A Battlestar Navy.

Aeolus · Post by **Aeolus** » 2005-01-25 11:35pm

Destructionator XIII wrote:In the original BSG, there were references to smaller ships in the fleet. The battlestars were like the command ships, with very high ranking officers commanding them. In "Take the Celestra" of the original, Commander Kronus talked about commanding a military crusier, not a battlestar. They probably had a whole array of smaller capships to fight the cylons.

In the original series pilot a centurion tells Baltar that there were rumors of refugees fleeing with a warship, Baltar says whatkind and the centurion says a Battlestar...

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2005-01-25 11:39pm

Something I have been wondering about the new series...

Is Galactica missing most of her hull armor plating or what? Because structural supports (the ridges) shouldn't be sticking out like that without any armor covering on a warship.

SCVN 2812 · Post by **SCVN 2812** » 2005-01-25 11:54pm

Crayz9000 wrote:Something I have been wondering about the new series...

Is Galactica missing most of her hull armor plating or what? Because structural supports (the ridges) shouldn't be sticking out like that without any armor covering on a warship.

This is speculated on in another thread. It is considered a possibility that Galactica may be missing armor plating but another theory was raised that the ribbing is deliberately on the outside for structural integrity though I see no reason why the two theories should be mutually exclusive.

Something I just thought about: The ribbing is also the location of the point defense guns and they may be raised to minimize damage to the hull should a
gun be destroyed firing explosive rounds. It was said in another thread I think that according to the main site the Vipers use a mix of solid and explosive rounds and I find it quite likely the Galactica's main guns would follow the same pattern.

Short answer is that we just don't know if the ribs have a nonasthetic function and won't until we see another Battlestar or some commentary from the concept artist.

taralon · Post by **taralon** » 2005-01-26 04:18pm

The PD guns are between the ribs aren't they? Hrm, rewatching 33 does show that they are between the ribs. Seemingly a double implacement between each rib. The ribs themselves, don't appear to be I-beam shaped but more simply just box shaped. The hull from the few closeups that I've seen in the series pretty much is just turned 'inside out' from what one would see on a ship that is mean for ocean/atmospheric work.

As for whether or not it is missing armor plate, it all comes down to what schema you are looking at. Modern day carries carry no armor plate, most in WWII were either unarmored or carried only armored decks, a few cruiser conversions were made that had a heavily armored 'belt'. If your 'battlestar' either is not supposed to be directly involved in engagements or under the tactical doctrine of the day was only supposed to show certain aspects of itself to enemy fire, it could be armored as well as needed. As I have noted before from a straight 'nose on' aspect as well as a 'spine on' aspect a large portion of the visible hull is armored.

SCVN 2812 wrote:
Crayz9000 wrote:Something I have been wondering about the new series...

Is Galactica missing most of her hull armor plating or what? Because structural supports (the ridges) shouldn't be sticking out like that without any armor covering on a warship.
This is speculated on in another thread. It is considered a possibility that Galactica may be missing armor plating but another theory was raised that the ribbing is deliberately on the outside for structural integrity though I see no reason why the two theories should be mutually exclusive.

Something I just thought about: The ribbing is also the location of the point defense guns and they may be raised to minimize damage to the hull should a
gun be destroyed firing explosive rounds. It was said in another thread I think that according to the main site the Vipers use a mix of solid and explosive rounds and I find it quite likely the Galactica's main guns would follow the same pattern.

Short answer is that we just don't know if the ribs have a nonasthetic function and won't until we see another Battlestar or some commentary from the concept artist.

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2005-01-26 08:40pm

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.

Think about the technophobic culture at the time. The size and the man power required to run the Galactica could be a result of it. Imagine trying to do everything that the Galactica does in 1960 computer Technology.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2005-01-27 05:16am

phongn wrote: It's been said on the show that Tylium has an energy density of 500MJ/kg. Rather low, fission and fusion have greater energy densities.

Only 500MJ/kg???? Baltar states in episode 10 "Refined Tylium contains tremendous enthalpy to the order of half a billion megajoules per kilo"

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-27 06:47am

Crap! I could of sworn he said joules and not MJ!

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-01-27 03:42pm

How does that compare to the most potent combustable on Earth?

taralon · Post by **taralon** » 2005-01-28 01:08pm

Erm, considering "Nuclear Fission is an attractive possibility for spacecraft propulsion as it offers a theoretical energy density of 8 x (10^13) J/kg (8x 10^7 MJ/kg)" Which is well... two? orders of magnitude less than what is stated for Tylium, rather well indeed....

StarshipTitanic wrote:How does that compare to the most potent combustable on Earth?

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-28 01:49pm

taralon wrote:Erm, considering "Nuclear Fission is an attractive possibility for spacecraft propulsion as it offers a theoretical energy density of 8 x (10^13) J/kg (8x 10^7 MJ/kg)"

Ouch. You broke my brain with that.