You can't defend yourself against a meter-long piece of whatever-the-hell-alloy-that-is-made-of falling from orbit.

And clearly I can't defend myself against poor reading comprehension.

The point I was trying to make is that it doesn't matter if they can defend themselves against it or not: as soon as someone catches on that you're dropping tungsten poles onto their nation (it takes 15 min and you'd be damned sure that they'd have a few eyes on that thing), they're going to send nukes at you. Having nukes sent at you makes you <ruler of the world.

As I already said very clearly, all the bg boom in the world is worth nothing if you don't have a defense against other people's big boom.

Ah, but the beauty of tungsten falling from Valhalla is that it can be disguised as a meteor strike. Granted, you'd be safer just hurling rocks down, because then who is the enemy going to nuke, space?

Good luck disguising a tungsten plated crater as a meteor strike

Well, the crater itself isn't the issue, it's that tungsten could be detected while it's falling.

*BOOM*
"What was that?"
"Meteor."
"I'm starting to think that they aren't really meteors... That's the third one today. And it's not even lunch yet."
"IT'S A METEOR."
"Yeeeaaahh, no. I'm calling the government about this crap."
".... *into radio* We need a Class 1 THOR strike at 18' 24" North, 65' 43" East. Yes, another."

I don't think the illusion of constant meteors raining down would last too long. Especially considering how rare and huge of deals they are.

Well, it doesn't need to take long, and besides, even a relatively small meteor would cause horrible damage, especially inside a city/military base. But again, I'm referring to ROCKS, not tungsten bolts. The deal with the bolts is that they would be detectable. A meteor shower is slightly more natural, and even though where those meteors suddenly came from without being noticed by anyone would raise (very big) questions, it might be too late to launch a counter-attack.
Anyways, the best idea so far for a space-based weapon were drop pods used to deliver US (Space) Marines anywhere on the planet in less than 15 minutes. Conventional, and deadly.

It combines the Marines, AND space weaponry. I approve.

Doesn't even matter. As I said before, you could be certain that the world would have eyes on this thing whether it was dropping tungsten or rocks. There would be at a couple of dozen cameras watching the thing for any sign of movement. Its trajectory would be tracked exactly, and if anything was falling through the sky on fire anywhere below it, the nukes would fly.

ITT KIDS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND ORBITAL MECHANICS

if you are in orbit

you cannot "drop" something, and have it zoom toward earth
that object is going to have just as much lateral motion as you
roughly seventeen THOUSAND miles per hour of it, as a matter of fact

a tungsten telephone pole dropped from a satellite or other somesuch thing is going to require a hell of a lot of propulsion, not none. you need to both decelerate it enough to cause reentry and keep it targeted accurately.

The problems with spaceborne military forces are numerous.
1: if you are cruising in under the power of gravity, how are you getting out? exit strategies are critical to any engagement!
2: do you have any idea how long it takes a spacecraft to get ready to launch, including fueling and getting stationed? launching your marines is going to take weeks, not minutes.
3: before you say it, do you really think troops stationed in some space station are really the most economical idea ever. here's plan A: station maybe five hundred troops on a ♥♥♥♥ massive space station for no more than a month at a time (to counter microgravity bone degeneration), and then switch them all out with another five hundred, and then have them all fully trained and up to shape on managing either individual or group reentry craft, as well as fully combat capable immediately upon landing said craft
or B:
ship a few thousand soldiers using planes and ships, in a process that takes about two weeks, and involves nothing more for the soldier than a lot of sitting and sleeping

PS
any meteor strike large enough to completely disable a country's retaliatory strike capabilities would be large enough to completely ♥♥♥♥ the entire world's climate

that ♥♥♥♥ killed dinosaurs, yo.

Yeah, I'm just gonna agree with you ona ll points because:
A. Your right. And
B. Arguing with Grif is like playing Russian Roulette by yourself. You know you aren't gonna win, and when you lose, you're gonna lose hard.

With a fully automatic weapon.

So yeah, would it still need guidance if the satellite is in geostationary orbit? Just a question, because it doesn't solve the issue of people being extremely suspicious about that weird satellite you just put directly above their country.

Also, I'm pretty sure that to completely disable a country's second strike capabilities nowadays would require destroying the world's climate. Not all of the country's capabilities are in the country or stationary.

Excuse me, I should have been clearer: it needs no propulsion once it enters the atmosphere.




They don't have to be big enough to ♥♥♥♥ up the whole world, they just have to hit the right spots, by which I mean military bases. And cities, if you're feeling like committing some war crimes.

*presses trigger*has brain blown out*

Sorry Grif, but I'm going to side with the Airforce-published article on this. If they say they can drop an oversized jart from the sky with minimal guidance systems on it, I'm sure they're not overlooking anything basic about orbit physics. I'm not really sure what your point is about lateral motion is either - I would assume they'd put some lead on the thing.

I also don't necessarily agree with your assumption that such a weapon would totally ♥♥♥♥ the environment. 3000 tons of meteorites hit earth every day. Do you mean because of dust kicked up from the impact? I don't know how many silos there are in a country like the US, but... well it depends what you mean by disable, I guess. Disable the ones we know about, or just send enough over there that we can be sure that nothing is standing? Flesh this out a bit.

On a more physics-related note, Grif, I have a question, since I'm willing to learn. Why would something with basically 0 mass need "a hell of a lot of propulsion"?
Also, Raw, Nazi scientists were planning on making a giant space-based death ray. In 100 years. Don't count on the military to actually put these things into practice, is what I mean.