THE NEXT ARMS RACE: SMART BULLETS AND RAILGUNS: RUSSIA RESPONDS IN ...

Many months ago I blogged about the latest in military technologies being developed and researched by DARPA (The Diabolically Apocalyptic Research Projects Agency, as we like to call it here on this website, following a suggestion of Mr. J.B.). Among those technologies were "smart bullets" which could change course in fllight, robots, exoskeletons, advanced universal medical technologies able to repair soldiers on the battle field, and electromagnetic railguns able to fire projectiles so fast that no standard means of protection - conventional armor plating for example - are sufficient. Indeed, such projectiles, if large enough, would impact with such extreme kinetic energy that that would have an effect similar to a nuclear weapon, sans all the nasty radioactive after-effects.

Now, according to this article, shared by Mr.V.T., Russia is responding in kind:

Space Railgun and Robot-Avatar: Russian Military Steps Into Sci-Fi Territory

Of interest here is this paragraph:

In a series of laboratory tests the Russian prototype has fired its projectile at a whopping 6.25 kilometers per second. A weapon capable of firing at a speed like this renders useless all existing means of ship, plane or tank protection.

Moreover, a projectile made from several kilos of tungsten is comparable to a small-yield nuclear artillery shell as it generates almost as much energy without leaving behind a deadly trail of radiation. During the latest such test the projectile reached the speed of over 11 kilometers a second, which means that the Russian railgun can send payloads right into space!

Such railguns are not a new idea. In fact, the idea first occurred to a Norwegian physicist and inventor before World War One and was indeed investigated by him and subsequently taken up by the Germans during that war, and intermittently between the wars, and again, during World War Two, as a part of their secret technologies developments.
As the article notes, such technologies, scaled up and perfected, could conceivable launch projectiles into space, and could thus conceivably function as anti-missile systems. Additionally, a large enough space-based platform could function as a non-nuclear strategic bombardment platform in the so-called "Rod of God" scenario, and ground based systems could similarly and conceivably be used as long-range strategic bombardment platforms. Or course, current technological limits make all of this a high octane speculation, but the possibilities and implications cannot be ignored.
So what are the implications of all of this? For one thing, they spell the immanent, if not present, obsolescence of ICBMs, cruise missiles, bombers, and even of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons themselves. After all, why use a weapon that has such horrific aftereffects? "Rods of God", however, carry no such punishment to the user.
And for another thing, they would fall outside current restrictions undertaken in treaty obligations by certain nations not to build nuclear weapons: think Germany and Japan here.
In short, a new arms race for an entirely different type of strategic weapon of mass destruction is dawning, one in which space is the ultimate platform and prize, and one in which current treaty restrictions - beyond commitments not to weaponize space - are no longer in play. And as has been said, one can conceive of long-range ground based platforms.
Think of this, the next time one hears an anxious press worrying about Iranian nuclear weapons. Perhaps the reaction to Iran should be "Go ahead, waste your money."
See you on the flip side...
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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

17 Comments

  1. goshawks on September 16, 2016 at 8:04 pm

    I remember and old SF war-story where one faction was winning. Then, it’s top scientists convinced the leaders to invest in ‘game-changing’ weapons. To make a long story short, the advanced weapons eventually came on line and were devastatingly effective. But, during that interval, their opponents simply ramped-up the production of ‘conventional’ weapons. Ultimately, they overwhelmed the formerly-winning side by sheer force of numbers. Oops…

    Are WE seeing the same thing with ‘game-changing’ weapons that are bound to be expensive, complex, and therefore likely to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of ‘ordinary’ weapons?



  2. enki-nike on September 16, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    What would the effect be if such a weapon were fired at a nuclear arsenal?



    • TRM on September 16, 2016 at 7:37 pm

      A huge radioactive mess in your enemies country. Sort of like they “had an accident”. Best of all you could claim it was a “meteor”.



    • goshawks on September 16, 2016 at 7:48 pm

      Most probably nothing of note. Remember, to a ‘Rod from God’ (“Jerry Pournelle originated the concept while working in operations research at Boeing in the 1950s before becoming a science-fiction writer.” ~Wiki), most of a nuclear weapon is effectively empty space. Only if you directly-hit the plutonium ‘trigger’ sphere (tiny) would there be any chance of fission-events. Even then, the ‘compression’ due to the impacting Rod would be local and off-centered. This would probably cause a small ‘dirty bomb’ effect – messy, but not a nuclear ‘boom’ event.



  3. Jon on September 16, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    I have suspected all along that the sudden banning of regular light bulbs had more to do with redirecting the supply of tungsten than saving energy. Tungsten does indeed make good projectiles (with less toxic fallout than lead), yet the gun community has also had its supply of tungsten for non-lead projectiles minimized to the point of non-existence, which is odd, considering the push to non-lead bullets (which is also a method of driving the cost of shooting higher and out of reach of more people).

    Probably just a coincidence, nothing to see here . . . .



  4. marcos toledo on September 16, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    What you forget Joseph is the real use of chemical-biological-nuclear weapons are. There use in to torture, maim and kill after a conflict-war has officially ended. The Iranians have been around long enough not to fall for that trap they along with China saw what that did to the Soviet Union.



  5. LSM on September 16, 2016 at 11:32 am

    as every whistleblower has stated: there are technologies out there (regardless of country) that are 100’s/1000’s of years in advance of what most people can even begin wrap their minds around;

    and they’ve all said the minute the successful devopment a new technology if announced or introduced into the public domain it’s already been there 30/40/50 yrs.

    the bar code was invented (including the lasers that read it) in the mid- 50’s-

    so are we to assume smart bullets and a rail gun are something new on the market?- rhetorical question-

    please stay well Dr. Farrell all-

    Larry in Germany



    • Kahlypso on September 19, 2016 at 5:10 am

      Yeh, the military is usually (as a rule of thumb) 3 generations in front of the commercial market.
      I’ll stick with the UFO ‘meme’ Reagan stated that his NASA stooges told him they had flight capability to put hundreds of people in orbit with one flight.. The Nazi’s started the circular aerodynes in the … carpe diem.. I’ve forgotten the year.. Then 1947 we have discs falling from the skies in 47.. I think that the Ricans used one of their flying saucers to ram a Nazi Powered Glider… Maybe they listened to Admiral Bird when we got back from Highjump and wanted one of those high speed fighters for themselves..When I say they.. you know..PTB.



  6. WalkingDead on September 16, 2016 at 10:51 am

    It would seem that any posts, regardless of how short, with any biblical references are sent to moderation. Why is that?



  7. WalkingDead on September 16, 2016 at 8:52 am

    YouTube has numerous videos of homemade rail guns made by kids, so I find it hard to believe that there are not darker, more sophisticated, and much larger versions in existence already. The Navy is putting them on ships. This technology is far more advanced than we are being lead to believe. Smart bullets, now making the scene are, no doubt, just as advanced. The Rod of God weapon has already been demonstrated, if you believe conspiracy theorists.
    As has been demonstrated lately with Hitlery, conspiracy theory tends to be far more reliable than the MSM which has devolved into nothing more than the propaganda mouthpieces for governments and the deep state.
    If Tom Bearden is to be believed, there are, already in existence, weapons far worse than any of these single target weapons and the USSA
    is lagging far behind others in their development. Russia has been letting some of their capabilities out in the open and demonstrating them in Syria, on USSA ships, and in small news leaks mostly ignored in the West.
    It’s any ones guess what the “Breakaway Civilization” may or may not have in their arsenal, if they are, indeed, as advanced as some believe. World War III may be far more destructive in ways we cannot imagine should any of this suspected technology be brought into the conflict.



    • Kahlypso on September 16, 2016 at 8:56 am

      “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”



      • Kahlypso on September 16, 2016 at 9:02 am

        “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidy”



        • WalkingDead on September 16, 2016 at 10:48 am

          We fight, not only against each other, but against “principalities and powers”, if ancient texts are to be believed; so I doubt that WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones, it may very well be a “cosmic” war. Any entity not born on earth is, by definition, and ET.



  8. Kahlypso on September 16, 2016 at 6:33 am

    Ooh Joseph.. They’ve had ‘Smart Bullets’ that change direction in mid flight since the 22 November 1963. But let’s remember, the Rods of God are for deviating Asteroids. Mr Von Braun said so. Otherwise they’re trying to get a bunker buster that can go through to Shangri La.. Take that Reptiles!!



    • TRM on September 16, 2016 at 9:09 pm

      “They’ve had ‘Smart Bullets’ that change direction in mid flight since the 22 November 1963”

      ROTFLMAO!!! You win the daily humour contest.



    • rich overholt on September 20, 2016 at 2:25 pm


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