Hellfire for One Coming Up!

[Paratus]

So after Obama wanted a way to take out terrorists with less collateral damage they came up with this derivative of the hellfire missile.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ing-ginsu-missile-to-take-out-single-targets/

The Wall Street Journal reports that just such a weapon has been developed and deployed on at least two occasions, based on information provided by multiple current and former defense and intelligence officials. Designated the Hellfire R9X, the missile has no explosive warhead—instead, its payload is more than 100 pounds of metal, including long blades that deploy from the body of the missile just before impact.

“To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky,” according to the WSJ. Some officials referred to the weapon as "the flying Ginsu," because the blades can cut through concrete, sheet metal, and other materials surrounding a target.

This is the knife you take to a gun fight.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Thank goodness we have reliable reports about this and that we have a great ABM defense!

You might detect sarcasm

 

[Paratus]

Thank goodness we have reliable reports about this and that we have a great ABM defense!

You might detect sarcasm

I think I know the weapons designer responsible for this.

 

[sdifox]

I think I know the weapons designer responsible for this.

Fail. It's ACME product.

 

[Homerboy]

Is this another reason why we don't have money for healthcare or education programs?

 

[zinfamous]

Is this another reason why we don't have money for healthcare or education programs?

dude, the more people that we remove from the planet, the less healthcare (and education) we need.

duh!

 

[trenchfoot]

Just don't use it on American terrorists that denounced their citizenship and moved to the Middle East to engage in terrorist plots of mass murdering their former countrymen, women and children.

Some folks take exception to that when their president is a black commie socialist Muslim from Kenya.

 

[thraashman]

Was it the GI Joe movie that dropped the tungsten rod from space to devastate a city? That's what this reminds me of.

 

[vi edit]

It's like a heavy duty turkey broadhead. Zoinks.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Was it the GI Joe movie that dropped the tungsten rod from space to devastate a city? That's what this reminds me of.

No idea on the GI Joe thing, but it's not a new idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Specifically, Project Thor from the 50's. Telephone pole made of Tungsten, impact speed at Mach10. Relatively low destructive capacity but basically impossible to defend against, and 10-15m time to kill anywhere in the world (depending on what your constellation looks like).

 

[vi edit]

No idea on the GI Joe thing, but it's not a new idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Specifically, Project Thor from the 50's. Telephone pole made of Tungsten, impact speed at Mach10. Relatively low destructive capacity but basically impossible to defend against, and 10-15m time to kill anywhere in the world (depending on what your constellation looks like).

That's a slightly larger scale, albeit slower rail gun right?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

That's a slightly larger scale, albeit slower rail gun right?

In a manner of speaking, a rail gun uses an electromagnetic rail to accelerate a slug to very high speeds via Lorentz forces before leaving a 'barrel' of some kind. The concept behind an orbital projectile is just to make it streamlined and let gravity pull it down. If friction is low enough, and if you can guide it correctly, it makes a bigass hole where you want it. Both however are generally conceived without any explosives or traditional accelerators however (aside from electricity in the former).

 

[Commodus]

While this is more military spending and not something I'd want to celebrate too loudly, I do think it's good for the military to think about how weapons can minimize innocent casualties, not just maximize the damage done to the target. If you're going to use lethal force, you should at least do it as responsibly as possible.

 

[zinfamous]

In a manner of speaking, a rail gun uses an electromagnetic rail to accelerate a slug to very high speeds via Lorentz forces before leaving a 'barrel' of some kind. The concept behind an orbital projectile is just to make it streamlined and let gravity pull it down. If friction is low enough, and if you can guide it correctly, it makes a bigass hole where you want it. Both however are generally conceived without any explosives or traditional accelerators however (aside from electricity in the former).

reading that description, it's more than just the energy generated by gravity, but by the fact that the starting state of the rods, in orbit, has large kinetic energy because they are essentially moving at 8km/sec, before being dislodged from orbit and sent towards their target, eventually losing a significant amount of that initial energy because their strike velocity is only a piddly Mach 10. lol.

man, we humans think up some fucked-up things.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

reading that description, it's more than just the energy generated by gravity, but by the fact that the starting state of the rods, in orbit, has large kinetic energy because they are essentially moving at 8km/sec, before being dislodged from orbit and sent towards their target, eventually losing a significant amount of that initial energy because their strike velocity is only a piddly Mach 10. lol.

man, we humans think up some fucked-up things.

I think it's considered a conversion of potential energy (object in stable orbit) to kinetic energy (object transitioned to collision/ballistic orbit, then impacted on a target). They probably don't lose much potential energy prior to striking because I doubt they get slowed much by friction. You could dramatically increase the damage they cause by attaching a scramjet to the ass-end, but I imagine the intent is to make them difficult to detect/prevent and able to be idle without maintenance for years on end.

 

[Paratus]

I think it's considered a conversion of potential energy (object in stable orbit) to kinetic energy (object transitioned to collision/ballistic orbit, then impacted on a target). They probably don't lose much potential energy prior to striking because I doubt they get slowed much by friction. You could dramatically increase the damage they cause by attaching a scramjet to the ass-end, but I imagine the intent is to make them difficult to detect/prevent and able to be idle without maintenance for years on end.

If they’re in stable low earth orbit that’s around Mach 25. If they hit at Mach 10 then they’ve lost over half their initial energy to heating and ablation.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

If they’re in stable low earth orbit that’s around Mach 25. If they hit at Mach 10 then they’ve lost over half their initial energy to heating and ablation.

Pretty sure the concept necessitated having them at geostationary orbit, to avoid the requirement of fuel to maintain stable low-earth orbit, Geostationary is at about mach9 assuming the internet is accurate.

I could very well be completely wrong about that though.

EDIT: In retrospect, that'd give the rods a ~3hr time to kill assuming they didn't accelerate from orbit, so that's probably not right (and if it was right, they'd still lose a crapload of energy), so no idea what was supposed to maintain their orbit, unless they were intended to be semi-disposable, and just launch a few up every month or two.

 

[kage69]

Reminds me of when Air Force removed explosive payload from 2000 pounders and put in concrete instead. Worked well from what I recall. I would think a non explosive Hellfire would kill a guy on impact just fine, though the blades up the odds of death I'm sure.

No idea on the GI Joe thing, but it's not a new idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Specifically, Project Thor from the 50's. Telephone pole made of Tungsten, impact speed at Mach10. Relatively low destructive capacity but basically impossible to defend against, and 10-15m time to kill anywhere in the world (depending on what your constellation looks like).

...and no fallout.

 

[UberNeuman]

They could have saved money if they used my design - Baseball bats bolted onto large boulders dropped from planes. They said I was crazy, they said it wouldn't work. But I'll show them!

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

They could have saved money if they used my design - Baseball bats bolted onto large boulders dropped from planes. They said I was crazy, they said it wouldn't work. But I'll show them!

When I was in the mil, a co-worker of mine and me had a conversation about the concept of dropping c130's worth of rubberized bowling balls into hostile encampments/cities. We wondered how effective that could be on a $/destruction ratio.

We were bored.

 

[pmv]

No idea on the GI Joe thing, but it's not a new idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Specifically, Project Thor from the 50's. Telephone pole made of Tungsten, impact speed at Mach10. Relatively low destructive capacity but basically impossible to defend against, and 10-15m time to kill anywhere in the world (depending on what your constellation looks like).

It's why a lot of 'interstellar war' situations in SF movies seem a bit illogical to me. If your SF-world allows faster-than-light-speed, or even near-light-speed, travel, then just accelerate some moderate mass to that speed and crash it into your enemy's planet. No need to build a death-star and super-powerful-death-ray.

 

[cytg111]

It's why a lot of 'interstellar war' situations in SF movies seem a bit illogical to me. If your SF-world allows faster-than-light-speed, or even near-light-speed, travel, then just accelerate some moderate mass to that speed and crash it into your enemy's planet. No need to build a death-star and super-powerful-death-ray.

But that is exactly what the death ray is. Its is light accelerated to faster than light accelerated to faster than light accelerated to faster than light accelerated.... Its genius.

 

[trenchfoot]

When I was in the mil, a co-worker of mine and me had a conversation about the concept of dropping c130's worth of rubberized bowling balls into hostile encampments/cities. We wondered how effective that could be on a $/destruction ratio.

We were bored.

But then this is exactly where new ideas blossom, take hold, get tossed round and round and sometimes karma, dumbshit luck and the exact precise chain of coincidences align themselves and something amazing, something groundbreaking occurs.

Kudos to forward thinking and the idea that there is no such thing as a dumb idea leading to nowhere.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

It's why a lot of 'interstellar war' situations in SF movies seem a bit illogical to me. If your SF-world allows faster-than-light-speed, or even near-light-speed, travel, then just accelerate some moderate mass to that speed and crash it into your enemy's planet. No need to build a death-star and super-powerful-death-ray.

Centauri mass driver war crimes in Babylon 5. Just start flinging asteroids at the Narn homeworld.