Timeline for Mostly realistic weapons to assault a planet from orbit
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
35 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 9, 2020 at 19:32 | vote | accept | Ceramicmrno0b | ||
| Aug 6, 2020 at 1:13 | comment | added | Ton Day | The military did consider tungsten rods for awhile. They called it Rods from God: businessinsider.com/… | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 14:22 | comment | added | Graham | @RussellMcMahon Yes, I liked Forever War too. I need to get round to the sequels at some point. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 12:49 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | ...but to me that was less thrilling . | Also interesting and with some interesting small comments on navigation is Haldemans "The Forever War". see NB: THat's a MASSIVE spoiler - avoid details if unread. Opponents fighting over interstellar distances with jump gateways (future physics) around ?quasars? but relativistic time changes playing havoc wioth everything. | His (lack of) regard for war based on a stint in Vietnam. || "Scotts wa ha with Robbie bled !!!" <- you'll find it if you read it :-) | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 12:45 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | @Graham Niven and Pournelle are OKish by themselves but awesome when combined. I long ago wrote to Pournelle and said that and he replied ~= "Of course, that's why we do it" :-). They did a few other collaborations. "The Mote in God's Eye is good". If you read that find and read the out-takes which are also superb. TMIGE has a chapter or so of in-star-system close to star navigation which I found utterly gripping. It was hard to believe that the act of changing course to slingshot around a star (or else) could be so exciting. The sequel has much more astronavigation ... | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 12:38 | comment | added | Graham | @Blueriver The "rods from God" concept has been around a lot longer than The Expanse. It was an actual Cold War concept (see en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment), but ICBMs were a more practical solution to mass bombardment. Heinlein used the idea in The Moon is a harsh mistress. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 12:28 | comment | added | Graham | @RussellMcMahon Cool, thanks for the recommendation. My main contact with Niven has been via his Ringworld and Man-Kzin Wars stuff, which (like Heinlein) seemed neat when I read it as a teenager but didn't stand up at all well to later re-reading. I have to confess that turned me off checking out more of his books. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 12:04 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | @Graham :-). || I think "Footfall" does an excellent job of addressing his aim. The Aliens sought to do almost exactly what he is seeking - and almost succeeded - with a range of "plausible" weapons. They were even impressed by the human use of technology which they were unfamiliar with. . If you haven't read it I strongly recommend it. The Spoiler that the humans win is not much of a spoiler - its a given from page 1 that they have to. I'll not say how. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 11:42 | comment | added | Graham | @RussellMcMahon Fair enough. :) "Plausible" is always a bit flexible, because even hard sci-fi has to assume some engineering problems are inherently solvable. Or like The Martian, knowingly break physics just enough to create a story but not enough for geeks like us to say "hang on a minute..." :) That's a bit too plot-driven for us to help the OP much though. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 10:08 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | @Graham I agree with your comment re Ender's game relevance - but/and I was not suggesting it WAS relevant - it was a 'humorous' add on to my main point . cf " ... oops ..." :-). ie the Op does not want to destroy the world. So, we agree on something :-) || As for the Science being realistic, that's a different aspect. It is not accessible from our current knowledge state or likely to be in the near or mid term future. And, maybe never. So it did not fill the bill time scale wise. We agree on that. | Plausible Physics? - probably not, but, possibly. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 8:16 | comment | added | Graham | @RussellMcMahon The fictional physics in the book is consistent, sure. That means Card took the trouble to work out the changes to physics which he needed and backfilled so it didn't all come out of nowhere. That's fair play for worldbuilding in a fantasy or space opera context, sure, and Ender's world clearly is space opera. But it explicitly breaks the OP's requirement for this to be scientifically possible. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 8:11 | comment | added | Graham | @RussellMcMahon Attacking the planet was only unexpected because the generals did not see a chance of success. They certainly had no intention of limiting the war. And for some reason, no-one else had thought of using the MD on a planet, and the generals weren't willing to send their soldiers to die to achieve an objective - both of which frankly are bad writing, because the first is improbable, and the second goes against the basic fact that this is literally a general's job and there has never in history been a problem finding people who can do it. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 0:11 | comment | added | GuilleOjeda | Tungsten rods were used in The Expanse. The Expanse's realism has been debated, but maybe that's where you read about them? Note that in that context they were used in thin atmospheres. | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 0:07 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | The operation of the MD device followed reasonable rules - it acted on intermolecular forces at limited distances. Usually the field faded over say metres to km ranges due to absence of matter density. Within the planet matter was available over planet wide distance. || EG is "unrealistic" by our understandings but largely consistent enough within its premise set. The school's ability to provide zero-gravity areas and 'proper' gravity elsewhere was based on Bugger technology, as was the Ansible's FTL/instantaneous communication's capability. . | |
| Aug 5, 2020 at 0:02 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | @Graham We are going to have to agree to nearly totally disagree, unless you change your mind :-). (2) Your conclusion re the "point" of Ender's Game is at complete variance to any reading I could reasonably imagine. The decision to attack the planet was unexpected and against any "Doctrine" he or they held to. More could be said but it has the same bent. (1) Card changed no physics in the context stated. "Throwing rocks" (even uber high tech ones) would have had utterly no chance of success in that context. ... whereas | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 21:36 | history | edited | Halfthawed |
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| Aug 4, 2020 at 18:24 | answer | added | Willk | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 18:18 | answer | added | David Hambling | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 17:33 | answer | added | radioflash | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 17:16 | answer | added | llywrch | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 15:19 | answer | added | codeMonkey | timeline score: 4 | |
| S Aug 4, 2020 at 15:12 | history | suggested | Peter Mortensen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Copy edited (e.g. ref. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/from#Preposition>).
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| Aug 4, 2020 at 14:51 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Aug 4, 2020 at 15:12 | |||||
| Aug 4, 2020 at 14:45 | answer | added | Yakk | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 12:46 | comment | added | Graham | @RussellMcMahon Ender's Game isn't exactly realistic though. The "Little Doctor" only worked at short range, whereas rocks can be thrown from anywhere; in other words Card changed his fictional physics to force this. And the point of Ender's Game anyway is that the human leaders intentionally chose total planetary destruction because they wanted to completely annihilate the Buggers. Ender was "gamed" to stop him caring about the human spaceship crews he sent to die (which was necessary for the final attack on the planet), not to stop him caring about the enemy. | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 2:53 | comment | added | Russell McMahon | References: - Niven/Pournelles "Footfall" - how to do it and how to fail. An excellent study on this subject. || Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game - It can't be done and, oops, it can't be done partially. | |
| Aug 4, 2020 at 2:07 | answer | added | user4574 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 22:57 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Aug 3, 2020 at 15:33 | answer | added | Mr_Bober | timeline score: 3 | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 15:33 | answer | added | Dragongeek | timeline score: 11 | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 15:27 | comment | added | Matthew | Once you're in space, all you really need are large rocks... | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 15:16 | answer | added | DWKraus | timeline score: 8 | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 15:09 | answer | added | Halfthawed | timeline score: 23 | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 15:09 | answer | added | o.m. | timeline score: 4 | |
| Aug 3, 2020 at 14:57 | history | asked | Ceramicmrno0b | CC BY-SA 4.0 |