242: Arsenal Freedom

[Twad]

Rods of gods..

I dont think they are a trully viable military option.

I think that the prohibitive cost to set them up, launch them into space, then reload the thing, get them on target is the problem.. And you can take out bunkers/cities/infrastructures with much cheaper and just-as-effectve conventionnal weapon systems... like missiles. And if a single missile doesnt do it, launch more.

.. but hey.. "Rods of GOds" is good for the public ratings! It just needs to look spectacular.

 

[tkioz]

"If we don't end war, war will end us"

Can't help thinking that as I see weapons get more powerful, and more deadly

hell, once someone cracks the knowledge of plasma and lasers this planets going down, same can be said for the quark bomb

There is something like 23,000 nukes in the world today, you might not be able to blow the planet into itty bitty chunks (though you could if you placed enough in the right places along fault lines I suppose, seems plausible, just never bothered looking it up) but you can do some serious damage with that many bombs.

We really need to get off this lump before we start playing with the big boy toys, maybe a century long truce while we each build a nice big empire on the other side of the galaxy... kind of like a "no rushing in the first 5mins" rule that you have in Starcraft.

 

[tkioz]

Rods of gods..

I dont think they are a trully viable military option.

I think that the prohibitive cost to set them up, launch them into space, then reload the thing, get them on target is the problem.. And you can take out bunkers/cities/infrastructures with much cheaper and just-as-effectve conventionnal weapon systems... like missiles. And if a single missile doesnt do it, launch more.

.. but hey.. "Rods of GOds" is good for the public ratings! It just needs to look spectacular.

I think one of the main issues people have with nukes is the view that they are dirty and will bugger up an area for a long ass time, yep they've changed a lot in the 60 or so years we've had them, small nukes are ideal for tactical use. Rods from God could be seen as a "PC Nuke", no-one bitched overly much when the US used thermobaric weapons in Iraq and some of those buggers are as nasty as a small nuke, so using a ROG might be possible, after all they can claim "we're not dropping nukes".

 

[thatguy96]

I imagine it would take alot to cause significant damage to say a countries infrastructure.

This goes back to the A-12/SR-71 bomber concept. Research done on meteor impacts provides a lot of the basis for this. The impact of a solid object moving at 7000 miles per hour (or whatever its terminal velocity is) is theoretically capable of creating massive amounts of damage, comparable to a major earthquake. The building codes in places like Iran what they are, if the effects are at all close to this, one rod could potentially have the power to do significant damage, or at least this was the theory. As you might have heard, a major earthquake in Haiti recently did such damage as to effectively put the basic functions of the state out of action.

Also, the idea that this, if fielded, could not or would not be classified as a "weapon of mass destruction" seems silly to me. Its just a term. A term that currently consists of two categories of weapons that have generally been proven to be pretty limited in their scope, at least individually (nuclear weapons en masse would create a gross environmental hazard for everyone), and one that has the potential to rapidly get out of control and affect the entire surface of the earth.

 

[Abedeus]

Rods of gods..

I dont think they are a trully viable military option.

I think that the prohibitive cost to set them up, launch them into space, then reload the thing, get them on target is the problem.. And you can take out bunkers/cities/infrastructures with much cheaper and just-as-effectve conventionnal weapon systems... like missiles. And if a single missile doesnt do it, launch more.

.. but hey.. "Rods of GOds" is good for the public ratings! It just needs to look spectacular.

Especially since I've done some calculations. Assuming a single Rod has a weight of 1 ton (1000KG), and it falls from the sky at a speed of 7km/h, it will create an explosion equivalent to 6 tons of TNT. Each. And since that's just the energy, the piercing strength is much, much bigger...

 

[ma55ter_fett]

"Gay bomb", you say? Fascinating.

I can see it now, a bunch of high up military brass and engineers in a room together throwing out ever more far out and impossible ideas until;

Some dude: "What about a pants dissolving weapon?"

*every laughs for five minutes straight*

or coffee that actually tastes good.

*every laughs for five minutes straight*

What about a gay bomb?

*dead silence*

Military dude: Why that?s too dastardly to pass up. *claps dude on the back* Son here is 5 billion dollars to make one, don't tell the liberals.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Command and Conquer has the best weapons ever. Ion Cannon Anyone? Weather Storm? Vacuum Imploder? Proton collider? Chronosphere? Iron Curtain? Hell even prism tanks&towers.