The Rods from God: A Brief History of Kinetic Orbital Bombardment

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Glad to see humanity hasn't totally lost sight of the potential of fast moving pointy sticks in warfare

I feel like if the US military mentions a hypothetical weapon system in a report it probably means it's been operational for 10 years already.

About 20 years back I worked with a retired Air Force engineer. On his wall hung a photo that looked a rain of fire; a clear blue sky broken by half a dozen parallel lines approaching the earth at a steep angle. When I asked him if he had captured a meteor shower he explained that it was "tungsten rods in a high altitude drop test" for a "dinosaur of a defense project" he worked on. That image stuck with me, and now I know what I was looking at. Mystery solved. Thank you!

From the GI Joe movie, the 'Zeus' satellite launching its tungsten rods made for an impressive imagination of the resulting devastation. In the early 80s movie "The Last Starfighter", the bad guys fired via a linear accelerator device a number of rocks to overwhelm and destroy a hardened & heavily defended facility.

You forget Jerry Pournelle was first and foremost a scientist and researcher, only writing and reporting later on in his career as a side line. Generally regarded as the smartest person in almost any room, and did a lot of research that was used by the military. Also has his own section in the Smithsonian Museum, and was one of the first people to use desktop publishing, in place of a typewriter, because it made his output so much higher, and revising so much easier. He was always a pleasure to listen to, and his collaborators really miss him.

Good thing there isn't a massive reusable rocket in development...

There was a Call of Duty game that explored this concept in 2013. CoD Ghosts’ story featured a kinetic rod space weapon that was hijacked and used to destroy much of the US’ infrastructure

If I remember correctly, in Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," citizens of the Lunar colony launched giant rocks at the Earth in lieu of their usual shipments of moon-grown grain as a form of protest and rebellion. It was quite effective. Thanks for another great video!

This history of kinetic gravity weapons actually goes back before the Lazy Dog weapons to WWI. The Germans and French both used iron projectiles called flechettes as anti-personnel weapons dropped from balloons and zeppelins into enemy trenches. Just like the Vietnam Era Lazy Dog weapons, gravity and height were enough to make them lethal.

1:50 - Chapter 1 - The concept 5:35 - Mid roll ads 7:20 - Chapter 2 - The history 9:55 - Chapter 3 - Present & future

I read about this concept in a sci fi book called the Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton and he used the term "Kinetic Harpoon". It turns crazy since kinetic bombardment in the story uses hundreds of the harpoons at once instead of just one.

There was a novel back in the 80’s called “David’s Sling” that used a much cheaper concept they nicknamed “flying crowbars”: metal rods with a simple guidance system. Small ones were used to take out tanks. Large ones to destroy missile silos. The story also had a number of “cheap” automated weapons used to overwhelm the enemy with shear numbers. Basically thinking outside the box. The concept of drone swarms is similar to what the author proposed.

I think we need a video about those “Pebbles.” Interesting, if not a bit terrifying, video. You really do have the best writers and researchers Simon 😊👏🏻💯🙌🏻

In his book "A Step Farther Out", Pournelle discussed the Rods from God concept. His take on it wasn't that it was too expensive to implement, but that it wasn't expensive enough. Lots of money, therefore lots of profits to be made building carrier fleets, and his calculations were that just putting a few of these in orbit would cost less than one carrier fleet, and be far more effective.

I've always had a fascination with the idea of kinetic bombardment as a way of waging war... that would be the craziest way to wipe a spot from existence without irradiation everything.

Interesting point of fact: Jerry Pournelle was co-author (with Larry Niven) of Footfall, a novel about an alien invasion. A "rods from god" type weapon featured prominently in the early battles, used by aliens against the humans.

In “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (1966) canisters of rock launched by electromagnetic catapult from the moon are used as kinetic weapons against earth.

The only reason why Rods from God have never been fielded boils down to launch costs. A telephone pole made of tungsten is a tad heavy. So up until now the launch costs were prohibitive. But with Starship in development and it's massive (literally) launch capability, it may well become possible in the not too distant future.

Once stumbled upon this on Wikipedia a number of years ago in grad school. This older guy I worked with who used to work for a defense contractor in the space industry heard me mention it and gave me the “who told you about that? You shouldn’t. Suggest not mentioning that” etc and visibly shocked I knew about it