US President Donald Trump orders Pentagon to create US 'Space Force'

[Ultima Thule]

B

Even if a town then what about launching 15 rods in a city ? Rods are cheap without any requirement for maintenance and you can keep unlimited numbers in space ...

We can strap a few explosives on it if need be, I still think it's not a half bad idea.

Rods are also much cheaper than nukes, you can get far more of them.

Orbital bombardment will take out massive urban zones and such.

punching through the earth from those rods are/will only possible when the earth have soft lands, in hilly or in mountainous terrains those rods are/will useless @dsr478 @The Accountant @LeGenD

 

[The Accountant]

punching through the earth from those rods are/will only possible when the earth have soft lands, in hilly or in mountainous terrains those rods are/will useless @dsr478 @The Accountant @LeGenD

Agreed ... But they will not be used on mountains but on population centers ...

Even on mountains they could produce a small earthquake and there will no side hidden from these rods unlike other missiles for which attacking beyond area of site is difficult ...

 

[LeGenD]

punching through the earth from those rods are/will only possible when the earth have soft lands, in hilly or in mountainous terrains those rods are/will useless @dsr478 @The Accountant @LeGenD

A single rod is expected to produce this kind of kinetic force for reference:

You also need to consider the possibility to achieve precision strikes with rods in a mountaineous region. They would be excellent for destroying tunnels, bunkers, hideouts and facilities.

 

[EndangeredSpecies]

Still they can be countered by air defences, but what if throwing monster size boulders from space to confuse and engage the air defences of adversary while launching missiles from mainland may be some sort of new kind of war tactic.

Nope, a telephone pole sized rod of tungsten will be quite hard to counter, if it is just falling. It will have no explosive built in it, just mass falling under gravity