Death Squadron in B5

[Highlord Laan]

Technologically, using the EA as the example, B5 has a few gems that might surprise even Imperials. Tachyon communications have already been mentioned. A secure FTL comm network isn't something to ignore, even when compared to holonet. It'd be another form of contact that's apparently both undetectable and easily encrypted. Imperial Intelligence at least would be interested.

Another is the Starfury. Yes, TIE's are much faster and almost certainly have harder hitting weapons, but even in B5 it's noted that the 'Fury is only out maneuvered by Vorlon and Shadow fighters, and hit's harder that any fighter of the younger races. It's an ingenious use of (again, to SW) comparatively primitive tech used to make a fighter that performs way above it's weight. I could see overconfident Imperial pilots being take by surprise a few times.

[Borgholio]

On TIEs vs Starfuries, it depends on if the TIEs have shields. Depending on which source you look at, TIE fighters may or may not have deflector shields. If they DO have shields, I can't see how a Starfury would be able to gain an advantage over it.

[Highlord Laan]

Oh, I don't think a Starfury would ever really have an advantage over even a unshielded TIE. Just that it's performance, in the right hands, would probably surprise a few pilots and give ideas to a few engineers. Like the TIE it's an unshileded fighter that relies on firepower and mobility to fight, and does so very well. The main difference being that the TIE went for overwhelming speed, while the EA Starfury relies on agility.

It's a little gem of engineering, not an equalizer.

[Batman]

The Starfury's 'who gives a damn which direction my ship is going,this is space, I'll point my guns where I want to' ability, while probably nowhere nearly enough to actually let a Starfury take out a TIE might possibly lead to somebody on the Imperial side thinking 'Why did we never try that?'

[Borgholio]

Possibly because nobody outside of the B-5 universe has ever heard of Newtonian physics.

[Crazedwraith]

You have to be an uber-special elite pilot like Corran Horn for the thought to even speculate about the merest possibility of crossing your mind in SW...

[Highlord Laan]

Also, if I remember correctly, I think JMS's design teams state that the bigass oblong holes in the front of an Omega destoryer are meant for launching planetary siege/area denial weapons to the tune of gigaton range nuclear mines/warheads. The foreward weapons turrets on the side of the hammerhead are actually supposed to be the secondary armaments, with the primary being those launchers, a array of heavy plasma cannons, and missile launchers in banks of 72 on each side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-class_destroyer

That's part of why I love the Earth Alliance Navy so much. They're an eclectic mix of the super advanced technobabble that's long been a staple of sci-fix mixed with stuff that actually makes sense. Imperial vessels are still magnitudes more advanced and powerful, of course.

[Batman]

If Omegas routinely carry GT level warheads one wonders why the 500MT bombs G'Kar got for the fight against the Shadows were such a big deal.

[Highlord Laan]

If Omegas routinely carry GT level warheads one wonders why the 500MT bombs G'Kar got for the fight against the Shadows were such a big deal.

GT-range is pretty much the max-end of what the younger races can pull off. The Vorlons, Shadows and First Ones can do much more. And 500mt is hardly small. they're probably heavy antiship weapons that are heavily restricted, which would explain why G'kar being even able to get them would cause a stir.

[Borgholio]

I think they were SUPPOSED to carry 1gt warheads but that was just in the backstory. We never hear of them nor see them anywhere during the series or any of the movies. Most likely in-universe, the largest weapons carried by an Omega are probably no greater than 500mt, which makes a few dozen of those bombs on the station something worth mentioning.

[Highlord Laan]

I think they were SUPPOSED to carry 1gt warheads but that was just in the backstory. We never hear of them nor see them anywhere during the series or any of the movies. Most likely in-universe, the largest weapons carried by an Omega are probably no greater than 500mt, which makes a few dozen of those bombs on the station something worth mentioning.

Makes sense. GT range weapons sound cool, until it gets explained just how much destructive power that actually is, and how absurd and frightening warfare using it as the standard would be.

All told though, Omegas are credited in B5 material as being some of the most powerful warships built by the younger races. By 2260 they can detect even Minbari Sharlins, and have the firepower to fight them. Maybe not one on one (until the Warlock) but a pair of Omegas are stated by word of god to be more than a match for anything else out there barring Vorlon/Shadow/First One vessels. Like all Human ships they're big, ugly and inefficient compared to pretty much everyone, as human tech isn't as advanced. So Earthforce designers accepted that and went for raw power.

I think the Admech would like them.

[Simon_Jester]

I am not familiar with Babylon Five, but... perhaps the gigaton bombs on the Omegas are weapons not suitable for launching against a mobile, maneuverable target like Shadow ships? If they're designed for "planetary siege and area denial," then maybe they are literally just a scaled up, ten-times-bigger version of Tsar Bomba with no significant ability to maneuver, guide itself after an evading target, or otherwise do anything but "float over here and blow up."

In which case they'd be hopelessly inadequate against something like a Shadow battlecrab, which is clearly a pretty mobile threat. Even if they have the firepower to do damage they'd never hit.

[Highlord Laan]

Correct. They're GT-range nuclear mines, like the ones used by Sheriden to take out the Trigati in the Earth-Minbari war. A crafty captain could get some very good use out of them, but against any mobile foe they'd be almost useless unless there was time to prep the battlefield.

[Batman]

The problem is the 500MT bombs everybody was so damned impressed by were used as mines

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

This is actually the first I've heard of them; watched the series, bought the DVDs, never bought the T-shirt (I'm allergic to logos these days), played the games- was one of the playtest group for Mongoose's A Call to Arms in fact, when they still had the license (they ignored our recommendations- at first, only to realise everything we had been telling them made sense and do it our way for second edition-mostly); Omegas have never been portrayed as missile ships. This is the first I've heard of that claim. I can't say for certain but I doubt it appears anywhere else in the B5 EU.

The Novas they descend from have the same front end- and it's never mentioned there either. There are a few variants of the Nova, including my personal favourite the testbed outfitted with Dilgar bolters and pulsers, and certainly missile, railgun and laser variant Hyperions, but this sounds to me like something (like the minelayers on the back end of the Imperator class) that was proposed in, but never made it out of, pre- production. Not sure how much credence to give it.

Forward ejecting mine tubes, too... not as bad an idea in space as it is anywhere else, admittedly, but even so. Low grade planetary engineering, asteroid demolition, moon moving- if the thing isn't required to function as a warhead, isn't stressed, it should be feasible, "when one merely wishes to bury bombs there can be no limit to their size", after all- but that doesn't make them a practical weapon any more than ramming someone with a railway wagon full of gelignite is a good idea.

Speaking of ramming, or even for that matter of sailing in close formation, I'd be a lot more nervous of doing either with a ship carrying a clutch of half gigaton heads, although they really should be the White Stars' primary weapon. Why strafe when you can bomb? Skindance, release mine, fly away, watch fireworks.

Obviously they have something of the kind- where else did Sheridan get holds of the devices to use on the Drala Fi, come to think of it- but they don't routinely fire nuclear warheads at all. In fact I get the impression that apart from demolition work, and fighter ordnance that has as much to do with gropo support as ship combat, most younger race's missiles simply thrust slowly enough that the fight would likely be over before a missile could reach its' target. It's all energy guns.

Oh, one odd playtest note on the EA navy; it suffers extremely badly from inflation. The ships get bigger and the costs get higher, and the total deliverable firepower actually goes down- to the extent that a Dilgar War era EA fleet will hand a post Shadow War EA fleet of equal priority value it's head nine and a half times out of ten. So much for progress.

[Simon_Jester]

What could be motivating the increased size, then? Survivability- but that would show up as greater resistance to the older ships' firepower.

[Darth Nostril]

Just re-watched In The Beginning, Sheridan kills the Black Star with a pair of 2 MT warheads bolted to some asteroids. There's more out there but the Minbari flagship only moves into range of two of them. Still more than enough for total destruction of the Black Star.

That is why the 500 MT devices G'Kar procured are so damned important. Fuck unsubstantiated EU references.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Most of the ships in the series seem to suffer from Stormtrooperitis- for all the metres thick armour shells, you very rarely see anyone other than a main character's ride withstand much in the way of punishment at all. Broken bits of ships, almost certainly mission kill and probably CTL, drift across the camera from time to time, and without plot shields firepower seems to beat defence every time, and by a large margin.

Bigger longer ranged guns that let you get the first shot off are an obvious good idea, but the EA's brains seem to overheat at this point and they chase the idea past the point of diminishing returns; heavy long guns- look at the physical size of the Warlock's spinal mount- that have essentially tiny traverse, being structurally mounted, and take up a lot of the space and power that would otherwise go on close range batteries, what the EA used to be good at.

I'm reading a book on trireme warfare at the moment, so apologies for the overly specific analogy, but almost any damn' fool can run alongside and board; attacking with marines requires just enough skill to bump into something. The ram on the other hand needs skill to manoeuvre well enough to get them without them getting you, you have to be good to make it work- but if you are, then you can reap a frighteningly large harvest of said damn' fools.

The EA's a bit like that. Goes from close range, all round medium firepower to long range, narrow arc that requires much greater skill to be effective with- and this after most of their best are neutron laser toast thanks to more advanced, long range broad arc Minbari weapons. The heavy armoured shells that slow the ships down and make it harder for them to actually manoeuvre well enough to fight just get thicker, too, which doesn't actually help.

Footwork and getting them before they get you are better than heavy protective shells, and the older EA ships- usually the lighter ones, to be honest, Artemis and Olympus and Sagittarius and Oracle and Hermes classes- can usually move and dodge and get into their gun range long before the Omegas and Warlocks can drop enough of them to matter. Wolfpack tactics pay off, close to your own tech level.

For the Centauri example, look at the poor bloody Primus- heavy pulse cannon, lot of firepower, one seems to do enough damage to the station to have them seriously worried, it takes four earthforce ships to do the same- but when do we ever actually see a Primus win a fight? They can't take punishment at all; well armed eggshells. Vorchan are much more lethal in practise, despite being less well armed even in proportion.

[NecronLord]

For what it's worth, the Gigaton Omegas aren't 'EU nonsense' they're 'One person's intention who wasn't the writer.' The brief he was given when designing the Omega was for it to be a rolling wagon of death, and he intended it to have the giant gigaton guns on the front, banks of missiles along the sides, and to deploy its starfuries centrifugally like B5 itself did.

He also tried to get the engine to point the way required to turn a ship with a large rotating mass in reality:

Originally the engine section was a complex gimballed affair because when turning a large centrifugal mass the turning thrust axis is not intuitive. For example if the centrifuge is rotating clockwise, to turn the ship to port the thrusters should be pointing down thrusting upwards.

All this would have made a much more logical ship, but none of it actually happened, because they changed effects house before we really got to see Omegas fight, and therefore it isn't part of the show.

Learn more from B5 Scrolls these pages discussing Paul Bryant's original intentions This page discusses the armament.

But in simplistic terms, it's not canon at all.

[starfury]

Bigger longer ranged guns that let you get the first shot off are an obvious good idea, but the EA's brains seem to overheat at this point and they chase the idea past the point of diminishing returns; heavy long guns- look at the physical size of the Warlock's spinal mount- that have essentially tiny traverse, being structurally mounted, and take up a lot of the space and power that would otherwise go on close range batteries, what the EA used to be good at.

I read on the mongoose forums, referred to them as boresight and it really crippled the heavy EA ships, compared to the frontal arc minbari Sharlin who had equal or comparable firepower but can actually use it, not to mention their stealth/jammer in the game terms, made them the only power in which allowed their sharlin formations to stay competitive vs packs of smaller ships.

For the Centauri example, look at the poor bloody Primus- heavy pulse cannon, lot of firepower, one seems to do enough damage to the station to have them seriously worried, it takes four earthforce ships to do the same- but when do we ever actually see a Primus win a fight? They can't take punishment at all; well armed eggshells. Vorchan are much more lethal in practise, despite being less well armed even in proportion.

The Centuari on the forums are really regarded as the best all around fleet, and really seemed designed to take advantage of the whole wolf pack mentality of the game, with their large selection of lighter ships, amusing enough they also have the closest thing to a ISD ripoff, the Mightly Octurion Battleship, the largest regular warship in the game, a real monster it pretty much dwarfed every other large warship and acts nicely as center for swarms of centuari lighter units, they actually seem the odd man out, preferring walls of puluse weapons on the second edition over the beam spam that seem to form the Iconic weapons of the both the EA/minbari/Narn.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Yes, I'm not sure they ever got the balance right really; the second edition was closer to what appeared on screen, in some ways, but it discombobulated the hell out of the Centauri, who lost almost all their edge, became the sort of shambling wrecks you might expect from a dying, collapsing empire.

In first ed with all the revisions, Narn versus Centauri was almost a guaranteed Centauri victory; the Narn are about as heavy on the boresights as late EA, but there are usually enough of them, they have them sufficiently well mastered and miniaturised to almost do wolfpack tactics with medium-small ships with spinal mounts. Almost. They're a mid range fleet really, outranged and outrun by their old enemies.

Again, we have to wonder how well the game reflects the show here, because the Centauri are indeed extremely strong in the middle weight classes, ship types like the Salust, Praetor, Maximus- heavy on the roman themes here- which we never actually saw on television; it's almost all Primuses and Vorchans, and the vorchans at least were so very much weaker on the table than on the show that hardly anyone bothered with them.

It was not hard to stack a Centauri fleet with enough firepower, largely by avoiding the well known and iconic types, to drop almost any opponent through raw zap before they could do much to you. Not so much wolfpack as pride of sabertooth tigers. Which isn't necessarily accurate to the TV series, is it?

problem is that they are not only the ideal fleet for a beginner to learn with, they just get more dangerous as you get better with them and pick up the tricks and tactics of the game along the way. Realistically you don't want to give your opponent a fair, or indeed any chance at all, but the problem is a lot of the time that's exactly what the Centauri fleet does.

The Drazi, now, seemed to have made a conscious choice to avoid subtlety, designing small ships which were very heavy on fixed forwards firepower and well armed for their class, but they don't have enough technological variety in the fleet for variety in their tactics; they basically fly like WWII fighters. Historically they and the EA made a good team against the Dilgar, and I can just about see that.

The Dilgar, essentially, are the other spectacularly overgunned fleet in ACtA; I was banned from playing them and the Centauri at my almost-local games club, because the things you can do with a well handled squadron of Targrath strike cruisers are just icky. You can beat EA Novas at their own game- kriffit, you can practically shred them- on a much faster and more agile hull; running with the wolves and stomping with the elephants is quite a combination. They lost that war, but they must have won almost all of the battles along the way.

On the whole I don't think the game mechanics reflect the supposed 'reality' of the universe well enough to lean that heavily on; maybe you can draw proportional conclusions, this is faster than that, these are zappier than those, them are techier than thou, so forth.

[starfury]

The game was also a Minbari vs EA bloodbath, even accounting for tech difference in particular as the heavy ship mentality of the EA but without the jamming of the minbari made them idea targets for minbari Sharlins to blow out of the sky, while the EA fighter spam was easily countered by superior minbari fighters, the narn actually had a easier time fighting minbari then EA, shoving E-mines down the minbari throat, and just soaking up minbari firepower, unlike the EA who seemed moronic enough to play the minbari game of heavy ships without the minbari tech to really make it work.

[cmdrjones]

Additional question: I am working on the initial encounter between the B5 races and the Death Squadron. I have a Soul Hunter approaching the Death squadron while they are still disoriented and freaking out due to the transition, and he has an encounter with some of the Imperial Characters after boarding a stardestroyer. Of course, the encounter goes awry rather quickly and he has to flee. My question is, how does this ship:
http://b5tech.com/oldb5tech/miscracesgr ... rship.html

stack up against say standard TIE fighters?

This is more of a shielding and maneuverability/acceleration question rather than firepower. I am not sure the Soul Hunter scout could even hurt SW fighter craft.

[Esquire]

A TIE accelerates just over twenty times as fast - 40.2 km/s/s, compared with the scout ship's 2. There's absolutely no way the Soul Hunter could plausibly escape in his scout ship.

[cmdrjones]

Oh, he's not going to "get away" he just has to be able to survive a hit or two from a TIE. The Imperials at this stage aren't at their best so to speak.