Galactic Sapper wrote:Loren Pechtel wrote:I completely disagree here--they can't shoot through a planet anyway. The planet is just as good a shield even if it's uninhabited, thus hiding behind it is not a war crime.
It turns out you're completely wrong here. Laser heads have enough standoff that an Earth-sized planet is only concealment, not cover. If the enemy can spot you with drones, they could launch missiles aimed 10k km over the surface of the planet and still easily hit your ships hiding behind the planet. It's no more difficult than hitting you while you have your wedge toward them. The only thing stopping your attacker from taking that shot is the civilians you're hiding behind.
Sure, the laser heads have no problem shooting at something behind the planet. However, the guys aiming the missiles can't select targets and the missile's seekers aren't able to pick their own targets in a shot like that. You have to have eyes behind the planet to take the shot--and at reasonable ranges you can send a modern missile safely beside the planet to engage such a target.
In practice the GA can do this because they can get their recon drones in, but nobody else can get their drones close enough to take such a shot at the GA.