White Star vs. SSV Normandy SR-1

[Balrog]

Don't think one of these has been done before, was curious to see who thinks which would win in a confrontation, a White Star from Babylon 5 or the SSV Normandy from the original Mass Effect game. Instead of being manned by named characters with plot shields both ships have generic, competent crews and captains who are aware of the capabilities of their opponent.

Consider first a situation where both start off aware and within weapons range of each other. The other is one where each start off on opposite sides a star system similar to ours, approximately along the orbital path of Jupiter, initially unaware of the other but actively looking for in order to destroy them.

[Starglider]

The White Star is ten times the displacement, heavily armed and armoured, has beam and plasma pulse weaponry with a range of several thousand km and carries four heavy fighters. As I recall Babylon 5 yield calcs are a little sketchy but the yield on the White Star weapons are definitely up in the hundred KT to MT range, with the ships surving hits from multi-megaton capship guns. SR1 is a lightly armed frigate with a focus on stealth. Its main weapon is a mass accelerator with a yield of about 20 KT (scaling from quoted firepower for human dreadnoughts). Both ship have shields, although I don't think we have an estimate on the Normandy's shield dissipation.

The Normandy would almost certainly be blown away in a stand-up fight, which should hardly be surprising when you are pitting a frigate optimised for intelligence gathering against a destroyer ten times its size. However if it doesn't start already in weapons range of the White Star, the Normandy should be able to just jump to FTL, leaving the White Star no way to track or intercept.

[bilateralrope]

Both ship have shields, although I don't think we have an estimate on the Normandy's shield dissipation.

ME shields only stop physical objects, they do nothing against energy. So the first question is if the Normandy's shields stop the White Star's weapons at all. Being hull hugging shields, they seem useless against plasma weapons because, while they will probably stop the superheated particles of the plasma, they do nothing against the heat.

However if it doesn't start already in weapons range of the White Star, the Normandy should be able to just jump to FTL, leaving the White Star no way to track or intercept.

Both ships have FTL they can activate quickly that the other can't follow, though the Normandy can go to FTL quicker.

One aspect of ship to ship combat in ME is that it doesn't happen unless both sides have something they want to fight over that they can't move. This matchup doesn't look like it will be an exception unless one of the ships quickly takes out the others FTL.

[Starglider]

Being hull hugging shields, they seem useless against plasma weapons because, while they will probably stop the superheated particles of the plasma, they do nothing against the heat.

I've seen this argument before and I have no idea where it comes from. Of course this would be useful because radiative heat transfer is much less effective than conductive transfer; both the peak heat flux and the total heat load exprienced by the hull would be much lower, because once stopped the plasma will very rapidly dissipate. That said even if the Normandy's shields are effective against the pulse guns, I doubt they will do much against the beam weapons on the White Star and its parasite fighters, considering how ineffective they were against the Collector particle beam. That weapon had a much lower apparent yield and still easily sliced up the SR1.

[bilateralrope]

That all depends on how far away the plasma is stopped by the shields. How thick are ME shields ?

I've been assuming that they are very thin, though I'm not exactly sure why.

[Starglider]

That all depends on how far away the plasma is stopped by the shields.

Even a one millimetre vacuum gap will mean at least an order of magnitude difference in heat transfer, because in a vacuum the plasma will expand so quickly that it will have minimal time to radiate heat into the hull.

How thick are ME shields ? I've been assuming that they are very thin, though I'm not exactly sure why.

In cutscenes, it seems to be a few cm from the armour for personal shields. I don't recall an equivalent scene for ship scale shielding.

[Lord Revan]

I would boil this down to four questions

1. Can the White Star detect the normandy while the stealth drive is active?
2. Can the Normandy target the White Star outside of visual range?
3. how does the White Star's weapons compare to the main weapon of the Collector ship? Which we know for a fact can easily beat the SR-1.
4. can the Normandy's weapons harm a White Star?

[Simon_Jester]

ME shields only stop physical objects, they do nothing against energy. So the first question is if the Normandy's shields stop the White Star's weapons at all. Being hull hugging shields, they seem useless against plasma weapons because, while they will probably stop the superheated particles of the plasma, they do nothing against the heat.

So?

If the thermal energy of a cloud of plasma or other particles were significant compared to the kinetic energy it carries from traveling in the 'forward' direction toward the target, then you wouldn't have a meaningful long range weapon at all. You'd have what Darth Wong called a "hot steam gun," a weapon whose shots would disperse into irrelevancy almost as soon as they left the muzzle.

So if a kinetic barrier can stop a solid block of iron coming at it, then it can stop a blob of iron plasma whose individual atoms just happen to have a few thousand meters per second of lateral velocity.

[Anacronian]

Question : Have anybody calculated the firepower of the Thanix cannons?
http://youtu.be/ROV6bmWDY1w?t=55s

CODEX : "Contrary to popular belief, Sovereign's main gun was not a directed-energy weapon. Rather, its massive element zero core powered an electromagnetic field suspending a liquid iron-uranium-tungsten alloy that shaped into armor-piercing projectiles when fired. The jet of molten metal, accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light, destroys targets by impact force and irresistible heat."

[Jub]

Question : Have anybody calculated the firepower of the Thanix cannons?
http://youtu.be/ROV6bmWDY1w?t=55s

Given that the game cut scenes aren't canon you really can't calculate from those so there isn't much point. Only the codex is canon when it comes to ME so you'd do better just to read that and see the numbers it can give.

[Anacronian]

Question : Have anybody calculated the firepower of the Thanix cannons?
http://youtu.be/ROV6bmWDY1w?t=55s

Given that the game cut scenes aren't canon you really can't calculate from those so there isn't much point. Only the codex is canon when it comes to ME so you'd do better just to read that and see the numbers it can give.

Sadley there ain't much to go on in the CODEX and the Thanix is only fired in cut scenes. :/

[Balrog]

The Thanix cannons were also only available for the SR-2, so they wouldn't be involved in this fight anyways, although if the consensus becomes that the SR-1 is simply too outclassed in this fight (besides turning tail and running) we can always switch them up and see how the Normandy's bigger brother does.

[bilateralrope]

Even a one millimetre vacuum gap will mean at least an order of magnitude difference in heat transfer, because in a vacuum the plasma will expand so quickly that it will have minimal time to radiate heat into the hull.

Fair enough. I wasn't expecting distance to have that large of an effect. Conceded.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Note: I make reference to sets of B5 calcs I have been working on for a while. If you want the math, I will post it. However they are very very preliminary and I only have the EA stuff, and some stuff the Narn Regime anywhere near done.

The White Star is ten times the displacement, heavily armed and armoured, has beam and plasma pulse weaponry with a range of several thousand km and carries four heavy fighters. As I recall Babylon 5 yield calcs are a little sketchy but the yield on the White Star weapons are definitely up in the hundred KT to MT range

To elaborate on this. I did the calculations myself a while back. The beam weapons on an EA destroyer, weapons a White Star's main armament out-classes considerably (given that minbari beam arrays can bisect EA ships fairly readily, and EA beams cannot do the same to their own ships) have yields in KT/sec range at the lowest possible volume of material melted, assuming aluminium. That is the lowest possible calculation that can be reached without resorting to malleable plastics being used for hull armor.

Calculated from this:

http://youtu.be/YYoCvgAAiQ8?t=2m52s

Assuming melting to partial vaporization of the most likely volume of material seen (again, assuming aluminium. The volume is variable because the geometry of the affected region is...not uniform, so the depth of penetration is in question) you end up somewhere between 9 and 100 kt/sec (depending on how much vaporization occurs).

Once you start getting into other materials (like Steel, Carbon composites, or Titanium alloys) the numbers get...bigger

And that is considerably less than what a white star can do.

ME shields only stop physical objects, they do nothing against energy. So the first question is if the Normandy's shields stop the White Star's weapons at all. Being hull hugging shields, they seem useless against plasma weapons because, while they will probably stop the superheated particles of the plasma, they do nothing against the heat.

The nature of Minbari beam weapons has never been made particularly clear.


............................

Now, I have not calculated the acceleration of a White Star, but it is better than a Starfury, and Starfuries can accelerate at 700 or more Gs (dont ask me how, without artificial gravity. They must have inertial dampening somehow. No, I dont know how.). So there is a real question as to whether or not the spinal mounted mass driver on the Normandy will ever connect with anything. I mean, a fractional C projectile targeting something with undergoing evasive maneuvers at hundreds of Gs? I dont think so.

I would boil this down to four questions
Can the White Star detect the normandy while the stealth drive is active?
Can the Normandy target the White Star outside of visual range?
how does the White Star's weapons compare to the main weapon of the Collector ship? Which we know for a fact can easily beat the SR-1.
can the Normandy's weapons harm a White Star?

1. What are the characteristics of the stealth drive? What does it mask, how long can it run?
2. how does their targeting system work?
3. What is the yield of that main weapon?
4. A mass driver can, because the White Star's shields dont work well against kinetic impactors. Hitting it however will be a problem, irrespective of whether or not the White Star can be targeted. Unless an SR1 is capable of closing the distance and keeping a spinal mount pointed at an enemy ship that can accelerate in the high hundreds to low thousands of Gs.

[Rekkon]

To elaborate on this. I did the calculations myself a while back. The beam weapons on an EA destroyer, weapons a White Star's main armament out-classes considerably (given that minbari beam arrays can bisect EA ships fairly readily, and EA beams cannot do the same to their own ships) have yields in KT/sec range at the lowest possible volume of material melted, assuming aluminium. That is the lowest possible calculation that can be reached without resorting to malleable plastics being used for hull armor.

We see Minbari beam weapons from Sharlins bisect EA ships, never from White Stars. If anything, the beam and pulse weaponry on Omegas appear roughly equivalent to those on White Stars, which is notable given the large difference in size. Reference all the EA civil war clips that have the two ships engaging directly.

[Alyrium Denryle]

To elaborate on this. I did the calculations myself a while back. The beam weapons on an EA destroyer, weapons a White Star's main armament out-classes considerably (given that minbari beam arrays can bisect EA ships fairly readily, and EA beams cannot do the same to their own ships) have yields in KT/sec range at the lowest possible volume of material melted, assuming aluminium. That is the lowest possible calculation that can be reached without resorting to malleable plastics being used for hull armor.

We see Minbari beam weapons from Sharlins bisect EA ships, never from White Stars. If anything, the beam and pulse weaponry on Omegas appear roughly equivalent to those on White Stars, which is notable given the large difference in size. Reference all the EA civil war clips that have the two ships engaging directly.

There is a slight problem with that. Namely, Minbari weapons definitely have a dialable output, and Sheridan was never after instakills. He wanted to beat those ships into submission so that the crews would survive if at all possible. I am still working through the calculations on the weapons of the various powers, so have admittedly not directly compared Sharlin beam arrays to the White Star beams.

[Balrog]

Not to derail my own thread, but 700g acceleration for Starfuries?

Anyways I don't think we ever see the beam cannon on a White Star slice through anything quite like the ones on a Sharlin does. The only thing comparable that comes to mind is when the original destroyed a Shadow Cruiser by itself, but that was with Lyta blocking it plus the jump engines disabled.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Not to derail my own thread, but 700g acceleration for Starfuries?

Anyways I don't think we ever see the beam cannon on a White Star slice through anything quite like the ones on a Sharlin does. The only thing comparable that comes to mind is when the original destroyed a Shadow Cruiser by itself, but that was with Lyta blocking it plus the jump engines disabled.

Yeah. 700 Gs, and that is conservative . Here, I will give you the math.

Visual Scaling
To scale objects, I will be using their angular size combined with official figures for things like ship length. I will make one assumption. That is that the field of view for CGI is constant. From there, I will scale from an object of known size and distance from the “camera lens”. Thankfully, there is a lovely scale drawing of a Aurora Class Starfury in the B5 security manual and a well established length of 9.92 meters.
This allows us to calculate the distance of a particular cockpit strut from the camera in Season 2, Episode 15. A .3 meter strut is located .9 meters from the camera. This puts the angular size of that strut at 18.925 degrees.





This puts the angular size for effect shots at 80 degrees.

The planet has a surface gravity of .75 Gs, or 7.132 m/sec2 . Now, there are a nearly infinite number of planetary configurations that will lead to that particular outcome, so lets make a simple assumption. Namely, that the density of the rocky planet that is Epsilon III is the same as that of earth. So, we take equation for planetary surface gravity

g=G*M/r^2
Substitute the density radius relationship in for Mass
g=G*4/3pi*r^3*d/r^2
rearrange
g/G*(4/3)pi=r^3*d/r^2
radius cancels
g/G*(4/3)pi=r*d
g/(G*(4/3)pi*d)=r

Solving this puts the planetary radius at 4627.66 km
Babylon 5 seems to be in a geosynchronous orbit because the planet does not evidently spin relative to it.
Therefore, we can consider the orbital distance fixed.
Now, we need a good external shot of the station. For that, we will use Season 2, Episode 22.. and an official blueprint for scaling purposes

We cannot use the length of B5 for scaling because it is off angle, so we will calibrate using the profile that is more stable at this viewing angle

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/ ... aedee3.jpg

<I cannot actually find the image I wanted to put here, I will have to edit it>

At an angle of 4 degrees and a size of 1.088 km, this section of the station is 15.578 km away from the camera, while the planet’s center at 54.54 degrees and a diameter of 8255.32 km, the planet’s center is 8007.5 km away, which puts the station 3364 km from the planet’s surface.

Season 2 Episode 22, when B5 launches fighters to protect a stricken narn ship, the fighters move toward epsilon 3. Now, the camera is moving with them to a certain extent, so these are conservative. I obtained the angular size of each starfury, and given that the size of each one is 17.9 meters across, I was able to determine that in the course of three frames a particular ship was 200.18, 215.89, and 238.95 meters from the camera viewpoint. This gives us two velocity figures (468.3 and 694.8 meters per second) that can be used to calculate acceleration. When this is done (I assume everyone here knows the equation), acceleration comes to 6.86 km/sec2 or about 699.9 Gs. Minimum, because the camera is moving with them at the time.

This one shows the path of one of the fighters.


Clearly, this is madness. We need to see cooboration on this because nearly 700 Gs without artificial gravity and inertial dampening is just not… No. Just No. This is the sort of acceleration one sees when you slam a Me 262 into the ground.

So, we will sanity check by using the same scene. The starfuries have to orbit Epsilon III in order to reach the Narn ship that is, at the closest distance, juuuust occluded from the station by the planet. It takes them about a minute to get there. I make this assumption because there is no narrative room for a lot of elapsed time, and that is what the chronometer tells me. I will work in a fudge factor as well. To simplify matters, I will assume that the narn ship is on the exact other side of the planet from the station at a 250 km orbital distance from the surface.
So, that means the starfuries have to travel down to a 250 km distance from the planet, the orbit it until they reach the other side. Easiest path is to go in diagonally and enter orbit, so I will assume that is what they do. To get the distance, we need to talk to Pythagoras. Side A of a right triangle is the orbital distance of B5 to the planet center. Side be is the planet center to narn orbit. Side C is 8770.83 km in length. The remaining distance is a defined as an arc equal to ¼ the circumference of a circle with a radius equal to 250 km+planet’s radius.
The total distance traveled is 21028.716 km, traveled in 1 minute. Assuming they decelerate at the halfway point, that gives 30 seconds to transit 10514.858 km. This puts acceleration at approximately 4768 Gs

*Taps foot. Frowns. Throws pieces of paper in the air and storms out*

700 Gs is bargain basement low end for the maximum acceleration. Close range combat acceleration is another matter entirely, but there you are still in the 30-60 G range. That is for high-density close distance knife fights where vectors have to change constantly, and everyone is limited by human reaction times. In open space with just two ships? Pfft. And I do have some preliminary combat range calculations that put engagement ranges when not near installations or bounded by the use of jumpgates near fixed targets in the high tens of thousands of KM for beam weapons, with accurate targeting (battle of Gorash 7)

[Imperial Overlord]

Alternatively we could be reasonable and say visuals for B5 are unreliable for calculations because time scales are compressed for storytelling purposes and VFX is done to impress the viewer not realistically represent the capabilities of the technologies in question (another example: lasers and particle beams are shown in cool colours instead of being invisible). Reason should prevail here, not headless conformity to visual effects where the technicians in question were required to create a cool scene, not crunch numbers.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Alternatively we could be reasonable and say visuals for B5 are unreliable for calculations because time scales are compressed for storytelling purposes and VFX is done to impress the viewer not realistically represent the capabilities of the technologies in question (another example: lasers and particle beams are shown in cool colours instead of being invisible). Reason should prevail here, not headless conformity to visual effects where the technicians in question were required to create a cool scene, not crunch numbers.

Generally I agree, but once you have accepted the premise of vs arguments in general, quantification is necessary.
For that, my general philosophy is to find as much data as I can and try to find the most reasonable explanation possible that squares the circle and fits the narrative.

If you think that is pointless, or you are unwilling to accept the very premise of vs arguments, that is fine. I am. Yes, it is objectively pointless. It is also fun for me, and lets me practice some of my secondary skills (video analysis, math, physics etc)

The visual distance between Babylon 5 is stable throughout the series, they dont change that, so we can generally take that range as it is intended. Any time compression has to make sense. The scene in question does not work if it is expanded out to include 10 minutes of the various characters sitting around with their thumbs up their ass. If we assume exactly that, we are still looking at sustained Starfury acceleration of something like 50 Gs (Epsilon III is still a planet, and B5 is still in a high orbit around that planet, and no matter what else, said Narn Ship was occluded from both the Jump Gate and Babylon 5 by said planet, being on the dark side thereof), which is more than a human can survive without inertial dampening. And if we do that, the narrative of the whole scene breaks down, because they then have to do that again to reach the Centauri warship while it is firing on both the Narn ship, and B5 itself. Babylon 5 has a pretty good defense grid, conceivably it might be able to take that until the defense grid overheats and a docking pylon gets severed. The Narn Cruiser cant. We know that because we see fully functional ships of the same class destroyed by much less than what that Centauri ship was tossing out.

So no matter what, you are looking at a few minutes, maximum, to traverse those distances, before SOD is broken. 4700 Gs is clearly insane, there is obviously SOME narrative time compression going on. 50 Gs does not work, because that expands the time compression too much for the narrative of other scenes to make any sense whatsoever. 700 Gs accomplishes both tasks (accounting for about 1.6 minutes of narrative time compression), ergo it makes the most sense of available options.

[Starglider]

Even when doing a rigorous analysis of the source, I am inclined to be more flexible about timings across multiple shots than anything that happens in a given shot. Editing can make a huge difference to the interpretation of even real-world documentary footage. Even if we pretend that the source footage for a show/movie is 'real', it has clearly been edited by someone to make a dramatically paced story.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Even when doing a rigorous analysis of the source, I am inclined to be more flexible about timings across multiple shots than anything that happens in a given shot. Editing can make a huge difference to the interpretation of even real-world documentary footage. Even if we pretend that the source footage for a show/movie is 'real', it has clearly been edited by someone to make a dramatically paced story.

Exactly. But when one accounts for editing, the degree of editing has to make sense. In this case, we have two scenes in which the same fighters have to transit the same (or approximately the same) distance. If it takes much longer than 2-3 minutes to do that (and they only started after weapons fire started being exchanged in the second scene) the Narn ship they were protecting would not have survived. That puts bounds on exactly how much the first shot could have been edited for time. We end up with a range of transit times between 1 and 3 minutes. Assuming 700 Gs from direct observation of angular size puts the time elapsed at 2.6 minutes, which falls within acceptable range.

[Imperial Overlord]

Throwing out scenes that are inconsistent with our understanding of the workings of technology is the only logical move. If something shows Starfuries accelerating 700gs then the scene is clearly wrong. We don't accept the planetary bombardment scene in "The Die is Cast" because of its problems (although we don't deny it would suck to be on a planetoid suffering bombardment from Trek capital ships) why should we accept that this scene as accurate if the math is grossly inconsistent with how Earthforce tech works?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Throwing out scenes that are inconsistent with our understanding of the workings of technology is the only logical move. If something shows Starfuries accelerating 700gs then the scene is clearly wrong. We don't accept the planetary bombardment scene in "The Die is Cast" because of its problems (although we don't deny it would suck to be on a planetoid suffering bombardment from Trek capital ships) why should we accept that this scene as accurate if the math is grossly inconsistent with how Earthforce tech works?

It actually is not grossly inconsistent. They have inertial dampeners. We have no idea how they work without stable artificial gravity, but they have them. Mentioned in comics (Shadows Past and Present: Against All Odds. And yes, it is a shuttle that has them), plus they are the only way an Omega Class Destroyer can work. If they did not have inertial dampeners, an Omega could not so much as pull a single G of forward acceleration without tossing their unrestrained freestanding crew all over the place (There is a reason theme park gravitrons accelerate riders to 3 Gs. Much less, and even though they experience G forces due to centrifugal force, they will fall and become a projectile thanks to the single G force of the earth's gravity). The turns on their axes we see them do would be impossible to achieve because the radial acceleration we see constantly (in pretty much every scene we see in which an Omega does any sort of maneuvering) would pulp the crew against the internal bulkheads.

[Imperial Overlord]

Haven't read the comics and don't care. Haven't read the novels and don't care. They aren't the issue. 700 gees is inconsistent with how things are presented in the series. B5 has a bunch of scenes where the visuals don't match how things work. We don't fret over how the scene with the destruction of the Black Star is problematic with the mentioned mines and how nukes work in space and we don't chew cud and decide 700g Star Furies must be a thing. We chuck the stuff that's obviously bad and move the fuck on.