Cylon Jump Bombs

[Anguirus]

You are making this sound like its a much bigger challenge than it is with the displayed technology.

And you are making it sound like the Cylons actually needed to do it.

[Strider]

The problem with using planning time to calculate all the jumps in advance may be that its technically impossible. It might be that in order to begin to calculate a jump, your jump drive must be sitting at the origin point of the jump. The situation in "33" should probably shed some light on the subject, so I'll rewatch that now...

Odama:
"I wanna try something new this time; divide the fleet {cuts himself shaving} into six groups, and they jump two more times and on the fourth jump we rendevous at a common set of coordinates."
Tigh:
"24 jumps to plot... We're breaking our humps calculating one jump every 33 minutes."

This does little to unmurkify the waters, but it seems as if they would calculate all 24 jumps then execute the whole program, nixing my earlier theory. On the other hand, the explicit reference to "common set of coordinates" at the end might suggest they plot the first 6 jumps, then every subsection of the fleet plots 2 more jumps individually, then a jump to the preplanned coordinates on their own.

On a possibly related note, the 33 minute period between Galatica-fleet jump and Cylon attack due to the tracking of the Olympic Carrier validates another theory I have about jumping: While a jump takes no time at all for the jumper, in the reference frame of the rest of the universe the jump takes a finite amount of time. This makes sense because the implied FTL tracking signal from the Olympic Carrier would have a travel time to reach back to the Cylon fleet, and then the Cylon fleet would have a travel time to jump to pursue Galactica. If the maximum jump range of the fleet (for reasons of calculations or jump drives) corresponded to 16.5 minutes, the 33 minute delay would logically result. Such a delay could be another reason why plotting multiple jumps in a row is inadvisable: slight changes in conditions because of the passing of time may invalidate jump calcs for some reason if the calcs are sensitive enough.

[Terralthra]

Every time we've seen jumps on the show they come out in formation. I mentioned the most outstanding example of this was when the Raptors came back to Caprica, but we see them jump in formation all the time on the show. If they are accurate enough for two ships to jump at the same time and consistently be in formation with each other, surely the more advanced Cylon jump systems could deliver a bomb above a city.

You're mistaking one thing for another. Two planes can fly in perfect formation to the wrong place. That's why it's called precision flying. Precision and accuracy are not the same.

The hidden assumption behind the reasoning that precision and accuracy are related is that the inaccuracy in a jump is in the drive, rather than the calculations. The formation jump precision proves that given the same calcs, the drives will move the same vector.

If one takes the alternate interpretation that I propose, the issue is that of accuracy in the significant figures in the calculations. From 1 or 2 AU, they can hit atmosphere around a specified altitude, but from Cylon space, they can only aim for "within strike distance of the colonies." In this interpretation, the accuracy of the calculations is proportional to the overall distance travelled. You seem to assume the resolution is independent of the distance travelled, which seems very unlikely.

Besides, it's a nuclear bomb. Even if the minimum resolution of their jump drives is a kilometer (which we know is actually much smaller than that), that's fine for nuking something the size of a city. You are making this sound like its a much bigger challenge than it is with the displayed technology.

Your "1 km resolution, regardless of distance" seems to be incredibly arbitrary.