Falcon 4 in the real world
-
The treaties against CBUs and napalm are a bit of a joke, anyway. Nobody who uses those weapons is a party to either. OTOH, every nation with the potential of ending up on receiving end of them is. Banning them is much cheaper than buying or developing your own, and if you don’t expect to fight an offensive war, you don’t want to drop them on your own soil, anyway.
AI development is pretty hard and very expensive, too, because of the expertise involved (AI programmers tend to have high salaries), so I’d expect the situation to be much the same. Those who can will make AI weapons, those who can’t will try to get them banned. However, that likely won’t stop them from appearing, since for countries with developed electronics industries and suitable knowledge base AI will inevitably be economical to develop. As with everything, any ethical arguments will be used to justify decisions already made on the basis of an economic calculation.
-
Clusters aren’t banned. The motivation wasn’t warfare considerations but post-war humanitarian. Instead the weapons have a minimum UXO rate which de facto eliminates certain models of cluster weapons. If CBU-52, 87, etc. had 100% explosion rate there would be no talk of any of this.
Very few forms of warfare in modern history have had successful limitations placed on them: chemical, biological, land mines(ish) and to a lesser extent nuclear. Motivation for AI-based weapons is very high and the usual reasons for political limitation (cruel, indiscriminate, hazardous outside battle) are really lacking in that case. There are huge dangers associated with AI-based weapons but they aren’t so obvious at first look. There’s no AI radiation or chemical fallout or viruses turning people to goo. If anything it’s too discriminate allowing the “cleanest” warfare yet. Apart from concerns about AI mistargeting, none of the old objections really apply to the new weapons.
-
CBUs are banned in most countries. Specifically, those that signed Convention on Cluster Munitions. The only thing it permits are smart submunitions, fewer than 10 per dispenser, which would takes out even CBU-97 (40 skeets per bomb). The UK, Sweden and Germany phased out their submunitions dispensers due to this. The problem with that particular piece of paper is that the major CBU users didn’t sign it. The Ottawa Treaty on landmines has the exact same issue, signed by a lot of countries, except for those who make and use mines the most.
Chemical and biological warfare wasn’t really about humanitarian concerns, it was because those weapons are ineffective against military targets. Soldiers can have gas masks and full suits, so all that those weapons do is make fighting very uncomfortable for both sides. Tactical and theater nukes are kind of in the same boat, though in this case, it’s less about usefulness itself and more about fears of escalation to strategic ones (and besides, them being “banned” seems to be more about current nuclear powers not wanting to share the “we have nukes and you don’t” leverage with any more countries than they absolutely have to…).
With AI, we’ve got enough stories about robot rebellion to put such weapon systems on public opinons’, and therefore politicians’, radars. I’d expect some sort of attempt at political action against them, especially by countries unable to feasibly deploy such weapons themselves. The US is already getting flak about indiscriminate drone strikes, and further disassociating humans from this isn’t gonna make it better. There are also legal ramifications, the brass generally likes to have someone they can throw under a bus in case things go wrong, and with AI, this becomes a bit difficult. Someone will have to be designated to take “responsibility” (read: blame) for authorizing the AI to release weapons if they hit something they weren’t supposed to hit.
-
Thats not the reason. The reason is that as a concept, they dont make sense. It works as a concept if you dont understand basic orbital physics. As soon as you find out how much delta v you need to do a plane change from orbit, the concept dies. ICBMs do the same job, better. A platform has to sit in the target inclination, or close to it, OR the rods need to have an even more massive ejection mass. Thats ignoring the significant ejection mass they need in the first place to de-orbit. An ICBM in contrast can launch into any suborbital great circle plane… making it (relatively) cheap to launch, and of course no deorbit burn is required.
The original concept - yes. I never liked that either, and I’m not talking about using them against ICBMs, but as a simple free fall from orbit to surface weapons like artillery…yeah, I’m ALL about that. In my concept a god rod wouldn’t be more than about a meter long…and maybe 3-4 cm in diameter. I even have a concept for how to steer them…and like I said before - if I can think of these things, someone else has probably beaten me to it already.
-
…I have an Uncle that was once a CBN watch rep for his Section on a CV. He once told me that his indoc brief began with - “if you are unfortunate enough to be left alive after a CBN attack, these will be your duties”…
-
The original concept - yes. I never liked that either, and I’m not talking about using them against ICBMs, but as a simple free fall from orbit to surface weapons like artillery…yeah, I’m ALL about that. In my concept a god rod wouldn’t be more than about a meter long…and maybe 3-4 cm in diameter. I even have a concept for how to steer them…and like I said before - if I can think of these things, someone else has probably beaten me to it already.
Okay. How does it free fall from orbit?
-
CBUs are banned in most countries. Specifically, those that signed Convention on Cluster Munitions. The only thing it permits are smart submunitions, fewer than 10 per dispenser, which would takes out even CBU-97 (40 skeets per bomb). The UK, Sweden and Germany phased out their submunitions dispensers due to this. The problem with that particular piece of paper is that the major CBU users didn’t sign it. The Ottawa Treaty on landmines has the exact same issue, signed by a lot of countries, except for those who make and use mines the most.
Chemical and biological warfare wasn’t really about humanitarian concerns, it was because those weapons are ineffective against military targets. Soldiers can have gas masks and full suits, so all that those weapons do is make fighting very uncomfortable for both sides. Tactical and theater nukes are kind of in the same boat, though in this case, it’s less about usefulness itself and more about fears of escalation to strategic ones (and besides, them being “banned” seems to be more about current nuclear powers not wanting to share the “we have nukes and you don’t” leverage with any more countries than they absolutely have to…).
With AI, we’ve got enough stories about robot rebellion to put such weapon systems on public opinons’, and therefore politicians’, radars. I’d expect some sort of attempt at political action against them, especially by countries unable to feasibly deploy such weapons themselves. The US is already getting flak about indiscriminate drone strikes, and further disassociating humans from this isn’t gonna make it better. There are also legal ramifications, the brass generally likes to have someone they can throw under a bus in case things go wrong, and with AI, this becomes a bit difficult. Someone will have to be designated to take “responsibility” (read: blame) for authorizing the AI to release weapons if they hit something they weren’t supposed to hit.
US did not sign the Ottawa Treaty because of the CBUs but gave up using landmines.
-
The original concept - yes. I never liked that either, and I’m not talking about using them against ICBMs, but as a simple free fall from orbit to surface weapons like artillery…yeah, I’m ALL about that. In my concept a god rod wouldn’t be more than about a meter long…and maybe 3-4 cm in diameter. I even have a concept for how to steer them…and like I said before - if I can think of these things, someone else has probably beaten me to it already.
Orbit is free fall. That’s the point of orbiting. It’s literally falling, but going sideways so fast it keeps missing the ground due to Earth’s curvature. It’s a very non-intuitive concept (if you don’t play KSP), but that’s all orbits are. It has nothing to do with getting outside the gravity well, quite the contrary.
To bring something down from orbit, you have to slow it down. If you slow it down a little, it’ll hit the atmosphere and slow it down further… which will also heat it up, because when it’s going so fast, drag and heating will both be huge, costing you mass (from the projectile ablating) and velocity. It’ll also take upwards of 10 minutes to come down, meaning you can forget about hitting anything that moves. Now, if you decelerate it a lot, it’ll hit sooner, but, well, you have to decelerate it a few thousand meters per second, and it’ll still slow down. At this point, you can just throw it with an ICBM, without bothering to enter orbit.
This, BTW, is why kinetic bombardment is harder and less destructive than most fiction portrays it. I ran the numbers when figuring out my own, once you take into account atmospheric drag, you lose it all unless you have a very high projectile mass. Your best weapons for it are basically nukes, because you don’t lose the yield when they’re slowed down by drag.
-
Orbit is free fall. That’s the point of orbiting. It’s literally falling, but going sideways so fast it keeps missing the ground due to Earth’s curvature. It’s a very non-intuitive concept (if you don’t play KSP), but that’s all orbits are. It has nothing to do with getting outside the gravity well, quite the contrary.
To bring something down from orbit, you have to slow it down. If you slow it down a little, it’ll hit the atmosphere and slow it down further… which will also heat it up, because when it’s going so fast, drag and heating will both be huge, costing you mass (from the projectile ablating) and velocity. It’ll also take upwards of 10 minutes to come down, meaning you can forget about hitting anything that moves. Now, if you decelerate it a lot, it’ll hit sooner, but, well, you have to decelerate it a few thousand meters per second, and it’ll still slow down. At this point, you can just throw it with an ICBM, without bothering to enter orbit.
This, BTW, is why kinetic bombardment is harder and less destructive than most fiction portrays it. I ran the numbers when figuring out my own, once you take into account atmospheric drag, you lose it all unless you have a very high projectile mass. Your best weapons for it are basically nukes, because you don’t lose the yield when they’re slowed down by drag.
…well, yeah…and doing what I propose is NOT difficult in today’s world. All of the things you say also hold for artillery targeting and for dropping dumb iron bombs, and we solve those problems quite nicely. In the age of precision guidance the issue also has far less to do with “destructive power” than it does with the ability to place the weapon. I can kill you with a knitting needle if I stick it in the right place…and that’s my idea. And as I keep saying, probably not mine alone.
-
…well, yeah…and doing what I propose is NOT difficult in today’s world.
It is difficult, and expensive. We know how to do it, but it doesn’t change the “space” part remains a significant challenge. It’s a solvable problem, but it’s also not worth solving, given that launching things into orbit will always remain more expensive than launching them on a ballistic trajectory.
Your idea is basically “let’s place a guided, warheadless MLRS in orbit”. I’m saying, “why not place it on Earth?”. It’s cheaper that way, and works just as well. If you want it to go faster in terminal stage, just give it another rocket, like Durendal does.
-
It is difficult, and expensive. We know how to do it, but it doesn’t change the “space” part remains a significant challenge. It’s a solvable problem, but it’s also not worth solving, given that launching things into orbit will always remain more expensive than launching them on a ballistic trajectory.
Your idea is basically “let’s place a guided, warheadless MLRS in orbit”. I’m saying, “why not place it on Earth?”. It’s cheaper that way, and works just as well. If you want it to go faster in terminal stage, just give it another rocket, like Durendal does.
It’s more expensive than a fighter, but it is NOT difficult. In fact, I’m not even sure it is more expensive than maintaining and training a fighter Fleet, given issues of maintenance, mobility, etc. We already have it on earth - it’s called field artillery…my idea solves mobility and deployment timeline problems - the ability to attack/defend becomes immediate. And probably unstoppable…which is a value of it’s own.
We’re talking about advancing tech here - space is the next step in that process/progress, and we are also already there to a pretty great extent as that goes too. Once again - if you think no one is thinking of these things, you are not thinking…
-
We already have it on earth - it’s called field artillery…my idea solves mobility and deployment timeline problems - the ability to attack/defend becomes immediate. And probably unstoppable…which is a value of it’s own.
This is exactly what I said. Field artillery. MLRS. You name it. We have it on Earth, and it works fine. And no, an orbital platform doesn’t have immediate reaction time, quite the contrary. You have to wait until it’s over the area you want to attack. A low polar orbit has a period of about 90 minutes, but the Earth rotates under it. Your response time, therefore, varies from 90 minutes to 12 hours. And once it’s out of its window, you need to wait another 12 hours to hit the same location. You do have some wiggle room, but Earth is big and you’re going fast. To alter the orbit significantly takes a lot of fuel. You could deal with it using multiple satellites, but again, doing this drives the costs up even further. It’s hardly unstoppable, either. Any system capable of shooting down an ICBM can shoot it down, too, either before or after it shoots. They can usually target terrestrial rockets and lately even tube arty shells, too, but the S-400 probably isn’t capable of nailing the launcher that fired it, which would be the case with an orbital one.
People likely have thought about it - and dismissed it as a very impractical proposition. There’s simply nothing orbital artillery can do better than terrestrial one. It’d be a worthless, vulnerable and politically risky boondogle that would get an ASAT in the face the moment a serious conflict started, because guess what, in orbit, there’s nowhere to hide.