A Battlestar Navy.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 12:30am

So, if you go by the dialouge, the Colonial Fleet is 200 Battlestars. My question is how do you reconsile such a fleet. Why would the Colonial's go for a one ship type navy?

The Battlestar is basically a assualt carrier. According to this site (which I don't know if it's cannon) but it claim the Galactic would hold two squadrons of 20 Vipers.

If you look at the port or starboard 'nacel' each of the things have 40 launch tube per side. Now if the total of the Battlestars complement of Vipers were 40, then she could launch her whole complement in one batch, plus if you look at the whole size of the port and starboard 'carriers' plus the total size of a Battlestar, then only 40 fighters is really a small number. You could easily imagine atleast 40 per side.

Why would you invest in such a large ship for such a small fighter complement? And why the Viper? The Viper itself seems a caplebale interceptor (I'm Amercian so I've only seen the mini series and three episodes) but a poor anything else. It's really not big enough to carry a shit load of ordance, plus it's onboard weapon systems are not too powerful. I know they destroyed the Olypic Carrier but she was an unarmored civilian ship.

To warrent such a large 'carrier' to carry such small and impotent fighters, what would be the reason? There is no 'super weapon' on the Galactica. Carring uber nukes doesn't need such a huge ship. Why the size with the reletive lack of potency? Why would the colonials make a fleet such as. Why not destroyers? Cruisers? ect....

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-23 12:59am

That site has weird numbers that were probably based on conjecture and vague backstage information. You can probably assume that a Battlestar has at least one Viper for each of its launch tubes.

I don't know why the Colonial Navy built a pure-carrier force, but the Cylons use the same style so it couldn't be too hurtful.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2005-01-23 01:00am

Perhaps they were designed more with the idea of carrying large amounts of troops, munitions, and provisions, and the "carrier" nacelles were a later add-on? That's the only thing I can come up with atm...

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-23 01:06am

Elheru Aran wrote:Perhaps they were designed more with the idea of carrying large amounts of troops, munitions, and provisions, and the "carrier" nacelles were a later add-on? That's the only thing I can come up with atm...

Very implausable, as both onscreen and real life evidence points to battlestars always having landing bays.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 01:07am

StarshipTitanic wrote:That site has weird numbers that were probably based on conjecture and vague backstage information. You can probably assume that a Battlestar has at least one Viper for each of its launch tubes.

Even if you assume that each tube = a viper, thats still alot of ship/fighter. Look at a modern day Carrier, where it is roughly the size of the 'nacells' and carry's three time the craft. A Battlestar could easily carry at the mininum of four squadrons of 20.

I don't know why the Colonial Navy built a pure-carrier force, but the Cylons use the same style so it couldn't be too hurtful.

Well, did the Cylons build the 'original' Basestars or did the Colonies? The modern ones are 'carriers' too but seem to incoperate a heavy cruiser capacity in that it has serious anti ship weapons.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2005-01-23 01:10am

Maybe the doctrine is to have ships able to function alone for extended periods of time, without any support?

The Water espoide seems to back that up a little. It's also possible that they fell victum to the the "big gun" doctrine, where it's better to have the biggest, nastiest ships possible no matter what.

Or they expected fighters to fulfill the escort role. Which is possible if not very wise, I mean you lose the carrier your whole assualt force is screwed has you put all your eggs in one basket.

The Galatica could also be undergunned, after all it was about to be decommissioned.

On the flip side, these guys went out of their way to make their military more open to Cylon attack, military geniuses, they are not.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-23 01:12am

Knife wrote:Even if you assume that each tube = a viper, thats still alot of ship/fighter. Look at a modern day Carrier, where it is roughly the size of the 'nacells' and carry's three time the craft. A Battlestar could easily carry at the mininum of four squadrons of 20.

I agree, the battlestars in both series never really understood how many weapons ships of their size should have. Perhaps normal battlestars did hold that complement, but we'll probably never know.

SCVN 2812 · Post by **SCVN 2812** » 2005-01-23 01:18am

Presumably the Columbia-class Battlestars and whatever newer classes they have, have anti-ship combat ability since the ordinance a Viper is capable of carrying doesn't seem up to the task. Vipers are capable of carrying at least two small missiles. Galactica's problem is that they don't have many warheads so they are not to be used lightly.

Galactica also has the heavier grade of rail gun that according to the BSG Lowdown, can be used to punch through ship hulls. So at the very least the Columbia-class would normally have missiles backed up by rail guns for WWII style broadside combat.

The Cylon Basestars in the miniseries didn't seem to take any significant damage from Galactica's heavy guns though the strategy for those guns may be something like the death of a thousand pin pricks delivered over time. The heavy guns may be back up weapon in case in some outlandish scenario combat is not resolved before a Battlestar runs out of missiles like the guns on modern warships. One ship can destroy another with sustained fire from a handful of 5 inch guns but it may take a while barring a hit on something volatile.

Galactica's gunners likely had no clue what to shoot at, having only badly outdated info on Cylon technology and design philosophy. So no spectacular critical hits on the Base Stars, just a lot of holes that wouldn't be seen with the lighting and resolution of the battle.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 01:18am

StarshipTitanic wrote:
I agree, the battlestars in both series never really understood how many weapons ships of their size should have. Perhaps normal battlestars did hold that complement, but we'll probably never know.

Even pushing things, you can imagine a four squadron to 'nacell' or more. That's ~80 fighters per 'bay' and a total of 160. More than a wing. Which would make more sense.

With such a large fighter complement, I can see the ~64 medium guns the Battlestar sports. She's suppost to have a couple 'heavy' weapons but even still....

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-23 01:20am

SCVN 2812 wrote:The Cylon Basestars in the miniseries didn't seem to take any significant damage from Galactica's heavy guns though the strategy for those guns may be something like the death of a thousand pin pricks delivered over time. The heavy guns may be back up weapon in case in some outlandish scenario combat is not resolved before a Battlestar runs out of missiles like the guns on modern warships. One ship can destroy another with sustained fire from a handful of 5 inch guns but it may take a while barring a hit on something volatile.

Columbia-class? Where did you see that?

The heavy cannons in the pilot were firing flak rounds to kill fighters and missiles from the basestar. I doubt the Galactica was trying very hard to knock out the basestar, just keep it at bay.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 01:22am

SCVN 2812 wrote:Presumably the Columbia-class Battlestars and whatever newer classes they have, have anti-ship combat ability since the ordinance a Viper is capable of carrying doesn't seem up to the task. Vipers are capable of carrying at least two small missiles. Galactica's problem is that they don't have many warheads so they are not to be used lightly.

Which is the point. Why have a 'carrier' you primary and only ship class when the auxillary craft are uncapable of delievering a reasonable threat to the enemy capships?

Galactica also has the heavier grade of rail gun that according to the BSG Lowdown, can be used to punch through ship hulls. So at the very least the Columbia-class would normally have missiles backed up by rail guns for WWII style broadside combat.

The Cylon Basestars in the miniseries didn't seem to take any significant damage from Galactica's heavy guns though the strategy for those guns may be something like the death of a thousand pin pricks delivered over time. The heavy guns may be back up weapon in case in some outlandish scenario combat is not resolved before a Battlestar runs out of missiles like the guns on modern warships. One ship can destroy another with sustained fire from a handful of 5 inch guns but it may take a while barring a hit on something volatile.

Galactica's gunners likely had no clue what to shoot at, having only badly outdated info on Cylon technology and design philosophy. So no spectacular critical hits on the Base Stars, just a lot of holes that wouldn't be seen with the lighting and resolution of the battle.

Which calls into question why they have the 'carrier' capacity?

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-23 01:25am

Knife wrote:She's suppost to have a couple 'heavy' weapons but even still....

I think those merely refer to the typical heavy cannon emplacements that are on the hull. There's no evidence of any other weapon type.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2005-01-23 01:27am

I gotta point out that it's very possible that they flat out underestimated Cylon capability. We know they were shocked at how easy the take over was for the Cylons. Maybe they honestly thought the Vipers were enough to take out a Cylon ship.

However if this is so, then their designers and planners should be shot.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 01:29am

StarshipTitanic wrote:
Knife wrote:She's suppost to have a couple 'heavy' weapons but even still....
I think those merely refer to the typical heavy cannon emplacements that are on the hull. There's no evidence of any other weapon type.

Except for the 'Five' nukes aboard. Going by the heavy showing of the Cylon nukes, I think the intention of the writters is that the 'nukes' on the Galactica are the same type (more or less) as the Cylon anti capship nukes.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-23 01:30am

frigidmagi wrote:I gotta point out that it's very possible that they flat out underestimated Cylon capability. We know they were shocked at how easy the take over was for the Cylons. Maybe they honestly thought the Vipers were enough to take out a Cylon ship.

They were shocked at the reports of massive equipment failure and the huge losses that resulted. At the end of the Pilot, Adama warns the pilots to leave the basestar to the Galactica. That's a fairly strong indication that fighters aren't intended to go against capital ships.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2005-01-23 01:44am

StarshipTitanic wrote:
frigidmagi wrote:I gotta point out that it's very possible that they flat out underestimated Cylon capability. We know they were shocked at how easy the take over was for the Cylons. Maybe they honestly thought the Vipers were enough to take out a Cylon ship.
They were shocked at the reports of massive equipment failure and the huge losses that resulted. At the end of the Pilot, Adama warns the pilots to leave the basestar to the Galactica. That's a fairly strong indication that fighters aren't intended to go against capital ships.

One other problem is whether the "new" battlestars had fundamentally different capabilities - more anti-ship weaponry. The Galaxica is essentailly a relic of the last war where fighters may have been the only real weapon. Its like stating that a WWI dreadnought was a useless ship by WWII standards - different wars need different weapon platforms.

So we don't know if the designers were idiots or simply the Galactica was never fully refitted for modern doctrines above some modest cap-ship missile capacity before being almost retired. Given it was the very last ship of an antique class, I wonder how diligent any retrofitting would be.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 01:53am

Jalinth wrote:
They were shocked at the reports of massive equipment failure and the huge losses that resulted. At the end of the Pilot, Adama warns the pilots to leave the basestar to the Galactica. That's a fairly strong indication that fighters aren't intended to go against capital ships.

One other problem is whether the "new" battlestars had fundamentally different capabilities - more anti-ship weaponry. The Galaxica is essentailly a relic of the last war where fighters may have been the only real weapon. Its like stating that a WWI dreadnought was a useless ship by WWII standards - different wars need different weapon platforms.

So we don't know if the designers were idiots or simply the Galactica was never fully refitted for modern doctrines above some modest cap-ship missile capacity before being almost retired. Given it was the very last ship of an antique class, I wonder how diligent any retrofitting would be.[/quote]

Thats assuming that the only possible threat to the Colonies is the Cylons and that some time durring the last ~40 years, the Galactica wasn't 'upgraded' or 'refitted'. If the Cylons were in deed the only threat to the Colonies, then your theory makes sense, but to have a ship in the fleet for ~50 years and not upgrade her for current threats seems weird.

SCVN 2812 · Post by **SCVN 2812** » 2005-01-23 02:34am

Knife wrote:
SCVN 2812 wrote:Presumably the Columbia-class Battlestars and whatever newer classes they have, have anti-ship combat ability since the ordinance a Viper is capable of carrying doesn't seem up to the task. Vipers are capable of carrying at least two small missiles. Galactica's problem is that they don't have many warheads so they are not to be used lightly.
Which is the point. Why have a 'carrier' you primary and only ship class when the auxillary craft are uncapable of delievering a reasonable threat to the enemy capships?

Fighters have already been demonstrated to be able to carry tactical nuclear weapons that can inflict not too inconsiderable damage to a ship. And even with the walls of lead that Galactica is capable of spitting out, its by no means a fool proof means of protecting the ship from attack by nuclear armed fighters or by anti-ship missiles.

Its also a means of power projection, the Battlestar can send out patrols to enhance its awareness of space around it as well as to launch surgical strikes that the ships' bulk would hinder it. A few dozen relatively tiny fighters can go unnoticed if they play their cards right, a 2000 meter assault carrier is another story entirely. Plus, Vipers are presumably not completely ineffectual against capital ships - under the right circumstances. They do have the ability to carry at least two small missiles, the conventional warheads would be probably just be useful in strikes on subsystems (sublight propulsion, weapon bays, sensor arrays ect) while nuclear warheads could be used in quantity to cripple or destroy a hostile capital ship.

The only problem is, is that as far as we know right now, Galactica may not have any Viper nukes as it has yet to be put into a position where destroying a Base Star would achieve an objective that would offset the cost of the almost certainly high losses in irreplaceable Vipers. Which as mentioned above, are useful as escorts for Raptors, surgical strikes and defense against enemy fighters.

Galactica also has the heavier grade of rail gun that according to the BSG Lowdown, can be used to punch through ship hulls. So at the very least the Columbia-class would normally have missiles backed up by rail guns for WWII style broadside combat.

The Cylon Basestars in the miniseries didn't seem to take any significant damage from Galactica's heavy guns though the strategy for those guns may be something like the death of a thousand pin pricks delivered over time. The heavy guns may be back up weapon in case in some outlandish scenario combat is not resolved before a Battlestar runs out of missiles like the guns on modern warships. One ship can destroy another with sustained fire from a handful of 5 inch guns but it may take a while barring a hit on something volatile.

Galactica's gunners likely had no clue what to shoot at, having only badly outdated info on Cylon technology and design philosophy. So no spectacular critical hits on the Base Stars, just a lot of holes that wouldn't be seen with the lighting and resolution of the battle.

Which calls into question why they have the 'carrier' capacity?

As useful as being able to put up a wall of lead to discourage Cylon Raiders from launching missiles at vulnerable external targets on a Battlestar's hull is, its not 100% effective. The Vipers give the Battlestar a second layer of defense against bombing runs.

While the cannons of Cylon Raiders and Colonial Vipers are obviously not up to the job of doing any real damage to major capital ships, they are still quite effective against softer targets like civilian ships and Raptors. By necessity, Raptors would probably often operate just on the edge or even well outside of the sensor range of a Battlestar where they would be extremely vulnerable to a sudden attack. It takes several seconds at least to plot and execute an FTL jump, precious seconds that matter when under attack.

From the Cylon perspective, Raptors and their war era equivalents would be obvious targets since things in a fight tend to go a lot better if you knock out your enemy's eyes and ears first. For Raptor killing, a Base Star is like trying to kill a fly with a sledge hammer. It lacks precision, a few Raiders can pop a Raptor with missiles or riddle it with bullets and be much more able to execute a suprise attack having a considerably smaller sensor profile than a Base Star would giving the Raptor much less time to get a good sensor sweep of the enemy force and rev up its FTL drive. But you still need the Base Star to provide support to the Raiders since it has the big anti-ship missiles needed to efficiently clean the clock of a capital ship while for the Raiders alone its a race against attrition, attempting to deliver as many missiles as possible before they are slowly massacred by the point defense guns and Vipers.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-23 02:42am

SCVN 2812 wrote:
Fighters have already been demonstrated to be able to carry tactical nuclear weapons that can inflict not too inconsiderable damage to a ship. And even with the walls of lead that Galactica is capable of spitting out, its by no means a fool proof means of protecting the ship from attack by nuclear armed fighters or by anti-ship missiles.

The only nukes from fighters seen so far *American series is behind UK* is Cylon nukes. A Basestar nuke hit the Galactica (or was it a figher launched?) and the Galactica absorbed the attack. For such a large ship with realitively few fighters who can deliever such things, does not make sense.

Its also a means of power projection, the Battlestar can send out patrols to enhance its awareness of space around it as well as to launch surgical strikes that the ships' bulk would hinder it. A few dozen relatively tiny fighters can go unnoticed if they play their cards right, a 2000 meter assault carrier is another story entirely. Plus, Vipers are presumably not completely ineffectual against capital ships - under the right circumstances. They do have the ability to carry at least two small missiles, the conventional warheads would be probably just be useful in strikes on subsystems (sublight propulsion, weapon bays, sensor arrays ect) while nuclear warheads could be used in quantity to cripple or destroy a hostile capital ship.

quote]

The sheer size of the Battlestar in comparison to the 'seen' fighter complement doesn't really say 'power projection'. Too much ship to too little fighters.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2005-01-23 01:57pm

Knife wrote: The sheer size of the Battlestar in comparison to the 'seen' fighter complement doesn't really say 'power projection'. Too much ship to too little fighters.

Given the 2nd episode (the one with the water loss) - it sounds like the old battlestars have very significant storage capacity - they hold massive amounts of water, and apparently have near-100% recycling capabilities. So maybe the size has more to do with these other functions than pure military. Useful where "auxiliary" ships don't exist. Why they don't exist is a good question - I can understand the recycling issues (to allow for long patrols w/o risking vulnerable), but ammunition ships are at a minimum needed to replenish expended arms.

Also, the fighter complement is at best half strength. Galactica's main fighter wing was lost in the mini-series due to Cylon electronic warfare. So the Galactica can obviously take at least two wings of fighters - possibly more - since the second launch bay was converted into a museum (assuming minimum one wing per bay). The galactic seems to have about a squadron - squadron and a half - left at most.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-01-23 02:20pm

Much like Star Wars' ISDs and Stargate's Ha'taks, the producers like having one model that does for all ships with a few tweaks. Saves on costs.

Much like the others, especially the latter, I would propose that it is a jack of all trades ship, that does any number of combat and non-combat tasks.

Nephilim · Post by **Nephilim** » 2005-01-23 02:36pm

You guys also have to remember that Galactica was about to be decomissioned with one of its hanger bays converted into a museum, in which in the series it is still serving as a museum, but in a different capacity (for the dead it seems). The Galactica only had one squadron operational at the time it was being decomissioned and that was 20 Vipers Mrk VII's plus whatever Raptors were still on the Galactica. The Viper Mrk. II's were presumably also going to be used in the museum displays and there were about anywhere from 2 to 3 squadrons of those onboard which were them converted and put out to fight when the Galactica needed them.

Nephilim · Post by **Nephilim** » 2005-01-23 02:39pm

Also, if you look at the schematic views of the Galactica that are provided in the OP which are of the model itself that is in the show, the Galactica sports 20 Heavy Railguns. 8 dorsal, 8 ventral, 4 forward, plus a SHITLOAD (more than ~64 stated on the site) of light railguns which are presumably to put up a defense perimeter from which the Battlestar can protect itself from almost any missile sent against it.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-23 02:42pm

While Galactica only had forty fighters that doesn't meant that she couldn't hold more. She was slated to be a museum ship, after all, so they probably only put a squadron of old ones for an exhibit in and a squadron of new ones for self-defense.

Presumably the newer Battlestars would have more squadrons of fighters plus large stores of nuclear missiles in such. IIRC, there was a deleted scene where Galactica destroyed her munitions before decomissioning -- what they have now is certainly the bottom-feeder scraps.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-23 02:47pm

It sounds similar to the state of Hector in Bolo Rising which has the Mk. XXXIII HCT series Bolo running around trying to fight for a rag tag leftover population of humans until it gets consumables replenished at a hidden ammo depot.

Hopefully the Galactica will come across a goldmine, maybe a ship that fled after hearing of the nuke attacks on the colonies and has stores with it. The humans won't last too long if they keep running out of Vipers and ammo or food. Fuel is an issue, but what they use can be found elsewhere (you'd think they'd use He3 or something).