Quite possibly the best epsiode thus far; it really had everything. And Break Carrier's main weapon has a sort of beautifully terrifying simplicity to it; the sscale is really the only thing that would make it difficult to construct in Real Life. Essentially, its a Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile using a depressed-trajectory shot, but replacing the rocket booster with a massive rail gun. The Trident II re-entry vehicles have a terminal velocity of around Mach 22; they're simply more useful delivering nuclear warheads than as kinetic impactors.
Really, the only problem is that the aerodynamic trajectory adjustment is probably unnecessary; it if contains a rocket motor powerful enough to provide the final stage of its acceleration, it could use just that and attack at a slightly more acute angle
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Originally Posted by FlareKnight
Some good drama though with the bombing basically taking out the third place candidate (though I wouldn't be surprised to see him still alive) and nearly taking out the Princess. If she had been the first target....damn.
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It makes sense to target Bright Hopper first, though; even at 8.5 kps, Break Carrier's shells would take sligtly more than a minute to travel 550 kilometers. If Bright Hopper knew of the threat and was taking evasive action, it's speed (...850 kph) was such that it could potentially stay out of the terminal attack footprint of each of the shots. It made sense to eliminate it with the advantage of surprise.
The one thing the MDC should have done was, after disabling the Bright Hopper, make an international anounemnt of their new weapon and declare than a legitimate Legitimate Kingdom military target would be their next target, but due to targeting imprecision, they would need to use submission rounds and, oh, city in the blast radius? That's a shame. Are you sure you want to go another round?