We've seen the use of jump missiles by Alliance frigates, but could the same technology be applied to surface-based weapons for planetary defense?
Jump missiles could either be housed in silos or on above ground launchers and preset before launch to jump the distance to their target after rising a few hundred meters in altitude after launch. The Aurora intercepted several Jung surface-based missiles, but imagine if those missiles had jumped out of the atmosphere rather than climbing in a traditional sense. The Aurora wouldn't have had time to intercept them with point defenses.
Furthermore, the idea could be expanded to railgun rounds. Imagine a large surface-based railgun like the large railguns that the EDF built on the Moon. But instead of using electromagnetic energy to hurl their rounds at their targets, the EM energy is used to hurl the rounds clear of their barrels before they jumped the rest of the distance to their targets.
Like the jump missiles and the Super Eagle, the jump railgun rounds wouldn't have a means of generating their own power. They would have pre-charged miniaturized energy banks with enough energy to jump from the surface to orbit/lunar orbit.
Railgun rounds are Kinetic Weapons, their speed does the damage. In Space there is next to no friction, and only gravity/impact would slow the rounds / change its course. The Jump Round would be traveling at launch velocity in space post launch jump (very dangerous / like being launched in space to begin with.
The reason to avoid using Railguns on the surface of a planet are:
1) the fact that gravity will slow them down.
2) the fact that they still take longer to hit they're targets then the enemy can see them an begin evasive maneuvers
3) the fact that the speed of light limits what we know about where the target is when we see it, ie we have to guess where it is now based on time late info, and extrapolate where the rounds fired now need to be at a later time to hit the expected future location of a ship based on the past location of that target.
4) the availability of cheaper more accurate and more devastating weapons like missiles that can auto aim as they get closer to the target.
While the Jump round could jump to "just past" a target (as it cannot jump through objects it would hit the object instead) makes it a FTL weapon of considerable strength, it is still being fired at the most likely expected position of the target based on time late information and being a dumb round means that it could still miss the target.
Jump Missiles are fantastic when fired at unsuspecting targets. Ships approaching Alliance planets will have shields up and will be firing Missiles at the surface, launching fighters and gunships. That means a lot of jump missiles will need to be fired to deal with it. Better to send a ship after them before they reach the planet.
Basically what I am saying is that both of your ideas for protecting a planet (jump railgun rounds/missiles) would work, would work better then the original veriaty, they still leave a lot to be desired. By the time they are fired the enemy could already have fired on you.
The Best Defense Force is a Mobile Attack Force. (Why the Aurora a Cruiser could take on Battlesships, it was more mobile)
