Cylon Jump Bombs

[Gil Hamilton]

OK, let me ask this.

We know that the Cylons in nBSG have the technology to put a jump drive and its powersource in a small, fightersized package. These jumpdrives are longer ranged than Colonial jumpdrives and more accurate. They certainly can jump directly into the atmosphere of planets with no ill effects. So, what could stop them from strapping said jump drives to a nuclear bomb and setting them to jump a mile above a Colonial city and detonate a tick later?

It almost seems like that happened in nBSG, given the almost complete lack of warning the Colonials had and that reports of nuclear detonations were coming in before they really knew who or what was attacking them.

In such an event, that kind of makes it seem like the Twelve Colonies were kind of doomed no matter what. I can't see any way for them to defend against nuclear bombs with a jump drive stuck on. Even without the Cylons taking down the Colonial militaries computers, it seems that they could have made most of humanity extinct without the Colonial military being able to do a damn thing about it. That would make the computer virus on the Colonial military to destroy them so they couldn't fan out and retaliate against the Cylons, rather than disable their defenses.

Hell, I don't see why they couldn't use them for ship to ship combat if they knew exactly where the ship was.

[The Grim Squeaker]

That's arguable.
They might have had automated satellite defences, much like modern SAM's that react faster than humans could to unauthorized objects approaching at high speeds (IT'd also work against asteroids).

wHo knows, there might have even been "mining" techniques or defensive patterns for patrol ships in good/open "jump points".

[NecronLord]

I expect their not using this technique can be explained by the jump drive being expensive enough that it's better to just use a nuclear armed raider of some description, and jump away to preserve the drive.

[consequences]

They also owned the Colonial computer networks at the time of the attack. So they could either have written themselves out of the Dradis network, or used the Colonial sensors and comms to feed themselves up to the second information to jump in with pinpoint precision(or both).

[Nyrath]

From Building the Mote in God's Eye by Jerry Pournelle:

If the Drive allowed ships to sneak up on planets, materializing without warning out of hyperspace, then there could be no Empire even with the Field. There'd be no Empire because belonging to the empire wouldn't protect you. Instead there might be populations of planet-bound serfs ruled at random by successive hordes of of space pirates. Upward mobility would consist of getting your own ship and turning pirate.

[Uraniun235]

The thing is that a single bomb isn't going to do that much in the larger scale of things. Realistically, you're talking tens of thousands of devices at least... which means tens of thousands of jump drives which are going to be wasted. It makes much more sense to jump in a Raider which is carrying several nuclear missiles, have the Raider fire the missiles, and then either move on to attack other spacecraft or return to base for rearming. After the attack, you'll still have a bunch of surviving Raiders and their jump drives which you can get further use out of.

Hell, I don't see why they couldn't use them for ship to ship combat if they knew exactly where the ship was.

Here we're getting into the problem again of tactical jumping; once the Cylons know where Galactica is, why not lure out the Viper squadrons and then jump a bunch of Raiders on the opposite side of Galactica where they'd only have to face the flak screen?

There are three possible answers:

1) Some technical problem renders the tactic infeasible

2) The Cylons are incompetent

3) The Cylon "master plan" somehow requires that Galactica suffer the illusion of a hard-fought running battle

[CaptJodan]

Here we're getting into the problem again of tactical jumping; once the Cylons know where Galactica is, why not lure out the Viper squadrons and then jump a bunch of Raiders on the opposite side of Galactica where they'd only have to face the flak screen?

It becomes more problematic when we've seen Galactica use this very tactic several times (Res ship, Exodus) against the supposed accurate jumpable raiders. Why, when they've been diverted away by some civie ships, do they not jump back to their basestars when trouble hits?

As much evidence that has piled up on the lack of using tactical jumps, I'm beginning to get the impression that the "wounded" raider that jumped around the fleet that one time was something of a fluke. Not sure how to explain how it was a fluke, but we haven't seen raider recalls to their basestars when they most needed it via jumping.

[Lord Revan]

maybe there's a short time where ships who've just "jumped" in can't funtion, while it would probably be short enough that it wouldn't be a risk to battlestar or a basestar, few a fraction of a second of inactivity inside a battlestar's flak screen could mean that a raider could get quite literally shredded.

[CaptJodan]

maybe there's a short time where ships who've just "jumped" in can't funtion, while it would probably be short enough that it wouldn't be a risk to battlestar or a basestar, few a fraction of a second of inactivity inside a battlestar's flak screen could mean that a raider could get quite literally shredded.

It still doesn't quite fit with the idea of jumping just outside weapon's range of whatever target you're after, then moving into weapons range once this "inactivity" is over. The attack on the Res ship was long enough to allow plenty of time for the raiders to return just out of flak range, then close and engage.

[Gil Hamilton]

That's arguable.
They might have had automated satellite defences, much like modern SAM's that react faster than humans could to unauthorized objects approaching at high speeds (IT'd also work against asteroids).

wHo knows, there might have even been "mining" techniques or defensive patterns for patrol ships in good/open "jump points".

I don't see how that would work. I'm talking about jumping the bomb directly above the city and then detonating it a tick later, not jumping it in close and flying the rest of the way.

I expect their not using this technique can be explained by the jump drive being expensive enough that it's better to just use a nuclear armed raider of some description, and jump away to preserve the drive.

How long did they have to plan the attack on the Colonies? The ICBM part of a nuclear missile is pretty damn expensive and non-recoverable, but we still make them rather than relying solely on a fleet of bombers. Their big attack on the colonies had to be decades in the making and I can't see any reasonable defense against just jumping bombs directly into their cities and installations rather than build massive starships to carry swarms of fighters which can be destroyed to do the same thing. See below for more on the expense of Cylon fighters...

The thing is that a single bomb isn't going to do that much in the larger scale of things. Realistically, you're talking tens of thousands of devices at least... which means tens of thousands of jump drives which are going to be wasted. It makes much more sense to jump in a Raider which is carrying several nuclear missiles, have the Raider fire the missiles, and then either move on to attack other spacecraft or return to base for rearming. After the attack, you'll still have a bunch of surviving Raiders and their jump drives which you can get further use out of.

A single 50MT bomb such as the ones described being used against the Colonials is enough to flatten a good sized chunk of city and several to wipe it from the map. That might require tens of thousands of devices, but were I a genocidal robot nation, I would consider them tens of thousands of devices well spent if it means incinerating virtually all of my enemy without them being able to defend themselves at all.

Besides, I highly question that jump drives are all that expensive to the Cylons. Remember "Scar"? Sharon describes that fighters are ressurrected like regular Cylons and that it makes the fighter being destroyed more of a "learning experience" to use her own words. Given the casual way Sharon describes the process and that they entrust jump drives to their intellectual equivalents of dogs, exactly how expensive could the jump drives be. The point of the episode was practically how easily replacable Cylon fighters were as contrasted to human pilots which could never ever be replaced. If the Cylons view their fighters as expendable, then that includes the jump drives as expendable.

They were certainly replacable enough that the Cylons have been willing to abandon their fighters before. Remember the fighter Kara found? If the jump drives were that expensive, why didn't the Cylons bother to make the effort to recover it? The ship still completely worked, aside from the "pilot" being dead, to the point that Kara could step on the squishy bits to make it move.

[Uraniun235]

As much evidence that has piled up on the lack of using tactical jumps, I'm beginning to get the impression that the "wounded" raider that jumped around the fleet that one time was something of a fluke. Not sure how to explain how it was a fluke, but we haven't seen raider recalls to their basestars when they most needed it via jumping

There's a very simple possibility: that the Raider was not really making any detailed calculations on its jumps, rather that it was just performing the equivalent of "smallest jump possible thataway". It doesn't need precision, it just needs to jump around at random.

How long did they have to plan the attack on the Colonies? The ICBM part of a nuclear missile is pretty damn expensive and non-recoverable, but we still make them rather than relying solely on a fleet of bombers.

Actually, it's the support infrastructure around the ICBM that makes them expensive; the missile itself is relatively inexpensive. Interestingly, there's been several discussions elsewhere on SDN over whether or not ICBMs are actually an inferior delivery system compared to manned bombers.

Besides, I highly question that jump drives are all that expensive to the Cylons. Remember "Scar"? Sharon describes that fighters are ressurrected like regular Cylons and that it makes the fighter being destroyed more of a "learning experience" to use her own words. Given the casual way Sharon describes the process and that they entrust jump drives to their intellectual equivalents of dogs, exactly how expensive could the jump drives be. The point of the episode was practically how easily replacable Cylon fighters were as contrasted to human pilots which could never ever be replaced. If the Cylons view their fighters as expendable, then that includes the jump drives as expendable.

Well, how many jump drives were lost in the attack as it happened, versus how many would have been lost in your proposed jump-bomb attack?

I'm not saying that jump drives are not expendable, I'm saying there may be better and less wasteful delivery systems than "jump drive strapped to a bomb GO", like "jump drive strapped to a whole bundle of missiles, which can then come back and be reused", i.e. a Raider.

[Penfold]

1) Some technical problem renders the tactic infeasible

We saw this at the end of "Scattered". When Galactica makes the jump back to the fleet, there are several tense moments while the crew waits for the DRADIS to produce an image. When it does, not only do the other ships appear one at a time, there's an exterior shot that shows several of them practically on top of Galactica.

Compare this to when a ship suddenly jumps in. They're immediately detected on DRADIS, unless there's some sort of interference.

3) The Cylon "master plan" somehow requires that Galactica suffer the illusion of a hard-fought running battle

This is actually a possibility, but I can't tell you how right now. Most of my theories have been shot down by the events of Season 3, and the season finale really muddied the waters.

[Uraniun235]

3) The Cylon "master plan" somehow requires that Galactica suffer the illusion of a hard-fought running battle

This is actually a possibility, but I can't tell you how right now. Most of my theories have been shot down by the events of Season 3, and the season finale really muddied the waters.

I know it's a possibility (there was a thread here a year or two ago about whether or not that was the case, in light of this very sort of issue) but I hope it doesn't prove to be the case because I personally don't care for the "oh hey we're stringing you along all this time because we have inscrutable goals lol" device.

[Terralthra]

It's been shown that even with the highly (from the Colonial perspective) accurate jump calculator off of a Raider, it took 20 (?) jumps to get back to the Colonies. RDM podcasts and supplemental material indicate that the longer a jump is, the more difficult any particular degree of accuracy becomes.

The most likely possibility in my opinion is that in order to get the sort of precision necessary to hit the atmosphere above a major city (not really that big a target, in astronomical terms) would require that they jump multiple times, with the penultimate jump being inside the Colonial defense grid, and subject to interdiction (remember, they had no idea that the CNP infiltration would be as complete as it ended up being). There has consistently shown to be at least a minimal time to ascertain exact location after a jump and calculate the next jump.

[Gil Hamilton]

It's been shown that even with the highly (from the Colonial perspective) accurate jump calculator off of a Raider, it took 20 (?) jumps to get back to the Colonies. RDM podcasts and supplemental material indicate that the longer a jump is, the more difficult any particular degree of accuracy becomes.

The most likely possibility in my opinion is that in order to get the sort of precision necessary to hit the atmosphere above a major city (not really that big a target, in astronomical terms) would require that they jump multiple times, with the penultimate jump being inside the Colonial defense grid, and subject to interdiction (remember, they had no idea that the CNP infiltration would be as complete as it ended up being). There has consistently shown to be at least a minimal time to ascertain exact location after a jump and calculate the next jump.

Except this isn't true. When the Raptors flew back to Caprica to retrieve Anders and gang, they did it from well outside the system (and the Cylon defenders of the planets range) and jumped basically in formation in the atmosphere. A couple of them missed, unfortunately, but that is less a problem for Cylon's who are supposed to have better and more accurate jump drives.

Keep also in mind that the Colonials were taken completely by surprise. They started receiving word that their cities were being bombed BEFORE they knew about the attacking craft. If the last jump to reach the colonies was inside the Colonial defense grid, they'd have seen the Cylon ships before hand.

[Azazal]

Possibly a brain bug on my part, but did Six say anything about Cylon suicide being a sin? The reason I ask is, what if the cyclon that makes the jumps has to be semi sentient, like the raiders, or for the targeting requirements to hit a city, on level with the organic units? Being programed for the sole purpose of suicide would contradict Six's statement. However, that would all hinge on suicide being a cylon sin, and like I said I may be remembering incorrectly

[Uraniun235]

Keep also in mind that the Colonials were taken completely by surprise. They started receiving word that their cities were being bombed BEFORE they knew about the attacking craft. If the last jump to reach the colonies was inside the Colonial defense grid, they'd have seen the Cylon ships before hand.

But would they have been able to report the ships before their systems were disabled by the backdoor planted in the defense system?

[Terralthra]

Except this isn't true. When the Raptors flew back to Caprica to retrieve Anders and gang, they did it from well outside the system (and the Cylon defenders of the planets range) and jumped basically in formation in the atmosphere. A couple of them missed, unfortunately, but that is less a problem for Cylon's who are supposed to have better and more accurate jump drives.

There's no evidence the Cylons had set up a defense grid in Colonial space in the six months or so between the attack and the mission to Caprica. In addition, the jump drive's accuracy depends on the jump calculations, and the Raptors had a Cylon jump computer.

Keep also in mind that the Colonials were taken completely by surprise. They started receiving word that their cities were being bombed BEFORE they knew about the attacking craft. If the last jump to reach the colonies was inside the Colonial defense grid, they'd have seen the Cylon ships before hand.

Jumping to space within reasonable attack range near a planet is not nearly the same accuracy as jumping into an atmosphere within blast radius of a city?

[Covenant]

I think the 'no retreat' methodology of most raiders is due to the fact that they're generally not worried about dying. Using jumpdrives to return to a fleet assumes that the raider even cares if it dies, which would be unusual for a raider brain. I seriously doubt that their drives are accurate enough to jump them like that into a ship though, and it seems unlikely they'd even use it that way if they could. Several times heavy raiders HAVE landed on colonial vessels, and have never once carried a serious warhead aboard to detonate on the ship, have they? Being able to warp a bomb aboard would be the same net result. It seems that if they could teleport something aboard, they'd just teleport aboard big boxes of chromeheads.

[Gil Hamilton]

Possibly a brain bug on my part, but did Six say anything about Cylon suicide being a sin? The reason I ask is, what if the cyclon that makes the jumps has to be semi sentient, like the raiders, or for the targeting requirements to hit a city, on level with the organic units? Being programed for the sole purpose of suicide would contradict Six's statement. However, that would all hinge on suicide being a cylon sin, and like I said I may be remembering incorrectly

That would make using the bombs I described extremely attractive since you don't need anything more than a jump drive, a bomb, and a timer.

There's no evidence the Cylons had set up a defense grid in Colonial space in the six months or so between the attack and the mission to Caprica. In addition, the jump drive's accuracy depends on the jump calculations, and the Raptors had a Cylon jump computer.

No, they didn't have a Cylon jump computer, they had Sharon plugged into their Raptor. And with Colonial jump drives they STILL mostly got into the atmosphere, in formation, rather than being scattered over hell's half acre and then forming up.

Besides, this would FAVOR using jump bombs. After all, the Cylons had huge amounts of time to plan their attack. They could have spent ten years setting up a computer model that sets up running jump calcs for all of their ordinance for every target for all that it mattered, because the attack was entirely on their own initiative. In fact, they'd probably have to do that anyway. Going "jump calculations take time to be accurate" doesn't fly, since the Cylons literally had all the time in the world.

Jumping to space within reasonable attack range near a planet is not nearly the same accuracy as jumping into an atmosphere within blast radius of a city

We know they can do it. NBSG jump drives have already displayed that amount of accuracy to get in the nuclear ballpark of a city easily. Even if you claim it was a function of the accuracy of their jump calculations, the Cylons had decades to plan.



I'm not sure what I'm getting so much resistance to this idea from you guys though. No one has seriously proposed any reason why strapping bombs to jump drives is a bad idea. Unlike even modern nuclear missiles, doing so and using jump drives to deliver your warhead directly to the city is a GUARANTEED strike. The warhead cannot be interdicted, because there is no time to do so, unlike sending in swarms of bombers or jumping in ships to fire missiles. It is, frankly, just a good idea for a genocide killbot group to do.

[Terralthra]

There's no evidence the Cylons had set up a defense grid in Colonial space in the six months or so between the attack and the mission to Caprica. In addition, the jump drive's accuracy depends on the jump calculations, and the Raptors had a Cylon jump computer.

No, they didn't have a Cylon jump computer, they had Sharon plugged into their Raptor. And with Colonial jump drives they STILL mostly got into the atmosphere, in formation, rather than being scattered over hell's half acre and then forming up.

That's a deliberate distortion. They had Sharon in their Raptor, plugged into a Cylon Heavy Raider navigation module.

Besides, this would FAVOR using jump bombs. After all, the Cylons had huge amounts of time to plan their attack. They could have spent ten years setting up a computer model that sets up running jump calcs for all of their ordinance for every target for all that it mattered, because the attack was entirely on their own initiative. In fact, they'd probably have to do that anyway. Going "jump calculations take time to be accurate" doesn't fly, since the Cylons literally had all the time in the world.

Jumping to space within reasonable attack range near a planet is not nearly the same accuracy as jumping into an atmosphere within blast radius of a city

We know they can do it. NBSG jump drives have already displayed that amount of accuracy to get in the nuclear ballpark of a city easily. Even if you claim it was a function of the accuracy of their jump calculations, the Cylons had decades to plan.

You're making the assumption that difficulty calculating a jump can be counteracted by taking extra time calculating it. That's a pretty unwarranted assumption. Imagine the following dialogue:

A: "Calculate pi."
B: "To how many decimal places?"
A: "All of them."
B: "That's impossible."
A: "That's fine, take all the time you need."

I'm not sure what I'm getting so much resistance to this idea from you guys though. No one has seriously proposed any reason why strapping bombs to jump drives is a bad idea. Unlike even modern nuclear missiles, doing so and using jump drives to deliver your warhead directly to the city is a GUARANTEED strike. The warhead cannot be interdicted, because there is no time to do so, unlike sending in swarms of bombers or jumping in ships to fire missiles. It is, frankly, just a good idea for a genocide killbot group to do.

Yes, it is a good idea. Since they didn't do it, we're coming up with some rational reasons why they didn't - or couldn't. Given the emphasis placed on jump calculations and their difficulty in the show, it makes a reasonable amount of sense that even highly advanced navigation computers can't make a calculation of sufficient combined distance and accuracy.

[Uraniun235]

I'm not sure what I'm getting so much resistance to this idea from you guys though. No one has seriously proposed any reason why strapping bombs to jump drives is a bad idea.

It's very negative from a "makes for a good story" perspective, as addressed by the quote posted earlier:

From Building the Mote in God's Eye by Jerry Pournelle:

If the Drive allowed ships to sneak up on planets, materializing without warning out of hyperspace, then there could be no Empire even with the Field. There'd be no Empire because belonging to the empire wouldn't protect you. Instead there might be populations of planet-bound serfs ruled at random by successive hordes of of space pirates. Upward mobility would consist of getting your own ship and turning pirate.

It's also highly inconsistent; if the Cylons could just jump in ten thousand bombs without any possible defense, why go to the trouble of infiltrating the Colonies? Further, why use Raiders to attack the shipyards with nuclear-armed missiles (as seen in Razor) when they could just jump in a few well-placed bombs and destroy the shipyards and every docked ship in a single blow?


Congratulations, you've poked a hole in the neoBSG writing. Bully for you. There are two possible resolutions; either a technical obstacle exists which makes it impractical, or the Cylons are incompetent. Having the Cylons just be basically incompetent doesn't make for a very good story (and, in my case at least, tends to break suspension of disbelief) so it's better to exhaust all of the possibilities for impracticality before we throw up our hands and declare the Cylons to be Starfleet-retarded.

[Anguirus]

It is, frankly, just a good idea for a genocide killbot group to do.

Except they didn't need to bother. They were equally successful with merely jumping missile-spewing battlewagons everywhere.

The difference between jumping a nuke onto a city and jumping a basestar with a hundred nukes into planetary orbit is apparently insignificant. Especially when all but two battlestars have been crippled by a computer virus.

[Gil Hamilton]

That's a deliberate distortion. They had Sharon in their Raptor, plugged into a Cylon Heavy Raider navigation module.

Fine, conceded, but they still had to do it Colonial drives.

You're making the assumption that difficulty calculating a jump can be counteracted by taking extra time calculating it. That's a pretty unwarranted assumption. Imagine the following dialogue:

A: "Calculate pi."
B: "To how many decimal places?"
A: "All of them."
B: "That's impossible."
A: "That's fine, take all the time you need."

Aside from that being a silly example (no one would ask for the exact value of pi in the first place and approximating nature is the foundation of physics anyway), having alot of time on your hands DOES aid increased accuracy. Even if calculating time isn't a factor, having alot of time on their hands to plan the attack allows for better models and the development of better algorithms for calculation of jumps. It also allows them to pre-calculate jumps ahead of time and build running model systems when they actually do launch so they don't have to sit there calculating their next jump between the jumps themselves. It's quite reasonable to say that pre-planning would greatly increase the accuracy of their delivery system.

Yes, it is a good idea. Since they didn't do it, we're coming up with some rational reasons why they didn't - or couldn't. Given the emphasis placed on jump calculations and their difficulty in the show, it makes a reasonable amount of sense that even highly advanced navigation computers can't make a calculation of sufficient combined distance and accuracy.

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.

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.

[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.