Ship of the Week: Colonial Battlestar

[Deepcrush]

As Mark said, we don't know whether Pegasus survived that run. Moreover, Cain had to a) know or guess that the raiders would be called off, b) relied on Apollo and Starbuck taking out the Basestars' point defences and c) had to close to point blank range, risking (and possibly suffering) Pegasus' destruction in the explosions. Without that, given Tigh's attitude towards taking on a single Basestar in HoG, I've no doubt that a single Battlestar and its flight group would be hopelessly outmatched by a couple of Basestars and their raiders.

Tigh thought they couldn't take on one... Cain with a likely already damaged Battlestar and a pair of fighters did in fact take on two Baseships. Considering that Vipers and their pilots are clearly superior even when out numbered two to one. Its simple enough to see the Battlestar as the superior ship.

Agreed. One-on-one, with no fighter support for either side, I'd give the fight to the Battlestar. With even minimal fighter support for the Battlestar against no raiders, we've seen that a Battlestar can destroy two Basestars, but we don't know if it can be achieved without losing the Battlestar.

We saw a ship that had been on the run and in constant combat succeed. So again I see no reason to believe a fresh ship couldn't complete the same task with equal or better results.

I she probably was carrying max compliment - don't forget that all four squadrons had been fighting without reinforcement for a long time, and were probably seriously understrength.

Maybe a full Standard Compliment, but maxed out there's no reason the Battlestar couldn't fit 200+ Vipers.

[Captain Seafort]

Tigh thought they couldn't take on one... Cain with a likely already damaged Battlestar and a pair of fighters did in fact take on two Baseships.

Two Basestars without either fighter support or any point defences.

Considering that Vipers and their pilots are clearly superior even when out numbered two to one. Its simple enough to see the Battlestar as the superior ship.

They're superior on-on-one, certainly, but they simply aren't good enough to take on two-to-one odds in a straight fight. We've never seen any Basestars destroyed in a straight fight. The one over Carillon was destroyed when the planet went up (and was only decoyed down there by the threat of six squadrons in addition to Galactica - three times a Battlestar's standard complement). The two at Gamoray had no fighter support and had had their point defences shot away. The one in Hand of God had damaged sensors, allowing Galactica to get in the first shot.

We saw a ship that had been on the run and in constant combat succeed. So again I see no reason to believe a fresh ship couldn't complete the same task with equal or better results.

Are you talking about Pegasus in Living Legend or Galactica in Hand of God here? Either way, both those victories were achieved by placing the Cylons at a definite disadvantage before the heavy ships engaged, not through simple head-to-head slugging matches between two ships and their respective fighter groups.

Maybe a full Standard Compliment, but maxed out there's no reason the Battlestar couldn't fit 200+ Vipers.

Going by volume she should be able to carry a thousand, but there's no evidence she actually can.

[Deepcrush]

Two Basestars without either fighter support or any point defences.

Happens in battle.

Are you talking about Pegasus in Living Legend or Galactica in Hand of God here? Either way, both those victories were achieved by placing the Cylons at a definite disadvantage before the heavy ships engaged, not through simple head-to-head slugging matches between two ships and their respective fighter groups.

The Battlestars won, which is what matters. Battle isn't always a head to head matchup, but we've seen that the Battlestars have the ability to knock out the defenses of a Basestar or two even and close for the kill(s). As it has been done, it means it can be done.

Going by volume she should be able to carry a thousand, but there's no evidence she actually can.

A thousand would leave no room for spare parts, shuttles, ground transports, fuel, ammunition and landing space. However, I don't find it hard to think they could carry near if not twice their standard compliment.

[Captain Seafort]

The Battlestars won, which is what matters. Battle isn't always a head to head matchup, but we've seen that the Battlestars have the ability to knock out the defenses of a Basestar or two even and close for the kill(s). As it has been done, it means it can be done.

Sure, it can be done, but in order to judge the relative merits of the two types, I believe that we must look at what would happen in a straight fight, not what would happen if a skilful commander took advantage of circumstances and a bit of luck to tilt the balance in his favour. We're comparing Battlestars with Basestars, not Cain or Adama with Baltar or a Command Centurion.

Indeed, if you want to see what happens when a skilful Cylon commander takes on a somewhat less skilful Colonial, look at Cimtar. A thousand raiders, equivalent to three or four Basestars, destroyed ten Battlestars.

A thousand would leave no room for spare parts, shuttles, ground transports, fuel, ammunition and landing space. However, I don't find it hard to think they could carry near if not twice their standard compliment.

A battlestar's pods have well over twenty times the entire volume of a Nimitz - they should be able to fit well over a thousand Vipers, plus spares and fuel, without any problem.

[Deepcrush]

Sure, it can be done, but in order to judge the relative merits of the two types, I believe that we must look at what would happen in a straight fight, not what would happen if a skilful commander took advantage of circumstances and a bit of luck to tilt the balance in his favour. We're comparing Battlestars with Basestars, not Cain or Adama with Baltar or a Command Centurion.

Indeed, if you want to see what happens when a skilful Cylon commander takes on a somewhat less skilful Colonial, look at Cimtar. A thousand raiders, equivalent to three or four Basestars, destroyed ten Battlestars.

Yes, a thousand Cylon fighters ambushed the Battlestars. But we've pointed out already the weak AA ability of the Battlestars.

A battlestar's pods have well over twenty times the entire volume of a Nimitz - they should be able to fit well over a thousand Vipers, plus spares and fuel, without any problem.

Can't say I've ever seen them shown to be so large. Though I also haven't ever look to measure them.

[GrahamKennedy]

Battlestars always struck me as having a failing common to many SF ships - they're woefully underarmed for their size. The ship is at least a hundred times the size of a US carrier, the flight pods are big enough to have deck space the equivalent of fifteen or twenty carriers, yet they only carry about the same number of fighters. One can assume that massive volumes are given over to ammunition, fuel, spares and the like but surely it would be more efficient to put those on separate support ships anyway. And in any case, why would Colonials build ships with such vast supplies when they are never expected to go far from home support?

New series Galactica's wall-o-flak was pretty awesome though. But I kinda wish she'd had some really big guns for use against capital ships.

[Mark]

In Living Legend, Baltar stated that a Basestar carried four squadrons, and in Hand of God Tigh stated that they carried 300 fighters. You can't get much more explicit than that.

True....but again lets looks what happened.

Galactica launched all fighters then withdrew to Caprica. Most other ships never even got their fighters in the air, so it stands to reason the Galactica ships took the worst hit of all. That said, they took all the surviving Vipers on board, which got us to the 150 number. They took some minor losses we saw on screen, then were "refreshed" with Pegasus squadrons (again, we have no idea how many losses they suffered).

Tigh's statement COULD have simply been what they had right then....personally I think the producers forgot they suffered losses and took Pegasus squadrons aboard.

[Deepcrush]

Should we design... our own Battlestar?

[Mikey]

Should we design... our own Battlestar?

Interesting idea. For more dedicated viewers of the show... do we have any idea of the internal volume requirements of things like BSG-verse FTL drives, etc.?

[Deepcrush]

I know we have a UFP version, but a oBSG or nBSG or both would be fun.

[Mark]

Ok....I found these numbers at http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Saga_of_a_Star_World

Adama asks if any of the other ships could launch their Vipers, to which he receives a report that they didn't. Yet Rigel reports that out of the 67 Vipers returning to Galactica, 25 fighters belonged to Galactica. Obviously, the other battlestars launched some of their Vipers, but in few numbers and not in time. Additionally, there might have been patrols from other battlestars that were deployed at the time, but returned to the main fight.

So, according to this dialoge, Galactica was WAY undermanned. The addition of two damaged squadrons from Pegasus COULD have brought that number up to about 150. I concede my arguement....but we still don't know what the STANDARD capacity of fighters are.

[Mark]

Wait....I just remembered this site, which seems to have pretty good info

http://www.tecr.com/galactica/index.html

[Mark]

And direct link to the Galactica is

http://www.tecr.com/galactica/capships/battlestar.htm

and the link to the Basestar is

http://www.tecr.com/galactica/capships/basestar.htm

[Deepcrush]

Hmm... 610m... I'm not seeing that fitting 20 Nimitz in each pod...

[GrahamKennedy]

I mean for both pods, not each. Twice the length of a carrier, but also twice the width = 4 times the area. And there's two pods, so 8 times the area. But then they are also much thicker, so you could fit perhaps two or more one on top of the other. Rather approximate, to be sure, but even if it was as little as five times the size it should be able to carry far more than it does.

Crew is the same thing. A hundred times the size of a Carrier, but about the same crew? A walk around Galactica should reveal endless empty corridors. Built to present day standards that ship would have a crew in the hundreds of thousands! You should be able to house every person in the fleet aboard comfortably.