How hard is orbital bombardment

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Son of Dave

Essentially, orbital weapons of this sort seem to be a strategic, rather than tactical asset. Their utility is found mostly in what you might do with them, rather than what your actually doing with them. They occupy a very similar strategic role as ICBMs; and it is easy to envisage ICBMs as one shot orbital weapon platforms (for certain degrees of 'orbit'), with the added bonus of a limited resistance to being shot down, as they arent in space/high atmosphere longer than needed to drop the nukes.

This raises the question of, if a military force has access to ICBMs as the global, strategic weapon system, would there be a point in kinetic orbital weapons? Orbiting direct-energy weapons might still be useful, as a faster and more controllable option...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

This raises the question of, if a military force has access to ICBMs as the global, strategic weapon system, would there be a point in kinetic orbital weapons?

They're cleaner than nukes, and much easier to scale to relatively small explosions. Also not as (currently) politically sensitive as nukes.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

More expensive than loitering fixed wings?

Yes. A fixed-wing aircraft with an L/D ratio of 15 (which is a reasonable-to-low estimate) needs roughly 1.5 mps of delta-V to loiter for an hour, and uses an air-breathing engine that's typically on the order of ten times as efficient as a rocket.

[vicky_molokh]

Spaceships 4 has rules for orbital bombing (SSiv40).

[Crakkerjakk]

Anyone know of any good videos of orbital strikes? I think it'd be a neat game aid, but all the ones I can find are from video games and a) look cheesy, and b) don't have a large enough blast radius.

[panton41]

For what it's worth there's real talk about using ICBMs armed with guided KE projectiles for city-block sized targets. Of course the question of whether than Minuteman missile has an atom bomb or a KE device is hard to rectify while maintaining surprise. So right now it's a very real idea, but politically it's ugly.

For that matter, why not cover the projective with a non-ablative heat shield? We do that today with MIRVs, so why not a far-future setting?

Edit:
Real world reentry footage.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

Orbital bombardment is pretty common in sci fi and yet I wonder how possible it is and how it would be done assuming a realitivly hard sci fi setting? Would the projectiles burning up in atmosphere be a problem? What problems might gravity pose? How accurate could orbital bombardment be? What weapons could be used? How would these differ over tech levels? What other problems might come up?

This was discussed at length (and I mean length) in the discussion section of one of Rick Robinson's Rocketpunk Manifesto posts
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/...e-warfare.html
Since the comment section is so long, here are a few posts that look at kinetic strikes in detail without having to wade through everything else
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/...13515816863794
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/...41732993151813
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/...09325401054726
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/...31419359788672
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/...93160457306775 (and the next several dozen after it)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Anyone know of any good videos of orbital strikes? I think it'd be a neat game aid, but all the ones I can find are from video games and a) look cheesy, and b) don't have a large enough blast radius.

Akira? Or is that too weird? I still don't understand why stuff floats up at first.

EDIT: Not video, but Frank Miller's Give me Liberty has illustrations of orbital laser strikes.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Akira? Or is that too weird? I still don't understand why stuff floats up at first.

Some effect of the particle beam?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kale

Some effect of the particle beam?

What effect?