank divisions using conventional weapons and tactics. Twice. Use it as an anti-ship weapon? An Exocet, Harpoon, or Sea Eagle can already do the job quite effectively. So basically we're left with Tora Bora as a target. And how many of those have we found lying around?
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I believe you have stated the intended use quite succinctly. As I recall from the gulf wars (both) there was much talk about the existence of bunkers that were unassailable using conventional means. I even remember an analyst at CNN suggesting that there were bunkers in Iraq that would require ICBMs (or even multiple ICBMs) to take out. Around the same time there were stories circulating about how the US military was all of a sudden interested in resuming research on new nuclear weapons. More specifically, they talked of using the existing arsenal of nuclear weapons and/or modifying existing weapons to better serve as bunker busters. It is my suspicion that the "rods from god" idea came up as a potential means to accomplish the same military objective without getting the public all upset about using nukes (presumably the public doesn't mind 0.1 kt explosions, so long as they are not nuclear :roll: )
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2) Whatever the vast cost of the US nuclear arsenal might be, and I'm not even going to bother arguing with the $3 trillion figure, it was not all spent for 1 single limited purpose. We developed several generations of ICBMs, intended both to deter an attack and ensure a punishing blow against any aggressor. SLBM's, ALCM's and gravity bombs were built to guarantee the survivabilty of a nuclear response, or counterstrike. We built nuclear tipped air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles to defend against enemy bombers and incoming ballistic missiles. Nuclear armed torpedoes and depth charges to destroy enemy surface and submarine forces. Nuclear tipped artillery shells and land mines (yes, land mines) to stop a ground assault.
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Yes, but from the military's perspective, those weapons are effectively unusable. They are a deterent to other nuclear powers, but cannot be used to fight in a conventioanl scenario. As indicated above, the rods give a semblance of the nuclear capability, without the same spectre of nuclear war.
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3) Refitting an ICBM with a conventional or kinetic impact warhead was never attempted because we never had a reason to do so. As you can imagine, firing off a couple of ICBMs to take out Gadaffi or Ho Chi Minh might have unintended consequences if the Russians weren't sure they were armed with high explosives instead of nukes. However, this is not to say it was never considered. Please see the following link. It's a bit dated and is nothing more than an abstract, but you might find it interesting.
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I think that the "Russians weren't sure" part of your comment says it all. The Russians could detect a launch, but would have to wait until impact before knowing whether the missile was nuclear or not. As obviously, it is quite a risk to wait and see, they would have to respond before impact. Hence using an ICBM to deliver a conventional warhead would not have been considered wise. Note that the same concern does not hold for cruise missiles - as presumably their launch cannot be detected from afar, even though a cruise missile could easily carry a nuclear payload. So the "rods" presumably offer "nuclear scale" payload without the nukes, combined with undectectable delivery (thereby not provoking a response prior to the detonation).
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4) Folks are suggesting that our inanimate tungsten rod will have an accuracy of 25 feet. Are you serious? That's shooting at a bullseye only 5 feet larger than the length of the projectile, from an altitude of 200-400 kilometers, after being deployed from a platform presumably in a polar orbit, traveling at a velocity of 40,000 km/hr with respect to the target. William Tell would be proud. You're suggesting using a GPS guidance system and aerodynamic manoeuvering fins. Consider that NASA cannot communicate nor receive telemetry with the space shuttle or Apollo capsules during certain periods of re-entry. Would our rod have the same problem? I can't even begin to estimate the ablative effect of re-entry and it's consequent changes in the rod's trajectory. Once the rod has reacquired the GPS signal, how much time would it have to compensate for these errors while traveling at 11 km/sec? Quite the engineering problem you'd have on your hands.
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Well, we just managed to place "deep impact" pretty close to where we wanted it, from an awfully long ways away. So much to say, that all you say is true, there are definite technical challenges, but you have not successfully argued that it is impossible. Merely that YOU could not figure out how to do it. Whether SOMEONE ELSE could manage is still quite open. I would also challenge you to consider our current capabilities for putting "dumb" ordinance on target. For instance, what is the accuracy of a volkswagon sized shell fired over 50 miles, through variable atmospheric conditions, from the rolling deck of a US battleship?
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5) I also have to question the wisdom of deploying such an expensive, and in my mind limited capability, weapons system without considering how vulnerable it would be to countermeasures. The original poster alluded to this scenario. While preventing such an attack after it has been launched may be incredibly difficult, the weapons platform would be a sitting duck beforehand. A rather mundane hunter-killer satellite could be launched into a parallel orbit, close in on your weapons platform, and detonate its warhead. You wouldn't even need anything like a nuke, simply HE and a whole bunch of ball bearings. Ball bearings made of tungsten. Damage the rod-releasing-mechanism, solar panels, gyros, attitude thrusters, communications antennae or onboard computers and your left with 850 metric tons of orbital debris. The Russians launched and tested such a killer-sat back in1963.
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Successfully destroying the weapons platform relies on 1) being able to find it, 2) being able to reach it, and 3) being able to defeat it. As both the US and Russians have a long history of hiding their satellites from one another, and considering other posts that I have seen on this board concerning technologies for same, it is not a foregone conclusion that the system would be easy to target. With respect to point #2, there are a limited number of powers capable of launching a craft that could intercept a platform in low earth orbit, fewer that could hit something in polar orbit, and fewer still that could hit something in geo-sync orbit. With respect to point #3, although the destruction of the target may seem relatively easy, consider this: The launch of the kill-vehicle will be visible, and destroying the target would be akin to a direct attack on US assets (much like a pre-emoptive stike against US missile silos). So it might not be such a good idea to attempt it unless you are already at war, or wishing to start one. Second, as it is unlikely that you will know what the platform has for defensive capabilities, and the amount of damage that it can sustain, one might be ill-inclined to attempt such a strike.
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6) I hate to bring up cost again, but my earlier estimate was strictly limited to the launching of the suggested mass of tungsten. I did not include the mass of the orbital platform and fuel. Even the best commercial satellites have a useful life of about 10-15 years. So count on periodically replacing or servicing your weapons platform. By the time you factor in research and development, deployment, ongoing operations, and replacement costs, your "cost effective" tungsten rod will have a unit price likely exceeding $300+ million. For the cost of 1 tungsten rod, the USAF could buy over 12,000 slightly less effective BLU-109 satellite guided 2000 lb bunker buster bombs.
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Don't be sorry for hammering on cost, it is probably the best argument against the system (and likely the reason why it doesn't already exist).
Nevertheless, there are targets that BLU-109's cannot handle (think NORAD and the like). As I stated earlier, for the military the possibility of "nuclear level" capability that is "non-nuclear" carries quite a premium. Add to that the fact that you can presumeably hit any target, any time, on 15 minute's notice, without putting US servicemen's lives at risk...
Sheki