Galactica Versus Galactica

[Shannon]

Wheres this "nBSG survived a 50kt skin hit" come from? In the miniseries galactica has a nuke of unknown yeild shot at it which certainly misses and detonates up to a mile away iirc...

In the nBSG miniseries, Apollo is on Colonial One when it is attacked by a Raider. The Raider fires a single missile. Apollo uses Galactica's decommissioned EMP generators, which are onboard, to simultaneously nullify the warhead (presumably disarming it) and create an EM pulse equivalent to that of a 50kT nuclear explosion. We know what the yield is because Galactica is monitoring the event and is fooled, just as the Raider is. The yield is announced by Lt. Gaeta.

When Galactica herself is attacked, a Raider fires at least three missiles. We know they are nukes because the crew notes that fact. Starbuck shoots down two. One appears to directly strike the Galactica's port flight pod. We know this because the concussion jars the ship (a near-miss of a mile would not do that) and Starbuck's flyby (on the DVD) clearly shows the impact point. The scar is visible to this day. Damage to the flight pod was substantial but manageable and Col. Tigh stated that the hull plating kept out most of the hard radiation.

The implication here is that because both Raiders carried nukes, and because the expected yield of the first is established as being 50kT, the second is likewise 50kT. Why would a Raider shoot anything less at a Battlestar when nukes of that size have been used against civilian ships like Colonial One?

However, because the flash of the explosion is visible from the camera's view point from the other side of Galactica and the pattern of the explosion that was supposed to have killed Colonial One was spherical, that implies that this was an area-release nuke (like a photon torpedo) and not a shaped/focused charge (like a concussion missile or proton torpedo). That means that geometry comes into play. It would be impossible for Galactica's hull to absorb more than 50% of the energy of such a blast. Therefore, it probably only really withstood 25kT at most - still impressive given that the damage was relatively quickly contained, though with heavy loss of life.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN SEASON TWO)

This is not the upper limit of the durability of Colonial warships in nBSG, either. Pegasus was ambushed by three Base stars and took several nuke hits that prevented her from immediately jumping away. The Cylons apparently knew exactly where to hit her. But the ship was still able to fight well enough to badly damage one Base star while making running repairs to enable her to escape.

[Steel]

Wheres this "nBSG survived a 50kt skin hit" come from? In the miniseries galactica has a nuke of unknown yeild shot at it which certainly misses and detonates up to a mile away iirc...

In the nBSG miniseries, Apollo is on Colonial One when it is attacked by a Raider. The Raider fires a single missile. Apollo uses Galactica's decommissioned EMP generators, which are onboard, to simultaneously nullify the warhead (presumably disarming it) and create an EM pulse equivalent to that of a 50kT nuclear explosion. We know what the yield is because Galactica is monitoring the event and is fooled, just as the Raider is. The yield is announced by Lt. Gaeta.

Thats the point. We never actually hear the yeild of the nuclear weapons the fighters carry.

Here we have an example of a ship faking a nuclear explosion of some yeild, and absolutely no way to tell how this relates to the actual yeild of the ones used by the fighters.

Do you think that the colonial transport had sensors capable of detecting the yeild of the nukes the fighters were using and then specifically tried to set the (totally nonstandard) EM thingy the FTL drive produces to match that yeild(I doubt they can even vaguley control the size of the burst it produced)?

Seems quite unlikely doesnt it? The raiders probably arent equipped to quantify the yeild of nuclear detonations (beyond 'big') either. So they saw a boom and left. The decoy did its job.

When Galactica herself is attacked, a Raider fires at least three missiles. We know they are nukes because the crew notes that fact. Starbuck shoots down two. One appears to directly strike the Galactica's port flight pod. We know this because the concussion jars the ship (a near-miss of a mile would not do that) and Starbuck's flyby (on the DVD) clearly shows the impact point. The scar is visible to this day. Damage to the flight pod was substantial but manageable and Col. Tigh stated that the hull plating kept out most of the hard radiation.

The implication here is that because both Raiders carried nukes, and because the expected yield of the first is established as being 50kT, the second is likewise 50kT. Why would a Raider shoot anything less at a Battlestar when nukes of that size have been used against civilian ships like Colonial One?

However, because the flash of the explosion is visible from the camera's view point from the other side of Galactica and the pattern of the explosion that was supposed to have killed Colonial One was spherical, that implies that this was an area-release nuke (like a photon torpedo) and not a shaped/focused charge (like a concussion missile or proton torpedo). That means that geometry comes into play. It would be impossible for Galactica's hull to absorb more than 50% of the energy of such a blast. Therefore, it probably only really withstood 25kT at most - still impressive given that the damage was relatively quickly contained, though with heavy loss of life.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN SEASON TWO)

This is not the upper limit of the durability of Colonial warships in nBSG, either. Pegasus was ambushed by three Base stars and took several nuke hits that prevented her from immediately jumping away. The Cylons apparently knew exactly where to hit her. But the ship was still able to fight well enough to badly damage one Base star while making running repairs to enable her to escape.

While i cant find a decent video of this part, it does look like the missile could have hit. What was odd was that the missile passed by galactica and then curved back before detonating. It dips below the main hull before it goes off, so i cant see if it is actually hitting the pod or going beyond... So unless someone can find a better video i wont argue this.

[Shannon]

Actually I did watch it again, last night.

Thats the point. We never actually hear the yeild of the nuclear weapons the fighters carry.

Here we have an example of a ship faking a nuclear explosion of some yeild, and absolutely no way to tell how this relates to the actual yeild of the ones used by the fighters.

No, you're missing the point - again. We know that the EM Pulse that Apollo generated mimiced that of a 50 kT thermonuclear explosion. We know that this completely fooled the Galactica (which had been nuked no more than a few hours earlier) and the attacking Raiders. Apollo specifically stated that his stunt wasn't known to the fleet in general, it was a theory from War College which never worked in simulations because the Cylons saw through it and attacked. Under these battle conditions, however, they didn't - they saw a 50 kT explosion, which was what they and the Galactica expected to see. No-one on Galactica said 'Hey, that explosion is too big/too small.' They would in fact have been looking for any anomalies because they were all so gutted about Apollo supposedly just having been nuked! Ergo, the yield of Raider nukes is 50 kT.

Do you think that the colonial transport had sensors capable of detecting the yeild of the nukes the fighters were using and then specifically tried to set the (totally nonstandard) EM thingy the FTL drive produces to match that yeild(I doubt they can even vaguley control the size of the burst it produced)?

Apollo didn't hang around on the flight deck to determine the weapons of the Raiders. He seemed to know they'd use nukes. He even seemed to know what yield those nukes would be! How strange! Perhaps he'd actually been a good student and studied his enemy? The 'totally nonstandard EM thingies' were, as I've said Galactica's EM Pulse generators, taken from the ship as it was being decommissioned. He used the FTL drive to manipulate their output to simulate the pulse of a 50 kT blast. And what evidence do you have to prove that he couldn't control the output, when all evidence on screen shows otherwise?

Seems quite unlikely doesnt it? The raiders probably arent equipped to quantify the yeild of nuclear detonations (beyond 'big') either. So they saw a boom and left. The decoy did its job.

Obviously not unlikely. It happened. What evidence do you have to show that the raiders aren't equipped to know if they've been fooled, especially when Apollo points out that they knew they'd been fooled in the simulations? Decoys only work if they're realistic enough - Apollo knew that.

Shannon wrote:

When Galactica herself is attacked, a Raider fires at least three missiles. We know they are nukes because the crew notes that fact. Starbuck shoots down two. One appears to directly strike the Galactica's port flight pod. We know this because the concussion jars the ship (a near-miss of a mile would not do that) and Starbuck's flyby (on the DVD) clearly shows the impact point. The scar is visible to this day. Damage to the flight pod was substantial but manageable and Col. Tigh stated that the hull plating kept out most of the hard radiation.

The implication here is that because both Raiders carried nukes, and because the expected yield of the first is established as being 50kT, the second is likewise 50kT. Why would a Raider shoot anything less at a Battlestar when nukes of that size have been used against civilian ships like Colonial One?

However, because the flash of the explosion is visible from the camera's view point from the other side of Galactica and the pattern of the explosion that was supposed to have killed Colonial One was spherical, that implies that this was an area-release nuke (like a photon torpedo) and not a shaped/focused charge (like a concussion missile or proton torpedo). That means that geometry comes into play. It would be impossible for Galactica's hull to absorb more than 50% of the energy of such a blast. Therefore, it probably only really withstood 25kT at most - still impressive given that the damage was relatively quickly contained, though with heavy loss of life.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN SEASON TWO)

This is not the upper limit of the durability of Colonial warships in nBSG, either. Pegasus was ambushed by three Base stars and took several nuke hits that prevented her from immediately jumping away. The Cylons apparently knew exactly where to hit her. But the ship was still able to fight well enough to badly damage one Base star while making running repairs to enable her to escape.


While i cant find a decent video of this part, it does look like the missile could have hit. What was odd was that the missile passed by galactica and then curved back before detonating. It dips below the main hull before it goes off, so i cant see if it is actually hitting the pod or going beyond... So unless someone can find a better video i wont argue this.

As I said, I rewatched this last night. The missile most definitely not pass by the ship and then curve back - it can clearly be see from above the starboard bow of the ship, approaching directly and curving down into the port flight pod. Prior to this, Adama says "Brace for contact". He clearly expects a direct hit. The ship is shaken as if the hit was a direct hit. You don't get shockwaves in space!

Concession accepted.

[Shannon]

Ghetto edit: the last paragraph should read:
As I said, I rewatched this last night. The missile most definitely did not pass by the ship and then curve back - it can clearly be seen from above the starboard bow of the ship, approaching directly and curving down into the port flight pod. Prior to this, Adama says "Brace for contact". He clearly expects a direct hit. The ship is shaken as if the hit was a direct hit. You don't get shockwaves in space!

[ray245]

So what is the oBSG firepower and shield?

[Shannon]

So what is the oBSG firepower and shield?

There is this site:

http://www.tecr.com/galactica/index.html

However, the accuracy of some of its conclusions may be dubious considering that the author states that he assumes the armour on the ships in question to be 20x more durable than iron. He then calculates the weapon yields based on this assumption.

I'm not up to disputing the figures directly, however. Someone more well-versed in maths, physics and engineering would have to do that.

[Steel]

Actually I did watch it again, last night.

Thats the point. We never actually hear the yeild of the nuclear weapons the fighters carry.

Here we have an example of a ship faking a nuclear explosion of some yeild, and absolutely no way to tell how this relates to the actual yeild of the ones used by the fighters.

No, you're missing the point - again. We know that the EM Pulse that Apollo generated mimiced that of a 50 kT thermonuclear explosion. We know that this completely fooled the Galactica (which had been nuked no more than a few hours earlier) and the attacking Raiders. Apollo specifically stated that his stunt wasn't known to the fleet in general, it was a theory from War College which never worked in simulations because the Cylons saw through it and attacked. Under these battle conditions, however, they didn't - they saw a 50 kT explosion, which was what they and the Galactica expected to see. No-one on Galactica said 'Hey, that explosion is too big/too small.' They would in fact have been looking for any anomalies because they were all so gutted about Apollo supposedly just having been nuked! Ergo, the yield of Raider nukes is 50 kT.

Do you think that the colonial transport had sensors capable of detecting the yeild of the nukes the fighters were using and then specifically tried to set the (totally nonstandard) EM thingy the FTL drive produces to match that yeild(I doubt they can even vaguley control the size of the burst it produced)?

Apollo didn't hang around on the flight deck to determine the weapons of the Raiders. He seemed to know they'd use nukes. He even seemed to know what yield those nukes would be! How strange! Perhaps he'd actually been a good student and studied his enemy? The 'totally nonstandard EM thingies' were, as I've said Galactica's EM Pulse generators, taken from the ship as it was being decommissioned. He used the FTL drive to manipulate their output to simulate the pulse of a 50 kT blast. And what evidence do you have to prove that he couldn't control the output, when all evidence on screen shows otherwise?

Seems quite unlikely doesnt it? The raiders probably arent equipped to quantify the yeild of nuclear detonations (beyond 'big') either. So they saw a boom and left. The decoy did its job.

Obviously not unlikely. It happened. What evidence do you have to show that the raiders aren't equipped to know if they've been fooled, especially when Apollo points out that they knew they'd been fooled in the simulations? Decoys only work if they're realistic enough - Apollo knew that.

The colonials had no contact with the cylons for 40 years. They had absolutely no idea about their technology or any of their capabilities. Using the results of a simulation run by the colonials is totally pointless as the colonial data was innacurate. If the colonials could accurately simulate all the capabilities of the cylons then would they have been fucked in half a day?

Where does Apollo get his data on the yeild of the weapons from then? Why do the colonials have the raptors acting as AWACS if the vipers already have massive sensor suites installed in them? Apollo certainly couldnt have data from before the conflict started as there had been no contact between the sides. Remember nobody here has FTL sensors (It took the entire cylon fleet a year to detect a nuclear explosion from a light year away, and lets not forget the need for recon craft) so unless apollo directly witnessed a nuclear explosion then he could not have that data, even assuming he has good enough sensors.

Of course Apollo thought the raiders would use nukes, as thats what they had been using previously. Why the hell would the people on galactica be suspicious about the yeild of the nuke used on Apollo? Do you honestly think they'd go "hey that was a pretty small one, it was probably a decoy, even though we dont know theres anything they could have done to produce that effect" As to Apollo being able to precisely control the output... what exactly are you basing that assumption on? You just seem to have assumed it based on the fact that the setup worked at all.

You also have the fact that the missile that was fired at apollo had lower acceleration than the one fired as galactica, as apollo was able to have a game of chase with his, but starbuck and all the other vipers couldnt intercept the last missile. So if it was a different type of missile you are even more SOL in your blithe assumptions that A: The size of the EMP burst and the yeild of the nuke are the same and B: the missile fired at galactica was the exact same type.

As I said, I rewatched this last night. The missile most definitely not pass by the ship and then curve back - it can clearly be see from above the starboard bow of the ship, approaching directly and curving down into the port flight pod. Prior to this, Adama says "Brace for contact". He clearly expects a direct hit. The ship is shaken as if the hit was a direct hit. You don't get shockwaves in space!

Concession accepted.

Ok, you obviously dont understand that if something dips behind another object that it is not necessarily just behind it, when the sun dips behind a cloud do you automatically think that its about a mile away from you? All that shows is that is was on the port side of the ship when it detonated. You have NO way of telling how far behind the ship it was.

Of course Adama says brace for contact, its not as if hes going to say "dont worry, it might miss, just keep fucking about doing your normal thing guys" When there is a significant risk of being hit you act as if its going to be the worst case scenario regardless of what the outcome is going to be.

The ship was shaken as if HIT. We know the ship shakes nearly as much when its hit by conventional missiles of massively lesser yeild on numerous occasions. There has to be something the ship does which makes these missiles with infinitesimal momentum and transferred energy compared to that of galactica have that effect.

I know there arent shockwaves in space dipshit, but could the ship have been shaken by explosive decompressions of portions of the ship? Explosive vaporisation of the hull? Perhaps disruption of propulsion due to the detonation?

[Kon_El]

its not as if hes going to say "dont worry, it might miss, just keep fucking about doing your normal thing guys"

This made me laugh.

[Keevan_Colton]

Spoilers

I think that one reason that the cylon raiders are capable of tactical range jumps and the colonial forces arent, are due to the cylons better computer technology. They were able to change a 12 hour calculation into a 12 minute one in a particular episode, but by networking their computer systems they became highly vulnerable to cylon electronic warfare. It would seem that in order to bolster defences against cylon attacks the trade off is in computing power and efficency.

[Shannon]

OK Steel (apologies for the long post):

The colonials had no contact with the cylons for 40 years. They had absolutely no idea about their technology or any of their capabilities. Using the results of a simulation run by the colonials is totally pointless as the colonial data was innacurate. If the colonials could accurately simulate all the capabilities of the cylons then would they have been fucked in half a day?

Incorrect on two counts.
While it is usually bandied about that there had been no contact for 40 years, don't tell me that you are stupid or naive enough to believe that the Colonial military wouldn't at least try to find out what their enemy is doing. In fact, I believe the episode 'Hero' deals with this (haven't seen it yet).
The Cylons fucked the Colonials because Six fucked Baltar and designed a back door into his Command Navigation Programme that was distrubuted to the fleet. She also had unlimited access to the Defence Mainframe. The Colonials were screwed through espionage and computer science not firepower. One on one a battlestar, even one as old as Galactica, is still a match or more for a Base Star.
And the simulation obviously wasn't pointless, was it, because it gave Apollo what he needed to pull off his stunt.

Where does Apollo get his data on the yeild of the weapons from then? Why do the colonials have the raptors acting as AWACS if the vipers already have massive sensor suites installed in them? Apollo certainly couldnt have data from before the conflict started as there had been no contact between the sides. Remember nobody here has FTL sensors (It took the entire cylon fleet a year to detect a nuclear explosion from a light year away, and lets not forget the need for recon craft) so unless apollo directly witnessed a nuclear explosion then he could not have that data, even assuming he has good enough sensors.

As stated above, there had been contact. Apollo didn't get the data from his Viper (he was derisive of the Mk II's sensors), and I never said he did. Obviously, Cylon military capabilities haven't changed much over 40 years or Galactica and her Mark II Vipers would never have been able to hold off two Base Stars and their Raiders. Nuclear attacks from Raiders also seemed no surprise to Adama and Tigh.

Of course Apollo thought the raiders would use nukes, as thats what they had been using previously. Why the hell would the people on galactica be suspicious about the yeild of the nuke used on Apollo? Do you honestly think they'd go "hey that was a pretty small one, it was probably a decoy, even though we dont know theres anything they could have done to produce that effect" As to Apollo being able to precisely control the output... what exactly are you basing that assumption on? You just seem to have assumed it based on the fact that the setup worked at all.

Apollo had no direct knowledge of ship to ship nuclear combat at that stage of the war. All his knowledge would have to be pre-war.
As for why people would be suspicious/grope for inconsistencies, have you never seen people grasp at straws where the survival of a loved one is at stake?
My 'assumption' of Apollo controlling the output is based on his statement to Roslin regarding how he did what he did. And as you point out, it worked.

You also have the fact that the missile that was fired at apollo had lower acceleration than the one fired as galactica, as apollo was able to have a game of chase with his, but starbuck and all the other vipers couldnt intercept the last missile. So if it was a different type of missile you are even more SOL in your blithe assumptions that A: The size of the EMP burst and the yeild of the nuke are the same and B: the missile fired at galactica was the exact same type.

You're making an assumption wrt missile acceleration. Apollo had more time to react than Starbuck did, given that he was able to match course and speed with the missile, luring it away and destroying it at a safe distance. But no one was shooting at him
Starbuck was in a head-to-head intercept situation, with a Raider shooting at her after it had just launched three nukes. She took the Raider out first, then two missiles, while the third blew by her. She didn't have the time to do what Apollo did. Any other Viper that had initially tried would have been in her line of fire.
My assumptions are not 'blithe', they are what the evidence as I see it points to. However, your point that the missiles may have been different types is an interesting one. We know that other Raiders that day carried primarily conventional weapons. Only some carried nukes. And those missiles are actually pretty small, given the small size of Raiders. Cylon advances seem to be mainly in the areas of computer science, genetics, FTL and miniaturisation. Which brings this quote to mind:

The torpedo is a nuclear missile device, and inclusion of "proton" in its name hints (inconclusively) at a hydrogen-fusion basis. As such, its output would not be less than about 100kilotons, even by the primitive standards of Earth's technology. (A deliberate effort of profoundly high technology would be needed to create a viable fusion explosive with less yield.)

This is Dr Curtis Saxton on proton torpedoes, but the principle is the same. If the Cylons are using thermonuclear devices, then we might actually expect the yield from a missile to be closer to 100 kT.
As a further aside, what Apollo would actually have to have done (as I understand it) would not have been to create an EMP cos you don't get EMP in space. What he created was amassive burst of radiation that would have looked like (and did look like) a nuke on DRADIS.

Ok, you obviously dont understand that if something dips behind another object that it is not necessarily just behind it, when the sun dips behind a cloud do you automatically think that its about a mile away from you? All that shows is that is was on the port side of the ship when it detonated. You have NO way of telling how far behind the ship it was.

D'oh! I didn't think of that . . . no wait, I did. But the statement that I was initially responding to was:

What was odd was that the missile passed by galactica and then curved back before detonating.

not

It dips below the main hull before it goes off, so i cant see if it is actually hitting the pod or going beyond...

Given the camera angle and the fact that the bulk of the ship obscures the explosion, and given that in fact we see the missile heading straight in, I indeed assumed a direct detonation. However, there is another reason. Nukes in space don't have a lot of the advantages they have in atmosphere (EMP, fireball, shockwave). They're far less effective as proximity-fused weapons than they are as impact-fused weapons. When shooting at a big, armoured target like a Battlestar, wouldn't it make more sense to use an impact fuse? And in any case, all of the other Cylon munitions we see IIRC are impact fused. I'm not saying its impossible, just that impact makes more sense.

Of course Adama says brace for contact, its not as if hes going to say "dont worry, it might miss, just keep fucking about doing your normal thing guys" When there is a significant risk of being hit you act as if its going to be the worst case scenario regardless of what the outcome is going to be.

Erm, except he doesn't (and yes that was funny). That 'brace for contact' was an aside to Tigh. No general call for all hands to brace was made the way it would be on a modern warship before an imminent torpedo strike (for example). He doesn't seem overly worried, just resigned. Odd for someone who claims to care for his crew as much as he does. Maybe he knows his ship can take it?

The ship was shaken as if HIT. We know the ship shakes nearly as much when its hit by conventional missiles of massively lesser yeild on numerous occasions. There has to be something the ship does which makes these missiles with infinitesimal momentum and transferred energy compared to that of galactica have that effect.

I know there arent shockwaves in space dipshit, but could the ship have been shaken by explosive decompressions of portions of the ship? Explosive vaporisation of the hull? Perhaps disruption of propulsion due to the detonation?

You're welcome asswipe but I think you might be onto something here. When the Galactica is being bombarded by two base stars, it's getting hit from 'above' almost constantly with conventional missiles. I don't know why they didn't use nukes in this one, since we know base stars can fire nukes (The Captain's Hand). I don't necessarily think explosive decompressions would have done it, given that in the nuke incident Tigh ordered an emergency decompression to snuff the fires and it made no difference to stability. Perhaps it was smaller. I don't know about explosive vaporisation of the hull, but I suspect it would take something like a nuke hit to vaporise enough matter to make a difference.
Propulsion did misfire after the nuke hit, and the ship went into an uncontrolled lateral spin. But aside from the intial jarring, this seemed to make little difference to the crew.
However, it occurs to me that ships capable of FTL would probably have some sort of acceleration compensation. This would be aligned along the axis of acceleration. It's obvious they have artificial gravity. Could impacts from nukes and large conventional warheads disrupt the functioning of these fields or simply jar people by virtue of being 'off-axis' forces?

[Steel]

While it is usually bandied about that there had been no contact for 40 years, don't tell me that you are stupid or naive enough to believe that the Colonial military wouldn't at least try to find out what their enemy is doing. In fact, I believe the episode 'Hero' deals with this (haven't seen it yet).

If as you say the colonials had an idea of Cylon military capabilities then why were the pilots confused and surprised by the cylon vessels they fought? There were cries of "theres no cockpits" and "what are those things" iirc. Surely its FAR easier to sneak a picture of an enemy fighter than to gather accurate data on enemy nuclear weapons testing...? It was stated in the miniseries that the cylons had just up and completely left known space, and that the colonials didnt even know where they went.

(I havent seen 'Hero' yet either so if it does have that then its a fuckup in continuity or colonial military intelligence...)

And the simulation obviously wasn't pointless, was it, because it gave Apollo what he needed to pull off his stunt.

As stated above, there had been contact. Apollo didn't get the data from his Viper (he was derisive of the Mk II's sensors), and I never said he did. Obviously, Cylon military capabilities haven't changed much over 40 years or Galactica and her Mark II Vipers would never have been able to hold off two Base Stars and their Raiders. Nuclear attacks from Raiders also seemed no surprise to Adama and Tigh.

Apollo had no direct knowledge of ship to ship nuclear combat at that stage of the war. All his knowledge would have to be pre-war.
As for why people would be suspicious/grope for inconsistencies, have you never seen people grasp at straws where the survival of a loved one is at stake?
My 'assumption' of Apollo controlling the output is based on his statement to Roslin regarding how he did what he did. And as you point out, it worked.

There is a colossal difference between being able to control something at all and being able to exactly control it. Take for example a not too strong person with a massive fire hose. They might be able to stop it throwing them around, but ask them to point it in the window of a building and they're screwed.

Perhaps the reason it failed so much in simulations is that they couldnt get it to work properly and it produced ridiculous yeilds? Maybe they assumed better sensors than the cylons actually had?

Find me something that shows that the colonials had accurate data on cylon military technology, and that this would be available to people of Apollo's rank, to the extent that he would know the yeild of fighter launched nuclear weapons, when we have 1: Combat pilots dont know what cylon fighters look like and 2: It is stated that the cylons were thought to have totally disappeared.

Until you can find that then you have to show where Apollo got his data on the yeild of the weapon in order to try match it. As you have said he didnt get it from his fighter's sensors. I doubt anyone he contacted would have given him that data either. I doubt anyone could have actually given that data, as before the shooting started the cylons disabled everyones useful electronics, so anyone near nuking would be blind until they were dead.

If you see a loved one step on a land mine and disappear in a massive explosion, you arent going to question whether there really was a mine are you? You cant say that these professional military personel are going to start going nuts over Apollo when theyve just lost 99% of the human race?

You're making an assumption wrt missile acceleration... Any other Viper that had initially tried would have been in her line of fire.

You would think that when the command ship is in danger of being destroyed outright at least one other might have tried to react? We see the missile flying on for several more seconds before it nears galactica

My assumptions are not 'blithe', they are what the evidence as I see it points to. However, your point that the missiles may have been different types is an interesting one. We know that other Raiders that day carried primarily conventional weapons. Only some carried nukes. And those missiles are actually pretty small, given the small size of Raiders. Cylon advances seem to be mainly in the areas of computer science, genetics, FTL and miniaturisation.
*snip SW stuff*
If the Cylons are using thermonuclear devices, then we might actually expect the yield from a missile to be closer to 100 kT.
As a further aside, what Apollo would actually have to have done (as I understand it) would not have been to create an EMP cos you don't get EMP in space. What he created was amassive burst of radiation that would have looked like (and did look like) a nuke on DRADIS.

Ok, maybe you misunderstand here, I'm not trying to say new galactica is shit or weak or anything, I'm attacking what i see as an illogical assumption that people are making. The missile could have been 2kt, 400Mt, or a very large flashlight, but we dont actually have the data to decide that...

Well whatever Apollo did it worked, thats indisputable. Do we know that the raider was still around when the burst happened or had it jumped out? It might be significantly easier to fool someone at longer range. Depends on whether or not a short range detonation just blinds sensors, so all you need to do is make a big enough flash. Or whether at longer range you really need to supply the intensity of radiation/whatever to make it look like a nuclear explosion.

Ok, you obviously dont understand that if something dips behind another object that it is not necessarily just behind it, when the sun dips behind a cloud do you automatically think that its about a mile away from you? All that shows is that is was on the port side of the ship when it detonated. You have NO way of telling how far behind the ship it was.

D'oh! I didn't think of that . . . no wait, I did. But the statement that I was initially responding to was:

What was odd was that the missile passed by galactica and then curved back before detonating.

not

It dips below the main hull before it goes off, so i cant see if it is actually hitting the pod or going beyond...

Given the camera angle and the fact that the bulk of the ship obscures the explosion, and given that in fact we see the missile heading straight in, I indeed assumed a direct detonation. However, there is another reason. Nukes in space don't have a lot of the advantages they have in atmosphere (EMP, fireball, shockwave). They're far less effective as proximity-fused weapons than they are as impact-fused weapons. When shooting at a big, armoured target like a Battlestar, wouldn't it make more sense to use an impact fuse? And in any case, all of the other Cylon munitions we see IIRC are impact fused. I'm not saying its impossible, just that impact makes more sense.

Well first of all, why is it better for the missile to detonate on the port side? Why not have it detonate earlier by targeting the starbord side? Whouldnt it make more sense for the missile to fire at the ship rather than try and loop round it? To me that looks like the missile was duped by ECM or possibly damaged/defective and fucked up. The missile flew by galactica and then when its guidance realised it had missed and couldnt get a direct hit it used the last of its thrust to try and turn and detonated at the closest distance it projected it could achieve.

Secondly, i'm not sure, but do nuclear weapons have "true" impact fuses?
Or do they just try and detonate a milisecond before their sensors tell them they're going to hit. I was under the impression that a nuclear device was a quite technical piece of equipment and damaging them was a good way to stop them going off, so smacking them into a starship prior to detonation probably isnt a good idea... In any case it makes great sense (read: unthinkable not to) to have a way of detonating the missile manually, or so that it can do what i described above or be used as an area weapon against a fighter wing (if the cylons are feeling frivolous ).

As for the fact the missile dips behind the ship before detonating, we still dont know that it was anywhere near the hull when it went off.

Of course Adama says brace for contact, its not as if hes going to say "dont worry, it might miss, just keep fucking about doing your normal thing guys" When there is a significant risk of being hit you act as if its going to be the worst case scenario regardless of what the outcome is going to be.

Erm, except he doesn't (and yes that was funny). That 'brace for contact' was an aside to Tigh. No general call for all hands to brace was made the way it would be on a modern warship before an imminent torpedo strike (for example). He doesn't seem overly worried, just resigned. Odd for someone who claims to care for his crew as much as he does. Maybe he knows his ship can take it?

The ship was shaken as if HIT. We know the ship shakes nearly as much when its hit by conventional missiles of massively lesser yeild on numerous occasions. There has to be something the ship does which makes these missiles with infinitesimal momentum and transferred energy compared to that of galactica have that effect.

I know there arent shockwaves in space dipshit, but could the ship have been shaken by explosive decompressions of portions of the ship? Explosive vaporisation of the hull? Perhaps disruption of propulsion due to the detonation?

You're welcome asswipe but I think you might be onto something here. When the Galactica is being bombarded by two base stars, it's getting hit from 'above' almost constantly with conventional missiles. I don't know why they didn't use nukes in this one, since we know base stars can fire nukes (The Captain's Hand). I don't necessarily think explosive decompressions would have done it, given that in the nuke incident Tigh ordered an emergency decompression to snuff the fires and it made no difference to stability. Perhaps it was smaller. I don't know about explosive vaporisation of the hull, but I suspect it would take something like a nuke hit to vaporise enough matter to make a difference.
Propulsion did misfire after the nuke hit, and the ship went into an uncontrolled lateral spin. But aside from the intial jarring, this seemed to make little difference to the crew.
However, it occurs to me that ships capable of FTL would probably have some sort of acceleration compensation. This would be aligned along the axis of acceleration. It's obvious they have artificial gravity. Could impacts from nukes and large conventional warheads disrupt the functioning of these fields or simply jar people by virtue of being 'off-axis' forces?

I think that the disruption to the engines or thrusters or AG in a way the ship is not normally used to dealing with/unpredictably is the most likely cause of the shaking. The fact that it is ALSO caused by the conventional missiles however rules it out as being used as evidence for a direct hit.

[Steel]

Meant to say I tried to cut out some stuff to make it more readable. If you think that i missed any important points out then yell and i'll get on them.

[Beowulf]

In Hero, we see them scouting past the armistice line. The Cylons pick up the recon fighter, and damage it. The Colonials blow said recon fighter up, but don't get accurate data on the Cylons (range)

[Shannon]

Steel, these posts are getting a little long so I'm just going to respond to a couple of your newer comments before trying to summarise the whole debate so far and my conclusions.

Surely its FAR easier to sneak a picture of an enemy fighter than to gather accurate data on enemy nuclear weapons testing...?

Not if you think about it. If your opponent is testing a space-based nuclear missile in space, it's conceivable that you'd be able to spot that a long way off. The same can't be said for a fighter if you can't mount effective espionage or don't have really good long range optics. That's my take on it anyway.

It was stated in the miniseries that the cylons had just up and completely left known space, and that the colonials didnt even know where they went.

IIRC, they simply said there had been no contact. The fact that there was an armistice line, as Beowulf mentions, indicates that they do have at least a rough idea of where the Cuylons are. Better than that if they're scouting, probably, since space is big.

Perhaps the reason it failed so much in simulations is that they couldnt get it to work properly and it produced ridiculous yeilds? Maybe they assumed better sensors than the cylons actually had?

Cylon-Boomer roughly quantifies a Raider's intelligence as subhuman, but it could still have good sensors - look at a dog: fantastic sense of smell, but it has to be able to interpret what it smells. Same would be true of a Raider, I guess. "Smell" nuke explosion + no ship spotted = enemy destroyed.

Raider missiles also appear to be of the 'fire and forget' variety. We see this in the mini - missiles are launched and then the Raider turns away. It's quite possible that's what happened in Apollo's situation.

So far this part of the debate boils down to two issues:
1. What is the yield of Cylon nuclear missiles?
The only direct evidence we have for the yield of Cylon nukes is the announcement that nuclear detonations in the 50 MT range had been recorded over the Colonies' major cities. The only other statement we have wrt yield is the Apollo/Colonial One incident, where Apollo fakes a nuclear explosion while under attack from a Cylon Raider. The radiation burst he produces registers as a 50 kT thermonuclear detonation on Galactica's DRADIS. From this, many people, including myself, have inferred that Raider nukes must be in the region of 50 kT. While this may have been the writer's intent (and as this is a SoD argument I'm not going to go into that), there are (as you point out, Steel), logical reasons as to why this conclusion is suspect. Not the least of these is how Apollo would know enough to generate a yield of this magnitude if the Colonials had limited knowledge of Cylon offensive capabilities. Even if he had guessed based on information from the last war, it's still a guess. This conclusion is therefore in danger of becoming a Brain Bug. Given that we don't really know the extent of Colonial intelligence on Cylon capabilities, I'm going to concede that yield of Raider weapons must remain an unknown at present. Apollo got lucky.

2. Did the missile fired at Galactica actually hit it?

Well first of all, why is it better for the missile to detonate on the port side? Why not have it detonate earlier by targeting the starbord side? Whouldnt it make more sense for the missile to fire at the ship rather than try and loop round it? To me that looks like the missile was duped by ECM or possibly damaged/defective and fucked up. The missile flew by galactica and then when its guidance realised it had missed and couldnt get a direct hit it used the last of its thrust to try and turn and detonated at the closest distance it projected it could achieve.

The missile was always heading toward the port side. I checked again and it most certainly did NOT loop around the Galactica.

Secondly, i'm not sure, but do nuclear weapons have "true" impact fuses?
Or do they just try and detonate a milisecond before their sensors tell them they're going to hit. I was under the impression that a nuclear device was a quite technical piece of equipment and damaging them was a good way to stop them going off, so smacking them into a starship prior to detonation probably isnt a good idea... In any case it makes great sense (read: unthinkable not to) to have a way of detonating the missile manually, or so that it can do what i described above or be used as an area weapon against a fighter wing (if the cylons are feeling frivolous ).

A millisecond fuse isn't a bad idea. I watched The Captain's Hand ambush sequence again because it does show the point of detonation, and really, you wouldn't be able to tell if it were a millisecond fuse or not. As an aside, the missiles fired by the Base stars looked much larger and faster than the ones used by the Raiders. And Pegasus was hit by three.

Sure, you could detonate manually, but it seems that since the Cylons are into 'fire and forget', it is hardly ever/never used. I'm not sure I would use a nuke against a fighter wing because of the aforementioned problems with nukes in space; the fighters would have to be reasonably closely spaced for the radiation burst to get a group of them. I would've thought that Vipers, being spacecraft, would have some degree of shielding against radiation. On the other hand, Starbuck shouts for the two remaining Vipers in that attack on Galactica to 'break', so she may well have expected damage on a greater scale than her fighter was able to handle. You could also use a nuke burst to blind sensors, at the very least.

As for the fact the missile dips behind the ship before detonating, we still dont know that it was anywhere near the hull when it went off.

There is one more piece of evidence that I only just thought of. Immediately after the detonation, when Adama and Tigh are assessing the damage, Adama notes that 'Radiation levels are normal; the hull plating kept out most of the hard stuff.' Tigh then notes that there are explosive decompressions all along the forward part of the port flight pod, which is what Starbuck notes in her flyby. However, he also notes that structural supports are also buckled all along the same area.
Therefore, whatever conclusion we reach must be supported by this.
If a nuclear detonation in free space results mainly in a radiation burst, and if radiation levels aboard ship are normal, but there is structural damage, then something else must be in play. Watching the scene again, it looks almost as though there is a smaller initial blast, followed by a much larger secondary explosion (though it's hard to be sure because of intercutting). We know it can't be something exploding in the ship, because that would've been mentioned in the damage assessment. Tigh was concerned about the fire reaching fuel lines, but that hadn't happened yet. Both impact and extreme heat can buckle structural supports; perhaps a millisecond fuse would do that? Perhaps the steadily growing flash was hull armour vaporising?

As for the whole oBSG vs nBSG argument, which was the OP, I think the most conservative option would be to go back to the previously-referred to website on oBSG capabilities and utilise the figures given for the effect of oBSG's weapons on iron, that is, disgard the x20 multiplier he uses. That would put oBSG's main laser cannons at around 0.5 kT. I'm not suggesting this to make oBSG appear weak, but to try and get an accurate idea of what would happen. We have little to no information on the armour of either oBSG or nBSG, save that nBSG can survive nukes of unknown yield, that oBSG's armour appears effective against energy weapon fire (Mike makes this point on one of his debating pages), and that oBSG is damaged by impacts with suicidal Raiders.

[Steel]

OK that seems like a good summary of what we know. I'm pretty happy with that version of events.

Just one thing stands out though... I''m sure we see the missile fired from a distance off the starbord side of galactica, and then the missile detonates behind galactica as the camera is looking from the port side... so how did it do that if it didnt loop round at all?

As for the detonation, I'm not 100% sure on this, but direct contact with the nuke doesnt actually make a massive difference in terms of the mechanism. Think about it, in space the bomb is doing all its damage by pumping out lots of gamma rays etc. So in the same way that holding a match 1 cm away from your skin is as damaging as putting your hand
10cm away from the oven flame, i think a 1kt nuke at 100m will have basically the same effect in space as a 100kt nuke at some longer range. (disregarding geometry of the target)

So as for why there were buckled supports and other damage like that i assume that the decompressions were responsibl for much of that. Also the decompressions were most likely caused by the sudden absence of the armour that covered that section, so that could would be why they were damaged, or it could just be that in palces the armour was thinner and so the inside of some sections was cooked as well.

I'm not sure what the glow is really. It might be incandescant bits of armour plating, or it could simply be an artefact of the camera the colonials used to film it (to be really in universe) I think you can get an effect in both film and ccd where there is a bleed through of exposure to the nearby grains/cells when you look at something really bright. And i suppose a nuclear bomb would qualify... It could be how the armour is designed to work in the event of a big hit like that. It has to be something fairly exotic as we know galactica was exposed to a nuclear weapon at pretty close range.

For the cylon detonation and guidance system, as you say the cylons have been progressing well in miniaturisation and cybernetics. When referring to a way for the missile to detonate itself i was referring to the missiles own brain as doing the detonating, as it could potentially have reasonably advanced decision making capabilities.

As for the OP, there is an episode in S2 where the pilots are out for target practice and are firing missiles capable of splitting massive asteroids, and in the episode where they capture the tilium refinery a pretty small bomb is used to detonate the whole facility (with the help of the tilium i think, but they have a pretty good supply of that, so they might be able to either use it as weapons or perhaps they already do...)

[Shannon]

Just one thing stands out though... I''m sure we see the missile fired from a distance off the starbord side of galactica, and then the missile detonates behind galactica as the camera is looking from the port side... so how did it do that if it didnt loop round at all?

Just to be sure . . . you do know that right = starboard and port = left, right?
But seriously, there is one particular shot that makes it clear that the missiles are boring in from Galactica's port side. Starbuck is shooting at them and behind her (we are looking at the front of her Viper as she's firing) we can see Galactica, with the bow on the left of the screen, the stern and thruster glow on the right. Therefore, we're looking at the port side. At the time of detonation the camera cuts to the other side of the ship, a point high above the starboard bow and at a distance of probably 1-5km I'm guessing, looking down toward the port side as the missile flies in toward the front of the port flight pod, which is the point at which we lose it as it's obscured by the ship's bulk.

As for the detonation, I'm not 100% sure on this, but direct contact with the nuke doesnt actually make a massive difference in terms of the mechanism. Think about it, in space the bomb is doing all its damage by pumping out lots of gamma rays etc. So in the same way that holding a match 1 cm away from your skin is as damaging as putting your hand
10cm away from the oven flame, i think a 1kt nuke at 100m will have basically the same effect in space as a 100kt nuke at some longer range. (disregarding geometry of the target)

So as for why there were buckled supports and other damage like that i assume that the decompressions were responsibl for much of that. Also the decompressions were most likely caused by the sudden absence of the armour that covered that section, so that could would be why they were damaged, or it could just be that in palces the armour was thinner and so the inside of some sections was cooked as well.

OK, yeah, I can see that. Decompressions in and of themselves shouldn't do that much structural damage to a warship designed to take hits from a nuke, but if big chunks of armoured hull are being vapourised, and excess heat from the damaged sections around the destroyed sections transferred to the support framework, warping it, that could work. You'd expect a layered hull, surely, so if the outer hull is suddenly blown away, that's going to cause some stress.

I'm not sure what the glow is really. It might be incandescant bits of armour plating, or it could simply be an artefact of the camera the colonials used to film it (to be really in universe) I think you can get an effect in both film and ccd where there is a bleed through of exposure to the nearby grains/cells when you look at something really bright. And i suppose a nuclear bomb would qualify... It could be how the armour is designed to work in the event of a big hit like that. It has to be something fairly exotic as we know galactica was exposed to a nuclear weapon at pretty close range.

Sure, ablative/reactive armour could do that. Let's suppose the Cylon nuke warhead directs its blast of radiation inward, attacking the armoured hull layers. That's the initial small flash we see. The 'growing' of the flash comes from the armour reacting against it to safeguard the rest of the ship, perhaps soaking up or diffusing the gamma rays (is that possible?). Adama said that the hull plating kept out the hard stuff; he didn't say how it did that. This heating and loss of armour from an intense blast would then cause hull buckling/decompressions. Reasonable?

As an aside, I know I keep going on about this, but this makes the survival of the Pegasus even more impressive (in-universe). Sure, it's a bigger, more advanced warship than Galactica, but when it's hit by those three seemingly larger, faster Base Star nukes (and here they do yell 'brace for impact!') the ship is still able to maneuver and fight effectively. Only relatively minor repairs are necessary before being able to jump out. By contrast Galactica was heavily damaged by a single Raider nuke and left spinning out of control and in imminent danger of destruction (the fire near the fuel lines).

For the cylon detonation and guidance system, as you say the cylons have been progressing well in miniaturisation and cybernetics. When referring to a way for the missile to detonate itself i was referring to the missiles own brain as doing the detonating, as it could potentially have reasonably advanced decision making capabilities.

Ah, I see. I thought you meant the Raider. My mistake. That would certainly be within the Cylons' capabilities. When the raider opens the door of its weapons bay, the heads of the missiles begin to glow. I would assume that's the seekers/missile AI going active to seek the target. A really smart weapon! That is also the point at which Dee announces 'radiological alarm'.

As for the OP, there is an episode in S2 where the pilots are out for target practice and are firing missiles capable of splitting massive asteroids, and in the episode where they capture the tilium refinery a pretty small bomb is used to detonate the whole facility (with the help of the tilium i think, but they have a pretty good supply of that, so they might be able to either use it as weapons or perhaps they already do...)

Yes, I remember both. Not sure about the missiles or the two bombs Apollo dropped, but they were certainly effective. I wonder what their yield would be? I suppose we could use Mike's asteroid destruction calculator to find out, if we had a rough idea of the size and composition of the asteroids, and took into account that they were fragmented, not destroyed utterly. Surely they wouldn't be using nukes for target practice, given how they seem to treat those like gold. OTOH, Tigh says '50 pallets of Class-D warheads' at Ragnar anchorage. Battlestar Wiki suggests that term might be equivalent to the US classification system, where Class-D is the smallest size of nuke. Those could be Viper-scale nukes. But Adama says that they only have 5 warheads left. Does he mean capital ship warheads?
But I'm sorry, I assume that your point here would be that nBSGs Vipers have the ability to seriously damage oBSG?

[Steel]

Just to be sure . . . you do know that right = starboard and port = left, right?

Ah bugger, i meant to say camera on the starboard side above... But havign rewatched the scene just now you're right the missile is indeed fired from the port side.

Yes, I remember both. Not sure about the missiles or the two bombs Apollo dropped, but they were certainly effective. I wonder what their yield would be? I suppose we could use Mike's asteroid destruction calculator to find out, if we had a rough idea of the size and composition of the asteroids, and took into account that they were fragmented, not destroyed utterly. Surely they wouldn't be using nukes for target practice, given how they seem to treat those like gold. OTOH, Tigh says '50 pallets of Class-D warheads' at Ragnar anchorage. Battlestar Wiki suggests that term might be equivalent to the US classification system, where Class-D is the smallest size of nuke. Those could be Viper-scale nukes. But Adama says that they only have 5 warheads left. Does he mean capital ship warheads?
But I'm sorry, I assume that your point here would be that nBSGs Vipers have the ability to seriously damage oBSG?

Seeing as the nBSG vipers have demonstrated vastly superior combat manouvering to that of the oBSG ships, and also have demonstrated that they can carry significant firepower, as well as having decent targeting capabilities, they should pose a threat to the soft portions of oBSG galactica at the least.

I dont think you can use the asteroid calculator for this, as the asteroids werent actually significantly vaporised or fragmented, just split really.