neoBSG vs. B5 aliens

[Alan Bolte]

It's apparent that nukes are deployed in battle: in the Black Star incident Sheridan starts by asking how many they have left, which obviously can't be from minelaying if that's a new idea. My speculation is that the Minbari would identify and target a bomber or missile before it got close enough to be dangerous, while allowing their fighters to clean up the fighters not carrying nukes. That starfuries aren't shot down from long range is more likely due to focussed fire on the capital craft than actual inability. Those things can't pull more than a few g to evade. You'd either have to put heavy radiation shielding on the missile while not making it look like a bigass fusion rocket, or put a nuke on every starfury, which is a lot of nukes. Against other races, nukes are a nice idea but largely unnecessary when you can just as easily have the capship destroy it with BVR lasers.

[Uraniun235]

There are nukes that can fit in a suitcase made with today's technology that would probably be able to at least severely hurt a B5 capital ship, probably cripple it if it hit in the right spot, even with the most generous (reasonable) estimates for armor strength.

Excuse me? Anything small enough to be man-portable is probably going to be sub-kiloton, or at most very low-kiloton, and it's not going to be "briefcase" sized. Not with current nuclear weapons technology, unless of course you've a link or two I can read up on.

[Nephtys]

It's apparent that nukes are deployed in battle: in the Black Star incident Sheridan starts by asking how many they have left, which obviously can't be from minelaying if that's a new idea. My speculation is that the Minbari would identify and target a bomber or missile before it got close enough to be dangerous, while allowing their fighters to clean up the fighters not carrying nukes. That starfuries aren't shot down from long range is more likely due to focussed fire on the capital craft than actual inability. Those things can't pull more than a few g to evade. You'd either have to put heavy radiation shielding on the missile while not making it look like a bigass fusion rocket, or put a nuke on every starfury, which is a lot of nukes. Against other races, nukes are a nice idea but largely unnecessary when you can just as easily have the capship destroy it with BVR lasers.

The nukes in question IIRC were planetary bombardment munitions. They weren't mounted on a missile so they had to be rigged as mines.

[Junghalli]

Excuse me? Anything small enough to be man-portable is probably going to be sub-kiloton, or at most very low-kiloton, and it's not going to be "briefcase" sized. Not with current nuclear weapons technology, unless of course you've a link or two I can read up on.

The W-54 SADM weighed about 23 kg and had the explosive power of about a kiloton. It was designed as a backpack carried unit for the US Army.
Of course, a properly modified Starfury (let alone a dedicated torpedo bomber) could easily carry much bigger warheads. Heck the 15-20 KT bombs the USN planned to use for its Katie shells are well within the realm of possibility (one of them could fit in a 700 mm shell), so long as you're not planning to carry more than one bomb per bomber. 15-20 KT is probably enough to do at least some not-insignificant damage to B5 capships: this isn't 40K we're talking about where armor soaks up ridiculous amounts of energy. Plus, of course, remember that B5 has had 200 years to make the warheads smaller.

It's apparent that nukes are deployed in battle: in the Black Star incident Sheridan starts by asking how many they have left, which obviously can't be from minelaying if that's a new idea. My speculation is that the Minbari would identify and target a bomber or missile before it got close enough to be dangerous, while allowing their fighters to clean up the fighters not carrying nukes. That starfuries aren't shot down from long range is more likely due to focussed fire on the capital craft than actual inability. Those things can't pull more than a few g to evade. You'd either have to put heavy radiation shielding on the missile while not making it look like a bigass fusion rocket, or put a nuke on every starfury, which is a lot of nukes. Against other races, nukes are a nice idea but largely unnecessary when you can just as easily have the capship destroy it with BVR lasers.

You're right about the Minbari but there's no way a fighter-type craft could fit an energy weapon capable of taking out a capship, but even with just twentieth century tech they can fit bombs capable of at least taking one out fairly quickly with a massed bomber attack. That's why I say it puzzles me we never see them used that way in the show (AFAIK).

[Winston Blake]

Excuse me? Anything small enough to be man-portable is probably going to be sub-kiloton, or at most very low-kiloton, and it's not going to be "briefcase" sized. Not with current nuclear weapons technology, unless of course you've a link or two I can read up on.

The W-54 SADM weighed about 23 kg and had the explosive power of about a kiloton. It was designed as a backpack carried unit for the US Army.
Of course, a properly modified Starfury (let alone a dedicated torpedo bomber) could easily carry much bigger warheads. Heck the 15-20 KT bombs the USN planned to use for its Katie shells are well within the realm of possibility (one of them could fit in a 700 mm shell), so long as you're not planning to carry more than one bomb per bomber. 15-20 KT is probably enough to do at least some not-insignificant damage to B5 capships: this isn't 40K we're talking about where armor soaks up ridiculous amounts of energy. Plus, of course, remember that B5 has had 200 years to make the warheads smaller.

There's been some confusion here, since Uraniun read 'briefcase' nuke, as in this patently ridiculous mock-up:


Realistically, the MADM had a dialable yield of up to 15 kt (ie Hiroshima-sized) , and was intended to be a nuclear landmine able to wipe out those darn Commie tank battalions.



This popular image is of a 15 kt nuclear 11-inch artillery shell:

The Mk-9 280 mm (11.02 inch) shell was 54.4 inches long, weighed 803 lb