Battle of the Line Earth Victory???

[Quadlok]

Armed merchantmen? I don't remember any capital ships of note outside of Hyperion, Nova, and 'Nova-X' (retcon!) class ships.

Well, a couple scenes prior the EA president was pleading for every ship that can fight to defend earth, and a lot of the vessels you see in the background while Sinclair is heading for the moon look a lot more like those big spheroid transports than warships, but their to fuzzy to really make any solid ID on them besides their being large.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Actually, the only Sharlin we see destroyed by ramming is hit with a Nova. That's a mile long battlecruiser, hardly a one-man fighter.

Correct. However, as he said, a Minbari warcruiser was damaged by a starfury ramming it. The 'fury rammed the top fin and punched through and out of the other side. This is almost certainly a debilitating impact, given what we know of the fins functions. Several such impacts would mission kill a Sharlin. Of course, as it has been shown that Sharlin guns are even capable of picking off Earthforce missiles at this time period, let alone fighters, getting that close to them with multiple starfuries would be quite a challenge.

Image

HA! I knew it! *does tribal dance*

Ahem...but yes the other aspect being, as mentioned many times, the fighters are more than capable of downing Earthforce fighters with ease. At visual range, a few Nial fighters took out most of a squadron, outnumbered they still managed to do serious damage. Thats an impressive kill-loss ratio, i would think.

It's sort of like, comparing an F-14 to a Spitfire and saying who would win.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Also just to add to what someone else said, there was no 20,000 fighters.

There were 20,000 PEOPLE but if there were that many fighters there would be no capital ships.

More so, i remember that scene rather well and there were, maybe, a dozen fighters in that squadron. Two dozen at most. Now i may be wrong on the exact number, but it's certainly not 20,000 by any stretch.

[NecronLord]

The only feisable "Earthforce wins" scenario I can come up with is the Vorlons saying "fuck the circle." and sending a few battlecruisers/dreadnoughts to aid the humans. Which I would, incidentally, pay to see.

[18-Till-I-Die]

One could come up with a situation where the Membari fleet gets damaged by a faulty jump, and most of their ships are destroyed/damaged and their stealth goes out.

Maybe that would give Earthforce a chance. Best thing i can come up with, within the show's context.

[NecronLord]

Bah. The Vorlons bit is funnier.

*Picture of Earthforce Merchant ships being sliced up one after another. The beam gets to a dreadnought, hits it, leaves an anemic looking score in the hull. The Vorlon ship turns a bit, and promptly starts chopping the Sharlins in half.*

[fgalkin]

Ok...lets say the Membari fighters kept the Starfuries down...

Still, how is loosing stealth going to screw the Membari fighters. Two boneheads in fighters, with some cap shit support, wipe out whole fighter squadrons.

It just wouldnt work, sorry. Maybe one could speculate what would happen if the Nials were somehow destroyed by an accident, but i doubt the humans could reliably down them so quickly.

I remember one episode where a renegade Sharlin tried to start a fight with B5. The Star Furies will still using the sme radar from the Earth and Minbari war. The Nials approached with Stealth fields off and the Star Furies had missile locks for 10 seconds. Considering from Third Space how fast those missiles travel, it is feasible for those Nials to be wiped out.

Bullshit. First of all, the Starfuries in question were not missile equipped, and were locked on with their plasma cannons. Secondly, the Nials in question wanted to die, so they came at them head on, and without opening fire. A Nial has inertial compensators, allowing the fighter to accelerate at a rate that would kill the human pilot in a 'fury. They can, quite literally, run circles around the Starfuries, and the humans can do absolutely nothing to keep up. Secondly, it is likely that they have a greater weapons range, and could take out the 'furies before they could get a lock. Sorry, but Minbari tech is just that damn good.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

Watch the Movie again. The 20,000 Star Furies were led around the Moon and then the Minbari jumped in. So this Scenario works.

How fucking stupid are you (considering you have your tags turned off, prett damned). Firstly, their were not 20,000 starfuries.

In a final effort to protect the Earth, 20,000 of the bravest soldiers the Alliance had to offer formed a line just behind lunar orbit, swearing to whatever fates or gods existed that it would be a line the Minbari would not cross! The move was a desperate one, as Earth had no hope of defeating the advancing Minbari forces. Over 20,000 men and woman formed the line... only 207 survived. The Battle of the Line was the bloodiest space battle of the entire war, and not a single Minbari ship was brought down.

Secondly, Sinclair's single squadron was sent to investigate some anomolous readings from the farside of the moon, while the rest of the fleet remained in its defensive line.

Again watch the Movie and the Series. It was 20,000 Star Furies a Sharlin can be seen being destroyed. Second avoid insults, it does nothing but lower your percieved intelligence. Offer logic only. As for tags I do not know how to turn them on as I am a relevtively new person to these forums.

I grow tired of your bullshit. If you do not provide proof of your claim of 20,000 fighters being present on the Line, and following Sinclair on that maneuver around the moon (and by "proof" I mean either a screenshot of the scene in question or the exact text of the dialogue where the 20k fighter figure is given), I will accept your concession. If you persist in making this bullshit claim without backing it up, I will HoS this thread.

Secondly, whining about insults flung your way does not help you in any way, shape, or form.

On this forum, it is considered perfectly acceptable to flame people simply for being dishonest or stupid, no matter how polite they are. I am aware that on most forums, stupidity or dishonesty alone are not considered grounds for flaming. However, those forums' rules do not apply here.

Thirdly, BBCode is enabled by default, and you have to turn it off. So, don't give me this "I don't know how to turn it on" crap. You CHOSE the "Disable BBCode" option.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

And don't ignore my other points. The Minbari were far out of range of the human ships, and would have surprise nonetheless, stealth or not, at coming at a particular moment.

Again, despite saying this several times, but I am very patient so long as insults aren't thrown, The Minbari jumped frontally less than 1,000 meters from the Star Furies, well within gun and rocket, for the Badgers, range. Since the Deceleration has slowed the Nials and their stealth is down they are vulnerable and knocked out quickly.

Once again, provide evidence of your "Minbari jumped out less than 1 click away from the furies" claim, or this thread is getting flushed. I would like to remind you of the following rule

If you are asked for evidence to support a claim you've made, you should either produce this evidence or concede the point until such time as you can produce this evidence. People who consistently ignore requests for evidence to support their claims (particularly contentious claims) are not looked upon kindly here.

.

You may consider this an official warning from the staff. You may live in a free country, but this is a private webboard, and you better damn pay attention to the laws of the land, or you'll be sorry.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Lord Zentei]

Bah. The Vorlons bit is funnier.

*Picture of Earthforce Merchant ships being sliced up one after another. The beam gets to a dreadnought, hits it, leaves an anemic looking score in the hull. The Vorlon ship turns a bit, and promptly starts chopping the Sharlins in half.*

I somehow get the impression that you don't like the Minbari.

[NecronLord]

I somehow get the impression that you don't like the Minbari.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

[Chris OFarrell]

Ok. Before this turns into an all out flame war, a few questions / points.

1. Does anyone actualy have any numbers on the Minbari fleet? Capital ship numbers? I don't in fact recall any source which says the Minbari outnumbered the EA fleet. Hell I would be surprised if they did, they didn't need to with their technological edge.

2. The EA fleet I used to think was just nothing but a scattering of warships then a bazzilion other ships of every type (which is stupid, the merchent ships should have been evacuating as many people as possible). But after looking at some screencaps, there is actualy a HUGE military fleet there. I thinksomething like 3-5 hundred Hyperion cruisers can be counted sitting in the formation. Probably running single watch skeleton crews, but they are there. So the EA fleet actualy has some rather significant firepower to bring to bear.

3. If the Minbari stealth systems are offline, or if EA capital ships are in close proximity, they can quite effectvly target the enemy ships and deal out damage. Like in the initial encounter between the Grey Council flagship and its escorts. The EA ships did a rather large amount of damage despite firing blind into the Minbari ships. If the Minbari capital ships loose their steath technology edge on all their ships, the EA fleet can actualy counter the Minbari with some good ole mass fire tactics, just like the Minbari use. Break the fleet into sub groups and have them all gang up on single Minbari ships, killing them as fast as possible before switching to the next target, try and reduce the incomming firepower as fast as possible.

4. There was nothing LIKE 20,000 fighters, someone needs a banning.

5. If the Minbari capital ships are still protected by stealth, the EA fleet dies just as horribly.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

Without fighter support, can the Minbari win anyway.

Yes. Considering that their main guns can target fighters with relative ease. Even a glancing blow from the main guns can disable an EF ship.

800 heavily damage capital ships barely running would be the result against a fresh Earth Fleet.

What kind of a dumbass would even think to attack an enemy's homeworld with 800 damaged capital ships? Furthermore, what kind of a dumbass would believe that someone would make that decision?

No it was made pretty clear it was 20,000 Star Furies in the Episode where the man who was posing as King Arthur was found to have particapated in the Battle.

No it was not clear. In that episode, Frankling said that "20,000 of our best went in, a little over 200 survived". From the way the line was worded, it sounded much like the 20,000 refered to personel, not ships. Get your episode facts clear before you use them as evidence.

Also though it is hard to tell in the chaos that was the line, I saw a Minbari Sharlin blow from shear fire power of several Star Furies who were also destroyed in the blast.

Bullshit. I've gone over that entire movie with a comb several times and over again. No SF were able to take out a cruiser by themselves. Again, get your fucking facts straight.

As they are decelerating out of Hyperspace they are vulernable.

Bullshit. Every single ship whether cruiser or fighter were already firing as soon as they jumped into normal space. Which says a lot for their targeting capabilities as they were able to aqcuire a target and fire right after jump. Where in the hell did you even get the conception that ships decelerate after jump? Ships continue to travel at their same relativistic speeds after they make their jump into or out of normal space. Otherwise, any sudden acts of acceleration can potentially injure those onboard ships without any kind of inertial compensators. Or even worse, destroy the ship itself.

A 10 second window opens for Starfuries which outnumber the 1,200 Nials and 800 Sharlins a chance to get first kills.

Are you getting those numbers from B5tech.com?

[Stofsk]

Bah. The Vorlons bit is funnier.

*Picture of Earthforce Merchant ships being sliced up one after another. The beam gets to a dreadnought, hits it, leaves an anemic looking score in the hull. The Vorlon ship turns a bit, and promptly starts chopping the Sharlins in half.*

I somehow get the impression that you don't like the Minbari.

It's hard to like a bunch of xenophobic, genocidal maniacs that still operate a caste-based social heirarchy, who gleefully went to war against a lesser species which couldn't touch them with their level of technology.

Of course, EarthForce sent the least qualified shithead to captain the Prometheus. I can only hope Jankowski was hung by his balls with piano wire (thank you, Hitler, for that idea), and it is a source of amazement to me that General Lefcourt was not fucked up the arse by hungry raptors for putting Jankowski in command.

That said, the Minbari have no excuse to continue the fighting after the initial counter-attack. According to Delenn, they went 'mad' after Dukat's death. Well, stiff shit. I don't care. I liked that they surrendered, but hated how it turned out to be some bullshit "Our souls are going to humans!" religious thing. It was like they stopped on a technicality rather than stop out of shame. Sure, Delenn felt shame for what happened... but she's just one person.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well to be fair, they had no obligation to stop or feel shame. They werent human, it's not their place to care about us if we couldnt fight them. And secondly, their souls WERE being reborn into humans, through a sort of roundabout time travel thing, but the point is they obviously were looking for a reason to stop teh war too or else they could have and would have just said, "Well...to bad about that soul thing" and kept going. Obviously Delen wasnt the only one who wanted to let the humans survive, and the news that Sinclair had a Membari soul/psychic signiture/whatever that triangle thing reacted to, was simply the way to get the Warrior Caste to agree. Just my interpetation, of course.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

I can only hope Jankowski was hung by his balls with piano wire (thank you, Hitler, for that idea), and it is a source of amazement to me that General Lefcourt was not fucked up the arse by hungry raptors for putting Jankowski in command.

Jankowski was killed in his apartment by an unknown group. Or he committed suicide. I haven't read the novel in a while. Either way, his head gets blow off. Not as good as being hung by the balls though.....
Though you are right about Leftcourt not being fucked. Knowingly putting an incompetent officer in charge of that kind of mission showed his own incompetency, and frankly should have been subjected to whatever punishment deemed appropriate. In the novel, Earth offered Jankowski as a peace offering to the Minbari. Maybe they would have accepted it if they offered someone higher in status.

Sure, Delenn felt shame for what happened... but she's just one person.

Well in defence of the level headed Minbari, there were a few scattered comments throughout the series which showed that more and more minbari opposed the war as it progressed, but were powerless to do anything. The xenophobic and genocidal minbari are the ones the series seem to highlight the most.

[Melkor]

In the Beginning wrote:

There was a note next to Jankowski's body. There was also a PPG which had slipped from Jankowski's lifeless hand. The note simply had three words: "On my head." Blackly ironic, one supposes, considering that the remains of Jankowski's head were rather difficult to come by after the PPG had blown off the top of it.

And the number of captains who had truly survived an encounter with the Minbari had, just that quickly, dropped to zero.

[Master of Ossus]

Going back to the OP, Earthforce would've been slaughtered, anyway. The scene in ItB where a small group of Earth Force ships is attacking a large group of Minbari cruisers really shows what they're up against. They simply have NO CHANCE. More cruisers will be damaged, and some might even be destroyed, but the outcome is never going to be in doubt.

[Jalinth]

Going back to the OP, Earthforce would've been slaughtered, anyway. The scene in ItB where a small group of Earth Force ships is attacking a large group of Minbari cruisers really shows what they're up against. They simply have NO CHANCE. More cruisers will be damaged, and some might even be destroyed, but the outcome is never going to be in doubt.

The President's speech pretty much said it all. The whole defense force was mere a speed bump to allow some more humans to flee. Without the deux ex machina produced, the human survivors would have been the anticipated zero.

Can't imagine what those star sailors were feeling. Very few situations have ever been so no hope - all you are doing is allowing more time for a few more lifeboats to slip away. All with the expectation that the enemy is barely going to be scratched even with your suicidal efforts.

[rommel17]

Considering the Flak I rechecked In the Beginning, the Novel and several key episodes to find where you guys were coming from. I did not get the answer till 3 hours ago when I was watching the In the Beginning with my friends house. His copy was the Orignal based off the novel, while mine was the special edition which was longer and based off the show. To go with the novel, you are all correct. The Minbari would have won anyway unless the brief positioning data was used to launch an immediate nuclear barrage to destroy both sides. However, in the show the battle is portrayed as in the Special edition, where 20,000 Nova Class Starfuries slingshot around the Moon to be met by the Minbari jumping less than 1 Kilometer away, though they could have closed to 120 meters needed to smash them all in the vortex opening. The Battle of the Line occurs within seconds as the Starfuries overshoot, braking and strafing as they go, the Sharlin Warcruisers and Nials. The Nials recovered and the Starfuries greater numbers cause them to get in each others way as the Nials hunted them down. This explains the Hero of the Line who saved the Minbari Fleet from destruction, the taking of other pilots and the time needed to process them till theyreached Earth, and Sheridan's telling of how he waited in Earth orbit for the Minbari to come after the Line to have point blank shots only to see the Minbari surrender. Now take the tech malfunction which gives the accelerating Starfuries the chance to correct their firing to hit the Nials and key weapons and sensors in the brief 10 second window. The battle would turned out vastly different, especially if the Grey Council was killed. Which case the Vorlons will either have to intercede, as in one Fanfiction 'A Dark, Distorted Mirror' by Gareth Williams on http://www.b5-dark-mirror.demon.co.uk// (highly recomended reading for die-hard Delenn/Sheridan people), to save Sinclair or become laughingstocks to the Shadows. It raises interesting questions which you can endlessly debate and scream for a long time, but now I shall and work on other projects and check this post in a few days.

[LapsedPacifist]

The novel was based off of the 94 minute movie and unless you can show some proof, there's only the one.

LP

[18-Till-I-Die]

I may be wrong, but i recall no special edition based on the show. I taped the original movie when it was first shown on TV, and it is what the others said as far as i can see.

[Quadlok]

I've got the DVD box set of the movies, and my version of ItB has no resemblance to the version you give.

[Lost Soal]

Considering the Flak I rechecked In the Beginning, the Novel and several key episodes to find where you guys were coming from. I did not get the answer till 3 hours ago when I was watching the In the Beginning with my friends house. His copy was the Orignal based off the novel, while mine was the special edition which was longer and based off the show.

There is more crap coming out of our mouth than a herd of horses asses.

The only TV movie which was ever re-edited was the Gathering And a simple search on Amazon shows that there's no such version. Further more at no point does Sheridan state that he "waited in Earth orbit for the Minbari to come after the Line to have point blank shots only to see the Minbari surrender." If he was their he would also have a medal from the Battle of the Line, which he doesn't.

[xerex]

rommel , just admit you made a faulty assumtion. This SDnet, in case you havent noticed, these guys take accuracy and evidence VERY seriously.

you need to post either an exact quote or a picture showing the numbers and tactics that you assert.