Talk:United States Navy in Exile/@comment-32964013-20160301232233/@comment-13740085-20160302070553

A) wouldn't that fry the electronics of any ship you brought along?

B) Impeller missiles operate on different engines than rocket powered ones

C) Part of the effectiveness of the Iron Dome is the shear weight of fire it can throw out, and given the high acceleration of impeller drives (atmospheric impeller missiles can reach Mach 15 near in a split second), the odds you'll destroy enough missile to keep your ships safe are low

D) See above

E) the Arsenal ships always given a heavy escort, plus there's a lot of them. Plus, the Iron Dome system can identify enemy aerospace warships that enter its detection area in a micro-second, and will then launch at said warship not a split second later

Harb,

I pointed out in the Impeller drive tech section that atmospheric impeller missile are different than their extra-atmospheric counterparts. The latter, not needing to worry about an atmosphere, can manage the acceleration to .2c, but as a result their drives burn out after only a portion of a second, and travel ballistic to their target.

That's why, at the Battle of Tenelapis, the USNiE fleet chose to get to within a half-light-second, which meant total flight time was less than 2.5 seconds.

The atmospheric models however, have the problem you just described: if they didn't just burn up, they'd kick off an uncontained nuclear fusion. So, they sacrifice speed for endurance, their maximum speed being reduced to Mach 15, and in return can maintain flight for fifteen to twenty minutes.