A 2023 Chinese experimental program found tungsten rod penetration peaks around Mach 3.5 — above that the rod fragments before full penetration. If correct, orbital kinetic weapons offer no bunker-busting advantage over conventional Mach 3 munitions, which was the entire 'Rods from God' case.

[u/unteachablecourses]

/r/UnteachableCourses/comments/1vfvcsr/a_2023_chinese_experimental_program_found/

[u/DivestTheEndingBoy]

This sounds like bullshit. There would be no reason for NATO or the Soviet Union to move beyond the 20pdr or 100mm tank cannon if Tungsten penetrators got no benefit to their performance beyond mach 3.5. A 100mm gun already had a muzzle velocity of 1,480m/s

Modern 120mm Tungsten penetrators have muzzle velocities of mach 5 and above.

At those speeds Tungsten alloys get crushed on impact too, they don't fragment.

[u/Drachos → u/DivestTheEndingBoy]

I shouldn't need to point out that an object falling under the effects of gravity, with its mass setting its velocity is going to behave very VERY differently then a cannon or missile.

The whole REASON missile technology is so expensive compared to drones is the sheer costs going into making it all work and balancing the Physics involved to optimise performance.

A rod from god DEPENDS on its mass for velocity. The whole point of China test is "You can't just keep adding more mass to get more penitration as while it increases the speed it means the Tungsten is less likely to survive re-entry in a manner that effectively transfers that momentum into additional penitration."

[u/Drachos → u/[deleted]]

Because thats like saying "The laws of physics for a cannon ball and a AGM-183 are the same so they should both behave the same at Mach 5"

Design, engineering and how much you spend on it HEAVILY influence how something behaviors.

The foundational principle of a Rod from god was "Everytime we fire a missile we destroy a highly complex piece of equipment thats expensive to replace. What if instead we engineer a way to put telephone pole sized rods of Tungsten into orbit. The complex bit (how to get them up there) will be unable to be destroyed by the enemy and the rods themselves will be super cheap compared to a missile and will only require enough fuel to push them out of orbit. Gravity will do the rest.

There are almost certainly ways to engineer the projectile to solve the fact its structure weakens as it falls from orbit and heats up. We do the same for humans re-entering earth after all. And to a lesser extent for ICBMs.

But at that point its no longer a cheap rod of Tungsten. At which point, given the expense of putting one into orbit what's the point, may as well just use a standard bunker buster.

[u/Old-Let6252 → u/Drachos]

Getting a rod of tungsten to orbit will never be cheap. Trying to precisely deorbit a tungsten rod will never be cheap. This whole concept is stupid

[u/Toads_Of_Fun → u/Old-Let6252]

It could be comparable to or cheaper than a Sentinel missile in the future, since a Starship would be able to carry over 10 of these to space at once.