Versus Match Omega class Destroyer (Babylon 5) VS Star League McKenna Class Battleship.

[Spartan303]

The Combatants:

The Earth Alliance Omega Class Destroyer.

https://www.b5tech.org/earthalliance/earthallianceshipsandvessels/earthcapships/omega/omega.html

VS

McKenna (WarShip class)

McKenna (WarShip class)

www.sarna.net

The Situation: An Omega Class Destroyer and a MecKenna class Battleship are dropped into Sol. Both close range to identify the other and find out their intentions. Communications soon break down as both claim authority in Sol and demand the other to stand down. Neither is willing to do so.

The Arena: Local Space in Sol. No gravity wells or any asteroids to impede movement or anything to hide behind.

Victory conditions: Kill or incapacitate either ship. The commanding officer of the losing ship will issue a full unconditional surrender.

Blood Lust: No, both are in character and have well trained and competent crews and captains in Command.

Competence: Both ships are crewed by elite Captains and crews.

Interpretations: Canon interpretations for both.

EDIT.

Scenarios:

Scenario 1.) Ship vs Ship only.

Scenario 2.) Omega with 24 Aurora Starfuries while the McKenna has an equal number of light Areospace fighters.

Scenario 3.) Omega has 36 Thunderbolt Starfuries while the McKenna has an equal number of medium to heavy Areospace fighters.

Scenario 4.) McKenna has a full war load out. Max Areospace fighter and 6 Dropships. But now the Omega class is supported by 2 Hyperion class Heavy cruisers and the full fighter wing of a nearby Poseidon class Fleet Carrier (96 Thunderbolts).

Special Scenario: Replace the Omega with the Shadow Omega. For...reasons.


Special note: The issue of acceleration for the Omega came up came up due to simulated Gravity via a rotating section. From my research the ship more often than not maintains a 1.2G to 2G acceleration burn when traveling under normal conditions as not to induce stress on the frame. The ship can maintain a 4G acceleration in emergencies but this puts serious stress on the space frame. The Rotational section is seen as hampering the ships ability for greater acceleration.

Found a link concerning Earth Alliance Weapons.

https://www.b5tech.org/science/weapons/weapons.htm

https://www.b5tech.org/science/weapons/particlelaser/particlelaser.html

CONCLUSION - The total low-end output of what we assume to be a standard discharge from an Omega's primary forward particle laser cannon, comes to 1.79*1014 watts (179,842,016,448,000 watts - 179 Terawatts), or equal to a 43 kiloton bomb.

As we know that the Omega's armor is NOT comprised of iron, and the general consensus is that the Earthforce armor is at least 20X stronger than our base matterial, the X-Ray/Particle laser on the Omega class Destroyer must have an average output of at least 3.59*1015 watt (3,596,840,328,960,000 watt - 3,596 Terawatt), or equal to an 860 kiloton bomb.
Also, this is a standard discharge, not a maximum burst. Assuming that a standard discharge is 30% of critical power, the maximum output of the Omega's X-ray/Particle lasers would be 1.19*1016 watt (11,989,467,763,200,000 watt - 11,989 Terawatt), or equal to a 2.8 megaton bomb.

https://www.b5tech.org/science/weapons/PulseCannons/pulsecannons.html

CONCLUSION - The total low-end output of what we assume to be a standard discharge from the Earth Alliance's heaviest plasma weapon comes to 6.36*1014 joule (636 Terajoules - 636,424,410,410,976 joules), or equal to a 152 kiloton bomb.

As we know that the Omega's armor is NOT comprised of iron, and the general consensus is that the Earthforce armor is at least 20X stronger than our base matterial, the heavy plasma cannon must have an average output of at least 1.27*1016 joules (12,728 Terajoules - 12,728,488,208,219,520 joules), or equal to a 3 megaton bomb.
Also, this is a standard discharge, not a maximum burst. Assuming that a standard discharge is 30% of critical power, the maximum output of the Earthforce heavy plasma cannon would be no less than 4.24*1016 joule (42,428 Terajoules - 42,428,294,027,398,400 joules), or equal to a 10 megaton bomb.

https://www.b5tech.org/science/weapons/PulseCannons/pulsecannons.html

Who wins?

 

[S'task]

Running into a few issues with giving an initial handicap. Is there any canon data regarding the acceleration profile of the Omega-class? This is pertinent as it helps determine who has control over positioning in the conflict.

Another pertinent question: do both ships have their fighter compliments and if so, what kind of compliment does the McKenna have and how many fighters does an Omega carry? This might not seem relevant but Starfuries are going to perform very differently vs different SLDF Fighters (which have much more variety, weapons loadouts, and capabilities), and numeric superiority of fighters is going make a huge difference. Starfuries will definitely hold maneuverability over the Aerospace fighters*, but looking over comparative ships I think for the tonnage the BattleTech Aerospace fighters have superiority both in combat duration and toughness. Combat duration is due to Aerospace fighters carrying their own fusion reactors on board, thus limiting their flight endurance to the endurance of the pilot, rather than having limited flight time based on batteries like Starfuries do. If the McKenna is carrying a good mix of Light, Medium and Heavy Areospace fighters and the numbers are close to even, I would give the small craft portion of the battle to the McKenna and her wing.

Further query: does the McKenna have a dropship loadout with it, it has six docking collars for them and, strictly speaking, SLDF doctrine called for it to have dropships with it to act as point defense and fighter screen (you'll note that the McKenna lacks much small gun firepower, whereas later BattleTech designs like the Fox and Avalon classes have considerable numbers of Mech scale weapons... this is why, the Mech scale weapons on SLDF ships were usually relegated to support dropships). If the McKenna has a proper escort of dropships... things can much more dicey for the Omega much more quickly, as SLDF doctrine would have dropships like the Titan and Pentagon attached to provide further small craft defense. With those kinds of support in the small craft conflict along with its own aerospace wing, the McKenna is looking to be able to sweep space of the Omega's fighters fairly handily and have fighters (and dropships) attacking the Omega along with its own weapons.

As to weapons, the core concerns here are going to be who can control the range of the engagement. The McKenna I think holds a significant firepower edge overall, at least until the Omega decides to use nukes (if it does). There's no good range where the Omega has an advantage over the McKenna. At long ranges the McKenna's Heavy Naval PPCs offer considerable "reach out and touch someone" capability, as well as having 10 naval scale missile launchers to the Omega's two. The Omega's shields may give it better defenses than the McKenna enjoys though, and its distributed power system as opposed to the McKenna's singular fusion core might give it survivability where the McKenna does not.

That said, if the McKenna gets in close enough to bring it's NAC/40s to bear the Omega I think is pretty much hosed. NAC/40s are terrifyingly powerful weapons and the McKenna has 12 of them (provided it can only bring a few to bear at a single target as they are spread out between both the fore and after of the ship).

Positioning is going to be critical in the fight too, again, going back to needing to know the movement profile of the Omega. If the McKenna is equally as maneuverable as the Omega, weapon placement is going to become a major factor in the engagement as the Omega simply carries fewer weapons overall... which means it has firing arcs where it has few weapons it can bring to bear, which means if the McKenna can get into a bad arc for the Omega and stay there it holds a significant advantage. The reverse is not true though, the McKenna has much better weapon coverage which means the Omega can't really get into a firing arch where the McKenna lacks powerful weapons.

The final critical question is how powerful are the Omega's weapons? Given SF's wide range of yields this can entirely turn the tide of battle from being a stomp in the McKenna's favor to a stomp in the Omega's favor to everything in between.

So... my initial handicap is as follows:

1. With proper attached** escorts and fighters, the McKenna has a significant advantage unless the fighter compliment of the Omega is in the hundreds. Even assuming significant superiority of weapons and shields, the Omega would likely get overwhelmed by the smaller craft AND having to deal with the McKenna herself.

2. WITHOUT any fighters or escorts (literally just ship v ship) it all comes down to the Omega's weapon's yields and its maneuverability. Assuming rough parity of weapons systems, I think the edge goes to the McKenna due to the design having much better weapon coverage and having considerably more options for engagement than the more limited weapon selection of the Omega provides. If the Omega's weapon yields are similar and the maneuverability profiles similar then things tilt more in the McKenna's favor again due to the superior weapon coverage and potential ability for the McKenna to move into a bad weapon arch for the Omega.

3. If I don't miss my guess, the Omega's weapons are going to have some stupidly high, megaton weapon yields or something. If that's the case, then it's a stomp in the Omega's favor, as nothing in BattleTech can generally tank megaton or even high kiloton level weapons... not even the glorious McKennas...

----------
* Query, given that Earthforce didn't have artificial gravity how did Starfury pilots NOT die from acceleration? Accelerating at 1000 m/s is 102 G... which is pretty well beyond the survival threshold of the human body even WITH specialized training and tech to assist.

** Literally attached, the dropship escorts would be attached to the McKenna using it as their jumpship and would deploy off it as parasite craft.

 

[Spartan303]

Running into a few issues with giving an initial handicap. Is there any canon data regarding the acceleration profile of the Omega-class? This is pertinent as it helps determine who has control over positioning in the conflict.

Another pertinent question: do both ships have their fighter compliments and if so, what kind of compliment does the McKenna have and how many fighters does an Omega carry? This might not seem relevant but Starfuries are going to perform very differently vs different SLDF Fighters (which have much more variety, weapons loadouts, and capabilities), and numeric superiority of fighters is going make a huge difference. Starfuries will definitely hold maneuverability over the Aerospace fighters*, but looking over comparative ships I think for the tonnage the BattleTech Aerospace fighters have superiority both in combat duration and toughness. Combat duration is due to Aerospace fighters carrying their own fusion reactors on board, thus limiting their flight endurance to the endurance of the pilot, rather than having limited flight time based on batteries like Starfuries do. If the McKenna is carrying a good mix of Light, Medium and Heavy Areospace fighters and the numbers are close to even, I would give the small craft portion of the battle to the McKenna and her wing.

Further query: does the McKenna have a dropship loadout with it, it has six docking collars for them and, strictly speaking, SLDF doctrine called for it to have dropships with it to act as point defense and fighter screen (you'll note that the McKenna lacks much small gun firepower, whereas later BattleTech designs like the Fox and Avalon classes have considerable numbers of Mech scale weapons... this is why, the Mech scale weapons on SLDF ships were usually relegated to support dropships). If the McKenna has a proper escort of dropships... things can much more dicey for the Omega much more quickly, as SLDF doctrine would have dropships like the Titan and Pentagon attached to provide further small craft defense. With those kinds of support in the small craft conflict along with its own aerospace wing, the McKenna is looking to be able to sweep space of the Omega's fighters fairly handily and have fighters (and dropships) attacking the Omega along with its own weapons.

As to weapons, the core concerns here are going to be who can control the range of the engagement. The McKenna I think holds a significant firepower edge overall, at least until the Omega decides to use nukes (if it does). There's no good range where the Omega has an advantage over the McKenna. At long ranges the McKenna's Heavy Naval PPCs offer considerable "reach out and touch someone" capability, as well as having 10 naval scale missile launchers to the Omega's two. The Omega's shields may give it better defenses than the McKenna enjoys though, and its distributed power system as opposed to the McKenna's singular fusion core might give it survivability where the McKenna does not.

That said, if the McKenna gets in close enough to bring it's NAC/40s to bear the Omega I think is pretty much hosed. NAC/40s are terrifyingly powerful weapons and the McKenna has 12 of them (provided it can only bring a few to bear at a single target as they are spread out between both the fore and after of the ship).

Positioning is going to be critical in the fight too, again, going back to needing to know the movement profile of the Omega. If the McKenna is equally as maneuverable as the Omega, weapon placement is going to become a major factor in the engagement as the Omega simply carries fewer weapons overall... which means it has firing arcs where it has few weapons it can bring to bear, which means if the McKenna can get into a bad arc for the Omega and stay there it holds a significant advantage. The reverse is not true though, the McKenna has much better weapon coverage which means the Omega can't really get into a firing arch where the McKenna lacks powerful weapons.

The final critical question is how powerful are the Omega's weapons? Given SF's wide range of yields this can entirely turn the tide of battle from being a stomp in the McKenna's favor to a stomp in the Omega's favor to everything in between.

So... my initial handicap is as follows:

1. With proper attached** escorts and fighters, the McKenna has a significant advantage unless the fighter compliment of the Omega is in the hundreds. Even assuming significant superiority of weapons and shields, the Omega would likely get overwhelmed by the smaller craft AND having to deal with the McKenna herself.

2. WITHOUT any fighters or escorts (literally just ship v ship) it all comes down to the Omega's weapon's yields and its maneuverability. Assuming rough parity of weapons systems, I think the edge goes to the McKenna due to the design having much better weapon coverage and having considerably more options for engagement than the more limited weapon selection of the Omega provides. If the Omega's weapon yields are similar and the maneuverability profiles similar then things tilt more in the McKenna's favor again due to the superior weapon coverage and potential ability for the McKenna to move into a bad weapon arch for the Omega.

3. If I don't miss my guess, the Omega's weapons are going to have some stupidly high, megaton weapon yields or something. If that's the case, then it's a stomp in the Omega's favor, as nothing in BattleTech can generally tank megaton or even high kiloton level weapons... not even the glorious McKennas...

----------
* Query, given that Earthforce didn't have artificial gravity how did Starfury pilots NOT die from acceleration? Accelerating at 1000 m/s is 102 G... which is pretty well beyond the survival threshold of the human body even WITH specialized training and tech to assist.

** Literally attached, the dropship escorts would be attached to the McKenna using it as their jumpship and would deploy off it as parasite craft.

Updated the OP.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Only thing I remember reading in one of the B5 novels was the crew of an Omega dealing with 3g's at some point.

 

[Harlock]

You can get an idea on the acceleration of an Omega from when they leave after Delenn arrives during the battle for B5. The ships turn before departing quite rapidly, based on the fact they are pivoting on their centre you can work out the distance travelled (Circumference of a circle) and how long it takes. Works out as about 15 g. This is a turning motion provided by thrusters only, presumably lateral acceleration will be higher, but 15 is a fair number.
Earth does have inertial compensators, they are named in one of the canon comics and we do have onscreen evidence of acceleration having no affect on a crew. (As an example the zero gravity cruiser Lexington has objects randomly floating around when the ship was under thrust, those objects should have floated toward the back of the ship.) Earth figured out compensators a couple of decades before it figured out crew gravity, they are based on similar ideas but the compensators were easier to get working.

Firepower wise, I think the kiloton figure comes from the Minbari, it was calced that Minbari fighters dish out around 5 kilotons a shot based on them shooting up some asteroids in the fifth season. EA capital ships tend to be classed in the high hundreds of kilotons to low single digit megatons per second. Warlocks much more but thats not applicable here.

I read on the wiki that the McKenna weapons have a range in the 'hundreds of kilometres' and that applies to both PPCs and naval autocannons. The Omega has an effective range into the tens of thousands of kilometres which is a significant advantage. Shell weight appears comparable to real life heavy naval guns, but velocity will matter here. If effective range is only in the hundreds of kilometres that suggests fairly low velocity, enough for an opposing ship of similar size to react and dodge the incoming round.
If the time it takes to travel hundreds of kms is enough for a large not especially agile warship to dodge, then an Omega at several thousand kms should have no issue dodging or intercepting incoming fire.
I don't see anything for rate of fire, but they seem to have fairly limited ammo available.

Also notable that the NAC 40 is considered powerful enough to one hit a small warship, but the mass of the shot based on ammo storage stats is about .8 of a ton, roughly on a par with a 15 inch naval round from real life. This thing will move a lot faster of course so have more energy, but with such a short effective range it can't be much more than a few thousand m/s. That won't put it on the same level as an Omega class weapons, even assuming low end stats.
If these weapons are considered huge threats vs BT ships, but are considerably less powerful than weapons Omegas have survived, then it speaks well of the Omega's ability to overcome BT armour and defences.

Fighters, I'm no expert so just looking at a sample of medium fighters, their acceleration seems less than the 15g of the Omega so Starfuries should have an advantage. Their weapons seem solid, but Furies have respectable pulse and missile options too so should acquit well. Agility seems pretty clear cut which will help in a dogfight, and BT craft have the apparent weakness of needing aerofoils for their atmospheric role, EA pilot doctrine seems to teach aiming for the wings on such craft (At least it did vs those triangular Raider Delta fighters)

Another possible issue is energy mines. The Omega has two launchers for these, normally Earth prefers to use them as direct fire weapons vs capital ships, but they can use them as the Narn prefer as area weapons vs fighters. A cluster of fighters or light ships would be a tempting target for long range bombardment.

For Missiles, the Omega has 84 tubes on its flanks (those rows of red doors) though can't say if they have reloads. The McKenna has no point defences which makes dealing with so many missiles an issue, especially if its fighter component is busy duelling enemy fighters. Likewise Starfury strafing would be a problem if they can outrun the defending fighter screen.

Electronic warfare might be a big factor, this is what usually forces EA ships to get into knife fighting range. Omega class do have potent sensor and jamming packages using a variety of types including tachyons which I don't know if they are a thing in Btech. Seems ftl is based on something else? But I'll stand corrected if that isn't the case. But if it is then the tachyon sensors should be unaffected by ECM and have no issue locking targets at maximum range of 10k ish kilometres..

The big factor I can see is how fast those NAC rounds are going to be. If that range of hundreds of kilometres is down to velocity or some other factor. If they aren't moving especially fast then they won't deliver a great deal of energy per shot given their mass, and they will be easier to dodge or shoot down. Rate of fire is interesting too as spamming rounds would be a good way to overwhelm an Omega point defence interceptors, but ammo might be a factor there. PPCs I'm guessing diffuse after a few hundred km so those might be very hard to employ effectively.

If we can figure out velocity we can figure out energy per shot, that tells us how much hurt the McKenna can dish out and roughly how much it can absorb.

 

[bintananth]

3. If I don't miss my guess, the Omega's weapons are going to have some stupidly high, megaton weapon yields or something. If that's the case, then it's a stomp in the Omega's favor, as nothing in BattleTech can generally tank megaton or even high kiloton level weapons... not even the glorious McKennas...

Omegas are about the same size as Mimbari Sharlins (44 million tons). There isn't much of anything in the B5 setting which wasn't made by the Vorlons or Shadows than can go toe-to-toe with a Sharlin without getting bitchslapped within a few seconds. An Omega is probably going to lose that fight but the Sharlin will not get away without taking serious damage.

The McKenna has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving this fight.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Hmm, my knee jerk is to give it to the McKenna due to the distilled essence of insanity that is BT armor, and the fact that ships in Babylon Five tend to be apparently made of candyfloss and have firepower to match.



Here we see the Minbari Flagship Black Star destroyed by 2-megaton nukes that are detonated several kilometers away. The Black Star is also significantly more advanced than an Omega so we can reasonably assume it has much better armor. Note this is not an isolated instance, we see even the most powerful Vorlon and Shadow ships getting ganked by low-yield tacnukes exploded a fair distance away several times.

The exact distance isn't going to be easy because the special effects don't conveniently occur on a flat plan, at 3:44 however we see the detonation is clearly at a minimum 3 times the length of the Black Star away even if we ignore perspective, and a Sharlin is 1600 meters. Given the foreshortening, it's more likely the explosion is 6-8 times its length away. At a minimum we're looking at about a five-kilometer distance.

Per Interstellar Operations page 171, a nuclear weapon must be in physical contact with a WarShip's hull to inflict any damage at all, otherwise its armor and radiation shielding will be able to deflect all the energy away and it will have no effect. In the same situation as the Black Star, a McKenna would take exactly 0 damage. So we can see immediately that the McKenna's armor is going to be stupidly good compared to anything in the B5 universe. Babylon V in general has extremely anemic weaponry to match their anemic armor.

Atomic Rockets goes into some detail about what those nukes in space would do, and there's a calculator here we can use.

Wayback Machine

At a range of 4800 meters, a 2 megaton nuke is going to inflict 722,574 megawatts per square centimeter. Comparatively, a 1 kiloton nuke at a range of 0.1 meters needed to harm a McKenna will inflict 3,329,619,608 megawatts per square centimeter. Even extending it to 1 meter yields 33,296,196 megwatters per square centimeter. This would inflict 2 damage on the McKenna's armor and have no other effects, an extremely anemic bit of damage lower than even its lightest weapon. Meanwhile the McKenna's NAC/40s do, unsurprisingly, 40 damage a shot by firing a 6-ton slug at velocities estimated to be at a minimum the mid-to-high tens of thousands of kilometers per hour (otherwise they would not be able to hit in the same turn they are fired).

So using what are obviously perfectly reasonable calcs, a single point of BT armor is worth more than an entire B5 battleship in terms of damage soak, and BT weapons are powerful to match that kind of touchness.

 

[bintananth]

Hmm, my knee jerk is to give it to the McKenna due to the distilled essence of insanity that is BT armor, and the fact that ships in Babylon Five tend to be apparently made of candyfloss and have firepower to match.



Here we see the Minbari Flagship Black Star destroyed by 2-megaton nukes that are detonated several kilometers away. The Black Star is also significantly more advanced than an Omega so we can reasonably assume it has much better armor. Note this is not an isolated instance, we see even the most powerful Vorlon and Shadow ships getting ganked by low-yield tacnukes exploded a fair distance away several times.

The exact distance isn't going to be easy because the special effects don't conveniently occur on a flat plan, at 3:44 however we see the detonation is clearly at a minimum 3 times the length of the Black Star away even if we ignore perspective, and a Sharlin is 1600 meters. Given the foreshortening, it's more likely the explosion is 6-8 times its length away. At a minimum we're looking at about a five-kilometer distance.

Per Interstellar Operations page 171, a nuclear weapon must be in physical contact with a WarShip's hull to inflict any damage at all, otherwise its armor and radiation shielding will be able to deflect all the energy away and it will have no effect. In the same situation as the Black Star, a McKenna would take exactly 0 damage. So we can see immediately that the McKenna's armor is going to be stupidly good compared to anything in the B5 universe. Babylon V in general has extremely anemic weaponry to match their anemic armor.

Atomic Rockets goes into some detail about what those nukes in space would do, and there's a calculator here we can use.

Wayback Machine

At a range of 4800 meters, a 2 megaton nuke is going to inflict 722,574 megawatts per square centimeter. Comparatively, a 1 kiloton nuke at a range of 0.1 meters needed to harm a McKenna will inflict 3,329,619,608 megawatts per square centimeter. Even extending it to 1 meter yields 33,296,196 megwatters per square centimeter. This would inflict 2 damage on the McKenna's armor and have no other effects, an extremely anemic bit of damage lower than even its lightest weapon. Meanwhile the McKenna's NAC/40s do, unsurprisingly, 40 damage a shot by firing a 6-ton slug at velocities estimated to be at a minimum the mid-to-high tens of thousands of kilometers per hour (otherwise they would not be able to hit in the same turn they are fired).

So using what are obviously perfectly reasonable calcs, a single point of BT armor is worth more than an entire B5 battleship in terms of damage soak, and BT weapons are powerful to match that kind of touchness.

It's fiction. Writers have no sense of scale and aren't engineers. If some of the numbers for an Omega or Sharlin are right neither would be allowed to orbit Earth because the waste heat alone would fuck up our biosphere.

 

[Airedale260]

Yeah the Black Star bit is, IIRC (@Harlock would be able to weigh in on this), handwaved as either a golden BB moment or else a miscommunication (whether propaganda EarthForce created or else just Londo getting the tale wrong I don't remember).

The McKenna is basically hosed with or without support, given the standoff ranges and level of firepower involved. Part of the problem is that BT Aerospace rules were written without consideration of a sense of scale (despite handwaving ECM and whatnot).

Mind you, I like both franchises, but BT doesn't do space combat well at all.

 

[Harlock]

I wouldn't put much faith in the Black Star, according to those calcs the asteroid that hit the Lexington and broke up at the start of that video would have gone clean through the ship

You could possibly use that scene to argue the minbari are unusually vulnerable to nukes, but Minbari armour isn't human armour and as we've seen that human armour in that very scene is capable of shrugging off much stronger impacts, it unfortunately tells us nothing about Omega class protection.

If it was a Sharlin vs it might be worth examining, but the properties of Minbari armour don't translate to the properties of human armour. Or their respective weaknesses.

 

[bintananth]

Yeah the Black Star bit is, IIRC (@Harlock would be able to weigh in on this), handwaved as either a golden BB moment or else a miscommunication (whether propaganda EarthForce created or else just Londo getting the tale wrong I don't remember).

The Mimbari thought it was true.

Part of B5 is the Mimbari learning that they weren't the most powerful of the "younger races" even though they were the only ones who could say "go fuck yourself" to the Shadows and Vorlons without getting instantly crushed.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I wouldn't put much faith in the Black Star, according to those calcs the asteroid that hit the Lexington and broke up at the start of that video would have gone clean through the ship

You could possibly use that scene to argue the minbari are unusually vulnerable to nukes, but Minbari armour isn't human armour and as we've seen that human armour in that very scene is capable of shrugging off much stronger impacts, it unfortunately tells us nothing about Omega class protection.

If it was a Sharlin vs it might be worth examining, but the properties of Minbari armour don't translate to the properties of human armour. Or their respective weaknesses.

I think we'd need something from the Creators to throw out established canon, not opinions from fans. As it is, the end of the Black Star fits perfectly into the existing canon and the effects are duplicated at other points in the story, nothing points to it being a golden BB or one-off event.



Even Shadow and Vorlon ships fall apart to a nuke hundreds to thousands of meters away in the exact same way.

It's backed up by other text as well.

Sheriden: There wasn't much style of finesse involved, she was huge, monstrous, we tried everything but none of our weapons would lock on to their ships, some kind of stealth technology, so I hit on the idea of mining the area between Jupiter and Mars. A fusion bomb doesn't have to lock onto anything if it's close enough. Took out the Black Star and three heavy cruisers before they could escape.

So the trick worked on three other ships as well, clearly not a fluke or it wouldn't have happened four times in a row.

We could make an argument that the Minbari might be more or less resistant to nukes (This same argument is why we can't use the asteroid impact to throw out the clip, kinetic energy is not radiation so by the same logic it may simply be less vulnerable to extremely low-speed kinetic impacts). However, it's exceedingly unreasonable to presume the Minbari must be thousands to millions of times weaker than human armor for the Omega's armor to have the same kind of resistance a McKenna does. That's not a reasonable assumption at all, such a staggering difference in quality is the kind of thing that is going to come up in as combat-centric a show as B5.

We can further compare the ludicrous power imbalance by using the old standby of iron comparison.

A McKenna comes equipped with 48 Heavy Naval PPCs. Each one does 15 naval damage. A ton of armor in BT is worth 0.8 points so each PPC hit is vaporizing 18.75 tons of armor.

If you go off the old standby of pure iron, at a minimum with perfect efficiency that's 485,537,231,250 kilojoules, or 116 kilotons per PPC shot. Of course assuming something as BS as Battletech naval armor is pure iron is pretty silly, the actual number is going to be staggeringly higher.

In comparison, we can look at the known weapons of B5.

Susan Ivanova: We'll upgrade your data systems, and supercharge your engines! And, if you have an accident, we'll repair your ships. And sooner or later, your ships will have accidents.

Smuggler #1: My pilots don't have accidents.

Ivanova: They will. I'll see to it.

Smuggler #1: You wouldn't!

Ivanova: Really? I've got a 200-megawatt pulse cannon in the forward cargo bay that says otherwise.

200 Megawatts, so more on par with BT infantry and ground weapons. Going off the iron standard, one hNPPC shot is going to be equal to continuous fire from this weapon for a period of, oh, about 5,617 days. That's if it continually fires and doesn't break trying to hit the same spot on the McKenna for fifteen years at a time. Pulse cannons, incidentally, form the primary armament of the Omega-class and it looks to have around six of them for primary armament as opposed to the 48 hNPPCs on the McKenna. Now the Omega's pulse cannons may well be larger but it gives us a fairly good starting point, and that starting point isn't looking so good if they want to actually inflict any damage on a McKenna.

 

[bintananth]

... spot on the McKenna for fifteen years at a time. Pulse cannons, incidentally, form the primary armament of the Omega-class and it looks to have around six of them for primary armament as opposed to the 48 hNPPCs on the McKenna. Now the Omega's pulse cannons may well be larger but it gives us a fairly good starting point, and that starting point isn't looking so good if they want to actually inflict any damage on a McKenna.

Let's not be Space Battles. It's fiction intended to entertain. It's not reality where "oh shit, that just broke" might result in a city-flattening mushroom cloud.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Let's not be Space Battles. It's fiction intended to entertain. It's not reality where "oh shit, that just broke" might result in a city-flattening mushroom cloud.

So... how do you want to run a vs. debate then?

 

[bintananth]

So... how do you want to run a vs. debate then?

I don't because it's all stupid dick waving.

Fr'ex: trying to say that a Japanese yumi is better than an English longbow - or the other way around - is bullshit because both types of bows are longer than I am tall and most people can't actually use a real one.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Approaching Vs. Debates Holistically or Thematically is no less valid then using maths but it's there's no "objective" metric to compare both by as a result.

 

[Harlock]

post

Alrighty then, lets go with the Black Star.

You already name dropped Atomic rockets as an authority on this subject which is fair, so lets use them as a source on nuclear weapons in space and compare their description of what should happen with the visuals of what does happen.

You are going the route of using just the X-Ray impulse as a medium for delivering energy to the Black Star which is consistent with a nuclear detonation in a vacuum. That isn't entirely accurate to this scenario as it is in a dense asteroid field with rocks in contact, but lets work through the vacuum detonation idea first.
When a nuke detonates it releases circa 80-90% of its energy as X-Rays, these deliver energy to nearby objects causing them to suddenly heat up. This energy is delivered instantaneously, meaning the very moment that nuke goes off he Black Star should fold based on the idea it is the X-rays alone that kill it.

We can see however that this is not true. The Black Star exhibits no change at the instance of detonation. If X-Ray impulse was the mechanism by which all of the nukes energy was delivered then the effect would be immediate, the ship would at the very least show signs of vaporisation and sudden movement from the sublimation of the hull.
If the armour is as weak as you suggest the ship would have folded from the back first, it would show heat damage, outgassing from sublimation, and you would see the huge drive fin which is both very large and very thin get completely shredded by the impulse.

We see none of that, there is no indication of X-ray impulse at all, which makes sense given the range. If X-Ray impulse is not the mechanism, then what is.

This is where the asteroid comes in. The bomb is not detonating in a vacuum, it is on an asteroid in a particularly dense field surrounded by other asteroids, plus a whole bunch of dust, maybe gas. There are at any rate a substantial amount of objects and materials around the nuke which can be affected by its detonation.

This is what we see in the visual, two distinct waves of illuminated material heading away from the bomb. The first wave strikes the Blackstar and physically pushes it away from the blast which is broadly what you should have seen with the X-Ray Impulse. The second brighter wave is the element which apparently finishes the job. It is also possible to see two smaller explosions on the lower side of the ship before it is overtaken by the second wave.

So what is this glowing wave? There is no atmosphere so it must be material from the asteroid field. Rocks, dust, bits of the other Earth ships. Now this material does behave consistent with X-Ray impulse, the side nearest the nuke is vaporised creating a sublimation effect acting as a jet pushing the now superheated material away from the source of the blast. The smaller particles move fastes creating an initial wave of small fast moving particles that hit the Black Star, push it somewhat, but pass by without causing the ship to immediately explode.
It isn't until the second brighter, denser wave consisting of heavier materials arrives that the Black Star is consumed.

This then is what the visuals tell us. The Bomb detonates destroying the asteroid it is on turning all the nearby asteroids and dust into superheated gas or molten lumps through X-Ray impulse. Material a little further out suffers sublimation on the side closest the detonation causing them to very rapidly accelerate away from the bomb. The smaller particles move faster, larger pieces take more time. Both sets of materials are glowing due to the heat imparted by the X-rays giving you that nice visual shockwave. You get two rough shockwaves, fast moving small particles followed a moment later by the bigger elements. So far consistent with what we see and consistent with how a nuke affects material around it in space.

The Black Star however did not move or show any reaction to the X ray impulse. We know there was one because it effected the rocks closer to the blast. There is no visual evidence that the X-ray impulse of the detonating nuke had any appreciable effect on the Black Star. No evidence of the hull heating, no evidence of damage, no evidence of sublimation, no involuntary movement.

The Black Star only reacts when that first wave of superheated particulates strikes it, the wave physically pushing the ship suddenly some 300 metres which suggests a significant amount of energy. In fact the energy needed to push a 200 million ton mass 300 metres is just over two megatons which is somewhat ironic.
The second wave, a bombardment by larger superheated materials in a denser wave, is what destroys the ship.

So in summary it isn't the X-ray impulse that destroyed the Black Star the visuals show no support for this rendering those calculations unnecessary. The visuals show the Black Star was destroyed by a bombardment of material propelled by the nuke, a victim of kinetic impacts which Minbari ships do not react well to.
This isn't a random tactic, it is a very good example of an improvised Casaba Howitzer where the nuke is used as propellant, not the destructive mechanism itself. Not a true version of course because it isn't a focused attack, more a shotgun, but does display an awareness of the limitations of nukes in space and a way to still make them useful.

The Black Star was killed by a nuke, but not by the direct effects of its detonation as the earlier calcs suggest.
Same applies to the Shadow ships, though with far bigger bombs. The Vorlon ships didn't seem to give a damn, which tracks as Vorlon ships are tougher.

Don't ask me to work out the actual damage needed though, as noted the energy needed to push that ship as we saw in the visuals worked out as 2.1 megatons which means the nuke had to be vastly more powerful depending on distance. That's already a major inconsistency between visuals and dialogue, if we try to press it further we're going to have to discard one or the other.

Another inconsistency is that all the calcs are based on the second nuke, never the first one. That nuke detonated much closer and yet inflicted less damage.

200 Megawatts, so more on par with BT infantry and ground weapons. Going off the iron standard, one hNPPC shot is going to be equal to continuous fire from this weapon for a period of, oh, about 5,617 days. That's if it continually fires and doesn't break trying to hit the same spot on the McKenna for fifteen years at a time. Pulse cannons, incidentally, form the primary armament of the Omega-class and it looks to have around six of them for primary armament as opposed to the 48 hNPPCs on the McKenna. Now the Omega's pulse cannons may well be larger but it gives us a fairly good starting point, and that starting point isn't looking so good if they want to actually inflict any damage on a McKenna.

You appear to be making an error here, not all pulse cannons are equal. We know the weapon Ivanova is talking about, the quad barrelled cannon that is mounted on the front rotating section with a clear line of fire down to the docking bay. We see this gun shooting down an attacking fighter during the breakaway fight. It is clearly an anti fighter light weapon, the pulses are consistent in size with those fired by fighters. Comparing it to the vastly larger main guns of a warship would be like comparing the 20mm autocannons on a battleship to its 16 inch main guns. Sure they use the same mechanism to attack something, but thats where the similarities end.
You could compare a davy crockett to a Tsar Bomb either, but one would be hundreds of thousands of times stronger, so simply scaling as they are the same type of weapon is unsteady ground.

Your assumption of McKenna armour is also questionable, full vaporisation seems quite unlikely in a real world context as a means of damage. If it did then the effects inside the ship would be catastrophic


Most of your data on the McKenna seems to be based on games mechanics rather than lore, with lore suggesting much smaller numbers. It's fair if you want to use game mechanics instead of the books, but that means I can use game mechanics from the B5 Wargames to fill in blanks too. Gigaton yield weapons, thousand of g's acceleration, some of the stuff in there gets crazy.

 

[Flintsteel]

Shell weight appears comparable to real life heavy naval guns, but velocity will matter here.

Absolute floor is 7.2 km/s. But that's assuming an entire round to reach max range, which is rather unlikely. Realistically, double or more is likely, as I doubt they're supposed to take the full minute round to travel.

 

[bintananth]

Absolute floor is 7.2 km/s. But that's assuming an entire round to reach max range, which is rather unlikely. Realistically, double or more is likely, as I doubt they're supposed to take the full minute round to travel.

7.2km/s isn't even fast enough to reach low Earth orbit. 7.8km/s is about how fast astronauts are going when their spacecraft hits the atmosphere during re-entry and they have to slow down, fast, without melting or breaking anything.

Sci-fi writers have no sense of scale.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Absolute floor is 7.2 km/s. But that's assuming an entire round to reach max range, which is rather unlikely. Realistically, double or more is likely, as I doubt they're supposed to take the full minute round to travel.

Harlock's also got his figures all wrong there. He claims the shells for a NAC/40 are 0.8 tons each but they're actually 6 tons for 5 shots, well over 1 ton each.

Alrighty then, lets go with the Black Star.

You already name dropped Atomic rockets as an authority on this subject which is fair, so lets use them as a source on nuclear weapons in space and compare their description of what should happen with the visuals of what does happen.

You are going the route of using just the X-Ray impulse as a medium for delivering energy to the Black Star which is consistent with a nuclear detonation in a vacuum. That isn't entirely accurate to this scenario as it is in a dense asteroid field with rocks in contact, but lets work through the vacuum detonation idea first.
When a nuke detonates it releases circa 80-90% of its energy as X-Rays, these deliver energy to nearby objects causing them to suddenly heat up. This energy is delivered instantaneously, meaning the very moment that nuke goes off he Black Star should fold based on the idea it is the X-rays alone that kill it.

We can see however that this is not true. The Black Star exhibits no change at the instance of detonation. If X-Ray impulse was the mechanism by which all of the nukes energy was delivered then the effect would be immediate, the ship would at the very least show signs of vaporisation and sudden movement from the sublimation of the hull.
If the armour is as weak as you suggest the ship would have folded from the back first, it would show heat damage, outgassing from sublimation, and you would see the huge drive fin which is both very large and very thin get completely shredded by the impulse.

We see none of that, there is no indication of X-ray impulse at all, which makes sense given the range. If X-Ray impulse is not the mechanism, then what is.

As I'll note, you don't supply a single picture to back up your claims or timeline. There's a reason for this.

Keep the line I bolded in mind though, it'll get important in this next part.

This is where the asteroid comes in. The bomb is not detonating in a vacuum, it is on an asteroid in a particularly dense field surrounded by other asteroids, plus a whole bunch of dust, maybe gas. There are at any rate a substantial amount of objects and materials around the nuke which can be affected by its detonation.

This is what we see in the visual, two distinct waves of illuminated material heading away from the bomb. The first wave strikes the Blackstar and physically pushes it away from the blast which is broadly what you should have seen with the X-Ray Impulse. The second brighter wave is the element which apparently finishes the job. It is also possible to see two smaller explosions on the lower side of the ship before it is overtaken by the second wave.

Wait what happened to instantaneously? How come it couldn't have been x-rays taking out the Black Star because it didn't happen instantaneously, but it can totally be x-rays affecting rocks even though it's not moving instantaneously? Does light move at different speeds depending on what it's going to hit in the future? Or perhaps this entire scenario is based on threads and wishes.

So what is this glowing wave? There is no atmosphere so it must be material from the asteroid field. Rocks, dust, bits of the other Earth ships. Now this material does behave consistent with X-Ray impulse, the side nearest the nuke is vaporised creating a sublimation effect acting as a jet pushing the now superheated material away from the source of the blast. The smaller particles move fastes creating an initial wave of small fast moving particles that hit the Black Star, push it somewhat, but pass by without causing the ship to immediately explode.
It isn't until the second brighter, denser wave consisting of heavier materials arrives that the Black Star is consumed.

This then is what the visuals tell us. The Bomb detonates destroying the asteroid it is on turning all the nearby asteroids and dust into superheated gas or molten lumps through X-Ray impulse. Material a little further out suffers sublimation on the side closest the detonation causing them to very rapidly accelerate away from the bomb. The smaller particles move faster, larger pieces take more time. Both sets of materials are glowing due to the heat imparted by the X-rays giving you that nice visual shockwave. You get two rough shockwaves, fast moving small particles followed a moment later by the bigger elements. So far consistent with what we see and consistent with how a nuke affects material around it in space.

The Black Star however did not move or show any reaction to the X ray impulse. We know there was one because it effected the rocks closer to the blast. There is no visual evidence that the X-ray impulse of the detonating nuke had any appreciable effect on the Black Star. No evidence of the hull heating, no evidence of damage, no evidence of sublimation, no involuntary movement.

Wait how come it's an X-ray impulse now? Before you said the x-ray impulse couldn't be it because it didn't happen instantaneously.

The Black Star only reacts when that first wave of superheated particulates strikes it, the wave physically pushing the ship suddenly some 300 metres which suggests a significant amount of energy. In fact the energy needed to push a 200 million ton mass 300 metres is just over two megatons which is somewhat ironic.
The second wave, a bombardment by larger superheated materials in a denser wave, is what destroys the ship.

So in summary it isn't the X-ray impulse that destroyed the Black Star the visuals show no support for this rendering those calculations unnecessary. The visuals show the Black Star was destroyed by a bombardment of material propelled by the nuke, a victim of kinetic impacts which Minbari ships do not react well to.
This isn't a random tactic, it is a very good example of an improvised Casaba Howitzer where the nuke is used as propellant, not the destructive mechanism itself. Not a true version of course because it isn't a focused attack, more a shotgun, but does display an awareness of the limitations of nukes in space and a way to still make them useful.

The Black Star was killed by a nuke, but not by the direct effects of its detonation as the earlier calcs suggest.
Same applies to the Shadow ships, though with far bigger bombs. The Vorlon ships didn't seem to give a damn, which tracks as Vorlon ships are tougher.

Don't ask me to work out the actual damage needed though, as noted the energy needed to push that ship as we saw in the visuals worked out as 2.1 megatons which means the nuke had to be vastly more powerful depending on distance. That's already a major inconsistency between visuals and dialogue, if we try to press it further we're going to have to discard one or the other.

There's no inconsistency between the visuals and the dialogue, only claims made up by fanboys trying to salvage their pet universe. Your Casaba Howitzer theory doesn't actually fit what we see, though. We see a glow but we see no rush of asteroids or debris towards the Black Star, nor anything striking it. Actually, let's take a closer look at it.

So here we go a couple of frames after the nuke cooks off. As we can see, there's a rush of energy that isn't instantaneous.

Hullo, what's happening to the back half of the ship as the initial energy burst hits? Well, perhaps it's just obscured? One of the interesting things you can note here, however, is that it hasn't moved a pixel. The burst has hit the back half clearly because it's obscured, yet the ship hasn't moved.

Holy crap, the entire back half of the Sharlin is gone. Just plain disintegrated by that initial wave, well before any possible Casaba Howitzer effect could be possible. We know that it's not asteroids because we can clearly see them floating around unaffected inside the energy burst, much tougher than the Black Star. Note that it's top fin is completely missing at this point.

And here a few frames later, the rest of it falls apart. Note that nothing has hit it, indeed we don't see anything moving towards it, just a widespread glow that expands well after half the ship is gone.

So there you have it, the initial burst vaporized half the Black Star. This along with outgassing of atmosphere and possibly fuel or other reaction mass escaping pushed it slightly, though not very much, as the rest came apart. It certainly didn't prove "immune" to the initial energy. There was no second burst, there was a glowing effect as the camera took in the incoming energy but only a single explosion as befits a nuke.

We can also be sure this scenario didn't involve any atmosphere or large masses of asteroids, because this happened in between Jupiter and Mars and we know what that asteroid field is like. At best Sheridan took cover near a small cluster but there's no atmosphere there, not much dust, and nothing like the massive field we'd need to justify some magical casaba howitzer effect.

You appear to be making an error here, not all pulse cannons are equal. We know the weapon Ivanova is talking about, the quad barrelled cannon that is mounted on the front rotating section with a clear line of fire down to the docking bay. We see this gun shooting down an attacking fighter during the breakaway fight. It is clearly an anti fighter light weapon, the pulses are consistent in size with those fired by fighters. Comparing it to the vastly larger main guns of a warship would be like comparing the 20mm autocannons on a battleship to its 16 inch main guns. Sure they use the same mechanism to attack something, but thats where the similarities end.

If you have a canon source that shows higher figures I'm open to it. However I'll note, fighter weapons are also able to rip rather nasty holes in other B5 ships with single shots. Therefore the armor in question must be vulnerable to 200-megawatt pulse cannons. We see one strafe and tear through such armor here, f'rex:



There are several other such incidents in that clipshow.

We can also look at the effects of BT weaponry in comparison. In TRO: 1945 we see how mid-21st century armor stacks up to BT, each "point" of RHA steel, close enough to iron for it to be good for calcs, is 250 kilos. Since we also know from the texts that destroying a point of armor involves melting it, we have an easy way to get very accurate calcs.

Based on this, we can reasonably conclude an absolute minimum for a small laser is ~700 MJ. Note that's not a WarShip weapon, it's an infantry weapon mounted on Elementals and the like. You might sometimes find one mounted somewhere on a BattleMech or fighter as its lightest secondary weapon. On WarShips, those are going to be used only as point-defense weapons to shoot down incoming missiles, not for destroying enemy ships. Get to a large laser, still well behind what you'd find on a WarShip but powerful enough to be used as one of several primary weapons for a medium-sized fighter, and you have ~1.2 GJ. A Chippewa has four of the things mounted on it along with half a dozen other assorted weapons.

So we can reasonably conclude that a BT infantry weapon is several times stronger than a B5 antifighter weapon, and their antifighter complement is going to get ripped apart soundly if they engage any BT fighters (Which also have vampire armor.)

Most of your data on the McKenna seems to be based on games mechanics rather than lore, with lore suggesting much smaller numbers. It's fair if you want to use game mechanics instead of the books, but that means I can use game mechanics from the B5 Wargames to fill in blanks too. Gigaton yield weapons, thousand of g's acceleration, some of the stuff in there gets crazy.

Oh no you don't, cheater. You get to use canon. The board game is primary canon to BT. It's stated explicitly by the devs that in cases of conflict, the rules override the fiction.

Panpour III - habitable planet or gas giant?

Generally sourcebooks trump BC fiction. Sounds like we goofed on the fact check for the BC story.

Sorry.

Personally, I think that's stupid, but I'm not in charge and I stick by their decisions, even when it hurts BT such as their ridiculously short ranges overriding stories where the weapons can fire at actually reasonable distances, and have made that argument here on the boards.

You'll need to establish that the B5 Games are canon at all before you can use them, then establish that they can override the show's dialogue and visuals. Now I'd be perfectly willing to use the BT books as well, providing the canon rules are followed, but you're just making a vague insinuation here. Present your book quotes and we can examine them.

Or heck, I'll do the work for you, you seem to be going the "Make allegations and never bother to prove anything" path anyway.

Phelan straightened up. "I believe I do, Khan Ulric." The Kell Hound suddenly found his mouth going dry. "I saw the holovid of the Sabre Cat, the Smoke Jaguar flagship, lasing Edo to put an end to the riots there. I watched as missiles leveled buildings and lasers stabbed down from high orbit to melt the streets. The Sawagashiii River boiled away to nothing! In a matter of minutes, a city of over a million was reduced to a charred, glassy scar on the face of the planet.

Of note, the Sabre Cat was an Essex, a small destroyer vastly weaker than the McKenna. Maybe five of those could take a McKenna if it was having a bad day. Still, in minutes it was able to turn a city of a million people into a scar of molten glass and boil a river away completely. What comparable feats do you have for the Omega?