Colonial Fleet Strength And Composition, Pre-cimtar

[TwoBrainedCylon]

This is something else that will hopefully have more insight come ... say around March 2006.

Sandy

[Tabitha]

I think Senmut is right about his analogy, though to take it one step further, let us consider, there are at least three flat tops in the area, but the Japanese strike a land base that was not expecting trouble and destroy it. The carriers simply cannot get to the base soon enough. We called it Pearl Harbor, the Colonies called it Cemtar...

tabbi

[Qeutzal]

I have been reading your thoughts on how the colonies could be destroyes so easly and I would like to add my two cubits also.

1. Since the original show lasted only one season, the colonial navy was never fully developed. There had to be other types of war ships like cruisers, frigates, destroyers, scout, etc. frack, look at Star Trek and Star War. Even in the real world, the U.S. Navy has other classes of ships. Can you imagine trying to protect the U.S. with only 12 aircraft carriers; I cannot.

2. Another thing that has bothered me is why only 12 battlestars? there has to be more than just one per colony; if a battlestar left to engage the cylons, the home planet would be defenceless. My belief is that each colony has 12 battlestars at there desposal not one.

Here is my theory of what happened on that faithfull day. Since the war with the cylons was over, the majoraty of the fleet was in space dock and most of its warriors were planetside to celebrate the Armistice, only a skeleton crew was left to run the ships. The five battlestars on route to rondevou with the Star Kobal which I presume to be a diplomatic ship, were not fully armed as a sigh of good faith. With each battlestar not carrying its full complement of vipers, they were easy targets. When the cylons attacked the orbiting shipyards, most of the ships were probably powered down and had no chance to fight back.Well that is my theory and its probably nothing new to you.

By the way,here are several battlestar names that I have come up with

Gryphon, Sinaloa, Anahuac, Caligula, Olympus Mons, Kaifa Mons, Europa
Akira, Arco sadi, Aurora, Hellion and Osiris.

[Griffworks]

That seems to track, at least to me.

Before I get in to this, I've not read thru every post there, just skimmed them. So, if I say something already covered, please keep that in mind and be gentle.

Dialogue in "Saga of a Star World" tells us that none of the other battlestars at the Cimtar Peace Conference (Atlantia, Pacifica, Acropolis and Triton) survived. Tigh comes on the bridge and approaches Omega asking for a status report on the other battlestars. Omega looks at Tigh and says "we're the only surviving battlestar" or something along those lines. So, there's how we know that Galactica was the only of those five to survive.

I'd further suggest that not only that, but that the Basestars attacked en masse, destroying any orbiting defenses, such as ships or stations. Remember that one basestar can field something like 300 or 400 Raiders and at least three basestars were orbiting Caprica prior to the attack. There's also the info that came out about Baltar and his lackey's sabotaging the Colonial Defenses. If you have no fore-warning of an attack and the enemy shows up at your doorstep unannounced, you have a Pearl Harbor type situation. So, even if you have a single battlestar on full alert above each of the 12 Colonies and several Cylon Basestars suddenly show up, they'd be overwhelmed and destroyed in a relatively short amount of time.

Imagine of the Cylon's had three battlegroups of 12 basestars set up to attack the defenses of each Colony in a specific order - Group One attacks Arilon, Group Two attacks Gemenon and Group Three attacks Caprica. You've got one, maybe two Battlestars in orbit and on regular patrol status. Here come 12 basestars at your one or two battlestars. The enemy could afford to take heavy losses in fighters and heavy damage to a couple of basestars that move in and pound on you while the others encircle you in all three dimensions and then open up themselves. With the Raiders doing kamikaze runs on a battlestar it'd be over fairly quickly - and then on to the next Colony on the list: Tauron!

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Griffworks

That seems to track, at least to me.

Oh, yeah...read through the rest of the thread. There would have had to be a massive Cylon raiding fleet in the Colonial system, no matter what.

With the conference, the other ships of the fleet, as well as the planetary-defense units, were likely standing down and partying when the attacks came in. Coupled with Baltar's sabotage, the Colonies likely never had a chance.

[Qeutzal]

the Star Kobal??? what kind of ship was she?

I just finished watching the first episode of Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel and listened to Sarina's news report. She states that the Armistice meeting was the be held on the Star Kobal. Since it was not seen with the 5 battlestars, I pressume she was sent days ahead and the Galactica & other battlestars were on there way to rondevou with her.

My theory is that she is a diplomatic ship not a battlestar or any kind of warship. The Star Kobal was probably the first ship to be destroyed by the cylons.

[Griffworks]

I'm at work so don't have the link here, unfortunately, but I've got a link to an interesting site that purports that there were likely something like 26 Battlestars as a part of the Cimtar Fleet. I'm not saying that I completely agree with his reasoning, but his breakdown and the logic used are somewhat compelling and certainly interesting, to say the least.

The gist of the theory is that if you carefully watch the first 20 minutes of "Saga of a Star World" where we see the Fleet at Cimtar, we get a couple of views of the fleet that don't exactly match up. In one view, we see five ships in a staggered line - the classic shot used in the opening title sequence. later, we get a different view w/the ships in what almost appears to be a wedge formation as they're scattered in a horizontal type pattern versus the earlier vertical type pattern. Still later, we get at least one other angle shot w/this angle showing a different type formation.

I think that it was more a matter of visualizations being sort of "taken advantage of", but I do think the guy makes good points and think it's interesting that he pulled that together.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Griffworks

I'm at work so don't have the link here, unfortunately, but I've got a link to an interesting site that purports that there were likely something like 26 Battlestars as a part of the Cimtar Fleet. I'm not saying that I completely agree with his reasoning, but his breakdown and the logic used are somewhat compelling and certainly interesting, to say the least<snip>.

! My interest is peaked -- can you backtrack to that link?

[Griffworks]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Oh, yeah...read through the rest of the thread. There would have had to be a massive Cylon raiding fleet in the Colonial system, no matter what.

OK I've still read thru them all, as I'm trying to read just a few and then analyze them some. Gonna have to read and analyze a few more, as some of ya'll have a LOT of ideas in one thread! Not sayin' it's a bad thing, just that there's a lot of info for me to try and read thru and I keep getting distracted (here at work). So far, I agree with most everything everyone's written regarding other fleet ships in the Colonial Fleet. I certainly agree that, not unlike the statement made in TNS' Miniseries, there had to be more than just a handful of battlestars.

With the conference, the other ships of the fleet, as well as the planetary-defense units, were likely standing down and partying when the attacks came in. Coupled with Baltar's sabotage, the Colonies likely never had a chance.

I kind of have a hard time thinking that they would have had the entire military standing down to party. That just doesn't make sense for me, given that we know they'd been at war for a thousand yarhen. But then again, I'd have thought that more commanders would have followed Adama's example and at least alerted their fighters w/o launching. Especially if you've been at war for a thousand yarhen.

Of course, chalk it all up to dramatic licensing, neh?

[Griffworks]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

! My interest is peaked -- can you backtrack to that link?

Sure, when I get home! It was entitled something like "Fleet at Cimtar Analysis".



EDIT: Ah, ha! I did a Google search on the phrase Fleet at Cimtar and came up with it:
https://www.geocities.com/repcisg/index0.html

I was a bit off on my thinking, as it'd be months since I'd last looked at the site, but instead of wedge formation it was a diamond formation. He's also got some interesting stuff if you go to the last page of all that fleet analysis. One of the other links is to a page w/ a possible internal layout of the landing bays.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Griffworks

Sure, when I get home! It was entitled something like "Fleet at Cimtar Analysis". EDIT: Ah, ha! I did a Google search on the phrase Fleet at Cimtar and came up with it:
https://www.geocities.com/repcisg/index0.html

I was a bit off on my thinking, as it'd be months since I'd last looked at the site, but instead of wedge formation it was a diamond formation. He's also got some interesting stuff if you go to the last page of all that fleet analysis. One of the other links is to a page w/ a possible internal layout of the landing bays.

Interesting.....While I like his landing bay layout(I may need to seriously rethink a few things for "FoI"), I'm not convinced by his Cimtar Fleet count.

Even using a low-ball figure of c.70 Vipers per Battlestar(my count), 25 Battlestars would be packing 1,750 Vipers between them...his count of 148 Vipers per Battlestar would be 3,700 total; the result is either that the general level of Viper-pilot skill sucks(which I'm not buying), or that the long-accepted 1000 Cylon Raiders at Cimtar is flat wrong, and needs to be c.10,000.

Does anyone have a canon/semi-canon ref to the number of Raiders? (My books are in boxes at the moment )

I can buy into c.12 Battlestars at Cimtar, but 25 is way too extreme a number; after a thousand yahren of warfare, there has to be more than one Commander unwilling to believe that the Cylons suddenly want to play nice, meaning that there should have been FAR more Vipers.

My other issue is having the Gal so far back in his formation. This is not a matter of fan-pride, but of the fact that Adama - the Gal's Commander - is a member of the Council of the Twelve...the Gal should be near the front end of the formation, near the Atlantia -- which is the impression I got from the fighting.

Another problem with the books-vs-airings is the whole "Star Kobol" issue. If the peace meeting was taking place on the Star Kobol, why did the initial dinner party happen aboard the Atlantia?

Finally, if there were c.25 Battlestars at Cimtar, how many were defending the Home System? How many Baseships were in the attack? Why weren't more Baseships lurking to ambush the returning Gal, and the RTF?

So.

While I'm REALLY liking his flight-pod layout(and I think I'm going to use that), I think we should stick to 5-10 Battlestars at Cimtar.

[Kaith Rustaz]

Oh, that layout was sweet. Nice detective work there. Have to agree with WarMachine though. The reported numbers don't match up with what we saw.

[WarMachine]

https://www.geocities.com/repcisg/index0.html .....

After waking up from a very interesting dream involving suppressed AK47s, tiger-stripes and a RenFaire/paleontological dig(I need to cut down on the "Rainbow Six 3"), I have done a careful count on the Vipers depicted in the link above: there are a total of 112 -- in that one pod!.

That's right: 224 Vipers per Battlestar equals a whopping 5,600 Vipers at Cimtar, according to his count.

Yeeesssh.



Methinks I'm going to leave my counts at 96 Vipers and 14 shuttles per Battlestar at full strength(48/7 per pod).....I think that's an extremely reasonable package for a Battlestar in commission, and still allows room for more surviving Vipers and shuttles per "LL" and the apocryphal evidence of the Foundry Ship's capabilities.....

[Dayton3]

Mind if I add this.

1) In "Living Legend" Adama refers to the three baseship Cylon force as the largest Cylon force he has seen since the destruction of Caprica.

The then tells Cain "they didn't use much more than three baseships when they wiped out our entire fleet at Caprica"

2) In "The Hand of God", Tigh briefs the Colonial Warriors on the Baseships fighter strength of 300 ships. He says "you'll be outnumbered by two to one".

Starbuck says "not much worse than we were at Caprica".

Boomer says "we lost at Caprica".

Based on this one can infer than.....

1) A substantial fleet of colonial warships was present at Caprica during the annhilation of the Colonies.

2) That fleet was protected by around 400 Viper fighters. (the baseships would've had around 900 fighters in total) Presumably land based. I assume Baltars pilot, Proteus (Karibdas) sabotaged the defense systems at Caprica to prevent most of them from launching in time to engage the Cylon forces.

In my outline for a future remake of BG. I had it where the entire fleet of battlestars went to the peace conference as a show of strength..........but the support elements and escorts of the fleet were left at the colonies for rest, refit, and of course protection.

When the baseships attacked the colonies, they overwhelmed the Colonial warships and defenses there because they lacked fighter support. Just as a modern carrier battle group would be completely overwhelmed if their air wing were eliminated.

I also think there were alot more than 5 battlestars at Cimtar. But more on that later.

Incidentally, I would bet that assuming the Battlestars at four squadrons each (similiar to the baseships) that they would number about 35 fighters per squadron, giving a total of 140 Vipers per battlestar. It would have to be at least this number to give credibility to Colonel Tighs statement about the 300 Cylon fighters outnumbering the Galactica squadrons "two to one".

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Dayton3

Mind if I add this.

Sure...

2) In "The Hand of God", Tigh briefs the Colonial Warriors on the Baseships fighter strength of 300 ships. He says "you'll be outnumbered by two to one".

I wondered where that quote came from.....

Based on this one can infer than.....

1) A substantial fleet of colonial warships was present at Caprica during the annhilation of the Colonies.

2) That fleet was protected by around 150 Viper fighters. Presumably land based.

Don't neglect the idea that each Colony may have had its own defense squadron/fleet of smaller ships or Vipers...Also, take into account Baltar's sabotage teams, and what appears to be a general ennui among the Colonial population...That's mostly dramatic license to get the story moving, but that's what we have to work with.

In my outline for a future remake of BG. I had it where the entire fleet of battlestars went to the peace conference as a show of strength..........but the support elements and escorts of the fleet were left at the colonies for rest, refit, and of course protection.

When the baseships attacked the colonies, they overwhelmed the Colonial warships and defenses there because they lacked fighter support. Just as a modern carrier battle group would be completely overwhelmed if their air wing were eliminated.

Or....it could be the other way around: not enough fighters in the air, and not enough capitol ships to engage the baseships.....

I also think there were alot more than 5 battlestars at Cimtar. But more on that later.

See my posts above: allowing for significantly more than five Battlestars at Cimtar means that there have to be far more that c.500 Vipers -- which means that either there were a whole lot more than 1000 Cylon Raiders, or that Colonial Viper pilot abilities suck swamp water.....Which the later ep's don't reflect.

[TwoBrainedCylon]

FWIW, this is what we determined as the strength for Exodus. Here's a tidbit from a future episode:

After the Battle of Molokay, where the 5th fleet was destroyed, the Colonial Congress opted to review the status of all Colonial fighting forces. The wholesale destruction of so many ships and crews, including the Battlestar Pegasus, inspired protests from the Pacifist Movement unlike any previously seen. They introduced theories that the battlestars, massive armored fighting ships capable of waging war across a dozen systems simultaneously, were actually a destabilizing element that helped prolong humanity’s conflict with the machine race. By employing warships of such power and prominence, the Colonial fleet was emboldened to launch attacks that forced the Cylons to respond in kind. This enflamed a continuing circle of violence that blinded leaders to other solutions that would end the destruction.

Conservative politicians, all former military officers, wholly denounced such ignorant thinking. They argued that the Colonial Fleet needed more battlestars as they were the centerpiece of the forces that not only inflicted so much damage against the enemy but also repelled their advances well before they threatened the integrity of the homeland. They pointed to the exploits of the Columbia and its successes as the best example of the great service the battlestars provided. The 14 battlestars still in service were the strength that kept the Cylons at bay.

The Pacifists were enraged. They detailed the great logistical burden even a single Battlestar inflicted on the people. The financial drain alone was staggering. The crew needed to operate each of these tremendous starships was greater than would be required if additional fleets of fighting craft were introduced into the forces. Since one Battlestar could only be in a single location at any given time, the military was actually undercutting its own fighting ability and emboldening its commanders to conduct operations that were better designed to give them personal glory than bring an end to the war.

These arguments gave the moderate leaders, always seeking some advantage to placate all sides of the political spectrum, an opportunity and they seized it. They proposed that the battlestars be recognized as critical elements of the military but that they be limited to a total of 12. With this, each of the 12 Colonies of Man would assume responsibility for manning and maintaining their own Battlestar, evenly distributing the burden among all. It was a controversial initiative that met much opposition but it finally passed. The two oldest battlestars were stripped clean and mothballed. The remaining ships were arranged into four fleets, with the Battlestar of the most prominent planets assuming the command positions.

With this setup, we established that five battlestars went with the president. The rest were deployed in guard actions. The three baseships referrenced were the ones that directly attacked the president's fleet and then swept in to hit Caprica. Other warships engaged in the overall assault, smashing the Colonial fleet from the sides and then hitting their own target planets. Eleven battlestars were destroyed in all, leaving the Galactica "the last battlestar".

Its admittedly an after-the-fact patch to correct limitations imposed by the cost of special effects in the late 70s and some on-the-fly writing but it seemed to follow the "official" sources pretty well and stick with the fan accepted concept of 12 battlestars.

It doesn't mean its right in line with what Larson originally intended, but that's the best version we could come up with.

BTW - I like this discussion.


Sandy

[Griffworks]

It's great, isn't it? It's both really sad and extremely awesome that we're doing all of this back & forth speculating. I'm a geek and I'm proud to admit it!

I agree w/Dayton3 on his thinking that there are roughly 35 Vipers per squadron, for four squadrons and a total of 140 Vipers per Battlestar. That gives you a standard operational squadron of roughly 32 vipers - two waves of 16! - w/three on scheduled routine maintenance at almost any given time. To my thinking, it just makes more sense. It also means that Galactica was seriously under-strength after the Cylon attack on the Colonies w/only 67 Vipers recovered. It would also explain why we only hear about Red and Blue Squadrons once they hit Carillon, as they would have likely organized any surviving pilots in to a grouping of two squadrons.

Nothing personal, WarMachine. I like a lot of what you've had to say. I just don't agree w/your thinking on the subject on the number of fighters as there is still plenty of room for even 140 fighters, plus as much as two dozen shuttlecraft in those hangar pods - 70 Vipers and 12 shuttles per pod. That still keeps the number of Vipers at Cimtar to a fairly "low" 700. I will, however, agree w/you (I think it was you) who figured there were likely more than 1,000 Raiders at Cimtar. Still, with Baltar there to keep President Adar thinking peaceful thoughts, I doubt that things would have played out any differently even if there were only 1,000 Raiders. Remember, the Cylon's were apparently concentrating all their firepower on Atlantia from the beginning, as Atlantia was Blowed Up Real Good only a few minutes in to the attack. Those kamikaze attacks were devastating.

I also definitely agree w/TwoBrainedCylon on the "on the fly writing" comment. You can't always go with dialogue in the series, as they tossed around "star system", "solar system", "galaxy" and "universe" as if they were all interchangeable. They're quite literally not. Thus, you can't really depend on dialogue in later episodes not contradicting what was said in previous episode. Such as the "three basestars that destroyed the presidents fleet" comment, which isn't an accurate - with all due respect - as there were no basestars attacking the Fleet at Cimtar. It was totally a fighter force, as dialogue between Apollo, Adama and Tigh shows us. We see the look of comprehension dawn on Adama's face after Apollo tells them "no basestars". We then go to the scene w/the three basestars over Caprica.

BTW, I like that little "back story" of why there was possibly a limit on the number of battlestars, TwoBrainedCylon. Sounds very much like some of the silly decisions that we saw the Council of Twelve making during the course of TOS. Especially during "Saga" where Sire Uri wanted to lay down arms and tell the Cylon's "we won't have guns, so won't be a threat to you!" Deluded fool that he was...

BTW, somewhat off-topic, but was he supposed to have been one of the surviving politicians from the Council? Not necessarily a member of the Council of Twelve, but maybe some sort of representative? He certainly came across as such.

More analysis discussion, please!

[WarMachine]

Griff: no problem! Things can get snitty at times, but this is nice.

As to your observations:

I always maintained that Viper sqdrns were 32 Vipers, organized into two flights of 16 ships, each of four 4-Viper elements; that meshes directly into a Battlestar's lauch profile of 32 launch tubes split between two flight pods.

With one complete sqdrn on the launch rails, I think that there is room for no more than four sqdrn's at an absolute maximum; three sqdrn's would equal 96 Vipers, and still allow room for 10-14 shuttlecraft(w/o transporters, they'll need that many admin-craft, if not more).

In re the recovery operations over Caprica in the aftermath of the Cimtar ambush, the dialogue runs something close to:

Tigh: "What's the count?"

Omega: "67 fighters, Sir...25 of our own..."

That indicates to me a loss-rate of c.75% of the Gal's Vipers, assuming she was at 100% or close to it.

In rewatching the series, I don't see a staggering number of Vipers lost in combat after 'Saga', so I'm thinking that between pick-ups from surviving battlestars and planetary defense sqdrns, and the addition of the bulk of Silver Spar Squadron at the end of "LL", the Gal is up to c.3 sqdrns: Blue, Red and Silver Spar.

Given the Foundry, Mining and Electronics(the Celestra) ships, unless they meet massive opposition/accident, the Gal should be in Vipers for a long time to come.

Did I miss anything?

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Griff: no problem! Things can get snitty at times, but this is nice.

As to your observations:

I always maintained that Viper sqdrns were 32 Vipers, organized into two flights of 16 ships, each of four 4-Viper elements; that meshes directly into a Battlestar's lauch profile of 32 launch tubes split between two flight pods.

With one complete sqdrn on the launch rails, I think that there is room for no more than four sqdrn's at an absolute maximum; three sqdrn's would equal 96 Vipers, and still allow room for 10-14 shuttlecraft(w/o transporters, they'll need that many admin-craft, if not more).

In re the recovery operations over Caprica in the aftermath of the Cimtar ambush, the dialogue runs something close to:

Tigh: "What's the count?"

Omega: "67 fighters, Sir...25 of our own..."

That indicates to me a loss-rate of c.75% of the Gal's Vipers, assuming she was at 100% or close to it.

In rewatching the series, I don't see a staggering number of Vipers lost in combat after 'Saga', so I'm thinking that between pick-ups from surviving battlestars and planetary defense sqdrns, and the addition of the bulk of Silver Spar Squadron at the end of "LL", the Gal is up to c.3 sqdrns: Blue, Red and Silver Spar.

Given the Foundry, Mining and Electronics(the Celestra) ships, unless they meet massive opposition/accident, the Gal should be in Vipers for a long time to come.

Did I miss anything?

Normal operations of a military unit during peacetime assumes at least 1% attrition over a deployment cycle. That is people and equipment out of service due to injury or mechanical fault. With an aircraft carrier that means crashed aircraft and DEAD pilots.

https://navysite.de/cvn/cvn72.html

One of the BETTER carriers.

Check the accident history.

Then consider the Abe as a battlestar.

As always;

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

Normal operations of a military unit during peacetime assumes at least 1% attrition over a deployment cycle.

<snip>

One of the BETTER carriers.

Check the accident history.

Then consider the Abe as a battlestar.

As always;

Certainly....I was simplifying it for those those who might not have heard the DLS...

Having a certain amount of spare frames and pilots is a good idea for any smallcraft-launching vessel...the question, though, is: What is a battlestar's Strike Package at full strength?

At my low end, I said 64; however, I'm more than happy to modify that to 96-100, as I'm pretty sure they have the space available. The place I have trouble is when people start attributing 200-300 Vipers per battlestar, for the reasons listed above.

I could conceivably fill any additional space with, say, 10% more Vipers, and a total maximum shuttle count of 20-25/battlestar, but no more -- they're running out of room for spares, fuel and maintenance by then.

Also, note that the 96-100 Vipers/14-25 shuttles might include a specialized sqdrn of EW/Ground Attack/SpecFor craft.

[Dayton3]

Something no one appears to be considering here.

Who says all the Battlestars at Cimtar (whether you believe in 5, 12, or 20) actually had their full complements of fighters?

In my story outline where there were 12 battlestars, two didn't have any fighters. Their commanders had their squadrons stand down for rest and refit during the peace talks. The battlestars themselves being there simply for show.

Also for those mentioning Adamas question and Tighs answer "Have any of the other Battlestars gotten any fighters off? & "No sir"...........one must point out that this is very early in the battle. Chances are that a handfull of fighters were eventually launched by other battlestars.

Finally for those of you who suggest that 140 or so fighters per battlestar would be too many fighters at Cimtar for the Colonial fleet to be overwhelmed by 1,000 Cylon fighters I must point this out.

Assume all 140 Galactica fighters were launched. Assume the remainder of the battlestars combined managed to launch a similar number.

The Colonial forces in fighter strength would've still been outnumber FOUR TO ONE.

This would've meant at least FIVE HUNDRED Cylon fighters would've been able to target the battlestars for at least one pass. Cylon fights can fire about three laser shots per second.

So you would've seen the battlestar fleet taking hits by as many as FIFTEEN HUNDRED laser shots in a single volley?

More than enough to cause massive damage that the fleet never recovered from.

One final thought. Most of our viewing of battles in the series featured elite pilots. Starbuck, Apollo, Boomer, Jolly, Sheba............naturally they would destroy vast numbers of Cylon ships. But the average Galactica pilot might not be so lucky.

In fact, look at the times a Colonial pilot "missed" a Cylon ship.......what was the result?

1) Zac missed one. Ultimately that ship crippled his. Resulting in his eventual death.

2) Sheba missed one in "Living Legend" Resulting in her severe injury.

3) Starbuck missed one in "Fire In Space" Resulting in severe damage to Galactical.

So missing a Cylon ship even once could have severe consequences.

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Dayton3

Also for those mentioning Adamas question and Tighs answer "Have any of the other Battlestars gotten any fighters off? & "No sir"...........one must point out that this is very early in the battle. Chances are that a handfull of fighters were eventually launched by other battlestars.

<snip>

Finally for those of you who suggest that 140 or so fighters per battlestar would be too many fighters at Cimtar for the Colonial fleet to be overwhelmed by 1,000 Cylon fighters I must point this out.

Assume all 140 Galactica fighters were launched. Assume the remainder of the battlestars combined managed to launch a similar number.

The Colonial forces in fighter strength would've still been outnumber FOUR TO ONE.

<snip>

Good points, except for the above.

Over Caprica, we have the Tigh-Omega dialogue behind Rigel, indicating recovery of 42 Vipers that were not from the Galactica; although they could possibly be from planetary defense sqdrns, the implication is clearly that they are from the Fleet at Cimtar.

Also, check your figures: with 10 Battlestars running 140 Vipers each at full strenth, that's 1400 Vipers at Cimtar. Assuming that the other nine battlestars launched no more than half their Vipers, that's still 770 Vipers; even knocking it down to 500, you still have only a 2-to-1 advantage.

On Viper pilot skill, I'm basing their relative skill levels on their numbers in "HoG": if a baseship carries 300 Raiders, and the Gal pilots are outnumbered "2-to-1" (according to Tigh), there are obviously c.150 Vipers on the Gal -- allowing for pickups from planetary sqdrns and Silver Spar, I don't see the Gal losing that many Vipers over the course of Season 1.

[Dayton3]

IIRC, the only episodes where the Galactica lost substantial numbers of Vipers was "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" and "The Living Legend". And of course, assuming that Pegasus was at close to full strength (say 100 Vipers at the beginning of the episode) and only about 25 or so of the Pegasus Vipers destroyed, they alone would restore the Galactica to "near" full strength.

The 67 Vipers recovered immediately after Cimtar were of course the 25 Galactica Vipers and 42 launched from other battlestars. I assume the other battlestars were only able to launch token numbers of fighters each before suffering damage that prevented them from doing so.

Adama told Tigh in the pilot episode "A couple of Cylon bombs in this bay and we wouldn't be able to get a single fighter off".

So one can assume that the landing/launch bays are an early target and the Cylons do make a point of targeting them. This is born out by the fact in that at least 3 episodes the Cylons quickly damage the Galacticas bays.

Given that the Colonials managed to salvage 220 starships from the Colonies capable of carrying large numbers of passengers on an interstellar voyage, it isn't that great a leap to believe that a couple of dozen Vipers from various land bases might've made it to Galactica as well.

[Senmut]

Precisely. Given the Cylon mentality, they went for anything military, and seem to have largely ignored the civilian space docks, and/or scrapyards. Perhaps they planned to make use of some of these, after victory. In any event, it allowed that many civilian craft to survive and escape.