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It's not really "dropping" them - they're in orbit and already not falling. You'd need to fire them backwards with a rocket engine (or railgun?) to deorbit. At
by LeifCarrotson 10y ago
It's not really "dropping" them - they're in orbit and already not falling. You'd need to fire them backwards with a rocket engine (or railgun?) to deorbit. At that point, why not just fire them as a ballistic missile?
- azernik 10y agoFaster reaction time, less obvious launch, and ability to attack from any direction (not just the direction that your bases and submarines happen to be in). There were also proposals to just launch nuclear warheads into orbit, for deorbiting in case of war, but they were banned by treaty because they were considered too destabilizing - as were partial orbital weapons, which just went into orbit for long enough to attack from unusual directions.
- lmm 10y agoThey're not vulnerable to boost-phase intercept. And potentially more deniable at least historically (with a ballistic launch any radar track will point you to the launch site, whereas to detect the origin of kinetic bombardment you'd have to be continuously tracking everything in orbit back to its original launch nation).