Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-107.13.138.172-20170603004229/@comment-8881468-20170615034752

why do I really feel like having a laugh:

Just an example: those missiles rely on a guiding system. As soon as that is based on an form of radar/laser guidance, etc. it can be countered by blasting the marker

2. we are still talking missiles, which means several minutes of flight whilst trying to counter gravity.

Compare that to laser weaponry, which travels at the speed of light(=~300000 kilometers/second)

now let us have a look at the general height that ICBMs achieve, we are talking about 7-11 km/s speed at heights of up to 1200 kilometers (acceleration until 100-400 km height depending on speed, target and trajectory)

Now the problem: for close orbital support, you want a geostationary orbit(aka you do not move in relation to your ground target and are hence in an ideal position to continuously support ground troops with fire and intel)), that is achieved at 38500 kilometers height. (which means  that if your missile does not first go through acceleration and starts out with escape velocity (2nd cosmic speed or whatever you call it in English), , you have a timeframe of ~ 58 minutes between launch and impact to intercept said missile.

Whilst your counterfire from a lance battery or turret needs roughly 1/10th of a second from fire to impact when fired from geostationary orbit.

Aka: a missile launch will produce a nice heat bloom and will be visible, you can fire on said point of origin within seconds and will have impact on said launch origin within seconds. Your Submarine is toast.

This is important for 2 things: when reading the 3rd HH novel series, we are told that the drop pod assault is sent out from higher altitudes than geostationary orbit, as the fleet above isstvaan moves into geostationary orbit for bombardment and Saul tarvitz points out that that is lower than the initial orbit the fleet used)

Aka your time to attack from earth with missiles on an orbiting fleet of the IoM is even longer and offers even more time to intercept.