nBSG Force Sub: Final Battle

[Balrog]

Rather than the Bucket coming to save Hera from a dissection table, the EAS Agamemnon jumps in, commanded by Capt. Sheridan, complete with Gropos detachment and full compliment of nukes (all blessed by the Hand of Sheridan ). The Babylon 5 force's goal is to board the colony and then destroy it after rescuing Hera and escaping to safety.

As an alternative, replace the Agamemnon with the task force from "Severed Dreams," 4 Omegas, 3 Hyperions, and numerous small craft, also commanded by Sheridan.

[NecronLord]

I would think the problem here isn't destroying it - ship-to-ship weapons in B5, even the humans' ones are comparatively brutal - but rather the boarding. Earthforce standard weapons are specifically designed not to go through thick metal. This won't serve well against cylons.

[Balrog]

They have in some instances - one I can recall right off the bat is "Endgame" when the Gropos blast their way through a sealed metal door. I recall calcs being done about the incident a long time ago, but alas my search-fu is weak.

[Darth Onasi]

It's been a while since I watched B5 but don't the GROPOS have specialised boarding capsules and tools, such as when they attempted to board the station?

[Thanas]

It's been a while since I watched B5 but don't the GROPOS have specialised boarding capsules and tools, such as when they attempted to board the station?

They do have breaching pods, yes...but other than a PPG submachine gun they did not seem to carry any special equipment for breaching anything.


Shaped charges are also not a good idea when fighting Cylons.

[AMT]

I would think the problem here isn't destroying it - ship-to-ship weapons in B5, even the humans' ones are comparatively brutal - but rather the boarding. Earthforce standard weapons are specifically designed not to go through thick metal. This won't serve well against cylons.

Actually the weapons you're thinking of are standard shipboard weapons designed not to pierce weapons. GROPOS, IIRC have as their standard weapons things designed to pierce hulls as thats part of their purpose. If not shipboard marines.

[Anguirus]

The EA didn't forget about bullets when they switched to PPGs. However, they usually use PPGs and so operational intelligence would be rather important. However, without a Colony schematic they have no chance of rescuing Hera anyway, so one presumes they have one.

Also, their jump engines are not accurate enough to pull what the Galactica pulled, which means that they would have to engage the colony from much farther out, not to mention fly their shuttles and breaching pods through that crazy debris field. This, of course, lets the Cylons jump in baseships and nuke them, and considering what a couple of 2 megaton nukes did to the Black Star, I don't think the Omega-class destroyers can take too much of that. I also don't think Starfuries are as maneuverable as Vipers, which leaves them at a disadvantage against the Raider swarm, despite their lobotomies.

We are talking about Sheridan though, and he's pretty damn crafty. He may take a leaf from his own book and hide nuclear mines and thrusters in chunks of debris. Getting Hera would probably require a commando mission using captured Heavy Raiders and transponders, but it would be riskier without a guaranteed way of escaping the Colony like a crashed battlestar.

[StarshipTitanic]

Exactly how strong and large are these EA ships? They can't jump right on top of the colony, so they'll come in further out and in the heavy debris field. The EA ships will be under constant fire without Anders to disrupt Cylon defenses. Thousands of Raiders should shred Starfuries and pummel the capital ships. The only advantage the EA ships have, as far as I know, is the relative extreme range of their weapons but the small safe area around the colony eliminates that advantage.

We are talking about Sheridan though, and he's pretty damn crafty. He may take a leaf from his own book and hide nuclear mines and thrusters in chunks of debris. Getting Hera would probably require a commando mission using captured Heavy Raiders and transponders, but it would be riskier without a guaranteed way of escaping the Colony like a crashed battlestar.

Hiding mines in full view of the colony? Captured heavy raiders? That scenario is just ridiculous.

[Anguirus]

Exactly how strong and large are these EA ships?

Not strong enough to ram the Colony. Their largest destroyer (kilometer-ish length) is utterly destroyed by collisions with equivalent or smaller (White Star) capital ships.

Hiding mines in full view of the colony? Captured heavy raiders? That scenario is just ridiculous.

Do you watch the show? The Cylons have been suckered by their own captured transponders (Kobol's Last Gleaming I), a captured Raider (Kobol's Last Gleaming II), and by a visibly damaged rebel basestar and its Heavy Raider complement (The Hub). This has worked before. As for mining, it worked on the Minbari and their super-scanners, so why is it so unreasonable for it to work on the Colony? Remember "DRADIS is almost useless out here?"

[StarshipTitanic]

Hiding mines in full view of the colony? Captured heavy raiders? That scenario is just ridiculous.

Do you watch the show? The Cylons have been suckered by their own captured transponders (Kobol's Last Gleaming I), a captured Raider (Kobol's Last Gleaming II), and by a visibly damaged rebel basestar and its Heavy Raider complement (The Hub). This has worked before. As for mining, it worked on the Minbari and their super-scanners, so why is it so unreasonable for it to work on the Colony? Remember "DRADIS is almost useless out here?"

The ridiculous aspect stems from the idea that Sheridan would conceive of this plan and somehow capture all the necessary pieces. What is he going to do? Hide in the extremely dangerous whirling debris field and wait for a heavy raider to miraculously wander by? Is he going to hunt baseships down and spook the Cylons into moving the Colony to another location and thus lose?

As for mines, the situations aren't at all similar. In Babylon 5, Sheridan lured the Minbari ship close enough to some warheads that he then detonated remotely. What you're suggesting is to mine an area where the Cylons have no reason to go and that the tactic will somehow take care of the gigantic Cylon Colony. You might as well suggest that Sheridan ram the colony with a White Star merely because it's something he did before.

[Connor MacLeod]

I would think the problem here isn't destroying it - ship-to-ship weapons in B5, even the humans' ones are comparatively brutal - but rather the boarding. Earthforce standard weapons are specifically designed not to go through thick metal. This won't serve well against cylons.

Well how thick is thick? How thick are Cylon bodies and how solid are they?

There was one mention of a PPG pistol "incinerating" a heart - which suggests either severe burning or cremation (searing/cauterization would qualify as severe burning and possibly some partial cremation, nevermind penetrating to reach said heart) that could be hundreds of kilojoules easly (nearly a megajoule perhaps for significant cremation) and a SMG/rifle type PPG ought to be more powerful (we know they exist, so I dont see why the GROPOS wouldn't have them - the Centauri do IIRC.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Exactly how strong and large are these EA ships?

Not strong enough to ram the Colony. Their largest destroyer (kilometer-ish length) is utterly destroyed by collisions with equivalent or smaller (White Star) capital ships.

Errr. only the hammerhead itself was badly damaged in the actual collision. I dont know what the fuck destroyed the ship itself but it was internal to one ship or another (or possibly somethign in the hangar)

We saw EA ships plow straight through the sides of Minbari cruisers and even hit Other Omegas and not be immediately reduced to scrap.

Beam weapon wise you're goiung to probably be in the terawatt/single digit kt/sec range. Ted C has some of the best calcs on that IMHO. Ranges hundreds or thousands of miles for beams, single double digit km for pulse weapons.

Edit: also, for this whole "jump point accuracy" thing.. that's too bloody vague . We knwo from ITB tat the mindari jump points are accurate to a few hundred yards. That's the upper limit for humans (say OoM less. several kms for accuracy) - which is bad when you're trying to pin on a small target, but its not exactly a big problem when you're against a planet (Which is huge)

[Connor MacLeod]

This, of course, lets the Cylons jump in baseships and nuke them, and considering what a couple of 2 megaton nukes did to the Black Star, I don't think the Omega-class destroyers can take too much of that. I also don't think Starfuries are as maneuverable as Vipers, which leaves them at a disadvantage against the Raider swarm, despite their lobotomies.

Can you point out to me exactly where in ItB that the nukes instantly blasted the Black STar to pieces? Or your evidence that just becuase the Minbari are more advanced, they automatically must have tougher/more durable ships (even though an EA ship can plow STRAIGHT THROUGH a Minbari ship, one that is FIRING ON SAID SHIP - and still come out mostly intact while the Minabri ship falls to pieces?)

Nevermind that this makes assumptions about the abiliites of the Cylons to deploy nukes to begin with. What sortts of yields do they use? How big are the missiles How fast do they accelerate/manuver? etc...

[Uraniun235]

Exactly how strong and large are these EA ships?

Not strong enough to ram the Colony. Their largest destroyer (kilometer-ish length) is utterly destroyed by collisions with equivalent or smaller (White Star) capital ships.

What? I'm pretty sure the Omega-class is about as long as an Imperial Star Destroyer - about a mile long. BattlestarWiki claims that Galactica is actually a bit shorter - 1,414 meters.

The ridiculous aspect stems from the idea that Sheridan would conceive of this plan and somehow capture all the necessary pieces. What is he going to do? Hide in the extremely dangerous whirling debris field and wait for a heavy raider to miraculously wander by? Is he going to hunt baseships down and spook the Cylons into moving the Colony to another location and thus lose?

Well, here we need to define the scenario more closely. Galactica had all the resources of the rebel Basestar to work with; why wouldn't the Earthforce fleet as well? Put another way: why would Earthforce give a shit about a little girl held aboard a huge starbase in close orbit around a black hole?

Thousands of Raiders should shred Starfuries and pummel the capital ships.

Are you shitting us? Are you seriously arguing that a few dozen Vipers held their own against over a thousand Raiders? Can we see a screencap of thousands of Raiders swarming in on Galactica?

[NecronLord]

Also, their jump engines are not accurate enough to pull what the Galactica pulled,

Really? What do you base this on? The gap was a few kilometers - The Minbari jump engines are certainly precise enough; supposedly Earth's are inferior, but we have no idea how inferior.

which means that they would have to engage the colony from much farther out, not to mention fly their shuttles and breaching pods through that crazy debris field. This, of course, lets the Cylons jump in baseships and nuke them,

Just like those jackasses did to Galactica? Oh wait, we have no idea if they even sent for Base Ships. There was certainly enough space around the colony for them.

and considering what a couple of 2 megaton nukes did to the Black Star, I don't think the Omega-class destroyers can take too much of that.

And considering that a fifty kiloton nuke is a dire threat to Galactica, that's a substantial firepower advantage to the EA.

I also don't think Starfuries are as maneuverable as Vipers, which leaves them at a disadvantage against the Raider swarm, despite their lobotomies.

Fuck that noise: those nuclear weapons weren't originally mines, but presumably mounted on missiles, which presumably Aggamemnon carries. Park a thousand kilometers out, and fire nukes and beam weapons at it. Like I said, destroying the colony isn't hard. Boarding it is nigh impossible, but destroying it is pathetically easy. Hiding on a fixed orbit in a big gravity well is not a sensible way to protect yourself against long ranged attack.

Of course, it's not quite as brutal as the twenty megaton missiles carried by Minbari sharlins - IE, a hundred times more powerful than anything Galactica's survived. Instead of merely ten.

[NecronLord]

Nevermind that this makes assumptions about the abiliites of the Cylons to deploy nukes to begin with. What sortts of yields do they use? How big are the missiles How fast do they accelerate/manuver? etc...

No one in Galactica's CIC thinks that cylon raiders deploying fifty kilton weapons is out of order or strange in the pilot; they used a fifty megaton weapon on one of the human cities, but that's about it. I'd conclude from that that a typical fighter-to-ship nuclear missile's yeild is double-figure kilotons.

[NecronLord]

I would think the problem here isn't destroying it - ship-to-ship weapons in B5, even the humans' ones are comparatively brutal - but rather the boarding. Earthforce standard weapons are specifically designed not to go through thick metal. This won't serve well against cylons.

Well how thick is thick? How thick are Cylon bodies and how solid are they?

I'm not sure it's ever clearly shown. However, non-explosive bullets have very limted effect against them, so we're talking something that's certainly more than several millimeters of mild steel.

They usually seem fairly solidly packed with machinery, when they're blown up.

There was one mention of a PPG pistol "incinerating" a heart - which suggests either severe burning or cremation (searing/cauterization would qualify as severe burning and possibly some partial cremation, nevermind penetrating to reach said heart) that could be hundreds of kilojoules easly (nearly a megajoule perhaps for significant cremation) and a SMG/rifle type PPG ought to be more powerful (we know they exist, so I dont see why the GROPOS wouldn't have them - the Centauri do IIRC.)

They usually bounce right off the walls without even doing damage, to my memory.

The GROPOS definately have them, and as Angurius(?) pointed out, at one stage, a ship's security detail does shoot through a door with them - so I suppose it actually might suffice against centurions.

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm not sure it's ever clearly shown. However, non-explosive bullets have very limted effect against them, so we're talking something that's certainly more than several millimeters of mild steel.

Well that depends entirely on the kinds of bullets you use and what kind of gun you fire them from (and the propulsion method used, really) But a PPG isn't a bullet, either - damage mechanisms aren't the same (I think thats the main advantage they're supposed to have over bullet weapons onboard ship)

They usually seem fairly solidly packed with machinery, when they're blown up.

As packed as a battle droid? Mind you, that doesn't mean much even if they are, since that depends on their construction too.

Another thing to ask is if we're given any indication that they might be tremendusly more massive than a normal person (I doubt the humanoid cylons are, but I dont know how comparable, if at all they would be to the other kind) - do they (for example) mass nearly a ton (as if say, made out of entirrely of iron )

They usually bounce right off the walls without even doing damage, to my memory.

I dont think they even bounce off walls - they just sorta dissipate or something like that. However, I don't think that neccesarily means much - I mean they fire starship pulse cannon (and fighter pulse cannon) around the station quite a bit, and while I vaguely recall they CAN peetrate its not as if you're coring the ship from stem to stern. So I think that idea is a bit exaggerated - I mean its not as if we can seriously argue the whole of B5 is composed of metal a few mm or even cm thick total is it?

I think the whole idea behind "not wanting to put a hole in something on the station" is because there ARE parts of the station that quite obviously are NOT metal, and letting projectile weapons rampant use (Say those glass windows lik in CnC) risks a nasty breach.

Settings also probably play a role - I vaguely recall that the high-end "lethal" settings (that would burn through a person like I described) are at least the middle or high setting - and those small pistols don't carry many shots in that mode (A rifle would of course be a different story)

The GROPOS definately have them, and as Angurius(?) pointed out, at one stage, a ship's security detail does shoot through a door with them - so I suppose it actually might suffice against centurions.

[/quote][/quote]

Disregarding the pilot ep with the weird rifles, I vaguely remember that Garibaldi had some big heavy gun in Sinclari's flashbacks of the station being overrun, or something like that.

We've never seen a great deal of ground combat so its really hard to infer just what and how they fight, and the only other souce would be older RPG stuff like AoG or Mongoose, and I have limited access to that stuff anyhow.

[NecronLord]

Well that depends entirely on the kinds of bullets you use and what kind of gun you fire them from (and the propulsion method used, really) But a PPG isn't a bullet, either - damage mechanisms aren't the same (I think thats the main advantage they're supposed to have over bullet weapons onboard ship)

Agreed. However, given that Battlestar's guns usually (there's an explosive bullet sidearm in the pilot, that Helo carried, which obviously isn't) seem pretty modern (very recognisably modern) and there's no evidence of caseless or other variants, I'd expect their bullets are pretty much equal to various modern rounds.

As packed as a battle droid? Mind you, that doesn't mean much even if they are, since that depends on their construction too.

I'm honestly not sure. There's a variety of occasions when Helo blows them up in S1, but unfortunately, I think the shakey-cam prevents a real good look at their insides

Another thing to ask is if we're given any indication that they might be tremendusly more massive than a normal person (I doubt the humanoid cylons are, but I dont know how comparable, if at all they would be to the other kind) - do they (for example) mass nearly a ton (as if say, made out of entirrely of iron )

They've fairly wide foot-pads, but even so, manage to perform adequately on what appears to be soft, loamy soil. Given that they generally seem quite loud when moving, I'd say they're more massive - but nothing like a ton. Of course, that's just a guess.

I dont think they even bounce off walls - they just sorta dissipate or something like that. However, I don't think that neccesarily means much - I mean they fire starship pulse cannon (and fighter pulse cannon) around the station quite a bit, and while I vaguely recall they CAN peetrate its not as if you're coring the ship from stem to stern. So I think that idea is a bit exaggerated - I mean its not as if we can seriously argue the whole of B5 is composed of metal a few mm or even cm thick total is it?

To be honest, we know that the 'bullet penetrates the hull and we all die' brainbug is, well, a brain bug, but that's the logic presented by JMS for using PPGs, IIRC.

Settings also probably play a role - I vaguely recall that the high-end "lethal" settings (that would burn through a person like I described) are at least the middle or high setting - and those small pistols don't carry many shots in that mode (A rifle would of course be a different story)

Where's that incinerate quote from anyway? Are you sure it's not hyperbole?

Disregarding the pilot ep with the weird rifles, I vaguely remember that Garibaldi had some big heavy gun in Sinclari's flashbacks of the station being overrun, or something like that.

Yeah. But the station's security are cops, more than the marines this force would be carrying - the severed dreams guys all carried SMG-PPGs IIRC. We see various PPG-SMGs, and as has been pointed out, they can shoot through a fairly solid metal door - so they should be able to shoot through the weaker head armour of a centurion.

[Uraniun235]

Helo's gun throughout S1 was able to put pretty good-sized holes in Centurions. Then they retconned that for Season 2 so they could have the survival of the ship hinge on their limited supply of explosive rounds.

[NecronLord]

Helo's gun throughout S1 was able to put pretty good-sized holes in Centurions. Then they retconned that for Season 2 so they could have the survival of the ship hinge on their limited supply of explosive rounds.

I never thought that was a retcon - presumably he had no reason to think they were in short supply when he loaded the gun, and would have just taken the best rounds available... I'll check...

[Anguirus]

The ridiculous aspect stems from the idea that Sheridan would conceive of this plan

Sheridan kinda specializes in sneaky bastard shit like this.

His stated goal in this scenario is to land troops on the Colony. There are only a limited number of ways to do so.

Is he going to hunt baseships down and spook the Cylons into moving the Colony to another location and thus lose?

Why is this a given? Cavil has no idea that the Colonials or Rebels planned to send any forces to the Colony, and was not aware of the scouting missions flown beforehand. Meanwhile, picking a fight with a baseship doesn't mean that you have the Colony's location.

And moving the Colony only helps Sheridan if we presume that he has Anders or some other way of finding it, because he doesn't have to deal with the singularity.

In Babylon 5, Sheridan lured the Minbari ship close enough to some warheads that he then detonated remotely. What you're suggesting is to mine an area where the Cylons have no reason to go and that the tactic will somehow take care of the gigantic Cylon Colony.

In Babylon 5, some years later, Sheridan used larger devices to create a minefield that destroyed Vorlon and Shadow vessels. Either he's the luckiest bastard who's ever lived, or he had some way to nudge them into the right positions.

And if you were paying attention, I'm suggesting that Sheridan put nukes and thruster packs on asteroids, nudge them close in, and then blow them up. Or hell, just stick thrusters on asteroids. Shame the Aggy doesn't have a mass driver, that would be just about perfect for long-range blasting.

Can you point out to me exactly where in ItB that the nukes instantly blasted the Black STar to pieces?

The last shot certainly looks to me like a shredding, but it cuts away too fast to be sure, I'll grant you. And I don't think Minbari cruisers are more durable, but one would think they are at least as durable considering that as per Crusade Minbari technology is used to make the armor of the Excalibur.

As for the jump engine issue, I rather presumed that Galactica's extreme accuracy in precision jumping was required in this situation. Remember, they jumped less than a ship's length away. And Tigh implied that this was a requirement. Minbari jump engines are much more accurate than human ones, according to Sheridan, and they still can only open a vortex within some area of less than a hundred yards...and then, as we've observed, their ships have to emerge from the vortex, which is a large, 3-D object.

Boarding it is nigh impossible, but destroying it is pathetically easy. Hiding on a fixed orbit in a big gravity well is not a sensible way to protect yourself against long ranged attack.

Remember that they can jump the thing. Also, if you are farther out in the system they can jump Raiders and baseships after you without having to worry about the singularity and the tiny "safe zone."

[StarshipTitanic]

Edit: also, for this whole "jump point accuracy" thing.. that's too bloody vague . We knwo from ITB tat the mindari jump points are accurate to a few hundred yards. That's the upper limit for humans (say OoM less. several kms for accuracy) - which is bad when you're trying to pin on a small target, but its not exactly a big problem when you're against a planet (Which is huge)

Except they aren't against a planet. They're against this and they need to be here. I suggest you read up on exactly what the Cylon Colony is on the BSG wiki.

We saw EA ships plow straight through the sides of Minbari cruisers and even hit Other Omegas and not be immediately reduced to scrap.

That's not the same as hitting a moon-sized space station. The collision physics are completely different.

What? I'm pretty sure the Omega-class is about as long as an Imperial Star Destroyer - about a mile long. BattlestarWiki claims that Galactica is actually a bit shorter - 1,414 meters.

I believe the Galactica numbers because I've scaled it myself but I haven't seen anything more convincing about an Omega other than a frequently repeated 1,700 m figure. That just seems wrong to me and my admittedly old memories of Babylon 5.

Well, here we need to define the scenario more closely. Galactica had all the resources of the rebel Basestar to work with; why wouldn't the Earthforce fleet as well? Put another way: why would Earthforce give a shit about a little girl held aboard a huge starbase in close orbit around a black hole?

And all the baseship provided were some centurions, not heavy raiders. However, if the Omega gets Anders then it will probably win due to its powerful weapons. Or are we still requiring the Omega to ram the Colony?

Are you shitting us? Are you seriously arguing that a few dozen Vipers held their own against over a thousand Raiders? Can we see a screencap of thousands of Raiders swarming in on Galactica?

Actually it's more like one dozen Vipers. I count about a dozen launching and around the same amount landing.

A single post-"Collaborators" retcon basestar has 400-500 Raider slots. I find it hard to believe that their heavily-armed moon-sized homeworld has fewer than two baseships worth of Raiders. Remember these Raiders are lobotomized, which might have an effect on their combat performance. Standard Raiders aren't very good. Narcho killed 48 within 6 months of the Cylon attack (Pegasus). Hot Dog, an academy washout, killed 1 the first time he was in combat (Act of Contrition). In the same episode, Starbuck kills 7 and damages another Raider before her Viper is crippled.

Sheridan kinda specializes in sneaky bastard shit like this. His stated goal in this scenario is to land troops on the Colony. There are only a limited number of ways to do so.

Just because Sheridan did something in Babylon 5 does not mean it is appropriate for this particular situation.

In Babylon 5, some years later, Sheridan used larger devices to create a minefield that destroyed Vorlon and Shadow vessels. Either he's the luckiest bastard who's ever lived, or he had some way to nudge them into the right positions.

And if you were paying attention, I'm suggesting that Sheridan put nukes and thruster packs on asteroids, nudge them close in, and then blow them up. Or hell, just stick thrusters on asteroids. Shame the Aggy doesn't have a mass driver, that would be just about perfect for long-range blasting.

This sounds like fanfiction. A warhead attached to a thruster is a missile. EA ships already have purpose-built missiles. Why is the asteroid even necessary, other than to make the situation exactly like Babylon 5? Since when do Omegas carry around extra thrusters? What is any of this going to do against the gigantic Colony? How is it going to help get Hera out?

[NecronLord]

Except they aren't against a planet. They're against this and they need to be here. I suggest you read up on exactly what the Cylon Colony is on the BSG wiki.

Conversely, we were told that this was the only safe jump point. Why was this? Debris, or gravity?

As Connor has mentioned, hundreds of feet is the upper limit for EA jump point accuracy - Earthforce can maybe manage an order of magnitude less - which is more than enough to deposit an earthforce heavy cruiser into that area to begin the boarding, after using thousand mile range weapons to shoot its gun batteries.

According to JMS, jump engines operate inside stars, so the gravity probably won't matter.

I believe the Galactica numbers because I've scaled it myself but I haven't seen anything more convincing about an Omega other than a frequently repeated 1,700 m figure. That just seems wrong to me and my admittedly old memories of Babylon 5.

Babtech is always worth checking. Babtech establishes upper and lower limits pointing to something in the range of 1,400 meters, from the visuals.

And all the baseship provided were some centurions, not heavy raiders. However, if the Omega gets Anders then it will probably win due to its powerful weapons. Or are we still requiring the Omega to ram the Colony?

Are you shitting us? Are you seriously arguing that a few dozen Vipers held their own against over a thousand Raiders? Can we see a screencap of thousands of Raiders swarming in on Galactica?

Actually it's more like one dozen Vipers. I count about a dozen launching and around the same amount landing.

A single post-"Collaborators" retcon basestar has 400-500 Raider slots. I find it hard to believe that their heavily-armed moon-sized homeworld has fewer than two baseships worth of Raiders. Remember these Raiders are lobotomized, which might have an effect on their combat performance. Standard Raiders aren't very good. Narcho killed 48 within 6 months of the Cylon attack (Pegasus). Hot Dog, an academy washout, killed 1 the first time he was in combat (Act of Contrition). In the same episode, Starbuck kills 7 and damages another Raider before her Viper is crippled.

I can't believe they were dumb enough to park their entire population where one determined raptor could nuke them into a black hole - but they did it. Have you a screenshot of these thousands of raiders?

What is any of this going to do against the gigantic Colony?

Last I heard, kiloton raptor nukes killed that thing. Multi-megaton EA nukes are going to obliterate it.

[StarshipTitanic]

Conversely, we were told that this was the only safe jump point. Why was this? Debris, or gravity?

As Connor has mentioned, hundreds of feet is the upper limit for EA jump point accuracy - Earthforce can maybe manage an order of magnitude less - which is more than enough to deposit an earthforce heavy cruiser into that area to begin the boarding, after using thousand mile range weapons to shoot its gun batteries.

According to JMS, jump engines operate inside stars, so the gravity probably won't matter.

The issue of approaching the Colony was obviously not gravity. The scout Raptor jumped in without knowing the proper place (and was almost smashed from debris) and Raptors, Raiders (I think), and Galactica itself have made jumps deep in gravity wells.

Are you seriously citing implied B5 jump drive capabilities from a scene set one million years after the show's main events to demonstrate the jump drive capabilities of an Omega? Bullshit, but irrelevant bullshit.

Babtech is always worth checking. Babtech establishes upper and lower limits pointing to something in the range of 1,400 meters, from the visuals.

Awesome and thanks, I had completely forgotten about that site.

I can't believe they were dumb enough to park their entire population where one determined raptor could nuke them into a black hole - but they did it. Have you a screenshot of these thousands of raiders?

You're completely ignoring the extreme secrecy and inaccessibility of the place, which were magicked away by Anders. If there were such a thing as a natural fortress in space the Cylons came pretty close.

Have you evidence of EA jump drive accuracy other than something inferred from Minbari ships? Because I'm merely assuming that the Cylon home planetoid can call upon more Raiders than merely two baseships worth. Could an EA ship handle even a hundred Raiders? That's the amount I can see in the clearest footage from Daybreak on Hulu.

Last I heard, kiloton raptor nukes killed that thing. Multi-megaton EA nukes are going to obliterate it.

Do not take me out of context. I was clearly responding to the idea of "mining" asteroids by turning them into missiles plus an extra chunk of rock. Obviously standard EA missiles make more sense and would work.