Galactica vs. Honorverse

[Dahak]

In a discussion about some fanfic on another (German) board, the discussion came up who'd win in a fight between the Galactica (new one) against an Honorverse-ship (for ship-type, I think maybe an Dreadnought or Superdreadnought).

Scenario 1: The ships start several million kilometers away from each other.

Scenario 2: They find themselves in quite short range against each other (< 300,000 km).

Is it a fair fight? And who'd win?

[Sidewinder]

If my memory is correct, the gravity walls (or whatever the hell they're called) will provide very effective defense against the weapons used by a battlestar or basestar. The missiles used by Honorverse dreadnoughts are also very long ranged, so they can just rain missiles on a battlestar or basestar without worrying about return fire.

[Starglider]

The ships start several million kilometers away from each other.

The battlestar either uses its jump drive to run away or is vaporised by an overwhelming missile barrage, moving much too fast for its point defences to do anything (not that they'd work against laser-head missiles anyway). Given that a battlestar uses lightspeed sensors only and those missiles move /fast/, unless their jump drive is already spun up and the commander doesn't dawdle they'll probably be vaporised anyway.

They find themselves in quite short range against each other (< 300,000 km).

Even worse. The Battlestar's own guns are only effective at 100s of km range at best - a Basestar's missiles may be longer ranged but they're pathetically slow and easy to shoot down by Horoverse standards. But even if the Honorverse ship inexplicably closes to this range, they can do jack shit to it due to the impeller wedge and sidewalls. The Honorverse ship will swat the vipers/raiders out of the sky with missiles or graser fire and wipe out the mothership with missile fire, maybe coming in with energy weapons to finnish it off.

Is it a fair fight?

Fair, yes. Even, no. NewBSG is pretty low on the sci fi versus ladder - their only real advantages are there moderately competent ground forces and their instantaneous no-hyper-limit jump drives.

[Dahak]

The ships start several million kilometers away from each other.

The battlestar either uses its jump drive to run away or is vaporised by an overwhelming missile barrage, moving much too fast for its point defences to do anything (not that they'd work against laser-head missiles anyway). Given that a battlestar uses lightspeed sensors only and those missiles move /fast/, unless their jump drive is already spun up and the commander doesn't dawdle they'll probably be vaporised anyway.

The problem, at least I think, with the "Jump Away at Last Second"-tactic so frequently used by Galactica is that they tend to wait quite long to do so.
A current HH missile's laser head has a standoff range around 40,000km. They probably wouldn't be jumping that early.

if they knew this range limit, of course, it would frustrate the HH captain to no end...

[HRogge]

If the range of BSG weapons is below 1000 (or even 10000) km the HH side will just close the distance and kill the opponents with beam weapons... after spending a few missiles volleys and see their opponent jump away.

if the BSG side always run away they cannot win.

[fgalkin]

Don't Honorverse laser heads have a range of 20,000 km or so? Galactica is toast at the first encounter.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[kinnison]

This is almost as bad as putting Galactica up against the Dauntless. Honor has it. Missile velocity is a large fraction of c and the missile heads have a much longer range than Galactica's armaments. In fact, a Honorverse battlecruiser would probably decide to save the ammo and obliterate Galactica with beams.

[Teleros]

This is almost as bad as putting Galactica up against the Dauntless.

Surely the Dauntless would've destroyed the Galactica before it even knew there was a hostile ship out there ?

[consequences]

*Stomp Smash Crush Fold Spindle Mutilate*

Battlestar Galactica has to do everything exactly right to have even the faintest chance in hell. And by exactly right, I mean infiltrating the Honorverse ship beforehand to give away its position in order to deliver the nuke armed raptor at point blank range dead ahead of the Honorverse ship so it can successfully kamikaze. Preferably while Lieutenant Loser has the watch on the Honorverse ship, when he's just come down with a previously undiagnosed case of narcolepsy. For optimum chance of success, try for a dispatch boat or unarmed freighter, as anything with significant point defense still might successfully defend itself automatically without human intervention.

It's not quite as bad as putting them up against the Dauntless, but it's quite bad enough.

[Batman]

I think by know everybody noticed how this particular versus might be the TINIEST bit one-sided.

I still don't get the Dauntless reference, though.

[starfury]

still don't get the Dauntless reference, though.

Yeah, What is the Dauntless that you guys kept referencing.

[kinnison]

Dauntless is the superdreadnought that happens to be the flagship of the Galactic Patrol - hence the Lensverse's most powerful warship (except for specialised vessels designed for reducing ground installations).

Just for anyone who doesn't already know, probably this ship could turn any Honorverse ship into incandescent plasma before it even knew Dauntless was there - for one thing, its speed is around 100 parsecs per hour, and it can see at that speed. However, luckily for either ship (Galactica or Honorverse) it's rather unlikely a Patrol ship would initiate hostilities for no reason.

[Plekhanov]

Even if the Dreadnought was kind enough not to shoot back does the Galactica even have enough nukes to take out an Honorverse Dreadnought? Those things are very tough.

[eyl]

Even if the Dreadnought was kind enough not to shoot back does the Galactica even have enough nukes to take out an Honorverse Dreadnought? Those things are very tough.

A nuke would probably be able to badly damage an Honorverse dreadnought, but only if it managed to penetrate the active defenses and the sidewalls to contact the hull - which it almost certainly won't (laser heads are used in the Honorverse precisely beecause getting nukes close enough to do any damage is almost impossible)

[consequences]

Even if the Dreadnought was kind enough not to shoot back does the Galactica even have enough nukes to take out an Honorverse Dreadnought? Those things are very tough.

A nuke would probably be able to badly damage an Honorverse dreadnought, but only if it managed to penetrate the active defenses and the sidewalls to contact the hull - which it almost certainly won't (laser heads are used in the Honorverse precisely beecause getting nukes close enough to do any damage is almost impossible)

And that's with weapons with absurdly greater acceleration than the BSG missiles. Not to mention that the combat ranges we see on screen would generally put a BSG ship inside a superdreadnought's wedge.

[Teleros]

Dauntless is the superdreadnought that happens to be the flagship of the Galactic Patrol - hence the Lensverse's most powerful warship (except for specialised vessels designed for reducing ground installations).

Not quite - it's the private yacht / warship of the main character of (most of) the series, Lensman Kim Kinnison. The flagship is the Z9M9Z (also known as the Directrix or GFHQ). The Dauntless though is probably one of the most powerful ships smaller than a mauler (big, slow, freakin' powerful).

[kinnison]

Dauntless is the superdreadnought that happens to be the flagship of the Galactic Patrol - hence the Lensverse's most powerful warship (except for specialised vessels designed for reducing ground installations).

Not quite - it's the private yacht / warship of the main character of (most of) the series, Lensman Kim Kinnison. The flagship is the Z9M9Z (also known as the Directrix or GFHQ). The Dauntless though is probably one of the most powerful ships smaller than a mauler (big, slow, freakin' powerful).

Well, that's arguable, since the Directrix is not a combat ship - although of course its screens are the best available. Hence another one of its names, GFHQ - it's a flying fleet headquarters; hence, it has no combat capabilities, not surprisingly when you consider it is probably controlling a billion warships and simply doesn't have the room for weapons. However, saying that my namesake is Dauntless's sometime captain gives some idea of its capabilities. I confess that I don't remember whether it's stated anywhere what the name of the flagship is.

Actually, I suspect that the Britannia (from Galactic Patrol, the third book) would probably be an overmatch for Galactica. This is significant, because there is an enormously fast increase in the power of Patrol (and presumably Boskonian) technology over the time period of the series - which is a small fraction of one human lifespan.

Lastly, maulers are not the Patrol's most powerful - "supermaulers" make a brief appearance in Book 5, Second Stage Lensmen (I think).

[Teleros]

Well, that's arguable, since the Directrix is not a combat ship

It is a combat ship, just an unarmed and highly specialised one. It's also stated to be the flagship of the GP Grand Fleet. When Haynes sets about getting it built for example...

Therefore, immediately after the return from that "triumphant" venture, he gave orders to design and to build, at whatever cost, a flagship capable of directing efficiently a million combat units.

It's also of course the ship used by the Port Admiral - the guy in charge of the Galactic Patrol navy .

Actually, I suspect that the Britannia (from Galactic Patrol, the third book) would probably be an overmatch for Galactica.

I think you could probably win with any decent inertialess warship. As long as it's flying free it's all but impossible to hit it without simply pushing it away instead of damaging it. A fairer match would be between a pre-inertialess ship and say the Galactica.

[kinnison]

Teleros, I stand corrected about Directrix being the flagship. Whether a ship with no weapons can be called a combat ship is of course a matter of definition. Would calling the Dauntless "the premier fighting ship of the Galactic Patrol" do? (As Directrix does of course not fight itself - it can't.) Even if there are millions of ships like Dauntless, it probably has the best crew - it ought to have, with the Patrol's best operative on board it. (Not to mention that the Arisians would subtly push things that way, as losing Kinnison would waste three or four billion years of work!)

Another intresting point is about the Patrol's command structure. It's not stated anywhere, but it seems as if any Unattached Lensman outranks any other member of the Patrol - which means that Kinnison is in command of Dauntless when on board, in the same manner as an admiral aboard his flagship. This sort of structure would of course not work without people incapable of corruption.

Sorry for a bit of vagueness; I haven't dug out my Lensman books in a while.

Apologies for the thread derail.

[Teleros]

Would calling the Dauntless "the premier fighting ship of the Galactic Patrol" do?

Certainly . The thing's quite possibly a unique ship (it's not said that it was duplicated), so aside from say Worsel's Velan I doubt there are many ships that come that close to it without being Maulers or larger.

You're right about the Unattached Lensmen BTW - they might be subordinate to the Galactic Council, but TBH I'm not sure even of that.


Anyway, back to Galactic v Honorverse . What ships in both oBSG and nBSG are there that can give Honorverse ships a run for there money, if any?

[fgalkin]

Well, I'm sure both the Galactica and the Pegasus can take out a pinnace, LAC, frigate, crappy destroyer if they get lucky.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Jaevric]

Well, I'm sure both the Galactica and the Pegasus can take out a pinnace, LAC, frigate, crappy destroyer if they get lucky.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

A pinnace, yes.

A LAC or anything bigger, I'm not so sure; the "main gun" on a Shrike-class LAC is a pre-pod battlecruiser graser, so you're still looking at a huge range advantage. A Ferret won't have the huge graser but will have an even larger range advantage due to the missile loadout. Toss in the impeller wedge and the walls and the Galactica is going to have a very hard time damaging the LAC, while the LAC will be able to shoot holes in the Galactica almost at-will.

For that matter, do nBSG weapons have sufficient range to shoot up an Honorverse starship from outside the ship's impeller wedge?

[NetKnight]

Wouldn't a Honorverse ship be able to roll, ramming the Big G with its wedge should Galactica get within range of its own weapons? A civilian ship probably wouldn't be able to roll fast enough, but millitary starships are intended to be able to do this. I don't think a few thousand Gs of sheer would do the Colonials much good.

[fgalkin2]

A LAC or anything bigger, I'm not so sure; the "main gun" on a Shrike-class LAC is a pre-pod battlecruiser graser, so you're still looking at a huge range advantage. A Ferret won't have the huge graser but will have an even larger range advantage due to the missile loadout. Toss in the impeller wedge and the walls and the Galactica is going to have a very hard time damaging the LAC, while the LAC will be able to shoot holes in the Galactica almost at-will.

You do have a point. Pre-war LAC, then.

Now, the Battlestar Galactica vs the Pottawatomie Creek, that's a fight I'd pay to see. The Creek will probably win that one, too, despite being a "civillian" ship.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[kinnison]

I think we are all agreed that just about any Honorverse ship is an absurd overmatch for Galactica. Can we come up with any decent opponents for her? I nominate a Babylon 5's Earth Alliance Nova Class dreadnought. Link:

http://www.b5tech.com/earthalliance/ear ... /nova.html