Stats of a Battlestar (Spoilers of course for show)

[MKSheppard]

This has some spoilers for the finale; so I'll put in some dead space

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So we know the following:

1.) We know an old obsolete Battlestar with most of the armor removed for decomissioning can survive a point blank nuke initation from the pilot miniseries.

2.) We know a modern Battlestar can survive no less than three nuclear initations simultaneously, and then go on to hold it's own against what is it, no less than three basestars simultaneously. "The Captain's Hand".

3.) We know an old-style battlestar can withstand the atmospheric friction of a drop in the upper atmosphere.



4.) Galactica in the finale is hit so hard that she actually rocks up and down. This occurs during the initial barriage before Anders brings the hybrids off line.

BSG Mass Take 1

Doing some rough ballpark weight calculations off of an existing warship brings us a rough minimal mass for Galactica:

(CVN-77; minus the island, but it evens out, since the hull is not a flat block)
332.8m long by 76.8m wide by 31m high -- 792,330 m3
98,235 long tons full displacement -- 220,046,400 pounds -- 99,811,368.1 kg
125.97 kg/m3 density

Galactica is about

1414m long by 338 m wide by 170m high - 81,248,440 m3

(this is for Galactica's main core -- remember, the flight pods retract almost flush with the core)

So if we assume the Big G has the density of a Late Evolved Nimitz...

10,235,025,750 kg
22,564,369,284 lbs
10,073,379 long tons

BSG Mass Take 2

The Colonials measure water volume in "JP"; and since Baltar says that the fleet needs 25 million JPs a week for a population of 45,265; that comes down to about 55.203 JPs per week per survivor; and dividing that by 7 gives us 7.9 JPs a day; and since a human needs about 1-2 gallons of water a day...(yes, I got that off Battlestar Wiki).

Additionally in "Water", we get on screen evidence of the capacity of about 50% of the hammer head nose's tankage:



Total Capacity of Tanks 3, 5, 7 and 9 is 10 million JP from that sign. That works out to 10-20 million gallons for half of the nose; and 20-40 million gallons for the nose in total.

That gives us low and high end figures of:

20m gallons = 75,708,235.7 liters = 75.7 million kg = 74,504 long tons
40m gallons = 151,416,471 liters = 151.4 million kg = 149,008 long tons

For water mass in the nose.

That's actually really impressive, considering in the TNG manual, the 1701-D only carries 62,500 m3 of deuterium in the saddle tanks on the engineering hull; that's about 10.15 million kg = 9,989 long tons for liquid deuterium.

[Crossroads Inc.]

this actually seems liek a perfect task for SD.net in terms of information gathering.. With over 3years of info and the show dfinally over, we should be able to work out almost all the technical details of an old style Battlestar like Galactic... Pegasus will be harder since it wa around for a shorter time.

[Anguirus]

What I found to be an interesting occurrence in Razor...the Battlestar Columbia, a ship of Galactica's class but with more armor covering the "ribs", was completely blown apart by a barrage of conventional missiles plus Raider autocannons.

We didn't see that whole battle, but the punishment the Columbia was taking didn't seem that bad compared to what the Galactica has been through. Perhaps this was a somewhat worse case of "cutting corners?"

[Crossroads Inc.]

Nah i doubt it... more then likely we saw the death throwes of ship that had been smashed to bits.. We only saw it explode, we have NO idea what hit it before and for how long.. for all we know, 10min previous it could have been hit by a seriers of nukes...

[Skylon]

Nah i doubt it... more then likely we saw the death throwes of ship that had been smashed to bits.. We only saw it explode, we have NO idea what hit it before and for how long.. for all we know, 10min previous it could have been hit by a seriers of nukes...

There was a line during the battle that Columbia's defenses were down. Galactica's flak screens have always proven very effective at protecting it.

As noted, we only saw part of the battle...it's also possible any CAP Columbia had was destroyed or lured away by Raiders since Galactica's fighter wing was attempting to provide cover for Columbia.

Heck, the worst damage Galactica's taken from conventional weapons have been at points when its defense screens were offline ("Exodus" pt 2, when it was gang-banged by four Baseships) and during "Daybreak."

[RedImperator]

Where is there canonical evidence Galactica has had any armor removed?

[Chris OFarrell]

Its a long held beleif among many fans -I never brought into it- without anything in canon actually claiming it. Frankly, its an utterly half assed job if it was the case.

Columbia, apparently of the same class, did appear in Razor to have much better protection, but not total protection.

Frankly, I always thought it MIGHT be a relativly thin 'spall' linner above the main armor in the ships hull, to try and detonate incomming ordinance before it reaches the main belt or something, that had been removed. But not the MAIN armor.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Where is there canonical evidence Galactica has had any armor removed?

Im not sure if it actually is ever mentioned..but it just FEELS right. The only other oldstyle battlestar we ever see is the Colombia which DOES show increased armor plating.

[StarshipTitanic]

Where is there canonical evidence Galactica has had any armor removed?

None as far as I know. (I believe) An establishing shot in the Razor flashback clips show the Galactica with identical armor coverage to its condition in the series.

It seems that the Columbia only had extra armor on the "head." The rest of the ship looked pretty much the same as Galactica, but beware because some shots of the Columbia under attack are stock footage from the miniseries.

[StarshipTitanic]

Where is there canonical evidence Galactica has had any armor removed?

Im not sure if it actually is ever mentioned..but it just FEELS right. The only other oldstyle battlestar we ever see is the Colombia which DOES show increased armor plating.

It doesn't "feel" right when you see that the Galactica's flak cannons are located between the ribs and would be covered with armor if the ribs were meant to be covered.

[Thanas]

The increased armor on the Columbia might be better explained with a subclass which featured additional protection.

It is completely illogical for a warship to have armour removed prior to being decommissioned. Have you ever heard of this in real life? It is dammed hard to remove armour from a warship and it would make no sense in the context of the show - if you are already at a shipyard that has the tools to do so, why not decommission and scrap the ship right there?

Finally, if armor would be removed from the head of the Galactica, I doubt it would be even remotely as sturdy as it has been proved time and time over again in the series.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well then, the flak cannons would be the only areas not covered....

Im not sure what would and wouldn't be.. all I know is Galacticas armor looks very "patchwork" no uniformity., no symetry to it.. it simply seems as if the armor isn't the way it originally was.

[Stark]

Or it's a balance between air defence density and protecting vulnerable/critical areas which are not uniformly distributed.

See? I don't even watch the damn show and it took me five seconds to explain why the Galactica doesn't look neat and tidy.

[Havok]

Stark, did you write that in your FAN FICTION!?

Isn't the Columbia much smaller than the Galactica? It would make it easier to cover.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Isn't the Columbia much smaller than the Galactica? It would make it easier to cover.

Columbia and Galactica were the same class, while the Valkyrie was a smaller class.

[MKSheppard]

It is completely illogical for a warship to have armour removed prior to being decommissioned.

Armor is expensive to make, and many warship reconstructions in the 1930s used armor from cancelled 1920s warships. And the ribbed layout of Galactica makes it very possible that the armor is modular, like on M1 Abrams; capable of being removed for upgrades or repairs.

[Thanas]

It is completely illogical for a warship to have armour removed prior to being decommissioned.

Armor is expensive to make, and many warship reconstructions in the 1930s used armor from cancelled 1920s warships.

Yeah. But have you ever heard of any active warship having its armour removed prior to being stricken and then, with pieces of armour missing, making a transatlantic crossing to reach the decommissioning ceremony? Especially since it is supposed to be turned into a museum ship?

And the ribbed layout of Galactica makes it very possible that the armor is modular, like on M1 Abrams; capable of being removed for upgrades or repairs.

But then why not take the route that since the columbia is the only ship with that armour scheme we see, (not even in the flashbacks to the first war does any other ship have such armour) that it was a unique upgrade kit instead of assuming that Galactica had armour missing during the first Cylon war?

[StarshipTitanic]

But then why not take the route that since the columbia is the only ship with that armour scheme we see, (not even in the flashbacks to the first war does any other ship have such armour) that it was a unique upgrade kit instead of assuming that Galactica had armour missing during the first Cylon war?

You are incorrect about the Columbia being unique. See these pictures:

Battlestar Columbia.

Columbia and two other similarly armored battlestars.

Galactica, for comparison.

I was wrong, the Columbia and two other similar battlestars have more armor plating around the head, flight pods, and center section.

[Thanas]

Hmmm. Alright, I'll concede that they have more armor.

Still makes me wonder why they would remove armor from a museum ship though. Maybe Columbia had a middle-war refit or was a subclass?

[CaptJodan]

In addition to the adding voices of "we don't know what happened in the battle", I always thought that Columbia might have been, in some way, boarded by the Cylons. Key systems may have been taken offline, or it may have been a case of hitting the right spot to make the reactor go critical. We do know the Cylons have a well established history for boarding while in the midst of combat. It's just another option besides nuke spam that could have contributed to the Columbia's destruction. It certainly seemed a surprise by some of the pilots that she went up so quickly (though this just could be surprise at losing a ship period, who knows).

One thing we do know is that Battlestars are notoriously tough. Pegasus still had a great deal of her structure undamaged to the point when her reactor blew. It was her reactor that really sent the ship into pieces, probably as a result of the hard impact.

One thing that most impressed me was the relative lack of damage to the nose of Galactica when she rammed the base in "Daybreak". Lee and the marines were stationed right in the bow when the ship hit, not exactly a safe spot if they misjudged the protection in that spot. The exterior shot showed very little damage, even though Galactica staggered for a moment on the outside before finally pushing through.

Of course, as Aly said earlier in the previous thread Daybreak was kinda fanwank (though welcomed by me). Not sure if its too much the representative sample of what a Battlestar can really take after 4 years of abuse and few repairs.

[CaptJodan]

As far as the armor is concerned, and as pure speculation only, I would pose the idea that maybe these older Battlestars had some of their armor removed to make them "faster". This, of course, is entirely speculation, but...

We know Galactica doesn't possess the more advanced spinal mounted guns of Pegasus. If these were later inventions (which I assume), then we see the later battlestars getting them. As they come online, and as Galactica ages, she's considered more and more obsolete, and can't be fitted with these spinal mounts. Instead, the designers (in a peacetime refit mindset) sacrifice some armor to allow the Galactica style battlestars the ability to maneuver faster than the bigger, spinal mount versions, which might move slower because of the larger size and extra equipment. This would allow them to carve out a nitche in the fleet as the equivalent of a battlecruiser, and allow the hulls more years in service.

As I said, just random speculation.

[Thanas]

I am not that convinced of that, as what really counts here is FTL - which seems to be the same for every ship.

In battle, if you want a fast strike, you have the nuke-capable raptors and the vipers. Meanwhile, if they were supposed to be battlecruisers, why have them integrated with Pegasus-class battlestars as we see in the fleet Cain commanded?

[CaptJodan]

I am not that convinced of that, as what really counts here is FTL - which seems to be the same for every ship.

Not necessarily. We've never seen Battlestars hopping all over the battlefield with their FTLs. In a protracted battle, which these ships seem to get into often, sublight speed might be good for hit and fade attacks against superior basestar firepower, while a more modern battlestar draws fire.

In battle, if you want a fast strike, you have the nuke-capable raptors and the vipers. Meanwhile, if they were supposed to be battlecruisers, why have them integrated with Pegasus-class battlestars as we see in the fleet Cain commanded?

What fleet Cain commanded? When did we see Cain commanding a fleet with other battlestars besides Galactica?

Independent of that, there's no reason not to have a faster ship coupled with a slower ship that can make slashing attacks while the other large ship dukes it out. Nor does it necessarily suggest that it was a particularly successful conversion, if it was something that was done. It's merely an idea to explain why Galactica seemed to start out with so much less armor than we see even on another ship of her class, besides the "decommission" excuse.

[Alyeska]

Galactica was the last of its class to be in service. This indicates it is the youngest of its class. We also know from Season 4 that the Galactica was built rather in a hurry given the state of her internal structure. It is possible they rushed the construction of Galactica and even left out some of the armor package. When it came time to install the Flak guns they just bolted them on where they needed, so to speak.

Can we get some screens of Galactica from the Razor flashbacks? This can confirm her armor condition in the original war.

[Nephtys]

What fleet Cain commanded? When did we see Cain commanding a fleet with other battlestars besides Galactica?

Independent of that, there's no reason not to have a faster ship coupled with a slower ship that can make slashing attacks while the other large ship dukes it out. Nor does it necessarily suggest that it was a particularly successful conversion, if it was something that was done. It's merely an idea to explain why Galactica seemed to start out with so much less armor than we see even on another ship of her class, besides the "decommission" excuse.

Cain is an Admiral. Therefore, she commands more than one ship. She was docked for refits with 'Escorts' being mentioned when the colonies were hit, so presumably her 'Battlestar Group' contained more than one vessel.

For all we know, Valkyrie could be smaller just because the fleet wanted more of a cheaper design, while everything Pegasus did suggests it's one of the fleet's bigger, badder types. A task force's core, considering it's ability to manufacture spare parts which suggests a long-endurance design.