The Galactica and The Pegasus vs a Primus + 2 Vorchans

[Admiral Breetai]

A primus Class cruiser and two Vorchans come out of hyperspace near the colonial sector..and are intercepted by Helena Cain and William Adama..both ships are at full capacity...back ups about an hour away it will be two mercury class BSG's

can they hold off the Centuari battle group until help arrives or will they fall?

bonus scenario: the Centuari republic invades colonial space..no cylon intervention..can the 12 colonies hold them off?

[Admiral Breetai]

any takers?

[Praeothmin]

any takers?

No, but there are many Trekkies... ;)

Don't know enough about the Primus and Vorchans to make any statements...

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

A primus Class cruiser and two Vorchans come out of hyperspace near the colonial sector..and are intercepted by Helena Cain and William Adama..both ships are at full capacity...back ups about an hour away it will be two mercury class BSG's

can they hold off the Centuari battle group until help arrives or will they fall?

bonus scenario: the Centuari republic invades colonial space..no cylon intervention..can the 12 colonies hold them off?

B5 side takes this.

OFFENSIVE:

Offensive they have mostly very powerful pulse weapons that will unlikely be stopped by a battlestars defensive fire that is only setup to intercept incoming cylon missiles/projectile weapons ect.

The centauri also have spherical type missiles that seem very advanced as they move and avoid enemy defensive fire while homing in on the enemy ships and impacting as seen in "movements of fire and shadow".

The Centauri are also quite willing to use any type of weapon or tactic available including the use of mass drivers as seen when they attacked the Narn, it is unknown if the Vorchans can fit mass drivers but the primus Class cruiser certainly can.

DEFENSIVE:

Defensive they also use pulse and beam weapons and obviously have targeting systems capable of tracking small ships AND fast moving incoming fire.

MANEUVERABILITY:

The Vorchan class is obviously vastly more maneuverable than a battlestar although the primus Class cruiser is comparable to a battlestar in that regard. It is hard to compare fighter speed and mobility but we do know that the centauri handle G forces better than humans as was mentioned in "The fall of night".

ARMOUR:

In this catagory the Mercury class BSG ships may have it as centauri capital ships are well known to favor offensive firepower over thick armour compared to other B5 races capital ships.

[Praeothmin]

obviously have targeting systems capable of tracking small ships AND fast moving incoming fire.

So do the nBSG ships though, so that's really not an advantage to B5...

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

obviously have targeting systems capable of tracking small ships AND fast moving incoming fire.

So do the nBSG ships though, so that's really not an advantage to B5...

I do not remember seeing either of the BSG ships display tracking abilities capable of targeting and stopping the beam and pulse weapons of B5 or any weapons of doing so if they could.

[Admiral Breetai]

any takers?

No, but there are many Trekkies... ;)

Don't know enough about the Primus and Vorchans to make any statements...

Primus are powerful in the guns insanely so but weak in the armor

Vorchans are wolf pack style ships that are insanely fast and have powerful guns (they can slag other YR cap ships for example) but I'm not sure how tough they are

BSG had some decent range..and fighters plus they had nukes..in ordinance enough that they should be able to blow up or seriously damage b5 ships..should they hit

[Mike DiCenso]

Mercury and Galactica-type battlestars have demonstrated that they do have the ability to target small fighters, and they can put up a rather withering defensive fire screen with their flack guns that could potentially detonate the pulse and missile weapons of the Vorchans and Primus.

The beam weapons that B5 ships possess are the real serious problem for the battlestars, as they will likely make it through the defensive screen of the battlestars, and one or two hits can cause serious damage as unlike nukes, the beam weapon will deposit a great deal of energy into an area only a few square meters or so in size, and we saw in the nBSG mini-series that an approximately 50 kt nuke can do some serious damage, and even risked detonating ammunition stores unless damage control vented the compartments.

So unless the Pegasus and Galactica can close and get their ship-to-ship nukes through, or give their Viper fighters (equipped with small tac nukes) enough time to break through and hit the enemy, the Vorchans and Primus take it, though probably with some heavy damage.

What it boils down to:

The Primus and Vorchans will like win, if:

The commanders of the Centauri force realizes that the Colonials have no long-range beam weapons, and pulls back away from the battlestars to hit them, while using their fighters in a defensive screen to make sure the Colonials do not get any lucky shots in with nukes delivered by their fighters, or from the battlestars. The point-defense weapons on the Primus and Vorchans only add to their defensive-offensive strategy, of course.

The Pegasus and Galactica will win, if:

Cain and Adama come quickly the realization that the only way for them to win is to quickly close with and stay on top of the the Centuari ships, using their heavy guns to pound the Primus and Vorchans down fast before the battlestars get cut up too badly by the Centauri ship beam weapons.

So the real issue is how fast can Primus-class and Vorchan-class ships accelerate, and can they move away from the battlestars to make the most of their big advantage over them.
-Mike

[Admiral Breetai]

good analysis mike..buuuuttt Centauri do not use Beam weapons..they are the only race iirc that makes use of no beam weaponry

what they have are Ion canons that fire pulse type blasts...these are powerful a Vorchan has split completely in half a narn G'quan class cruiser..in a few shots..these are well armored more so then a Primus..but have zero G and aren't gigantic heaps of metal slabs like Earth based Ships and Colonial vessels are so this may not go the same way..

--regarding ships----

Vorchans are fast I think the fastest capital ships fielded by any species in b5 but iirc they aren't very well armored either..they do have those ball missiles and powerful ion canons that can churn out some nasty ammo the down side is they don't have fighters..they probably can dance around the Battlestars and what have you..no clue on how well they can stand up to abuse

they cannot mount mass drivers..too small these babies until the whitestar came around where the smallest cap ships to ever mount hyperdrives and had a poor mans version of a matter anti matter reactor...pretty much these things are peregrine falcons..swooping in and dealing a death blow then pulling out

Primus are about two centuries old and alone usually do poorly against heavily armed even more primitive cap ships because adding more armor messes up their AG field which also acts like a magnetic shield or something

they use ion canons and iirc something else but again no beam weapons pulse weaponry they have more weapons ports then Vorchan cruisers

----Fighters----

Sentri fighters have energy weapons..and can move faster then humans can handle Centuari can take more G force then humans and their fighters supposedly had passive AI's that could take over...so Centauri pilots had no problem going over their own limits and blacking out to score kills

but theres only..like..between six..and two dozen on the battle Vorchans don't carry fighters and primus carry very few...

the advantage in this areas pretty much to the colonials due to numeric superiority how many Viper wings do the Battlestars have?

any ways range and speed seem to be in Centauri advantage maybe fire power but numbers and durability go to the colonials

so..if that helps

[Mike DiCenso]

Um no. The Vorchans are limited to plasma weapons, which are in themselves an energy type weapon, and not something the Colonials are equipped to deal with. The Primus on the other hand, does carry lasers weapons, in addtion to the ion cannon turrets another beam weapon seen capable of slicing chunks off the Babylon 5 station itself in "The Fall of Night", and missile launchers. So my previous points in my analysis still stands with the exception of the role the Vorchans will have to carry out, namely helping the fighters in running interferance for the Primus.

As for the other issues you bring up, you are aware that the Colonials have gravity and inertial control technology, and we have seen not only large ships pull some tight maneuvers and accelerations, but Viper Mark II and VII fighters as well.
-Mike

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Um no. The Vorchans are limited to plasma weapons, which are in themselves an energy type weapon, and not something the Colonials are equipped to deal with. The Primus on the other hand, does carry lasers weapons, in addtion to the ion cannon turrets another beam weapon seen capable of slicing chunks off the Babylon 5 station itself in "The Fall of Night", and missile launchers.

The primus in that episode did not fire a beam weapon it was a bunch of shots from its pulse weapons that took out the docking stabiliser, in fact i cannot remember ever seeing a primus ever use a beam weapon in that fight or the one later against the narn cruiser in "And now for a word".


Vorchans also carry those spherical missiles because we see 5 vorchans kick the crap out of 9 Drazi ships (Sunhawks) in season 5 without taking a single loss or even getting hit.

[Admiral Breetai]

the point was no centuari ship used beam weapons as opposed to pulse type..which is true

and yes I know they have AG Sentri's wont last very long out there Vorchans should be able to fighter sweep though