Colonial Fleet Strength And Composition, Pre-cimtar

On the subject of the size and strength of the COLONIAL FLEET at the time of it's distruction - I found this very interesting and well thought out article on an old BSG Wargamming site.

Enjoy.

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The war with the Cylons lasted for around a thousand yahrens (hence the name), and during this time, Colonial Fleet Strength flucuated widely. These notes are intended to give some indication of the strength and composition of the Fleet at various stages of the war.
Around 7100:

The Colonial fleet is large and able. It consists of many types of ships of all sizes and is able to put large numbers of warships in the field. An example of this is the Fourth Fleet which consists of some six hundred fighting vessels (including two Battlestars) and was sent to battle in 7312. Then in 7328 the Battlestar Pegasus leads another fleet into action. As such, whilst I don't expect too many fleets of this size could be fielded at one time, they could be fielded (and lost) without too much concern from the Colonial High Command. In addition, forces would be around to defend Colonial holdings and the homeworlds while fleets went on the offensive.

By 7300, the amount of Fleets able to be fielded would be reduced to about 2 at any one time, with additional fleet elements around for patrol and defence.

Around 7337:

This point in time is around the time that Commander Cain left with his Fifth Fleet in the last Colonial gamble of the war - the doomed Battle of Molecay.
While the battle is mentioned in "The Living Legend", the reasoning behind it may be a fandom thing. Even so, it has fallen in historical use and so deserves mentioning here. The Fifth Fleet was sent as a last gamble to shatter the backbone of the Cylon offensive and buy time for the Colonials to re-group, re-arm and win back the offensive. While we don't know exactly how large the fleet was, we do know that it consisted of almost everything the Colonials had at that point, including all but five Battlestars and a few lighter elements. At this point, I think only six Battlestars remained in service, and five stayed behind to defend the Colonies. However, all other heavy ships (heavy cruisers, Gunstars) and most lighter ships that were surviving went with the fleet. I think the intention was, that as Commander Cain was leading the fleet, it was assumed that it couldn't fail and thus the stripping of ships and defensive resources was deemed acceptable as the fleet would be back long before the Cylons could take advantage of the fact. Not that they would be able to do anything about it at that time anyway.

Unfortunately the plan failed, and the fleet was all but destroyed. The only known surviving vessel was the Battlestar Pegasus, but this wouldn't be known until after the final destruction on of the Colonies.

Thus at the beginning of the year, the Colonials had a few hundred warships in their fleet, which was bearing the brunt of the Cylon invasion, although in a much reduced sphere of influence. 90%+ of this fleet went with the Fifth Fleet.

Around 7342:

We know for a fact that at the time of the peace conference the Colonials had 5 Battlestars surviving - the Acropolis, Atlantia, Galactica, Triton, Pacifica. We see them. However, we can also guess that other forces existed, although probably nothing as large as a Battlestar. We can deduce this from the following facts:

1: When the Galactica is recovering the surviving elements of the fleet, a total of 67 Vipers are recovered, some twenty five from the Galactica. It is told earlier that no other Battlestars were able to launch fighters, so these fighters had to come from somewhere. They could have some from planetary defence bases (we know the Cylons have physcially attacked the Colonial Worlds before, so it would make sense that the various planets has ground bases which may have had fighters present). However these fighters could easily have come from ships left behind.

2: We know that piracy exists around in and around the Colonial worlds - Commander Croft who leads the mission against the Cylon asteroid gun "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" was a captured pirate. As such, while it might be a good idea to take the majority of the Colonial Fleet on a "peace mission", it would be stupid to leave the entire Colonial worlds undefended. Also because the war has been going on for some thousand yahrens it would be tactically stupid too as well. These additional vessels may not necessarily be at the homeworlds at that time (I think that Cimtar is pretty close to the homeworlds to respond to any distress calls quickly, and also see above for additional Viper support), but could be out patrolling other areas of Colonial space, or what it left of it at that time.

3: Another slight clue comes in the film, when a Centurion is reporting the rumours of an exodus fleet to the Imperious Leader. He mentions that survivors tell of a warship which got away, and the Imperious Leader asks "What kind of warship?". Now, obviously this can be taken in many ways, but it can also be taken to mean that there were more than just Battlestars present at this time. For starters, if nothing but the Five Battlestars were still around, this question would be largely irrelevant as the Leader would know, through his spy Baltar, that the Colonials would only be sending Battlestars to get ambushed. Secondly, I'm ignoring the fact the Leader could be referring to Vipers, after all, while Colonials pilots can be very good at what they do, what possible threat is a mere Viper against a Cylon Empire? So, if we're not talking Vipers or Battlestars, what else is there? Ergo, some other type of warship.

4: Yet another clue comes in from the background chatter on the Galactica bridge during the battle at the Moon of Cimtar. If you listen really closely, you will hear the names of a couple of other ships - like the Triton. Are these ships the Battlestars themselves, or are they, as rumour has it, fleet escorts or other small cruisers.

Thus I think that at the time of the Peace Conferance, the Colonial forces consist of some five Battlestars and assorted smaller vessels (probably mainly light cruisers and maybe a few destroyer sized vessels). No larger vessels or heavy cruisers exist at this point - having been destroyed with the Fifth Fleet.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by Kaith Rustaz

Looking at the various sources, maybe "reality" is in the middle?

Cylon task forces are 3 basestars. Maybe a Colonial "Fleet" is 5 Battlestars? The Pegasus was the flagship and sole survivor of the 5th fleet. Galactica was the sole survivor of the "Home" or 1st fleet?

Looking at the Cylons flying basically Zeros (cheep, high manuver short-range fighters), with the Colonials flying higher quality fighters, the ability of the outnumbered humans to outfly/gun their opponent isn't far fetched.

5 BattleStars at 75 fighters each = 375 fighters. A pretty formidable force even against 1,000 enemy fighters. I recall several references to a Cylon Pinwheel attack, where several cylon ships surround and overwelm a single colonial. This would seem to indicate the Cylons often relied on overwelming numbers and massed group attacks as tactics.

Also of note, is the Cylons often willingness to absorb heavy losses in order to inflict a blow.
- At Cimtar, the fighters attacked unescorted.
- At Gamoray the fighters went back and forth until wiped out.
- On at least 1 other occation (Fire in space I think) they came in enmasse and just took it so that they could shield a kamikaze.

Cylon strength at Cimtar was about 1,000 fighters engaging the fleet, while basestars with full squadrons attacked the homeworlds. At 2-3 basestars per planet, that would give the Cylon strength at about 24-36 basestars, with a fighter compliment of about 90 per, that would give the Cylons a fleet at the destruction of about 4,200 fighters.

As to other ships, I do believe a foundry ship, agro ships, and other specialized types are mentioned throughout the episodes.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


I remember reading that in the Mariannas Turkey Shoot that Japanese fighters(Zekes) adopted a circle circuit as a defensive tactic against paired Hellcats that used a variant of the Thatch Weave where they scissored in a zoom and swoop attack on the incompetent Japanese pilots. It didn't work.


As to the Cylon numbers? It seems that if you combined your numbers and mine that the Cylons commited everything they had to Cimtar which jibes with my hypothesis.


Even at that they lacked the total forces to overwhelm the Colonials without extensive sabotage and surprise.


For example; I would think that each Colony would have local aerospace defense units(planetary anti-spacecraft missile and fighter defenses). A battlestar may require deep space infrastructure to build but you can build Vipers at Martin Marietta and base them at Robins.


Surprise is the only thing that works for the Cylons.


So the following has to happen for their ambush at Cimtar to work


-No Colonial Viper cap or recon.


-No deep space DRADIS functioning.


-communications jamming.


-and the Cylon ambush has to be close in time, no more than ten minutes apart at Cimtar and at the Colonies. Otherwise, some of the Colonies would have gotten fighters up and the Cylons, scattered apart as they were would be subject to defeat in detail.


A Colony could in theory easily scramble 100-300 Vipers provided the alert gave them warning.


For it to work, the Cylon basestars have to practically jump in on the Colony they were assigned to atack and hit the infrastructure before the ground defenses could react.


That also indicates something troubling to me.


The Colonies had no midrange deepspace fighter bases in their star system(s)?


As an afficianado of CBG and another fictional treatment of this subject,(see avatar) I find that astonishing and always wondered how you could explain this.


One last thought if I may; I always estimated that the basestars had three hanger complexes that held a battlestar's equivalent of fighters in each hanger complex. So I was comfortable with the number of 225-300 Cylon Raiders per basestar. It tied in with the radially symmetric design the Cylons used in their "double stacked sanddollars".


So if we were looking at a force of 36 basestars, I would have expected about 8100-10,000 Raiders?

Jester; I will have to consider that article. I find many of its assumptions interesting and strongly at variance with conclusions I reached from watching CBG.

How much of it, the article, is "canon"?

[Tabitha]

Heres an odd thought (Yea I know an odd thought from tabbi? thats nothing new) Would the Warriors be more like the Dorsai?

tabbi

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

<snip>

One last thought if I may; I always estimated that the basestars had three hanger complexes that held a battlestar's equivalent of fighters in each hanger complex. So I was comfortable with the number of 225-300 Cylon Raiders per basestar. It tied in with the radially symmetric design the Cylons used in their "double stacked sanddollars".


So if we were looking at a force of 36 basestars, I would have expected about 8100-10,000 Raiders?

Jester; I will have to consider that article. I find many of its assumptions interesting and strongly at variance with conclusions I reached from watching CBG.

How much of it, the article, is "canon"?

All,

After sleeping on this, I have to agree with Damocles.

Lurking in the back of my mind is the figure of 200-300 Raiders per Basestar(I think it's from HoG); with 3 Basestars per Colony, that means upwards of 900 Raiders per planet, plus the orbital firepower of the Basestars themselves...

...Still, I find those figures too low. As Damocles points out, just as the Cylons did at Gamoray, there is no reason for each Colony not to have had c.200-300 Vipers ready to go, in addition to at least a couple of remote-system fighter bases with a battlestar-level compliment of fighters; even allowing for a "Pearl Harbor"-style surprise attack, and the treason/sabotage of Baltar's agents, there should have been a much stronger Colonial response to the Cylon attack. Also, if you allow for lighter combat vessels of destroyer-cruiser size as per Damocles, you have an even more lopsided battle in favor of the Colonials.

The figure that I have been working from in my head was c.1000 Basestars throughout the Cylon Empire at the time of the Cimtar ambush; commiting 25-40 Basestars to a direct attack on the Colonies would be a significant chunk of their fleet.

At the same time, I hesitate to double the number of Basestars in the main attack to c.50-80, as this then begs the question: why did't they catch the Gal/RTFF flat-footed, either over Caprica or in their assembly area? Also, if they Basetars destroyed all/most of the Colonial fleet elements in-system, why didn't at least a few stick around?

In my model of the 'jump-line' drive, the Basestars would have started a relay, ferrying Cylon troops to the Colonies as extermination forces; but I can't justify not leaving at least one to four Basestars as operational bases for Raiders to work from, scattered throughout the system. Even allowing for heavy casualties among the attacking Basestars, they would run the risk of having to make a second series of assault landings, as surviving Colonial ground units would have wiped out the relatively small forces that the first wave could deliver.

Hmmmmmm.........

Let's try this:

*The Cylons stage simultaneous attacks at both Cimtar and the Colonies, committing the bulk of their forces at the Colonies;

*We know that they used tankers to escort the Raiders to Cimtar(I'm leaving aside the implications of the jump-line drive theory for the moment), so let's make the following assumptions:

**Apollo and Zac only found two tankers; that doesn't mean that there weren't more tankers hidden, given the interference from both the natural phenomenon and the Cylon's jamming

**Since it's pretty clear that there were at least 1000 Raiders at Cimtar, and I find it difficult to believe that each tanker could refuel c.500 Raiders, let's assume a total of ten tankers - Apollo and Zac spotted two and boogied(the correct thing to do), but missed the other eight - where each tanker can escort/refuel 100 Raiders

**Given the above, what if each Basestar in the main attack(on the Colonial homeworlds), say 36 total, were each escorting 5-10 tankers, each of which is supporting 100 Raiders apiece?

**Suddenly, we have upwards of 1900-2000 Raiders per planet, plus the Basestars main batteries; if the Cylons deployed a couple of other tanker/Raider squadrons, they would be able to deal with any out-system bases...

At the same time, assuming heavy casualties among the Basestars, you still have the requirement to ferry troops back and forth; confusion occurs, ships get missed.....and the RTFF manage to escape.

Thoughts?

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by WarMachine
<snip>

*We know that they used tankers to escort the Raiders to Cimtar(I'm leaving aside the implications of the jump-line drive theory for the moment), so let's make the following assumptions:

**Apollo and Zac only found two tankers; that doesn't mean that there weren't more tankers hidden, given the interference from both the natural phenomenon and the Cylon's jamming

**Since it's pretty clear that there were at least 1000 Raiders at Cimtar, and I find it difficult to believe that each tanker could refuel c.500 Raiders, let's assume a total of ten tankers - Apollo and Zac spotted two and boogied(the correct thing to do), but missed the other eight - where each tanker can escort/refuel 100 Raiders

<snip>

For crying out loud!(astonished)

I missed that.

How were the Raiders pre-positioned at Cimtar?

I have seen nothing that convinces me that Cylons had any kind of jump drive integral to that Raider smallcraft.

Tanker craft may inflate a worm hole and make the transit allowing Raiders to come with them, but for them to escort a thousand raiders? The idea I have is that ten tankers is no where near enough.

That needs explanation.

Any takers?

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

For crying out loud!(astonished)

I missed that.

How were the Raiders pre-positioned at Cimtar?

I have seen nothing that convinces me that Cylons had any kind of jump drive integral to that Raider smallcraft.

Tanker craft may inflate a worm hole and make the transit allowing Raiders to come with them, but for them to escort a thousand raiders? The idea I have is that ten tankers is no where near enough.

That needs explanation.

Any takers?

Well, I addressed that in the first part of my post at https://www.colonialfleets.com/forums...ad.php?t=12033

In the ep, we only see two tankers, but with c.1000 Raiders hitting the fleet at Cimtar, I seriously doubt that two tankers could refuel all of them. So, I went with ten tankers(8 were not found), each refuelling/escorting c.100 Raiders each....

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Well, I addressed that in the first part of my post at https://www.colonialfleets.com/forums...ad.php?t=12033

In the ep, we only see two tankers, but with c.1000 Raiders hitting the fleet at Cimtar, I seriously doubt that two tankers could refuel all of them. So, I went with ten tankers(8 were not found), each refuelling/escorting c.100 Raiders each....

Some questions.

How many Raiders can you send through a tanker-inflated wormhole?

How big was that wormhole each tanker opened?

Note that the freighters/tankers shown were NOT carriers and could not ferry aboard a hundred Raiders each..

Those Raiders had to get to their IPs under their own power.

That means something had to get them there either as a carrier or as an escort that could operate the "tramline".

Now I have a very good idea of just how much negative entropy it would take to transmit a man(if it was even possible) through a wormhole. A tanker, even a military tanker full of TYLIUM would not have the power to do that designed into it.

Therefore; I propose that the Cylons built special prepositioned wormhole inflation machines(Call these devices, "Jumpgates", at their end of the the wormhole tramline.)

That might explain the low number of tankers seen, and the lack of basestars(carriers).

[Kaith Rustaz]

I think it might be something as simple as drop off the fighters, keep them in supply, jump back rearm and position to attack the colonies.

The unaccounted for additional tankers is easy to explain. Remember, there was a combination of jamming and the camoflage field (cloud). masking detection of the attack fleet.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by Kaith Rustaz

I think it might be something as simple as drop off the fighters, keep them in supply, jump back rearm and position to attack the colonies.

The unaccounted for additional tankers is easy to explain. Remember, there was a combination of jamming and the camoflage field (cloud). masking detection of the attack fleet.

So you postulate the basestar ferry model? Plausible. You would need only three basestars to do this. If you didn't expect the Raiders to come back, you could use two tankers for a one way kamikazi attack.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

Some questions.

How many Raiders can you send through a tanker-inflated wormhole?

How big was that wormhole each tanker opened?

Note that the freighters/tankers shown were NOT carriers and could not ferry aboard a hundred Raiders each..

Those Raiders had to get to their IPs under their own power.

That means something had to get them there either as a carrier or as an escort that could operate the "tramline".

Now I have a very good idea of just how much negative entropy it would take to transmit a man(if it was even possible) through a wormhole. A tanker, even a military tanker full of TYLIUM would not have the power to do that designed into it.

Therefore; I propose that the Cylons built special prepositioned wormhole inflation machines(Call these devices, "Jumpgates", at their end of the the wormhole tramline.)

That might explain the low number of tankers seen, and the lack of basestars(carriers).

Well, there's a great deal of "handwavium" involved in any discussion like this; we can't realistically say that we can even predict how a given FTL system will work, be it a wormhole, jump-point, warp, hyperspace or whatever.

Recall that the tankers from LL were "en route" to Gamoray; that means that the tankers themselves must be FTL-capable. My thinking is that any military vessel should be able to generate at least double their normal jump/displacement-field to envelope another vessel[s], and likely triple it. Because the tankers did not withdraw prior to the attack, I'm guessing that they exhausted their organic fuel load getting into the Cimtar system; the fuel in their bunkers was reserved for the Raiders.

From my estimated size of the tankers vs the Raiders, I think that the tankers could have safely "towed" about 100 raiders each, then topped off their tanks as their sensors picked up the Colonial Fleet arriving in-system.

As for the surviving Raiders at Cimtar, after the last battlestar there is destroyed, they likely broke and ran, trying to hide, until the Cylon SAR(Search And Rescue) groups could show up -- no sense in leaving perfectly good Raider craft and Centurion crews to float off into Eternity...

Originally Posted by Damocles

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Jester; I will have to consider that article. I find many of its assumptions interesting and strongly at variance with conclusions I reached from watching CBG.

How much of it, the article, is "canon"?

Damocles,
From what I understand - items "STATED" as being seen or heard on the show are to be taken as cannon. Those are listed as such in the article. The rest is based on cannon fact or items infered from cannon.


TANKERS:
Noticed a lot of talk on the subject of how the Radiers got to the point to meet their Tankers for refueling before the attack at Cimtar being dropped off or having special "Gate" ships, etc. As per Cannon Apollo and Zac discovered 2 of the tankers just before they came up on the attack fleet.

It is suposed they flew from a point from their Basestars to there to be refueled by their tankers. Why then could it not be possible for them to fly to SEVERAL tanker refueling points till they were in their launch positions to jump off for the attack. Supposing that, the Basestars wouldn't have to come close and risk being picked up on scans or by patrols and the Cylons could sneak their attack force into place piecemeal till it was ready. After the attack the Basestars could move in for recovery of their craft.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Well, there's a great deal of "handwavium" involved in any discussion like this; we can't realistically say that we can even predict how a given FTL system will work, be it a wormhole, jump-point, warp, hyperspace or whatever.

Recall that the tankers from LL were "en route" to Gamoray; that means that the tankers themselves must be FTL-capable. My thinking is that any military vessel should be able to generate at least double their normal jump/displacement-field to envelope another vessel[s], and likely triple it. Because the tankers did not withdraw prior to the attack, I'm guessing that they exhausted their organic fuel load getting into the Cimtar system; the fuel in their bunkers was reserved for the Raiders.

From my estimated size of the tankers vs the Raiders, I think that the tankers could have safely "towed" about 100 raiders each, then topped off their tanks as their sensors picked up the Colonial Fleet arriving in-system.

As for the surviving Raiders at Cimtar, after the last battlestar there is destroyed, they likely broke and ran, trying to hide, until the Cylon SAR(Search And Rescue) groups could show up -- no sense in leaving perfectly good Raider craft and Centurion crews to float off into Eternity...

Some real physics-or as real as the numbers of QM allow.

To inflate a basestar-sized worm hole requires 1500 solar masses equivalent of negative entropic energy. That is for a 1000 meter radius wormhole.

Now that is enough room for the basestar but not for a halo of Raiders in tow or close-grouped around it. And that is energy expended per second inflated.

I give you the basestar ferry option or the jumpgate option. I like the jumpgate option myself because the investment in materials and screen evidence closely match that solution. I don't see the Raiders towed by those tankers.(Remember the night,masre of the Gemini mission that lassoed the Agena rocket with which they rendevouzed in 1967? That snarl would be nothing compared to 100 tow cables......

I don't beleve in tractor beams. Magnets on the other hand? The hull of that freighter doesn't have enough surface area to hold 100 Raiders without some of them skidding off.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by Jester

Damocles,
From what I understand - items "STATED" as being seen or heard on the show are to be taken as cannon. Those are listed as such in the article. The rest is based on cannon fact or items infered from cannon.


TANKERS:
Noticed a lot of talk on the subject of how the Radiers got to the point to meet their Tankers for refueling before the attack at Cimtar being dropped off or having special "Gate" ships, etc. As per Cannon Apollo and Zac discovered 2 of the tankers just before they came up on the attack fleet.

It is suposed they flew from a point from their Basestars to there to be refueled by their tankers. Why then could it not be possible for them to fly to SEVERAL tanker refueling points till they were in their launch positions to jump off for the attack. Supposing that, the Basestars wouldn't have to come close and risk being picked up on scans or by patrols and the Cylons could sneak their attack force into place piecemeal till it was ready. After the attack the Basestars could move in for recovery of their craft.

There are time issues that prohibit you from asssuming that the Cimtar ambush is organized as a staged Cylon Raider phased fly in.

Basic argument boils down to the idea that the Raider has but about a few hours endurance, and that the relative delta vee on those rockets is limited to accelerations of about .01c. For Galactica to get to Caprica to respond to the distress call as quick as it did required a micro-jump or else Cimtar was within minutes of Caprica instead of the more likely hours(all deltas are assumed to be c)

The clearesat and logistically least complex explanation to my mind is the one that the film seems to show. The Cylons massed their Raiders in their hide by jumping the Raiders straight into the assembly area by gate or by carrier. The tankers could jump in independentlly and engage in a refuelling evolution that would be simple dock, tank up, and peel off from the otherwise powered down free drifting raiders.

No need for tow lines, no need for more than the few tankers seen and it explains all those Raiders out in the middle of nowhere without basestar support.

The canon evidence the article cites seems to support a more damaged Colonies than I saw. It would make me wonder if President Adar was a complete fool to accept the offer of a peace conference if the Cylons had such an obvious advantage and didn't push it as circumstances should have suggested. I have to think about that and come up with an explanation.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

Some real physics-or as real as the numbers of QM allow.

To inflate a basestar-sized worm hole requires 1500 solar masses equivalent of negative entropic energy. That is for a 1000 meter radius wormhole.

Now that is enough room for the basestar but not for a halo of Raiders in tow or close-grouped around it. And that is energy expended per second inflated.

I give you the basestar ferry option or the jumpgate option. I like the jumpgate option myself because the investment in materials and screen evidence closely match that solution. I don't see the Raiders towed by those tankers.(Remember the night,masre of the Gemini mission that lassoed the Agena rocket with which they rendevouzed in 1967? That snarl would be nothing compared to 100 tow cables......

I don't beleve in tractor beams. Magnets on the other hand? The hull of that freighter doesn't have enough surface area to hold 100 Raiders without some of them skidding off.

Hmmmm.....I think we may have a misunderstanding. Let me retrench, here, and go back on to the "jump/tramline" idea.

I'm using that idea directly from the Niven/Pournelle "Future History" series("The Mote In God's Eye", and "The Gripping Hand"), and the "Mercenary/Prince" series that runs in conjunction.

Basically, you sidle up to the region of space where the jump-point is located, and activate the drive. The drive generates a spherical displacement field, and moves everything within that field to the opposite end of the tramline connection(i.e., the next star over).

The travel is instantaneous; there is no "wormhole" per DS9 or B5. It's literally: drive-on/drive-off/you're-there.

Once in the destination system, you slog along under conventional chemical energy drives or whatever to get to either the system primary, or the next jump-point. Whatever real-space velocity you had at the point-of-origin, you retain on arrival (which can occasionally make things very interesting).

There were never any figs given AFAIK for the Alderson Drive(the name from the original Niven/Pournelle series) as regards power requirements, so I'm ballparking the size of the displacement field[s].

What this means in the Cimtar example is that the Raiders don't have to anchor onto the tanker's hulls, they simply need to get close to the tanker, close enough to be enveloped by the displacement field. At Cimtar, they would "shake out" until they inserted into the cloud.

Maintaining a tight and relatively static formation shouldn't present any real trouble for the Cylon Raiders(five columns of five Raiders, spaced radially around the tankers' cylindrical body), as the Cylon attack waves that we see onscreen are pretty tight formations, as is.....Of course, the RTFF using this system would be..."interesting" is somehow inadequate

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

<snip>...The canon evidence the article cites seems to support a more damaged Colonies than I saw. It would make me wonder if President Adar was a complete fool to accept the offer of a peace conference if the Cylons had such an obvious advantage and didn't push it as circumstances should have suggested. I have to think about that and come up with an explanation.

**nods head** Yep...That's my take on it. I think that the Colonies had suffered a series of military reverses in the couple of years/yahren previous to Cimtar that made them susceptable[sp?] to a peace offer. It's clear that not all of the Council were fully convinced; Adama may have been the only one vocal about it, though.

That's why I have no trouble postulating c.15 operational battlestars patrolling the Colonial system, while five escort the President and Council to Cimtar: the rest of the Fleet was in space dock, or had new keels building to try and replace losses.

[Kaith Rustaz]

Another question here is, was the point of the ambush to destroy or delay? It may have been simply to delay the main fleet until the damage had been done to the colonies. The success of the ambush may have been icing on the cake as it were.

Also, thinking about this more...and looking at WWII bomber raids, even accepting a higher state of technology, the cylon fighters we saw on screen basically just shot up the place. There would have to have been a much heavier attack, especially considering the size of a planet. Take Earth for example. If we estimate a cylon strike force of 3 basestars, and 3,000 fighters, how long would it take to really do some major damage to Earth? Just taking out the US alone would take a few hours.

Crossing series for a moment, if one looks at V, there was a mothership per major city. I think that show estimated 50 or so ships, each comparable to a Cylon Basestar. In the B5 universe (which has a comparable combat style to the BSG one) we see the Centari using a massive orbital bombardment against the Narns.

I think the Cylons would have initially used a combination of surgical strikes against military hard points (bases, air fields, defenses) before resorting to straffing runs on civilian targets.

Returning to the attack, it seems like they attacked in at least 2 waves. Tigh reports attacks being launched (present time) against the inner (??) colonies. This means that there was some time for some of the colonies to prepare for defense.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Kaith Rustaz

Another question here is, was the point of the ambush to destroy or delay? It may have been simply to delay the main fleet until the damage had been done to the colonies. The success of the ambush may have been icing on the cake as it were.

Also, thinking about this more...and looking at WWII bomber raids, even accepting a higher state of technology, the cylon fighters we saw on screen basically just shot up the place. There would have to have been a much heavier attack, especially considering the size of a planet. Take Earth for example. If we estimate a cylon strike force of 3 basestars, and 3,000 fighters, how long would it take to really do some major damage to Earth? Just taking out the US alone would take a few hours.

Crossing series for a moment, if one looks at V, there was a mothership per major city. I think that show estimated 50 or so ships, each comparable to a Cylon Basestar. In the B5 universe (which has a comparable combat style to the BSG one) we see the Centari using a massive orbital bombardment against the Narns.

I think the Cylons would have initially used a combination of surgical strikes against military hard points (bases, air fields, defenses) before resorting to straffing runs on civilian targets.

Returning to the attack, it seems like they attacked in at least 2 waves. Tigh reports attacks being launched (present time) against the inner (??) colonies. This means that there was some time for some of the colonies to prepare for defense.

Per Cimtar: I would say, both...Get the battlestars so heavily-engaged that they can't retreat quickly, and destroy them if at all possible...

In the Colonies, I think you are spot-on: nail down the hard targets in the first wave, backed up by 'ortillery'(orbital fire support), cause some general hate and discontent(the seemingly mindless attacks on the plaza where Serina is broadcasting), and follow up with selective nuke bombardment and spraying with a fast-acting bio-agent to poison the food supply of any survivors(ref. the line in 'Saga': [approx] Jolly: "...We checked it for radiation, but not for Pluton poisoning..." Apollo: "Pluton? That breaks down the structure of food..."; likely a blight, like mold on Rye)

[peter noble]

Cylons try to strike with superior numbers because they are "incapable of independent thought" which is a significant military weakness compared to independent free-thinking and highly adaptable humans.

It's like some sort of cybernetic blitzkreig, the trick is to have enough ships to overwhelm the humans because I can imagine the CF defeating a Cylon force that outnumbers them 3 or five to one.

Of course the odds are significantly reduced if you've fooled the enemy into thinking you're suing for peace.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Hmmmm.....I think we may have a misunderstanding. Let me retrench, here, and go back on to the "jump/tramline" idea.

I'm using that idea directly from the Niven/Pournelle "Future History" series("The Mote In God's Eye", and "The Gripping Hand"), and the "Mercenary/Prince" series that runs in conjunction.

Basically, you sidle up to the region of space where the jump-point is located, and activate the drive. The drive generates a spherical displacement field, and moves everything within that field to the opposite end of the tramline connection(i.e., the next star over).

The travel is instantaneous; there is no "wormhole" per DS9 or B5. It's literally: drive-on/drive-off/you're-there.

Once in the destination system, you slog along under conventional chemical energy drives or whatever to get to either the system primary, or the next jump-point. Whatever real-space velocity you had at the point-of-origin, you retain on arrival (which can occasionally make things very interesting).

There were never any figs given AFAIK for the Alderson Drive(the name from the original Niven/Pournelle series) as regards power requirements, so I'm ballparking the size of the displacement field[s].

What this means in the Cimtar example is that the Raiders don't have to anchor onto the tanker's hulls, they simply need to get close to the tanker, close enough to be enveloped by the displacement field. At Cimtar, they would "shake out" until they inserted into the cloud.

Maintaining a tight and relatively static formation shouldn't present any real trouble for the Cylon Raiders(five columns of five Raiders, spaced radially around the tankers' cylindrical body), as the Cylon attack waves that we see onscreen are pretty tight formations, as is.....Of course, the RTFF using this system would be..."interesting" is somehow inadequate

More "real" physics.(Here goes nothing )

Your micro-wormhole is curled space/time in the form of a "cell". When you inflate it; it looks for all the world to you like a spinning hypermass(misnamed blackhole) and acts the same way. It is not some Babylon 5 tunnel into hyperspace. You aim at the spinning event horizon "equator" of your inflated-wormhole at a tangent and slide in just under the c radius limit into one of the segmented "branes" of that flipped time/space where the three spatial ordinates have transposed positions with the time ordinate. You pop out into the other side of the event some distance(as determined by the peculiar relationships of spatial geometry and angular momentum in this "brane" if you did this correctly, alive and not knowing if any time has passed at all. Since all time in realspace is local and you displaced without crossing those quanta of space/time that are contiguous in ralspace between where you were amnd where you are, you cannot know if any time transpired at all for you in the wormhole transit.(Theory suggests that the local time you are inside the wormhole event horizon is about equal to 1/2 pi/r^2 of the microwormhole's inflated radius in seconds).

As a rough rule of thumb you need a hundred solar masses for each 100 meters of wormhole "brane" radius.

If you want to know the shape of the "brane" into which you skim/dive?



is a two dimensional representation of the four dimensional rotator manifold.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by peter noble

Cylons try to strike with superior numbers because they are "incapable of independent thought" which is a significant military weakness compared to independent free-thinking and highly adaptable humans.

It's like some sort of cybernetic blitzkreig, the trick is to have enough ships to overwhelm the humans because I can imagine the CF defeating a Cylon force that outnumbers them 3 or five to one.

Of course the odds are significantly reduced if you've fooled the enemy into thinking you're suing for peace.

....Which fits in well with "machine logic": don't worry about quality if it's unnecessary, just steamroller as you can.

New thought: The rationale for a three-Cylon crew on a Raider - in the event that they have to land, they have a small group to compensate by numbers for their inferior performance one-on-one...

..Something GINO 2.0 never quite understood....

[Kaith Rustaz]

I think the GINO cylons were specialists, where as the TOS cylons were general use.
Based on watching how mobile (or rather how not) they were, and how great their marksmanship was (did the go to Stormtrooper school?) It's hard to imagine them fielding an effective ground force.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Kaith Rustaz

I think the GINO cylons were specialists, where as the TOS cylons were general use.
Based on watching how mobile (or rather how not) they were, and how great their marksmanship was (did the go to Stormtrooper school?) It's hard to imagine them fielding an effective ground force.

Definately speacialists...As far as ground forces go, we didn't really see a lot of their ground forces, when you think about it. The only places I know of are at Carillon and in 'Lords', and in both places, there were problems with terrain(okay, and cost/shooting issues) that kept us from seeing a more diverse spread of ground combat tech.

That's one of the things I'd like to see in a remake/continuation: having the Gal run across the last ship of the Colonial equivalent of an MPS(Maritime Pre-Positioning Squadron), basically a military supply ship carrying a huge amount of gear for ground combat, but few/no troops...maybe a ship that also escaped, and has been trying to catch up ever since....

I'm trying to locate a picture that is kind of a memory, showing a Colonial assault team preparing to stage a hostage rescue during 'Baltars Escape'; I'm interested in it, because it's the only time, IIRC, that we see Colonial long guns/rifles....

[Tabitha]

One must remember, TOS cylons are superior, there are many copies and they too have a plan hahahahahahahahha

sorry it made sense in my head

tabbi

I think you can imagine it along the lines of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The aim of the attack was to take out the "Big Units" (Carriers & Battleships) of the Fleet. Once this was done further strikes would take out the samller ships and support facilities. Once this was done the enemy would be able to operate with no oposition in their plan to take the Pacific.

Per Cimtar - you can look at it along the same lines. Once the Fleet was crippled the Cylons would be cleared to take on the Planitary defences and start the distruction of the Colonies.

The reason I go with this theory is, IMO, I don't think the Raider type ships would have the firepower to destroy the Colonies unless they were all toteing Nukes or something similar. The Cylons would have to bring in big "Bombardment" ships of some kind and to do that they would have to deal with the Colonal Fleet first.

[WarMachine]

Jester,

I view it as "Pearl Harbor Meets The Phillipine Invasion", where the PI invasion is the most important part of the attack.....

[Tabitha]

I think you can view it more like an NFL game with the Phx Cardinals. Both sides have a team, and they know the game, but one side is destined to lose because they just suck at the game and the other side at least thought about a strategy to win, while the other side walked out with no clue they were playing yet.

tabbi

[Westy]

Originally Posted by Kaith Rustaz

Lets assume that the Atlantia was ceremonial only (ala AirForce 1) for a moment, and that the 4 BattleStars accompanying her were the "best" of the fleet.

The only ceremonial ship at Cimtar that I know of was Star Kobol. There's no reference in the movies or the books that Atlantia was a mere ceremonial ship. In one of the books it mentions Atlantia's sister ship the Pacifica which was supposedly the biggest Battlestar ever constructed. I don't buy it that Atlantia was for ceremony only.

[Kaith Rustaz]

The question is though, what exactly was the "Star Kobol"? There are no references to any BattleStar called Kobol in any of the resources I found. Atlantia was refered to as the Presidential BattleStar though.

Pg 13 mentions that "with the destruction of the Atlantia's sister ship, the Pacifica, Adama's craft had become the largest fighting battlestar in the fleet."

Fighting BattleStar. Implying there were non-fighting ones.

the book continues to describe Atlantia as "a hive of bulkily designed sections", possibly implying it was of poor design, or a slapped together design.

[Senmut]

Originally Posted by Tabitha

Why assume they ran? They may have had other fleets off doing DMZ patrols. Just because your at peace talks does not mean you just welcome the old enemies in. Remember Ronald Regan "Trust, but verify" and that wouls explain the lack of ships in the series attack. Naturally they would not necessarily NEED Corvettes, Cruisers, Destroyers, and the tending ships, repair ships, Light Assault Carriers, Landing ships ect ect ect... for a presidential function. Most likely the ships we saw in the series attack was what could be spared from their duties. When Adama says the fleet is gone, he may honestly believe it, after all if the Cylons were jamming the other fleets reports, or keeping them from hearing about the colony attacks, then Adama might very well believe it. And they would probably want to keep the other fleets ignorant of the attack. They would enrage the other fleets, making their fight harder. So theres a good probability that there are other types and numbers of ships, just not as many Battlestars.
At least thats the concept I use in my stories, the fight for the colonies just begins after the Galactica leaves. If they ever return, in my stories at least, they will find a ragged series of colonies with battered fleets patrolling them, wondering where the Battlestars went.

tabbi

Excellent take, Tab. You have come close, I think. With many battlefronts, as well as garrison sites and spacestations, what we saw at Cimtar cannot be the entire Colonial Fleet. The Cylons go for it because the President is aboard. Given their obsessively centralized mentality, the Cylons cannot conceive of their foes surviving once Adar and the top leadership are gone. Rememebr SB's comment that the "main attack is on the President's ship."

[Senmut]

As to the slow response of the Fleet to the Cylon ambush. Imagine the following scenario.....
It is the fall/early winter of 1945, and somewhere in the Pacific, five top-of-the-line Fleet Carrier are cruising along towards Japan. Since the japanese have sued for peace, no one is expecting treachery. Most of the crews are at ease, most of the planes are on the hangar decks, undergoing maintenance or neatly tucked away, the pilots either asleep of loafing. Few anti-aircraft posts are manned. After all, the war is over, right?
Suddenly, radar picks up at least 1,000 aircraft, identified as Japanese, approaching at top speed, emerging from a weather front, 100 miles and closing. The alert is sounded. Pilots are roused and briefed as quickly as possible, planes are being hurridly fueled and armed, anti-aircraft is manned, planes hoisted to the flight decks, and the ships have to turn into the wind to launch. As you can see, they are NOT going to be ready once the enemy force reaches. A few planes may make it up, but barring a miracle, it will be total carnage.
Just an analogy.