4 Minbari Sharlins and 2 whitestars vs the SSD

[Admiral Breetai]

basically the largest toughest bastard in the imperial fleet commanded by Admiral Piet takes..on Neroon leading four Sharlins and 2 whitestars...

hows this go?

[Trinoya]

... B5 bites it? Even our low ball estimates for turbolasers have greater firepower than the B5 races demonstrated on screen. The SSD should have sufficient gun coverage to completely destroy the enemy.


Also: Shields ftw.


You'd need a much larger force.

[Mike DiCenso]

The SSD might encounter one special problem, however. The Minbari Sharlin-class do have those weird stealth systems that make targeting them directly an issue, even for manually operated systems. So it won't be a totally lop-sidded fight here, and it will come down to who really has the most staying power.
-Mike

[Trinoya]

I'm pretty sure it will muck up the missiles and what have you.. but the sheer volume of fire... it should be more than enough due to the limited number of opponents. I mean... it's not like these are main character sharlins. ^_^

[Admiral Breetai]

Sharlins have some pretty sick weaponry and out put just crummy armor...due to being literally glass canons

whitestars iirc have decent soak too..I guess it depends on what you consider individual TL yields to be

[User1555]

Whitestars have vorlon technology, which makes them more resilient then normal Minbari ships. Each whitestar also has a fighter bay that can carry at least three nial fighters, which are superior to anything any TIE or TIE interceptor in firepower and accuracy, and also possess stealth technology.

I never understood why people always seem to put SW on such a high firepower pedestal, we really don't see much over the course of the movies that would indicate any large degree of firepower greater then what we see in B5, and in some ways B5 is flat out superior: Better holographic technology, better detail on targeting computers, the ability to turn the ship and fire in a direction other then where the ship is pointing. (where SW fighters have to lock on to get off-axis firing and flay like WWII planes)

The only thing that SW really has going for it is larger volume of fire and shields.

Here's how I envision the battle going:

White stars and Sarlins come out of their jumpgate and launch fighters, SSD launches fighters and stays put. Nials and Whitestars head towards the SSD, with some staying behind to distract the fighters. The Sharlins pick off a few TIEs from afar (we see them shooting down fighters with their main guns in a flashback) Then turn their guns towards the SSDs bridge and target the shield generators. Even if the shields are strong enough, shield bleedthrough will cause a chain reaction and destroy the shield generators. Then any surviving whitsetars and Nials blow up the bridge.

The only weaknesses that the Minbari would bring to this scenario that would be relevant would be lack of numbers-They probably would not have enough fighters to hold off the TIEs from their Sharlins, and the whitestars could be taken down by the ships turbolasers before they can take out the bridge or shield generators. Overall, I would expect the SSD to be crippled and without a bridge and the minbari to lose some of their whitestars and sharlins. tallying dead minbari to dead imperial though, I would expect the Minbari to come out on top.

[Admiral Breetai]

I am going to add a Bonus Scenario: instead of the Minbari it's 4 primus Class Cruisers and 10 Vorchans vs the SSD

thanks for participating Aurochs if it helps my take on Imperial cap ship fire power is that because of the sheer number of guns it adds up, individually Tl's may not be that powerful but when your being bombarded by it. They also should be able to cover more angles then the B5 ships

[User1555]

Yeah, Sharlins may have very long-range guns, and and tractor beams, but they don't seem to have any point defense turrets or shielding. The fact that there are people in the wing sections of the Sharlins means that their lack of shielding, armor, or point defense is going to result in a lot of dead minbari if those TIEs can get past their nials and long range guns.

4 primus and 10 vorchans:

The Centauri have been shown to fire at extreme long range, both the Vorchans and Primus's. The most important role of the primus is likely going to be as carriers (all primus's have a hanger on the front of the ship) They have a lot of guns, and they can surely do a lot of damage, but they don't seem to be terribly effective versus fighters, despite being able to target them with their main guns. Are they mounted with mass drivers?

The vorchans are going to be the real deciders in this fight. Their main guns are capable of tracking and hitting missiles rather reliably, and the projectiles are possibly explosive in a similar nature to turbolasers. (we see them shooting sunhawks where there is a large explosion on impact but the the sunhawks are not destroyed) They also have homing mines which are even more powerful then the main guns, and each vorchan can take multiples (I think we see them launching about 5 in the scene where they use them)

The sentri fighters are more maneuverable but slower then TIEs. both use two forward facing guns. The TIEs have off-axis firing, but they require a lengthy lock-on to use it. Both are rather fragile. I would say that sentris are about equal, although TIEs have a slightly larger profile, greater numbers should even the fighter fight out, if not tip it in favor of the imperials. If the SSD has interceptors, then speed goes even more in the favor of imperials and the large profile problem of TIEs is lessened soemewhat.

The key to centauri victory here would be to play the range game (similar to what the minbari would use) The centauri will be on more even terms numberwise with the empire then the minbari would have been in the other scenario. While the centauri do not have stealth technology, they are possibly even more long range-oriented then the minbari, but with much better anti-fighter capabilities, as the vorchans and primus's (however ineffecctive the primus's will be in this department) can use their main guns on the incoming TIEs before letting the sentris try to tie them up (sorry about the pun) or possibly destroy them. The Vorchans can then use their mines to target the bridge or shield generators like in the previous scenario. The SSD can probably shoot at least some of them down before they reach their targets, but the mines seem to be only slightly larger then the Ball of a TIE, so that might be difficult. If the Primus's have mass drivers, then the empire likely will not have a chance to shoot them down before they hit, and we all know what happens to SD bridges when they get hit by asteroids, right? :)

The Empire's strategy will likely be to close the range with the centauri fleet as quickly as possible to diminish losses to their fighters and damage from mines and possibly mass drivers. If their fighters can break through the sentris quickly enough, then they might have a shot at swarming the centauri fleet and destroying the Vorchans and Primuses. The fact that the centauri have five carriers as well as main guns capable of targeting fighters makes this strategy extremely risky however, and they will doubtlessly lose a considerable portion of their fighters regardless of their strategy.

Trying to close the gap with the centauri fleet with the SSD itself would similarly be risky as the SSD would be in risk of having its bridge destroyed rapidly from mines and possibly mass drivers.

The empire's best bet would likely be to attempt to shield its fighters and bridge from centauri weapons with its underside while it approached the centauri fleet, then it rotate to bring it's dorsal guns to bear on the fleet and bring its fighters out from hiding on the dorsal side. The ventral side would doubtlessly be trashed, but the bridge and many more fighters would likely survive to engage the centauri fleet. It is possible that the centauri fleet may reposition to surround the imperials if this is the case (vorchans are surprisingly agile, if not as agile as a TIE)

If the imperials play their cards right, they could take out the centauri fleet, but if they attempt typical Imperial tactics, then they will die with considerably few losses in the centauri fleet, and possibly the complete destruction of the SSD. This matchup relies much more heavily on tactics presented by the two sides, and could go either way, depending on which fleet commander is more competent, but it would take a very competent commander on the part of the imperials to pull off the victory, whereas the centauri could inflict massive casualties on the imperials using only basic centauri tactics.
Comparatively, the first matchup relies heavily on luck for either side to win.

[Trinoya]

Actually, for me, I've been heavily using the bulk of TCW material for my fire power figures of late... although I still provide a 'boost' by ANH due to the 2 decade gap.

One SSD shouldn't have too much of an issue with 4 sharlins and a few white stars based off of the TCW and subsequently the feats demonstrated in the series. Giving a low scale 1mt fire power figure to the Executor easily blows the sharlins out of the water.


A more appropriate fleet size to take down the SSD would be about 20 sharlins and 20 white stars. The reason is simple: It won't be able to focus fire, and the jump point assault tactic will render a lot of the advantage of size that the SSD has into a complete disadvantage.

After all the thing is a bit over two B5s long.

Better holographic technology

The clone wars has demonstrated extremely impressive holographic technology, it's able to be worn and can alter your appearance/clothing on a whim, and was undetectable... even by jedi.



I digress though: So yeah, long of it is: If the SSD can focus fire it's going to wtfpwn the sharlins, if there are enough sharlins so it can't focus fire... well... it becomes a whole different ball game.

[User1555]

I didn't know that about SW holographic technology, although it is curious that this technology seems to be absent from the movies, perhaps it is difficult to produce or maintain? in B5 we see a lowly starfury get a 'letter' from home that is a surprisingly lifelike hologram.

I would agree that the Sharlins are not as well protected from turbolasers as a typical SW ship is, but the sharlins have considerable range and firepower of their own, as well as the stealth problem. If the fleet comes in behind the SSD, it is toast (since they seem to have trouble spotting things behind them). The nials are undoubtedly superior to TIEs, and at least six of them are going to have ranger pilots, but there probably won't be enough of them around to keep the TIEs off of the sharlins, which will undoubtedly be destroyed if the TIEs can close with them. the Whitestars could possibly take out the bridge, but they would likely have to fly through a hailstorm of TIEs and turbolaser bolts to get to it unless they came from behind.

The Minbari vs SSD and Centauri vs SSD scenarios in many ways strike me as mirrors of each other: The Minbari are only going to win their matchup if they fight with surgical precision and take out the bridge and run for it, while the Imperials would have to fight tactically and conserve their TIEs to have a hope of winning in the second engagement.

[Admiral Breetai]

The issue for the Minbari and Centauri both is regardless of fire power Star Wars cap ships strike me as really tough bastards who can take a serious pounding-how much effective damage can a Sharlin do before it's shelled with TL bolts?

[Lucky]

Whitestars have vorlon technology, which makes them more resilient then normal Minbari ships. Each whitestar also has a fighter bay that can carry at least three nial fighters, which are superior to anything any TIE or TIE interceptor in firepower and accuracy, and also possess stealth technology.

I never understood why people always seem to put SW on such a high firepower pedestal, we really don't see much over the course of the movies that would indicate any large degree of firepower greater then what we see in B5, and in some ways B5 is flat out superior: Better holographic technology, better detail on targeting computers, the ability to turn the ship and fire in a direction other then where the ship is pointing. (where SW fighters have to lock on to get off-axis firing and flay like WWII planes)

It comes from the stated firepower of Babylon 5 warships being par at best with anti-personel weapons in Star Wars. An AT-AT's anti-personel weapons are at least as powerful as Babylon 5's anti-warship weapons that eat through Centauri warship armor in 2 or 3 pulses.

Here's how I envision the battle going:

White stars and Sarlins come out of their jumpgate and launch fighters, SSD launches fighters and stays put. Nials and Whitestars head towards the SSD, with some staying behind to distract the fighters. The Sharlins pick off a few TIEs from afar (we see them shooting down fighters with their main guns in a flashback) Then turn their guns towards the SSDs bridge and target the shield generators. Even if the shields are strong enough, shield bleedthrough will cause a chain reaction and destroy the shield generators. Then any surviving whitsetars and Nials blow up the bridge.

The only weaknesses that the Minbari would bring to this scenario that would be relevant would be lack of numbers-They probably would not have enough fighters to hold off the TIEs from their Sharlins, and the whitestars could be taken down by the ships turbolasers before they can take out the bridge or shield generators. Overall, I would expect the SSD to be crippled and without a bridge and the minbari to lose some of their whitestars and sharlins. tallying dead minbari to dead imperial though, I would expect the Minbari to come out on top.

What makes you think there will be shield bleed through that will destroy the generators?

Why is the SSD alone? We never see an SSD without escorts from what i recall, and it does not seem designed to work alone really. You would never expect an aircraft carrier to be by it's self.

[User1555]

the only 'stated evidence' you have provided so far, in this thread or any other for B5s low firepower has been the nuclear mines they use in several movies/episodes. The centauri primus had been getting bombarded for some time by starfuries before this incident, and did not explode. We have evidence of shield bleedthrough causing damage to the millenium falcon and the royal naboo yaht. We have evidence of A-wings shooting the SSD shield generators *while* the shields are up and destroying them. There is no reason to think that the ATATs main weapons were using a different power setting when firing on rebel troops then when they were firing on the unshielded speeders. Shots, I would add, that failed to do any damage to the craft with their 'flak' explosions despite rebel speeders being unshielded and inside the atmosphere, killing rebel speeders only with direct hits. Comparatively, the damage done to rebel fighters at Yavin to their unshielded posteriors (after they have redirected their shields to the front of the craft), does not seem to be particularly more violent then what happens when a starfury shoots another starfury, and this is typically after numerous shots to said unshielded posteriors, while starfuries typically disable or destroy their targets with the first connecting shot.

We aren't even talking about starfuries in this example though, or even earthforce in general.

Fact of the matter is, SW and B5 fighters and cap ships seem to do comparable damage to unshielded targets. Unless you can provide proof that SW armor is in any way more resilient then what B5 has, you should not continue to press this point.

I agree that the SSD would not be normally alone, but it also wouldn't be typical for the B5 verse to only send 4 ships to deal with a massive monstrosity like the SSD and a supporting fleet of SDs. If we are giving the imperials an entire battlefleet, then it would make sense to scale up the size of the centauri or minbari fleets in these examples, but we are not, so it makes sense for the SSD to be alone.

[Lucky]

the only 'stated evidence' you have provided so far, in this thread or any other for B5s low firepower has been the nuclear mines they use in several movies/episodes. The centauri primus had been getting bombarded for some time by starfuries before this incident, and did not explode. We have evidence of shield bleedthrough causing damage to the millenium falcon and the royal naboo yaht. We have evidence of A-wings shooting the SSD shield generators *while* the shields are up and destroying them. There is no reason to think that the ATATs main weapons were using a different power setting when firing on rebel troops then when they were firing on the unshielded speeders. Shots, I would add, that failed to do any damage to the craft with their 'flak' explosions despite rebel speeders being unshielded and inside the atmosphere, killing rebel speeders only with direct hits. Comparatively, the damage done to rebel fighters at Yavin to their unshielded posteriors (after they have redirected their shields to the front of the craft), does not seem to be particularly more violent then what happens when a starfury shoots another starfury, and this is typically after numerous shots to said unshielded posteriors, while starfuries typically disable or destroy their targets with the first connecting shot.

We aren't even talking about starfuries in this example though, or even earthforce in general.

Fact of the matter is, SW and B5 fighters and cap ships seem to do comparable damage to unshielded targets. Unless you can provide proof that SW armor is in any way more resilient then what B5 has, you should not continue to press this point.

I agree that the SSD would not be normally alone, but it also wouldn't be typical for the B5 verse to only send 4 ships to deal with a massive monstrosity like the SSD and a supporting fleet of SDs. If we are giving the imperials an entire battlefleet, then it would make sense to scale up the size of the centauri or minbari fleets in these examples, but we are not, so it makes sense for the SSD to be alone.

Unless you know what the properties of the materials the target is made of you can't tell how powerful a setting is.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDhF9sxDm7E
The Babylon 5 is armed more heavily then some warships. It's anti-capital ship weapons are stated to be 200 megawatt pulse cannons.
The 200 megawatt pulse cannons fire about 4 to 8 pulses per second depending on the model.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... eGrid3.png
The 4 barreled model seems to fire about 8 to 12 pulses a second.
Since i was able to count 8 pulses a second for certain I will assume it fires 8 pulses a second.

200 megawatts divided by 8 pulses per second = 25 mega-joules per pulse


http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... eGrid2.png
This is either a pulse cannon, a mine launcher, or a plasma cannon. We will assume for the sake of argument it is a pulse cannon.
This model fires 4 to 5 pulses per second.
200 megawatts divided by 4 pulses per second = 50 mega-joules per pulse.


It takes 2 to 3 pulses to breach the hull of a top of the line warship, and that means you need only 50 to 150 mega-joules to breach the heavily armored hull of a top of the line younger races warships.
_____
AT-AT anti-personel firepower.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6uQ1ROQm0k
The AT-AT guns were making nice little holes in the ground
For simplicities sake let's assume those holes are about one cubic foot.
1 cubic foot of ice weighs about 57 pounds = 25 854.765 09 gram
Ice will flash vaporize when 3000 joules are added.
25854.76509*3000= 77,564,295.3 joules
So it is not unreasonable for AT-AT gun to be around the same range as the powerful capital ship weapons mounted on Babylon 5 per-pulse if not above.

The ROTS novelization(G-canon) states that turbolaser bolts powerful enough to vaporize a small town are being used. To vaporize a small town you will likely need 10 to 1,000 kilotons, and certainly not more then 5,000 kilotons, but in bolt form. This is in line with the asteroids seen in TESB.

[User1555]

Unless you know what the properties of the materials the target is made of you can't tell how powerful a setting is.

We see that SW weaponry being used on droids numerous times throughout the series, and we see unshielded hits to the rears of Y-Wings, X-Wings, as well as the completely unshielded Snowspeeders, TIEs and ATSTs. We see the amount of damage that an asteroid can do to a Star Destroyer and TIEs and what happens when a TIE collides with another TIE or the DS trench. We see what happens when an unshielded A-wing hits the unshielded bridge of the SSD and what happens when an ATST gets hit with a log.

If SW materials were great at stopping kinetic energy, we wouldn't expect logs, asteroids, etc to destroy their vehicles so easily. If they were astoundingly resilient to energy based weapons such as blasters and turbolasers, then how come an ATATs guns don't seem to do much of a better job vs snowspeeders then they do against snow? How come R2D2 can take a hit from a TIEs blasters/turbolasers and have it do comparable damage to what a stormtroopers blaster does to him in RoTJ?

The Babylon 5 is armed more heavily then some warships. It's anti-capital ship weapons are stated to be 200 megawatt pulse cannons.
The 200 megawatt pulse cannons fire about 4 to 8 pulses per second depending on the model.

You have yet to provide sources on the show for either B5 being more heavily armed then other earthforce ships or for the 200 MW figure.

The 4 barreled model seems to fire about 8 to 12 pulses a second.
Since i was able to count 8 pulses a second for certain I will assume it fires 8 pulses a second.

200 megawatts divided by 8 pulses per second = 25 mega-joules per pulse

As stated prviously, you have not given a source for this figure. Even if it was stated that the PD guns were 200 MW, you would have to provide evidence that this was referring to the quad-barrel turret and that the figure was per second, and not per shot.

This is either a pulse cannon, a mine launcher, or a plasma cannon. We will assume for the sake of argument it is a pulse cannon.
This model fires 4 to 5 pulses per second.
200 megawatts divided by 4 pulses per second = 50 mega-joules per pulse.

Again, you have to provide evidence that ALL of the turrets fire 200 MW per second, and that it is not per second, or only a specific turret they are referring to.

It takes 2 to 3 pulses to breach the hull of a top of the line warship, and that means you need only 50 to 150 mega-joules to breach the heavily armored hull of a top of the line younger races warships.

It looks more like 5. Regardless, you are ignoring numerous hits from starfuries. Also of note is that you see that the Primus shoots down at least one of the shots from the station in close range. Again, despite being corrected on this, you continue to hold this claim even when evidence points in a another direction. The Primus was hit with a massive strafing run from the starfuries after those 5 or so hits from those turrets. One of the large fires we see on the Primus right before it blows is on its port side, where the strafing run hit. The other fire on the starboard engine we do not see get hit from either the starfuries or the turrets.

The AT-AT guns were making nice little holes in the ground
For simplicities sake let's assume those holes are about one cubic foot.
1 cubic foot of ice weighs about 57 pounds = 25 854.765 09 gram
Ice will flash vaporize when 3000 joules are added.
25854.76509*3000= 77,564,295.3 joules
So it is not unreasonable for AT-AT gun to be around the same range as the powerful capital ship weapons mounted on Babylon 5 per-pulse if not above.

.

You are assuming that all of that snow is flash vaporized. When the shots hit the snow, we see a lot of snow and smoke get kicked up. We have no proof that the snow was wholly vaporized, flash or no.

The ROTS novelization(G-canon) states that turbolaser bolts powerful enough to vaporize a small town are being used. To vaporize a small town you will likely need 10 to 1,000 kilotons, and certainly not more then 5,000 kilotons, but in bolt form. This is in line with the asteroids seen in TESB.

We never see any of these guns being used. We see turbolasers being used on capital ships over coruscant, and these seem to have large-ish explosions, but then again, so do shots from vorchans. This doesn't seem to be particularly impressive by B5 standards.

The asteroids in ESB also annihilate into nothing when colliding with other asteroids or SD bridges. the lack of derbies can easily be explained away as a lack of Special effects expertise or attention to detail. Note that we see fighters fragment into nothing on several occasions in the OT, typically with TIEs but also with rebel fighters, irrespective of the firepower being used on them, and other times there is clear debris. When we see asteroids get hit from Slave I in Ep II, we see them fragment properly.