Legend of Galactic Heroes vs. Honorverse

[General Mung Beans]

Suppose a wormhole opened up between the LOGH-verse and the Honor Harrington Universe? The former at the end of the series and the latter at the end of the latest book.

[Simon_Jester]

Pretty much everything hinges on the ability of LoGH ships to engage in missile defense and ECM, which we don't really have any information on.

[DrStrangelove]

I doubt LoGH beam weapons are powerful enough to seriously damage HV ships in any meaningful way. One of the fortresses main gun was only rated at 740 TW

[Vympel]

I doubt LoGH beam weapons are powerful enough to seriously damage HV ships in any meaningful way. One of the fortresses main gun was only rated at 740 TW

I used to think the same thing (about the fortress guns), but when you think about it the Vulture's Claw power output is an example of 'not enough information'. The beam of both it and the Thor Hammer (necessarily) has a huge area - given the ability of LOGH warships to sit in close proximity of a star indefinitely (Episode 15) then its highly unlikely that 740TW, divided amongst the massive area the beams encompass, would be as devastating as they are to LOGH ship formations.

I'm more inclined to think that its 740TW per some unknown unit area.

[Vympel]

That said, as I understand it HV fleets are laughably small by LOGH standards (as most sci-fi fleets are) - but their "podnaughts" (is that what they're called?) fire huge numbers of missiles - LOGH has pretty much no defence against that, save for their missile decoys, which as Simon_Jester noted, we don't have any information on.

Similarly, we have no idea if their prolific ECM ("electric wave interception" technology) will blind HV sensors.

I don't know enough about HV, really, but IIRC those huge missile swarms could be devastating.

[Simon_Jester]

I doubt LoGH beam weapons are powerful enough to seriously damage HV ships in any meaningful way. One of the fortresses main gun was only rated at 740 TW

Unless the warships' hulls are made out of hydrogen ice or something retarded like that, a 740 TW power output is totally inconsistent with the visuals.

That said, as I understand it HV fleets are laughably small by LOGH standards (as most sci-fi fleets are) - but their "podnaughts" (is that what they're called?) fire huge numbers of missiles - LOGH has pretty much no defence against that, save for their missile decoys, which as Simon_Jester noted, we don't have any information on.

One big thing about the Honorverse is that the technology changes so much over the period of the novels- I'd bet on LoGH fleets as sure to win against the fleets the Honorverse fields in On Basilisk Station, but against the SD(P) battlefleets of the later novels, their advantages of numbers and (seeming) accurate beam weapon range would be vastly reduced.

Similarly, we have no idea if their prolific ECM ("electric wave interception" technology) will blind HV sensors.

I don't know enough about HV, really, but IIRC those huge missile swarms could be devastating.

Yes. Given the scale and energy output of their preferred missile warheads, a LoGH ship probably could stand up to a few missile hits, but not many, probably not as many as an Honorverse ship of equal tonnage even before the difference in 'shielding' technology is factored in: gravitic wedges versus whatever LoGH has.

So it does come down to long range point defense and ECM.

EDIT: One possibility is that the LoGH powers could simply, and quite literally, drown the SD(P)-using powers in ships, like a scaled-up version of the Solarian League. Concentrated for a maximum-effort operation, they have battlefleets of roughly a hundred thousand ships apiece, or more.

This is enough that assuming even modest ability to intercept, decoy, and jam incoming missiles, they will be able to absorb the attacks of extremely powerful Honorverse fleets simply by having more ships than the enemy has missiles to kill them with.

[Connor MacLeod]

First off: Nature of the beam weapons. do they have/use lasers or massless beam weapons of any kind? If they use particle beams we're going to end up gettng sidetracked into silly "can they penterate sidewall" debates.

Secondly: People overrate HH-verse firepower. Yes they chuck a fuckton of missiles at near-c speeds at the target. But that's largely to get porcupine-sprays of x-ray lasers close to the target, fired in large numbers (dozens IIRC) in all a wide arc from double (or at best, triple) digit MT warheads (not including efficiencies.) While it might not be devastating or gut them effortlessly, high TW level outputs could still potentially threaten them (especially if the sidewall isn't an issue.)

Thirdly: HV ships have fuck off long ranges and as a rule travel at fairly high clips (tens of thousands or thousands of km/s) but they also rely on very long, drawn out engagement times across interstellar distances precisely because of the nature of the technology (parituclarily their FTL tech and it's limits.)

They also tend to be sluggish as fuck. They have to make turnovers to slow down, and they can decelerate at hundreds of gees but suck at turning (IIRC they take many MANY minutes to make significant degree turns.. like 90 degree turns, as per Weber himself. That might have chanced some with more recent onvels, but I doubt it was substantially altered barring use of something like reaction thrusters.)

They're also tremendously over-reliant on grav sensors for much of their combat ability. They have radar and lidar and it can be helpful, but the ranges are far less than what gravitics allows (we're talking light seconds as opposed to light minutes/hours here.) So grav signatures matter a ton (to put it in perspective, HV ships generate a perpetual grav field that equials some hundreds of thousands fo gees worth of gravity. Forget how that is expected to affect lasers but not mass, it's magical gravity.)

If LOGH has some fairly precise and mobile FTL (like say SW or ST) and it doesn't require long recharge times, they could have a huge offensive and defensive advantage, even if they suck at acceleration. (and yes I still haven't watched LOGH. I've been mired in my 40K stuff and put off a bunch of game playing and other stuff I've been wanting to do. So sue me.)

[Vympel]

First off: Nature of the beam weapons. do they have/use lasers or massless beam weapons of any kind? If they use particle beams we're going to end up gettng sidetracked into silly "can they penterate sidewall" debates.

We really have no idea - the secondary energy weapon of an Imperial AFV is called a particle beam in one episode, but most usually the weapons are simply called cannons, and their ammunition is simply called 'energy'. The only weapon specifically identified as a laser (specifically "X-Ray laser") is the main guns of Iserlohn Fortress and Geiersberg Fortress, but they behave nothing like lasers. This is something I'll have to pay attention to when I next rewatch the entire series from go to woah.

That said, there's every reason to believe LOGH beam weapons are massless - they appear to propagate at c in pretty much every battle in the show (i.e. the beams always snap into existence among their targets, we can't track the point where the beam's 'head' strikes), and as noted the apparent upper limit of their effective range (6 million km) is huge.

They also tend to be sluggish as fuck. They have to make turnovers to slow down, and they can decelerate at hundreds of gees but suck at turning (IIRC they take many MANY minutes to make significant degree turns.. like 90 degree turns, as per Weber himself. That might have chanced some with more recent onvels, but I doubt it was substantially altered barring use of something like reaction thrusters.)

LOGH has a definite advantage here then. Their ships can turn on a dime (proviso:- if the formation gets confused in battle and cohesion breaks down, fatal collisions can result).

If LOGH has some fairly precise and mobile FTL (like say SW or ST) and it doesn't require long recharge times, they could have a huge offensive and defensive advantage, even if they suck at acceleration. (and yes I still haven't watched LOGH. I've been mired in my 40K stuff and put off a bunch of game playing and other stuff I've been wanting to do. So sue me.)/quote]

FTL is a non-factor in LOGH battles, for the most part. The only time where it appears a warp jump might've been used on a tactical basis is Episode 15 (Mittermeyer vs Ninth Fleet, specifically). Heck, we only see FTL travel two times in the series (not including FTL tests on a fortress). The rest of the time its simply implied / talked about.

and yes I still haven't watched LOGH. I've been mired in my 40K stuff and put off a bunch of game playing and other stuff I've been wanting to do. So sue me.)

*serves him with statement of claim* - consider yourself sued!

[Stofsk]

(and yes I still haven't watched LOGH. I've been mired in my 40K stuff and put off a bunch of game playing and other stuff I've been wanting to do. So sue me.)

It is good.

[Connor MacLeod]

We really have no idea - the secondary energy weapon of an Imperial AFV is called a particle beam in one episode, but most usually the weapons are simply called cannons, and their ammunition is simply called 'energy'. The only weapon specifically identified as a laser (specifically "X-Ray laser") is the main guns of Iserlohn Fortress and Geiersberg Fortress, but they behave nothing like lasers. This is something I'll have to pay attention to when I next rewatch the entire series from go to woah.

That said, there's every reason to believe LOGH beam weapons are massless - they appear to propagate at c in pretty much every battle in the show (i.e. the beams always snap into existence among their targets, we can't track the point where the beam's 'head' strikes), and as noted the apparent upper limit of their effective range (6 million km) is huge.

Not much of a big deal. Either it was misidentified as a different weapon (They have X-ray lasers but they were different than what the Fortresses mounted) or it unleashes X-rays in some exotic manner (like the decay mechanism with TLs) either way it could work.

FTL is a non-factor in LOGH battles, for the most part. The only time where it appears a warp jump might've been used on a tactical basis is Episode 15 (Mittermeyer vs Ninth Fleet, specifically). Heck, we only see FTL travel two times in the series (not including FTL tests on a fortress). The rest of the time its simply implied / talked about.

Again, probably not a bit deal considering multi-LS ranges and the general sluggishness of Honorverse ships. So long as they put out enough raw firepower to pierce the sidewalls, they probably don't have to worry about FTL precision.

I'm assuming that a.) It doesn't require portals or some fixed jump point (like Wing commander) to use, everything else is a matter of degree.

[Vympel]

Not much of a big deal. Either it was misidentified as a different weapon (They have X-ray lasers but they were different than what the Fortresses mounted) or it unleashes X-rays in some exotic manner (like the decay mechanism with TLs) either way it could work.

Probably the latter - LOGH (except for the two movies) is told almost as if its a documentary, with copious amounts of narration. Although the narrator doesn't hold himself out to be omniscient, so ...

Again, probably not a bit deal considering multi-LS ranges and the general sluggishness of Honorverse ships. So long as they put out enough raw firepower to pierce the sidewalls, they probably don't have to worry about FTL precision.

I regret not swaving Brian Young's B5 page - his calculations derived from beam weapon impacts vaporizing a given portion of hull would be very useful. Otherwise, there's only one potentially quantifiable incident in the show (noting always its an animation) where battleship fire blows up a large asteroid. Oh and the Battle of Amlitzer in orbit of the star.

I'm assuming that a.) It doesn't require portals or some fixed jump point (like Wing commander) to use, everything else is a matter of degree.

Its not really clear. In one episode they speak of transiting "with each jump" further and further from their ostensible destination (because its a trick) but that could relate to fixed travel duration between jumps.

[Simon_Jester]

They also tend to be sluggish as fuck. They have to make turnovers to slow down, and they can decelerate at hundreds of gees but suck at turning (IIRC they take many MANY minutes to make significant degree turns.. like 90 degree turns, as per Weber himself. That might have chanced some with more recent onvels, but I doubt it was substantially altered barring use of something like reaction thrusters.)

Not true; ships can roll and yaw in timescales measured in seconds- but a lot of seconds. I don't think they're that much slower to turn than LoGH ships. Slower to change course perhaps, but that's a function of acceleration and the speeds the ships normally build up during combat operations, not the ability of the ship to rotate about its own axis.

[takemeout_totheblack]

It is good.

'Good'...yes, much in the same way that the pacific ocean is 'wet'.

Anyway, using the main site's stellar radiation calculator and the profile of the most common kind of alliance ship (the battleship)
at 1000km distance (likely less) from the Amlitzer star (a class 1?) with a ventral profile of 40560 square meters (624mx65m) and an intensity of 62MW/m2. That's about 2.5TW for the shields (if hull hugging or very nearly) for what appeared to be several hours without any sign or worries of failure. LOGH shields seem to function on a set deflection principle rather than capacitance, as weapons are ineffective at long ranges, presumably due to bloom/energy bleed-off, but the same weapons are again devastating once within 'effective range'. Still, LOGH beam weapons are in the very least triple digit gigajoule range judging from the damage we see during the better animated battles; the remake of Overture To A New War's destruction of the Wallenstein shows holes some 20 meters wide by 150 meters long burned into it in less than a second. That's at least a couple hundred gigajoules if these ships were made from simple steel, highly unlikely given some of the properties displayed onscreen.

A word on missiles, LOGH missile barrages redefine the term 'Macross Missile Massacre' and, judging by the literal wall of explosions dwarfing the alliance ship formations during the redirected Imperial volley at the battle in the Jawanhahr system, I'd put LOGH missiles in the double-digit megaton range at least! Also, I imagine that in a universe that has such extensive ECM and still bothers with missile barrages speaks volumes about the effectiveness of their missile's target acquisition abilities, and the abilities of their decoys to redirect such barrages.

I'm the first to admit that I don't know much about the Honorverse beyond the 'Horatio Hornblower in spess' thing and the fact that there are sentient cats for some reason. Also crossing-the-T in space spess.

[Connor MacLeod]

They also tend to be sluggish as fuck. They have to make turnovers to slow down, and they can decelerate at hundreds of gees but suck at turning (IIRC they take many MANY minutes to make significant degree turns.. like 90 degree turns, as per Weber himself. That might have chanced some with more recent onvels, but I doubt it was substantially altered barring use of something like reaction thrusters.)

Not true; ships can roll and yaw in timescales measured in seconds- but a lot of seconds. I don't think they're that much slower to turn than LoGH ships. Slower to change course perhaps, but that's a function of acceleration and the speeds the ships normally build up during combat operations, not the ability of the ship to rotate about its own axis.

Weber said it himself some thirteen years back here. The only case where it might be different was Shadows of Saganami, and that was a bit funky for various reasons (although it depends on alot more factors than that.) Even if it's off by an order of magnitude or so its still pretty sluggish.

[Connor MacLeod]

I regret not swaving Brian Young's B5 page - his calculations derived from beam weapon impacts vaporizing a given portion of hull would be very useful. Otherwise, there's only one potentially quantifiable incident in the show (noting always its an animation) where battleship fire blows up a large asteroid. Oh and the Battle of Amlitzer in orbit of the star.

Most of the Babtech calcs were single or double digit TW range. some minbari calcs might pull triple digit TW. You could also just use Luke Campbell's death ray site.. its got a ton of calculators on it.

How big an asteroid?

Its not really clear. In one episode they speak of transiting "with each jump" further and further from their ostensible destination (because its a trick) but that could relate to fixed travel duration between jumps.

Well, according to this it seems like its the ship generating it. It also sounds vaguely alot like B5 jump drive blended with hyperdrive.

Edit: I should have read that closer as well. It also sounds like they can't use it close in to the system, so it's like warp drive and honorverse hyperdrive (sublight travel in-system only.)

While we're taking a gamble wiki-ing, I'll note that here they refer to them as "electron laser" cannons.. I'll guess that means either a hybrid laser/particle beam weapon, or a Free electron laser type weapon (The latter makes more sense, since a charged particle beam, in space, is not going to maintain any coherency, much less over multiple LS)

And according to this they use nukes, which can set some limits on weapons yield (probably not over gigatons per warhead) although they sound pretty damn cool. The ability to render a planet's surface uninhabitable is interesting.

[Vympel]

I wouldn't put much faith in the Wiki yet - me and two other guys are the ones running its content right now (have you noticed? ) as Admins. Its a very slow process to actually find citations for some that information (which was added by I don't know who to the older version of the wiki), and to be honest in may cases it may just be made up. The elctron-laser thing may be an example of that, or simply from licensed material which I don't know about yet.

(as a rule, if the article has a significant history of edits, screenshots, and citations, then one of us has vetted it for content)

Currently, my focus is on the ships, because I have a ship fetish.

How big an asteroid?

Hard to eyeball - seemed pretty big, but the fire was like from three seperate Alliance battleships striking simultaneously. I'll give you a screencap when I get home.

Well, according to this it seems like its the ship generating it. It also sounds vaguely alot like B5 jump drive blended with hyperdrive.

Edit: I should have read that closer as well. It also sounds like they can't use it close in to the system, so it's like warp drive and honorverse hyperdrive (sublight travel in-system only.)

Yup.

And according to this they use nukes, which can set some limits on weapons yield (probably not over gigatons per warhead) although they sound pretty damn cool. The ability to render a planet's surface uninhabitable is interesting.

Same comments re: wiki applies. I have literally no idea where any of this info comes from. I can say from the show that "nuclear fusion missiles" are indeed part of the regular ship's arsenal, but they're secondary weapons to the beam weapons - and that the use of nuclear weapons on an inhabited planet is illegal (it was done once, in Episode 23, but they were clearly targeted strikes rather than obliteration of the entire planet's surface - the planet didn't have a large population).

[wautd]

Would LoGH have an advantage in electronic warfare? I always get the impression that communications during battles are often heavely jammed between friendly fleets, or that they can spy on communications between enemy fleets (eg, rumor of the Emperor turning ill reaching the ears of the Alliance sooner than someone like Bittenfeld of the Black Lancers). Or perhaps it's an indication that their electronics just plain suck.

About LoGH beams, in one of the prequel episodes, you see a beam cutting trough the nose of a cruiser like it was made of butter in a fraction of a second. I don't know how thick the armor plates are, but it has to count for something regarding firepower (but also poor damage control on LoGH ships).

[Darth Hoth]

Unless the warships' hulls are made out of hydrogen ice or something retarded like that, a 740 TW power output is totally inconsistent with the visuals.

Are Heldensage beams DET? From what little I can remember of the few episodes I watched, ships that were hit tended to just disappear immediately in a uniform puff of thick greyish-white smoke . . . which is a somewhat odd way to go if meant to imply vaporisation, whether complete or partial.

I know almost nothing about this series, though, and will not pretend I do. Just asking those who are familiar with it.

[Vympel]

Are Heldensage beams DET? From what little I can remember of the few episodes I watched, ships that were hit tended to just disappear immediately in a uniform puff of thick greyish-white smoke . . . which is a somewhat odd way to go if meant to imply vaporisation, whether complete or partial.

Close-ups of multiple beam impacts throughout the series show that the beams clearly heat the hull of their target on impact. There's no reason to believe they're not "DET" (really hate that term) - the white-puff explosions are simply the animators way of avoiding the tedious 'billowy fireball in space' trope.



(from Overture to a New War)

[Vympel]

The asteroid scene in Dishonor Part 1 (part of the Season 1 Gaiden) - apologies that its from the laserdisc rip - a DVD rip of this hasn't been done yet:-






This is probably less than straightforward to estimate- the asteroid is bombarded by beam fire for several frames before it finally explodes, unfortunately I simply don't have the patience to take a frame by frame of this right now. Scaling the asteroid roughly should be relatively easy in any event - an Imperial battleship (or cruiser) can be seen to the right of the asteroid (its returning fire in the third screenshot) - battleships are 179m wide, cruisers are 141m wide. The ship is clearly either beside or beside and behind the asteroid.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm the first to admit that I don't know much about the Honorverse beyond the 'Horatio Hornblower in spess' thing and the fact that there are sentient cats for some reason. Also crossing-the-T in space spess.

It started out better than that description would lead you to believe, then gradually devolved to be worse than that description would lead you to believe.

Side note: I would argue that it was never Horatio Hornblower in space for the simple reason that David Weber couldn't write Horatio Hornblower if his life depended on it- the social dynamics that drive the characters are too different. No amount of "ships fire missile broadsides" (which actually makes a bit of sense when you think about where the hell you're going to put your ship's missile launchers) can make up for the difference between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and Napoleonic-era Britain.

Now, if you really want Hornblower in space, or more accurately Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin stories in space, go read David Drake's Lieutenant Leary series. Drake can capture the mindset of people during that era, and the result is a good deal more entertaining in my opinion.

Weber said it himself some thirteen years back here. The only case where it might be different was Shadows of Saganami, and that was a bit funky for various reasons (although it depends on alot more factors than that.) Even if it's off by an order of magnitude or so its still pretty sluggish.

I sit corrected. Thank you. I find those figures very hard to believe based on the way combat is portrayed and that Weber has almost completely failed to represent ships as taking that long to come about when he finally got round to writing capital ship battles, since that's ponderous enough it deserves to be represented in the text better... but there it is.

Sigh. Man just doesn't know when to stop infodumping.

Would LoGH have an advantage in electronic warfare? I always get the impression that communications during battles are often heavely jammed between friendly fleets, or that they can spy on communications between enemy fleets (eg, rumor of the Emperor turning ill reaching the ears of the Alliance sooner than someone like Bittenfeld of the Black Lancers). Or perhaps it's an indication that their electronics just plain suck.

It may just mean that their 'offensive' EW is better than their ECCM: jamming is easy, counterjamming is hard. This is not an entirely unreasonable assumption to make from what I know.

About LoGH beams, in one of the prequel episodes, you see a beam cutting trough the nose of a cruiser like it was made of butter in a fraction of a second. I don't know how thick the armor plates are, but it has to count for something regarding firepower (but also poor damage control on LoGH ships).

Er. Damage control is what you do after someone puts a hole in the ship, to patch it up and keep secondary effects from destroying the ship.

Given how often ships are totally destroyed in LoGH, rather than merely damaged, I can't blame them for having poor damage control. As for poor damage limitation, the lack of heavy armor capable of shrugging off enemy fire, I'm not sure I'd criticize that: it's a fairly realistic consequence of people slinging around megaton-range energies using material science little or no more advanced than the present day.

[Vympel]

About LoGH beams, in one of the prequel episodes, you see a beam cutting trough the nose of a cruiser like it was made of butter in a fraction of a second. I don't know how thick the armor plates are, but it has to count for something regarding firepower (but also poor damage control on LoGH ships).

This happens several times in the series. Refer to my entry in the LOGH Battles thread here. There's several occurences, but this is a good closeup:-

Given how often ships are totally destroyed in LoGH, rather than merely damaged, I can't blame them for having poor damage control. As for poor damage limitation, the lack of heavy armor capable of shrugging off enemy fire, I'm not sure I'd criticize that: it's a fairly realistic consequence of people slinging around megaton-range energies using material science little or no more advanced than the present day.

The unique flagships are pretty much the only ships we see that can take a hit and actually survive it - whether Alliance or Imperial, blasts that would completely hull a standard ship often fail to completely penetrate a flagship.

That said, the Brunhild doesn't look the way it does for fun - its armor is based on 'new theories' (Gaiden, Season 2) and it proves in the main series that it can deflect beam cannon fire without damage, and without the assistance of shields. The Parzival (which is also seen deflecting beam fire) and presumably the Barbarossa also benefit from this. Not sure if other unique ships do, though.

[Connor MacLeod]

I wouldn't put much faith in the Wiki yet - me and two other guys are the ones running its content right now (have you noticed? ) as Admins. Its a very slow process to actually find citations for some that information (which was added by I don't know who to the older version of the wiki), and to be honest in may cases it may just be made up. The elctron-laser thing may be an example of that, or simply from licensed material which I don't know about yet.

My guess might be the novels. It's also quite possible there are translation errors (official or unofficial) that are a source for those inconsistencies. I've noticed someitmes in wikis more retarded fans will incorporate that sort of stuff. But I'm pretty sure I remmeber something similar mentioned elswhere (on SB I think, possibly somewhere else) so it could be possible. I also remember seeing that in ground battles they use railguns and Charged PBWs (which are good on the ground but would suck in space, although CPB's have a nasty radiation problem if you use unarmored troops.

I also remembered this bit from spacebattles that might be quantifiable in terms of engine performance and suchnot. I also heard something bout fusion bombing a star and riding the solar flare or somesuch. That link has some odd scalings for the ships it looks like too.

Same comments re: wiki applies. I have literally no idea where any of this info comes from. I can say from the show that "nuclear fusion missiles" are indeed part of the regular ship's arsenal, but they're secondary weapons to the beam weapons - and that the use of nuclear weapons on an inhabited planet is illegal (it was done once, in Episode 23, but they were clearly targeted strikes rather than obliteration of the entire planet's surface - the planet didn't have a large population).

If they're using nukes that's still going to set some broad limits on firepower and capability. A good lower limit might be to estimate missile mass and assume they're starting out at third gneration nuke as a baseline (1-6 kilotons per kg IIRC)

[Connor MacLeod]

I dont know if it's behaving quite like a "normal" laser does. It kinda looks like their lasers behave the way Qui-gon's lightsaber did in TPM (basically it punches a straight line and a fixed volume immediately around the beam is immediately melted/vaporized ) Maybe if it was a pulsed laser of some kind, but I'd be expecting more explosive/mechanical damage than thermal. One crazy idea is that whatever materials they do use are either good at negating mechanical damage effects of a beam weapon, or the volume is somehow a consequence of whatever energy-dispersing properties the armor may or may not have.

Other than that I'd say their beam weapons are like how Curtis envisioned TLs - technobabble particles that decay laterally into photons or some other sort of energetic particle.

The asteroid scene in Dishonor Part 1 (part of the Season 1 Gaiden) - apologies that its from the laserdisc rip - a DVD rip of this hasn't been done yet:-

*snip images to save this being a big ass reply*

This is probably less than straightforward to estimate- the asteroid is bombarded by beam fire for several frames before it finally explodes, unfortunately I simply don't have the patience to take a frame by frame of this right now. Scaling the asteroid roughly should be relatively easy in any event - an Imperial battleship (or cruiser) can be seen to the right of the asteroid (its returning fire in the third screenshot) - battleships are 179m wide, cruisers are 141m wide. The ship is clearly either beside or beside and behind the asteroid.

It looks like it would be at least a kilometre or two in diameter, I'd have to do pixel scaling later (I'm too tired/lazy to do it right now, but it looks like the diameter is roughly 10x the battleship/cruiser thingy if I am looking at the right spot.) The real complication is thta you can't treat it like a "Cratering" or "centrally buried explosive" for the whole asteorid, as it looks like the beams are hitting several different points of the asteroid. Tenative guess, without looking at it longer, somewhere in the kiloton/low megaton range, disrgarding any possible melting/evaporation.

[Vympel]

My guess might be the novels. It's also quite possible there are translation errors (official or unofficial) that are a source for those inconsistencies. I've noticed someitmes in wikis more retarded fans will incorporate that sort of stuff. But I'm pretty sure I remmeber something similar mentioned elswhere (on SB I think, possibly somewhere else) so it could be possible. I also remember seeing that in ground battles they use railguns and Charged PBWs (which are good on the ground but would suck in space, although CPB's have a nasty radiation problem if you use unarmored troops.

There are a few (poorly) translated novel chapters on the wiki, I'd have to check em again.

I also remembered this bit from spacebattles that might be quantifiable in terms of engine performance and suchnot. I also heard something bout fusion bombing a star and riding the solar flare or somesuch. That link has some odd scalings for the ships it looks like too.

Yeah, that scaling picture is accurate, I don't know where the size figures for the Pan Gu ("Ban-goo") come from (probably a previous miniatures release by another company) but its well attested, the rest I can confirm first hand by reference to the booklets that came with mine.

The Hyperion fusion bombing the star was done in Episode 15 (same episode where a battle takes place completely in extremely close orbit of a star) - not sure what would be gotten from that really.

If they're using nukes that's still going to set some broad limits on firepower and capability. A good lower limit might be to estimate missile mass and assume they're starting out at third gneration nuke as a baseline (1-6 kilotons per kg IIRC)

That should be doable. My Conquest Is A Sea of Stars gives us a closeup of the Brunhild's missile launcher cells and one of its missiles as it launches.

There are Imperial gunships that launch smaller (apparently nuclear) weapons too - we see an Alliance battleship crumple like a tin can when struck with one in My Conquest is A Sea of Stars.

There's a reference to "laser hydrogen missiles" in one episode as well.

I dont know if it's behaving quite like a "normal" laser does. It kinda looks like their lasers behave the way Qui-gon's lightsaber did in TPM (basically it punches a straight line and a fixed volume immediately around the beam is immediately melted/vaporized ) Maybe if it was a pulsed laser of some kind, but I'd be expecting more explosive/mechanical damage than thermal. One crazy idea is that whatever materials they do use are either good at negating mechanical damage effects of a beam weapon, or the volume is somehow a consequence of whatever energy-dispersing properties the armor may or may not have.

Other than that I'd say their beam weapons are like how Curtis envisioned TLs - technobabble particles that decay laterally into photons or some other sort of energetic particle.

Yeah, being an anime it can be somewhat inconsistent. Some beam impacts (another in that episode, in fact) result in instantaneous explosive damage at the point of impact - that one is somewhat delayed.