Macross Frontier vs. Galactic Empire Task Force

[Darksider]

What would happen if An imperial task force consisting of Task force Vengeance and three additional Venator-class stardestroyers outfitted as carriers replaced the Vajira force at the beginning of Macross frontier?

The Empire's objective is to destroy all military vessels in the Frontier fleet, and successfully capture the island colony ships.

The frontier fleet's objective is to survive in combat long enough to reach the point of their recent long-distance fold. If they make it to the fold point, the Imperials will lose track of them and disengage.

[tim31]

The Frontier fleet probably has air superiority, based on the ability of its fighters, but until someone can give us hard numbers on main guns of Battle Frontier and Quarter, this debate can't really be contested.

[Cykeisme]

Despite the extremely high non-linear acceleration of the Veritechs, I doubt their rapid-fire slugthrowing cannons and micro missiles really pack much KE / explosive yield.
I might be jumping to conclusions, but I don't think Veritechs can take kiloton-range hits.

The reflex missiles are probably the only thing that actually make blips on the level of energy that Star Wars spaceborne combat weapons throw about (even exclusively on the fighter level), but we're not sure what kind of yield they pack, either.

There's that huge reflex cannon on the big warships; do we have hard numbers on the energy output?

Anyone can make a rough guess as to how the larger Macross colony ships and warships would hold up against gigaton/petaton magnitude heavy turbolaser fire?

[Vendetta]

The Macross is fucked.

Best guess puts their main guns at single digit megatons (The Vajra mothership fragments a ~500m asteroid, the cratering energy for that, assuming Nickel-Iron, would be ~600kt. The fragments had significant kinetic energy, so it would have been a little more than that, but Macross Quarter was fully shielded from the attack, so not too much more).

City 25's omnidirectional barrier took only two of those shots to come down, and a third penetrated the shield and damaged the city itself.

Macross is at about the tech level of Earthforce in Babylon 5/Crusade.

[Darksider]

So basically, Frontier's variable fighters might be able to outmanuver the TIEs (debatable, based on the multi-thousand-g acceleration figures, but Tie's have never really been observed pulling the spinnin-flippy shit that the VF's do) but they can't actually damage them, and the capital ships are rediculously outclassed by the Empire?

[starfury]

Yeah we did a variation of this, where we compared the much larger Zentraedi was pitched against the imperial navy and came off very poorly by comparsion Their immense fleet size but forces would represent nothing more then target practice for Star wars Ships.

[VF5SS]

They're not "veritechs" but yeah, Macross is more Battlestar Galactica level.

[Darksider]

So, I know macross is outclassed with regards to capital ships, but how would the VF-171s or 25s fair agains imperial tie fighters, assuming they had some magic ammo that could actually damage and destroy them?

[Ford Prefect]

Despite the fact that Itano Circus looks more impressive than basically any other form of dogfighting in fiction, numbers for Macross are significantly lower. The Millenium Falcon can pull massively harder gees than pretty much any variable fighter. The best we've ever seen any VF do is when Guld released the limiter on the YF-21 to defeat the Ghost, which popped his eyes and pushed his hands into his chest. I'm not sure exactly what the acceleration would be in that situation, but it's pretty much useless anyway.

[Darth Raptor]

Hopefully Frontier would surrender once they realize what they're up against, otherwise it's a slaughter. VFs have very impressive maneuverability, but that's about it. Also, it's unlikely the NUNS/SMS have ECM on par with the Imperial Navy (I suppose it's possible, though). Without all the jamming they're normally used to, dogfighting becomes a non-issue. They probably won't even launch fighters but pick the VFs off with point defense guns at ludicrous range. Or ignore them altogether. And needless to say, the ground assault would be even more one-sided.

Their best hope is to use music to make their new governor not an asshole.

[Ford Prefect]

VFs have very impressive maneuverability, but that's about it.

Ninja-like agility though it is, it's not even going to be all that impressive, given that Star Wars has engines that can pull gees in the quadruple gees.

And needless to say, the ground assault would be even more one-sided.

In a fight between an AT-AT and a Destroid Monster, I bet on the Monster.

Their best hope is to use music to make their new governor not an asshole.

I wonder how effective, ah, Global style psychological warfare might be.

[DrStrangelove]

While macross will lose horribly to SW, its not nearly the magnitude of slaughter you imagine, as they possess middish GT level firepower. Macross ships would easily waste fleets of ships from B5 or nBSG.

The bodolza main fleet in SDF macross which consisted of almost 4.8million warships is shown to bombard an earthlike terran planet in ep11. in a 2 second bombardment the fleet reduces said planet into a cratered moonscape. the boom table on atomic rockets puts the energy required to vaporize the oceans of a earthlike planet at 4.5e27J. dividing this by 4.8e6 gives us a figure of 9.39e20J. this equates to a sustained firepower of 112GT/s. so while while massively out gunned by SDs, a 2000m zentraedi thuveral salan(zentraedi destroyer),the most common large ship in the fleet(other than the 500m salan scout ship) is more than a match for any ship in B5 or nBSG.

Reaction weapons are M/AM annihilation weapons. the reaction missile carried by valkyrie fighters are approximately the size of a 21" naval torpedo. assuming similar weight devoted to warhead and you get a low GT weapon carried by fighters. the SLBM sized missiles used by warships could easily have a yield of 50-60GT. Now for the Macross cannons. their yield should easily equal the total firepower of a zentraedi destroyer if not greater due to the charge time. although this may not apply to the macross quarter and vajra as their main weapons look more chain reactiony than DET.


On to protection. ARMD carriers and the macross once herself are shown to take GT beams to the hull without being vaporized. the pinpoint barrier easily stops these beams and is standard on all later UNS ships. the full barrier shield on the macross class is capable of withstanding several hundreds of GT of firepower at a minimum but suffers due to the fact that on overload it vents all absorbed energy back out around it leading to the devastation of ontario. the full shield seen on the macross 25 is probably very similar to this. now for the valkyries, all have energy conversion armor making them at least as strong as a tank, as stated in macross zero and frontier , and shown when a VF-1 crashes through several buildings and emerges intact. later valks starting with the VF-19 carry PPBs very similar to the ones in warships.

[generator_g1]

They're not "veritechs" but yeah, Macross is more Battlestar Galactica level.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen any Macross Frontier vs nBSG thread yet in the forums....

A fleet looking for Earth meets a fleet that came from Earth with the Cyclons stuck in the middle.

[VF5SS]

Come to think of it, I haven't seen any Macross Frontier vs nBSG thread yet in the forums....

There was one on Macrossworld. One of the guys even made a cool scale comparison image.

[Ghost Rider]

While macross will lose horribly to SW, its not nearly the magnitude of slaughter you imagine, as they possess middish GT level firepower. Macross ships would easily waste fleets of ships from B5 or nBSG.

The bodolza main fleet in SDF macross which consisted of almost 4.8million warships is shown to bombard an earthlike terran planet in ep11. in a 2 second bombardment the fleet reduces said planet into a cratered moonscape. the boom table on atomic rockets puts the energy required to vaporize the oceans of a earthlike planet at 4.5e27J. dividing this by 4.8e6 gives us a figure of 9.39e20J. this equates to a sustained firepower of 112GT/s. so while while massively out gunned by SDs, a 2000m zentraedi thuveral salan(zentraedi destroyer),the most common large ship in the fleet(other than the 500m salan scout ship) is more than a match for any ship in B5 or nBSG.

Reaction weapons are M/AM annihilation weapons. the reaction missile carried by valkyrie fighters are approximately the size of a 21" naval torpedo. assuming similar weight devoted to warhead and you get a low GT weapon carried by fighters. the SLBM sized missiles used by warships could easily have a yield of 50-60GT. Now for the Macross cannons. their yield should easily equal the total firepower of a zentraedi destroyer if not greater due to the charge time. although this may not apply to the macross quarter and vajra as their main weapons look more chain reactiony than DET.


On to protection. ARMD carriers and the macross once herself are shown to take GT beams to the hull without being vaporized. the pinpoint barrier easily stops these beams and is standard on all later UNS ships. the full barrier shield on the macross class is capable of withstanding several hundreds of GT of firepower at a minimum but suffers due to the fact that on overload it vents all absorbed energy back out around it leading to the devastation of ontario. the full shield seen on the macross 25 is probably very similar to this. now for the valkyries, all have energy conversion armor making them at least as strong as a tank, as stated in macross zero and frontier , and shown when a VF-1 crashes through several buildings and emerges intact. later valks starting with the VF-19 carry PPBs very similar to the ones in warships.

Strange that when you see said visuals...the oceans aren't gone, and when you see the shows, there is no vast swath of ocean death. The fact that a variety of things survive this onslaught makes your assumption extraordinary in the proof required.

So you're taking an extraordinary high end, and declaring it as fact?

[Darksider]

Strange that when you see said visuals...the oceans aren't gone, and when you see the shows, there is no vast swath of ocean death. The fact that a variety of things survive this onslaught makes your assumption extraordinary in the proof required.

So you're taking an extraordinary high end, and declaring it as fact?

Another point against the Zents having anywhere near SW level firepower is the fact that earth survived all 4.8 million of those warships firing on it with sub-BDZ level damage. Using tech from the Macross, the U.N. spacy had already begun to restore the earth within a few years, and by the time of Macross frontier, earth is the thriving center of an interstellar nation.

[FOG3]

While macross will lose horribly to SW, its not nearly the magnitude of slaughter you imagine, as they possess middish GT level firepower. Macross ships would easily waste fleets of ships from B5 or nBSG.

The bodolza main fleet in SDF macross which consisted of almost 4.8million warships is shown to bombard an earthlike terran planet in ep11. in a 2 second bombardment the fleet reduces said planet into a cratered moonscape. the boom table on atomic rockets puts the energy required to vaporize the oceans of a earthlike planet at 4.5e27J. dividing this by 4.8e6 gives us a figure of 9.39e20J. this equates to a sustained firepower of 112GT/s. so while while massively out gunned by SDs, a 2000m zentraedi thuveral salan(zentraedi destroyer),the most common large ship in the fleet(other than the 500m salan scout ship) is more than a match for any ship in B5 or nBSG.

Reaction weapons are M/AM annihilation weapons. the reaction missile carried by valkyrie fighters are approximately the size of a 21" naval torpedo. assuming similar weight devoted to warhead and you get a low GT weapon carried by fighters. the SLBM sized missiles used by warships could easily have a yield of 50-60GT. Now for the Macross cannons. their yield should easily equal the total firepower of a zentraedi destroyer if not greater due to the charge time. although this may not apply to the macross quarter and vajra as their main weapons look more chain reactiony than DET.


On to protection. ARMD carriers and the macross once herself are shown to take GT beams to the hull without being vaporized. the pinpoint barrier easily stops these beams and is standard on all later UNS ships. the full barrier shield on the macross class is capable of withstanding several hundreds of GT of firepower at a minimum but suffers due to the fact that on overload it vents all absorbed energy back out around it leading to the devastation of ontario. the full shield seen on the macross 25 is probably very similar to this. now for the valkyries, all have energy conversion armor making them at least as strong as a tank, as stated in macross zero and frontier , and shown when a VF-1 crashes through several buildings and emerges intact. later valks starting with the VF-19 carry PPBs very similar to the ones in warships.

Strange that when you see said visuals...the oceans aren't gone, and when you see the shows, there is no vast swath of ocean death. The fact that a variety of things survive this onslaught makes your assumption extraordinary in the proof required.

So you're taking an extraordinary high end, and declaring it as fact?

In this case I would say he is referring to the incident shown in the middle of the series, as Earth's bombardment was not that quick. To be fair there's nothing verifying that is no a recording from the Zentran's earlier days, before their equipment got rundown following the fall of the Protoculture.

UN Spacy doesn't really have the tech loss issue the Zentrans had, and by this point would have rather thoroughly refined their tech. So unless you're going to actually make a case establishing that the Zentrans just fabricated that little vid, your injunction isn't really sufficient to accomplish what you want it to.

[FOG3]

Strange that when you see said visuals...the oceans aren't gone, and when you see the shows, there is no vast swath of ocean death. The fact that a variety of things survive this onslaught makes your assumption extraordinary in the proof required.

So you're taking an extraordinary high end, and declaring it as fact?

Another point against the Zents having anywhere near SW level firepower is the fact that earth survived all 4.8 million of those warships firing on it with sub-BDZ level damage. Using tech from the Macross, the U.N. spacy had already begun to restore the earth within a few years, and by the time of Macross frontier, earth is the thriving center of an interstellar nation.

And? Does the name Telos mean anything to you? That took a few years to, so what's the point?

Besides he's not advocating SW levels which are triple digit GT and low TT range, he's advocating low to maybe double digit GT. Get you orders of magnitude straight.

[Vanas]

<snip>

Strange that when you see said visuals...the oceans aren't gone, and when you see the shows, there is no vast swath of ocean death. The fact that a variety of things survive this onslaught makes your assumption extraordinary in the proof required.

So you're taking an extraordinary high end, and declaring it as fact?

I think he's referring to an earlier episode, where a fleet of Zentraedi warships do indeed render a nice blue earthy planet into a cratered moonscape in short order.

Sadly, there's no real way of knowing how many ships are in the fleet firing, but it looked to be rather less than the fleet that bombarded Earth.

Innocent Planet, minding it's business

Innocent planet, a second or so later.

Close up of explosions

Zentraedi 1, Atmosphere 0

This takes place over the course of about 30 seconds, by the by.

[Connor MacLeod]

While macross will lose horribly to SW, its not nearly the magnitude of slaughter you imagine, as they possess middish GT level firepower. Macross ships would easily waste fleets of ships from B5 or nBSG.

The bodolza main fleet in SDF macross which consisted of almost 4.8million warships is shown to bombard an earthlike terran planet in ep11. in a 2 second bombardment the fleet reduces said planet into a cratered moonscape. the boom table on atomic rockets puts the energy required to vaporize the oceans of a earthlike planet at 4.5e27J. dividing this by 4.8e6 gives us a figure of 9.39e20J. this equates to a sustained firepower of 112GT/s. so while while massively out gunned by SDs, a 2000m zentraedi thuveral salan(zentraedi destroyer),the most common large ship in the fleet(other than the 500m salan scout ship) is more than a match for any ship in B5 or nBSG.

And do the visuals support this? Heavy bombardment of a planet invariably will result in things like ejecta being thrown up (a common featuere of asteroid impacts, and if there is cratering at least SOME ejecta will be produced). Vaporizing the oceans should obscure the planet with massive clouds of superheated steam.

More over, you failt to actually enumerate your variables so for all I can see your claims are completely arbitrary and without proof. Maybe there are places where you can get away with making spurious claims and not backing them up, but thi sis not one of them.

Reaction weapons are M/AM annihilation weapons. the reaction missile carried by valkyrie fighters are approximately the size of a 21" naval torpedo. assuming similar weight devoted to warhead and you get a low GT weapon carried by fighters. the SLBM sized missiles used by warships could easily have a yield of 50-60GT. Now for the Macross cannons. their yield should easily equal the total firepower of a zentraedi destroyer if not greater due to the charge time. although this may not apply to the macross quarter and vajra as their main weapons look more chain reactiony than DET.

1.) What proof they are M/Am weapons? Again this is completely arbitrary.

2.) And just how are you figuring the variableS? Do you take efficiency of the reaction into account? How much of the missile volume is devoted to warhead, how much to guidance systems, and how much to propulsion? How much does the weapon weigh?

[Connor MacLeod]

<snip>

Strange that when you see said visuals...the oceans aren't gone, and when you see the shows, there is no vast swath of ocean death. The fact that a variety of things survive this onslaught makes your assumption extraordinary in the proof required.

So you're taking an extraordinary high end, and declaring it as fact?

I think he's referring to an earlier episode, where a fleet of Zentraedi warships do indeed render a nice blue earthy planet into a cratered moonscape in short order.

Sadly, there's no real way of knowing how many ships are in the fleet firing, but it looked to be rather less than the fleet that bombarded Earth.

Innocent Planet, minding it's business

Innocent planet, a second or so later.

Close up of explosions

Zentraedi 1, Atmosphere 0

This takes place over the course of about 30 seconds, by the by.

I couldn't be positive without actually watching it, but that looks pretty fishy to me (as in "I'm not sure that is thermodynamically possible")

[Connor MacLeod]

VFs have very impressive maneuverability, but that's about it.

Ninja-like agility though it is, it's not even going to be all that impressive, given that Star Wars has engines that can pull gees in the quadruple gees.

You're oversimplifying to an extent. SW vessels have high LINEAR accelerations, but that doesn't neccesarily translate into a high turning rate (manuverability will depend on alot of factors, such as design and nature of manuevering systems, their placement, power, etc. EVen the "EM steering" of main engines will not neccearily be as effective as linear thrust due to beam deflection.)

It is quite possible to have a SW ship that could accelerate very quickly in a straight line but turn worth shit.

[Vendetta]

However, in the bombardment of Earth (which is the only one that unequivocally happens in realtime, rather than being shown to the heroes on video, and hence open to manipulation, especially when it was specifically intended to intimidate), clearly nothing like that takes place. Not only is there sufficient surface depth of water for the Macross to crash land into at the end of the space battle, but Hikaru is able to land and survive unprotected on the surface, indicating no significant remaining surface heat, and the surface of Earth is immediately habitable again.

Also:

Reaction weapons are M/AM annihilation weapons.

Source?

On to protection. ARMD carriers and the macross once herself are shown to take GT beams to the hull without being vaporized.

The ARMD carriers are shown being completely penetrated by (as in the shots have enough energy to go all the way through and out the other side) shots which, when the same bombardment hits surface, blast 10-20m holes in ordinary surface buildings. They are not gigaton level weapons, they're not even real ton weapons, they're equivalent to modern artillery, just with very long range. ARMD carriers are made of normal modern materials, they have no pinpoint barrier or other shielding.

The Macross is hit once with the bow gun of a Zentradi gunship, it takes all three pinpoint barriers to protect the impact point (the bridge) and the communications and radar arrays around it are still blown to crap. Those bow guns are not presented as being significantly more powerful than the Vajra cannon shown in Frontier.

Wild exaggerations of the capabilities of the Macross universe simply do not fit with what is shown on screen.

[VF5SS]

However, in the bombardment of Earth (which is the only one that unequivocally happens in realtime, rather than being shown to the heroes on video, and hence open to manipulation, especially when it was specifically intended to intimidate), clearly nothing like that takes place. Not only is there sufficient surface depth of water for the Macross to crash land into at the end of the space battle, but Hikaru is able to land and survive unprotected on the surface, indicating no significant remaining surface heat, and the surface of Earth is immediately habitable again.

Wasn't that crater the Grand Cannon itself? I thought there was no water in it.

Source?

Reaction Weapons are described as pair-annihilation. Whatever that means.

ARMD carriers are made of normal modern materials, they have no pinpoint barrier or other shielding.

There's really no word on that either way. It does use Overtechnology for its powerplant so it may have energy converting armor.

[tim31]

Pair annihilation sounds like matter/antimatter to me.