The Twelve Colonies vs The UNSC

[Executor]

If the Colonies of Battlestar Galactica (the new one) were to engage in a war against the United Nations Space Command of Halo fame, who would emerge victorious?

Now, we're talking about the Colonies of the new Galactica, that means they have kinetic energy weapons, nuclear warheads, etc, etc, rather than lasers and such. Also, let us talk about the Colonies at the height of their power rather than their weakened state. They would have at least 120 Battlestars, hundreds more support ships, and thousands of Vipers. A Battlestar, for those who don't know, is a 1.4km long warship that acts as something of a battleship/carrier hybrid. It is armed with 24 kinetic energy gun turrets mounted in pairs, a few hundred point-defense turrets, several nuclear warheads and several squadrons of Viper space superiority fighters.

The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC, for the purposes of this discussion is freed of their war with the Covenant. They have a powerful military with dozens of capital ships and thousands of Marines all over their stretch of the Galaxy. The main armaments are their MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon), a kinetic-energy weapon which fires slugs of tungsten. The top-of-the-line capital ship of the UNSC is the Marathon-class Cruiser. The Marathon is 1.5km in length, armed with a single MAC, multiple missile pods, many 50mm all-purpose guns, and a few squadrons of Longsword fighter-bombers. For purposes of fairness, the Spartan Project never happened as far as this debate is concerned.

So, the scenario? The Colonial Government has sent a task force of some 22 Battlestars to a newly discovered planet only a few thousand years away from Alpha Centauri. The planet is similar in size and atmosphere to Earth and Caprica, so it makes an ideal location for a new Colony world. But, the UNSC has also sent a task force to colonize the planet. The UNSC forces center around a single UNSC-carried, accompanied by 10 Halcyon and Marathon-class Cruisers and 12 UNSC Frigates. Both forces establish rudimentary bases on the planet and come into conflict over resources. Soon the battle rages over land and space.

So, let the debate begin. Who shall come out victorious? The Colonial Fleet or the UNSC?

[Emperor Tippy]

If the Colonies of Battlestar Galactica (the new one) were to engage in a war against the United Nations Space Command of Halo fame, who would emerge victorious?

Now, we're talking about the Colonies of the new Galactica, that means they have kinetic energy weapons, nuclear warheads, etc, etc, rather than lasers and such. Also, let us talk about the Colonies at the height of their power rather than their weakened state. They would have at least 120 Battlestars, hundreds more support ships, and thousands of Vipers. A Battlestar, for those who don't know, is a 1.4km long warship that acts as something of a battleship/carrier hybrid. It is armed with 24 kinetic energy gun turrets mounted in pairs, a few hundred point-defense turrets, several nuclear warheads and several squadrons of Viper space superiority fighters.

The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC, for the purposes of this discussion is freed of their war with the Covenant. They have a powerful military with dozens of capital ships and thousands of Marines all over their stretch of the Galaxy. The main armaments are their MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon), a kinetic-energy weapon which fires slugs of tungsten. The top-of-the-line capital ship of the UNSC is the Marathon-class Cruiser. The Marathon is 1.5km in length, armed with a single MAC, multiple missile pods, many 50mm all-purpose guns, and a few squadrons of Longsword fighter-bombers. For purposes of fairness, the Spartan Project never happened as far as this debate is concerned.
Dozens of capital ships? Try hundreds. Thousands of Marines? Try millions. The defense force at reach when it fell (after 20 some years of fighting a losing war against the covenant) numbered in the hundreds. Earth had a similar defensive fleet. And if you remove 20 years of a losing war then their numbers get even larger.

As for removing the Spartan program? Why? It was created precovenant to deal with rebellions in the outer colonies.

You also fail to account for AI's.


So, the scenario? The Colonial Government has sent a task force of some 22 Battlestars to a newly discovered planet only a few thousand years away from Alpha Centauri. The planet is similar in size and atmosphere to Earth and Caprica, so it makes an ideal location for a new Colony world. But, the UNSC has also sent a task force to colonize the planet. The UNSC forces center around a single UNSC-carried, accompanied by 10 Halcyon and Marathon-class Cruisers and 12 UNSC Frigates. Both forces establish rudimentary bases on the planet and come into conflict over resources. Soon the battle rages over land and space.

So, let the debate begin. Who shall come out victorious? The Colonial Fleet or the UNSC?

So your giving the colonial government 22 capital ships and the UNSC (which has the far larger industrial base) gets a dozen current capital ships, 10 out of date and decommissioned cruisers, and 12 frigates?

The UNSC wins in a land slide. AI controlled guns mean that the Battlestars fighters don't matter. A single MAC round from a frigate is enough to drop the shields on a Covenant ship and should be enough to hole a battlestar.

The UNSC uses remote piloted longswords equipped with nuclear warheads to do suicide runs on enemies vessels when they need to.

[Executor]

Why remove the Spartan Program? Simple, because obviously someone like the Master Chief would carve a bloody swathe through the Colonial Army. No fair, see?

Momentarily forgot about Shipboard AIs. Sorry. Yes, the UNSC mounts Artificial Intelligence Programs on it's capital ships. Like the famous Cortana, these can manage all ship functions from weapons batteries to steering and navigation.

The 10 Cruisers are a mixture of Halcyon-class and Marathon-class ships. Let us say: 8 Marathons and 2 Halcyons.

Total UNSC Forces:
x1 UNSC Carrier
x8 Marathon-class Cruisers
x2 Halcyon-class Cruisers
x12 UNSC Frigates.
Total: 25 Capital Ships

Total Colonial Space Forces:
x22 Mercury-class Battlestars
Total: 22 Capital Ships

A slight numeric advantage in UNSC favour, but Battlestars are very versatile and effecient ships.

[Logic]

IN SPACE
The power of a Battlestar is in it's fighter compliment. Pound for pound, a fighter is going to be the most dangerous foe on the battlefield, and the role of the Battlestar is to deliver them into the midst of a fight.

Notice I didn't say a Viper is going to be the most dangerous foe on the battlefield, I said fighter. Considering that the UNSC will be bringing a mixed fleet, and the 12CoK will only be bringing carriers and their associated fighters, I can't help but give this to the UNSC, due to tactics. I am not even taking into account the technology gap (which undoubtably goes in the favor of UNSC.)

Win goes to: UNSC

ON THE GROUND
Now, let's assume that someone made it planetside. The Pelican is superior to the Raptor, and can field vehicles to support its troops. The raptor can take a measly 4-6 down at once, and the Battlestars don't seem to carry a whole lot of them. When your opponent can put more boots on the ground faster than you, you are at a severe tactical disadvantage.

The arsenal of the 12CoK seems to be lacking some diversity in the firearms department. They have 1, possibly 2 models of rifle, none of which are specialized for sniping, 2 pistol models, one of which can fire "explosive rounds" (A distinct surprise advantage) and a RPG/rocket launcher of some kind. The UNSC has 2 rifles capable of sniping, one of which is devoted to sniping, a powerful magnum sidearm, a submachine gun perfect for cover fire, a powerful shotgun, a useful assault rifle, as well as a rocket launcher of their own. Not to mention vehicles.

Win goes to: UNSC

[Emperor Tippy]

Frigates aren't capital class ships. The only UNSC ships that really earn that designation are carriers and Cruisers. That doesn't mean that a frigate couldn't tear a Battlestar to shreds.

UNSC ODST's will already tear the Colonial ground machine to shreds.

And AI's do far more than just manage ship functions. Say it takes a human 1 minute to decided on a course of action. A ship board smart AI experiences hours of time in that minute. If you were playing chess agaisnt a smart AI the AI could plot out every possible move in the entire game before you mvoe your first piece.

One of the main reasons that the UNSC could stand up to the covenant was their AI's. And the Colonials are facing 25 AI's working together.

[warty goblin]

UNSC would dominate the twelve colonies.
Here's the breakdown as far as I can tell
Space:

The Pillar of Autumn, although being an experimental warship, was capable of at least crippling at least two covenet cap ships before being downed, and even then it had enough structural integrity to survive impact with the ground. In short UNSC ships are seriously tough. The afformentioned 50mm guns should be more than enough to shred fighters. They also clearly are capable of carrying dedicated anti-capital ship armorment that is capable of damaging technologically superior ships.

The BattleStars seem to be highly threatened by nukes (in the mini-series, a single nuke cripples one of the launch pods), thus it is reasonable that two shots from a MAC could basically take out most of the offensive capability of a BattleStar. From the mini-series, the BattleStar's kinetic energy weapons were pretty good at shredding enemy fighters but not much good against an enemy capital ship (when they leave Ragnarok Station). In general BattleStars seem to basically exist to shuttle fighters around and actually use their weapons as an afterthought. Basically, the BattleStars don't seem to have weapons powerful enough to actually do much to a capital ship.The fighters really don't seem to be able to damage a capital ship with decent armor.
Conclusion: UNSC can ignore the Viper fighters and use their dedicated anti-capital ship weapons to destroy the BattleStars without much trouble.

Ground:

The UNSC army is capable of engaging the covenent ground forces on the ground with a hope of winning- despite the covenent's use of energy weapons and defences. Against conventional weapons I'd think they'd be pretty effective. They also have tanks, as well as Warthogs that can be outfitted to engage enemy armor with a rocket launcher. If they have a Halo 1 type pistol, its the colonial forces are doomed, that thing's nearly a sniper rifle.
Plus they have Sgt. Johnson, nuff said.

The twelve colonies have guys with assualt rifles. I assume they have tanks and air support, but we really can't speculate how powerful they are, so let's say that they are as technically as powerful as their UNSC equivilents. But the colonial infantry armor and weapons don't seem as good- as far as I can tell their hand weapons don't even have iron sights. Also, this is probably unfair, but to judge from the show, most of the colonial military is more interested in ripping each others clothes off than fighting- none of their sergeants give speeches about bathing in the blood of their enemy.
Conclusion: Sgt. Johnson leads an ambush, destroying a large number of colonial soldiers who are all having an angst ridden orgy.

With ground and space superiority, the colonial forces don't have a prayer.

[Logic]

I have to counter some of what warty goblin said. The OP said Mercury class battlestars, and that is what the Pegasus was. In the season 3 opener, the Pegasus takes out an opposing Cylon Basestar in a few hits. The Galactica is a 50+ year old model that had to stay out of range of the Basestar's missles.

The Cylon Basestar is presumably newer than 50+ years old, and possibly newer than even the Mercury class Battlestar. That being said, the UNSC will still defeat the 12CoK pretty soundly.

The nuclear missle did not cripple the Galactica, it merely inconvienienced it. If that were a battle ready Battlestar, it would still have been able to launch its fighters, though at half the rate it normally would.

And it would be beyond stupid to not include iron sights on a firearm. It can only be summed up by having a sub-par prop department.

[Neftren]

If the Colonies of Battlestar Galactica (the new one) were to engage in a war against the United Nations Space Command of Halo fame, who would emerge victorious?

Now, we're talking about the Colonies of the new Galactica, that means they have kinetic energy weapons, nuclear warheads, etc, etc, rather than lasers and such. Also, let us talk about the Colonies at the height of their power rather than their weakened state. They would have at least 120 Battlestars, hundreds more support ships, and thousands of Vipers. A Battlestar, for those who don't know, is a 1.4km long warship that acts as something of a battleship/carrier hybrid. It is armed with 24 kinetic energy gun turrets mounted in pairs, a few hundred point-defense turrets, several nuclear warheads and several squadrons of Viper space superiority fighters.

The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC, for the purposes of this discussion is freed of their war with the Covenant. They have a powerful military with dozens of capital ships and thousands of Marines all over their stretch of the Galaxy. The main armaments are their MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon), a kinetic-energy weapon which fires slugs of tungsten. The top-of-the-line capital ship of the UNSC is the Marathon-class Cruiser. The Marathon is 1.5km in length, armed with a single MAC, multiple missile pods, many 50mm all-purpose guns, and a few squadrons of Longsword fighter-bombers. For purposes of fairness, the Spartan Project never happened as far as this debate is concerned.

So, the scenario? The Colonial Government has sent a task force of some 22 Battlestars to a newly discovered planet only a few thousand years away from Alpha Centauri. The planet is similar in size and atmosphere to Earth and Caprica, so it makes an ideal location for a new Colony world. But, the UNSC has also sent a task force to colonize the planet. The UNSC forces center around a single UNSC-carried, accompanied by 10 Halcyon and Marathon-class Cruisers and 12 UNSC Frigates. Both forces establish rudimentary bases on the planet and come into conflict over resources. Soon the battle rages over land and space.

So, let the debate begin. Who shall come out victorious? The Colonial Fleet or the UNSC?


As is mentioned in the books, there are Shiva-Tipped Nuclear Missiles which I believe can be carried by hand but highly unconventional and unwieldy. Also, Longswords carry very high damage output bombs which can incapacitate an entire army in one carpet bomb run. So...


As for Carriers and Cruisers, the Malta was ordered NOT to engage the covenant carrier as is shown in the opening scenes of Halo 2. From all conceptual concepts, the Malta is very similar in type so I will assume it is a later version of the Pillar of Autumn. It's 50mm guns would be enough to shred anything that got close enough to it. The only reason the Covenant is winning on Earth (Subject to Change, they just basically lost the first battle) is because of sheer numbers. While they didn't bring very many troops, to quote the Admiral - "The fleet that attacked Reach was 20 times this size" indicating that the Covenant has massive amounts of personnel floating around, even if High Charity is now Flood Infected.

Basically, if a squadron of Longswords can get close enough, a volley of Nuclear Warheads from Shiva Missiles will incapacitate anything. Remember also that Longswords carry multiple missiles. In short, assuming each one carries 4 missiles (don't remember exact number, but it was between 2-4 I think), and assuming that each of the UNSC ships carries at least 4 longswords: 4x25=100. 100x4= 400 Nuclear Warheads against 22 Ships. That's 20 Nuclear Missiles that are pinpoint accuracy for every ship. Then the rest of the conventional weaponry will shred the other two remaining ships.

[warty goblin]

I have to counter some of what warty goblin said. The OP said Mercury class battlestars, and that is what the Pegasus was. In the season 3 opener, the Pegasus takes out an opposing Cylon Basestar in a few hits. The Galactica is a 50+ year old model that had to stay out of range of the Basestar's missles.

The Cylon Basestar is presumably newer than 50+ years old, and possibly newer than even the Mercury class Battlestar. That being said, the UNSC will still defeat the 12CoK pretty soundly.

The nuclear missle did not cripple the Galactica, it merely inconvienienced it. If that were a battle ready Battlestar, it would still have been able to launch its fighters, though at half the rate it normally would.

And it would be beyond stupid to not include iron sights on a firearm. It can only be summed up by having a sub-par prop department.

Good to know, I never watched BSG past the first season, so I was going on faulty information, my bad.
Though given the ordance they mounted on those fighters, I'm really not sure what they're actually supposed to do to a capital ship anyway- really they're never shown using missiles or anything and those little pop guns they mount can't honestly be expected to damage heavy armor.

[Neftren]

Either way, it won't matter. the UNSC is sitting around with Small Effect, Localized Nuclear Missiles which seem to work very well, even against the technologically superior Covenant.

As for MAC Guns, I don't believe they're capable of moving away from planets. They're mostly constructed as defensive platforms as is shown in the books and is also represented as the Orbital Defense Grid/Network over Earth in Halo 2.

[Baerdog7]

There are the larger MAC guns like the ones stationed on the space platforms around Reach and Earth, but UNSC ships are also equipped with MAC cannons. At least in the books, the MAC cannons were the only weapons the UNSC ships had that could really damage Covenant ships.

I'm going to have to side with the majority on this and vote for the UNSC to win.

[Executor]

Well, I don't think the Colonial Forces are QUITE as helpless as people make them out to be. They have nukes too you know, and though we've never had a concrete statement of their output, i'd say they'd be at least as effective as the Shiva.

The Mercury-class Battlestar is a versatile vessel for taking on most foes. Their 24 KE main guns can either fire exploding shot which can easily shred enemy missiles or fighters or solid shots which take apart basestars relatively easily. Along with all this, it has many hundreds of point-defense turrets that can either intercept missiles or fighters. I also daresay a Battlestar is more manueverable than a Marathon cruiser, as we've seen Battlestars in the reimagined series do manuevers no UNSC cruiser could do.

The Viper mk.VII isn't for attacking enemy cap ships. It'd be use for taking down UNSC Longswords while the main guns on the Battlestars attack the UNSC cruisers.

Overall, i'd say the Colonial Fleet at least stands a chance against the UNSC. In space at least, on the ground they'd probably put up a fight but lose in the end. Also, perhaps we should change the Colonial contingent from 22 Mercury-class to 22 Galactica-class Battlestars, as we know much more about the Galactica's capabilities.

[thorgrim29]

Huh.... Miranda Keye's ship was the "in amber clad", the malta was the fist space station to blow up. As per the books, the Pillar of Autumn, a refitted cruiser, is nigh indestructible due to its multiple honeycombed structure, has an experimental but kickass nuclear reactor that allows it to shoot MAC slugs, albeit smaller ones then normal, at a very respectable rate of fire, it also has around a hundred Archer missile pods (sort of a very big Tomahawk from what I gathered). It also has a very effective AI-controlled point blank anti-fighter defense. Carries at least a dozen squads of longsword fighters, concentrated fire of wich is shown to destroy smaller covenent ships. Plus an army of marines, complete with an armoured brigade, dropships aplenty, and the "helljumper" division. All that on a small ship.The reason they got so mauled in Halo was because most of the marines were in Cryo-sleep when the battle began, and the generator was already damaged, oh and they were going against a whole fleet. Now I cant comment on the 12 colonies, but from what I've seen and read they are screwed.

[Neftren]

First station to blow up was the Athens... I thought? These stations were named after cities from what I know of them. *Cough* Cairo Station *Cough* Time to go and play Halo 2 to check.

Besides, the Pillar of Autumn was NOT that big. Compared to some of the other ships shown in flyby in the first scene... well... and as for a dozen squads of Longswords (4x12=48 Longswords), I don't think it had that many. Probably around 12 or so. One squadron. The rest of the docking space was probably Pelicans to accommodate the army aboard it.

As for being Mauled in Halo 1, they had just made a random jump to the gas giant with Halo "orbiting" it. This was after all the MAC Gun energy Pylons were basically incapacitated.

As for the skill of pilots... the UNSC has REALLY well trained pilots. I kid you not. So if it was UNSC vs. UNSC, it'd be stalemate but the UNSC just kicks butt here.

[Executor]

I also believe that Colonial Battlestars are MUCH more manueverable than UNSC Cruisers. This video here has a shot of the Galactica doing something no Cruiser has ever probably done: Rotating 360 degrees on the spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-hop-X8AUs

I think the best Colonial chance for winning this fight lies with the exquisite Viper mk.VIII. Sure, the UNSC Pelicans may be FAR superior to Raptors, but that's no help when your Pelicans are being picked off by Viper CAPs (Combat Air Patrols). Vipers have also shown far greater manueverability than Longswords. Maybe that's just because BSG has accurate Newtonian physics and Halo doesn't... but whatever.

Anyways, overall the UNSC has a slight advantage, but I still think the Colonial Navy has a fighting chance if they use their superior fighters and capital ship manueverability to an advantage.

[Emperor Tippy]

AI controlled point defense systems. Those vipers aren't a problem.

The UNSC doesn't fight fair at all. Even at 2:1 losses for their Longswords the UNSC doesn't really care. AI piloting means that they can do things no human pilot could ever do and have no qualms about suicide runs. You have whole squadrons of fighters that fight as one.

The biggest advantage that the UNSC has over both the covenant and almost anyone they fight is their far superior AI's. The AI can take the current tactical situation and run through a hundred thousand variations of the battle in under a minute.

[Executor]

Yes, an AI like Cortana can run 100,000 variations of what will happen per minute. But she's still a computer, and no computer ever built has exceeded the ingenuity of the human mind. What if a Viper pilot does something that ISN'T one of those 100,000 possibilities? What if he does something completely unexpected. Anyways, assuming that both forces have no prior knowledge of the enemy's capabilities, there are plenty of things a Viper pilot could do that would just blow an AI away. This Youtube video shows some of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUfC-K6iNRg&mode=related&search=

[Emperor Tippy]

No. Anything unexpected can be compensated for on the fly. 1 second to a human is an hour to an AI. As for the unexpected, AI's are sentient beings. And they happen to have the records of every space battle ever fought by any UNSC ship.

AI's aren't just computer programs.

[Executor]

Ahh, I am still a proponent of the superiority of the human mind over any computer program, sentient or no.

Though I do agree with the general gist that the UNSC is militarily superior to the Colonial Fleet, I will play Devil's Advocate and say that the Colonials stand a fighting chance.

I also believe the main gun batteries of the Battlestars are most useful than a MAC. The MAC would be more powerful, yes, but the main guns are more of a... swiss army knife. They can shoot solid slugs which take out basestars handily, or they can fire shells which burst in mid-space, spraying lethal shraphnel and shredding fighters and bombers. The suppression fire would generally be used to keep enemy fighters at bay, allowing Vipers to launch, while solid shot which take down cruisers.

Vipers, I think, will be a surprise for the AIs. A BIG surprise. Not only are they speedy, well-armed, hard-to-hit little bastards, they have amazing manueverability. They can turn a full 180 degrees and then get going again in just a few seconds, as well as being able to rotate 360 degrees in any direction, while still moving forward. A Viper does things I don't think the AIs would even dream of, if computers indeed have dreams.

Anyways, again I say they have a Fighting Chance.

[warty goblin]

Yes, an AI like Cortana can run 100,000 variations of what will happen per minute. But she's still a computer, and no computer ever built has exceeded the ingenuity of the human mind. What if a Viper pilot does something that ISN'T one of those 100,000 possibilities? What if he does something completely unexpected. Anyways, assuming that both forces have no prior knowledge of the enemy's capabilities, there are plenty of things a Viper pilot could do that would just blow an AI away. This Youtube video shows some of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUfC-K6iNRg&mode=related&search=

I kinda thought the whole point of BSG is that the AI was doing things that now human mind could concieve of :smallwink:

And even if the vipers can outfly the UNSC fighters, I still don't see what they can actually do to a ship as tough as something like the Pillar of Autumn- the vipers mount what- 50 cal. or 100 cal. machine guns or thereabouts (going from the ammo that they show being loaded into the converted cylon fighter in Season 1)? That's gonna bounce off of a cap ship like rain off of tank armor. Even the nukes don't seem like they'd do much, UNSC cruisers can take hits from covenent plasma torpedoes, which are stated as being much more deadly than a nuke, and keep fighting.

[Emperor Tippy]

Ahh, I am still a proponent of the superiority of the human mind over any computer program, sentient or no.
...
Why?

Cortana managed to take control of a covenant flagship, learn all of its capabilities, and improve on them in under a day. She improved covenant tech beyond what the covenant could do. And her first exposure to said tech was the same day.

Human minds are superior in some fields but in all fields relevant to warfare the AI wins. The AI controlled ships are better coordinated, can react faster than a human, have what amounts to a hive mind, can disregard their own safety easily if it accomplishes the mission, and can plan farther ahead than a human mind can hope to.

No human controlled weapon will ever defeat an enemy with the same weapon but AI controlled.


Though I do agree with the general gist that the UNSC is militarily superior to the Colonial Fleet, I will play Devil's Advocate and say that the Colonials stand a fighting chance.

I also believe the main gun batteries of the Battlestars are most useful than a MAC. The MAC would be more powerful, yes, but the main guns are more of a... swiss army knife. They can shoot solid slugs which take out basestars handily, or they can fire shells which burst in mid-space, spraying lethal shraphnel and shredding fighters and bombers. The suppression fire would generally be used to keep enemy fighters at bay, allowing Vipers to launch, while solid shot which take down cruisers.
Why do you expect the UNSC to launch fighters? The suppression fire is irrelevant to a capital ship and the UNSC doesn't really care about fighters.


Vipers, I think, will be a surprise for the AIs. A BIG surprise. Not only are they speedy, well-armed, hard-to-hit little bastards, they have amazing manueverability. They can turn a full 180 degrees and then get going again in just a few seconds, as well as being able to rotate 360 degrees in any direction, while still moving forward. A Viper does things I don't think the AIs would even dream of, if computers indeed have dreams.

Anyways, again I say they have a Fighting Chance.

The thing is even if vipers are a BIG surprise, it won't last. Speed, Maneuverability, Firepower, average pilot ability, communications, detection gear. The Vipers use any of it once and the AI figures out a counter before it can be used again.

A longsword is chasing a viper, the viper does the 180 degree turn and fires at the longsword, taking it out. The AI compensates and the trick won't work again.

And remember, the UNSC uses missiles on its fighters. Not the damn bullets like the Vipers.


AI controlled arms are so far superior to human controlled arms that it isn't even funny.


EDIT: The Cylons wouldn't even qualify as dumb AI's by the UNSC's standards.

[Executor]

The Vipers have external hardpoints for bombs, missiles, munitions pods, you name it. But generally they use their KEW guns instead. Anyways, Viper pilots can do some nifty things with those KEWS, especially when their ship can flip around in 0.35 seconds. Those things are like jackrabbits the way they leap about. And that's only the Mk. II, the new Mk. VII's can presumably do even greater manuevers at higher speeds. Anyways, Cylon Raiders are primarily missile armamed as well, and the Vipers get the better of them all the time.

Perhaps since the UNSC is individually stronger than the Colonial Fleet, we should give the Colonies a numerical advantage in this scenario to compensate.

[Jeggred Von]

I feel like a first gen geek listening to a deja vu arguement between you young wippergeekers over who shot first, Han or Greedo.

*shakes head*

[MeklorIlavator]

Perhaps since the UNSC is individually stronger than the Colonial Fleet, we should give the Colonies a numerical advantage in this scenario to compensate.
Except, of course, the UNSC is more numerous(they had a couple rings of colonies pre-covenant).

[LordVader]

It was Greedo, though. If you play it frame-by-frame, you can clearly see it was him.

Of course, that would've been before frame-by-frame playback.

And the idea is to not make the playing field equal, because then it comes down to the commanders, and obviously we can't simulate that.

[Emperor Tippy]

The Vipers have external hardpoints for bombs, missiles, munitions pods, you name it. But generally they use their KEW guns instead. Anyways, Viper pilots can do some nifty things with those KEWS, especially when their ship can flip around in 0.35 seconds. Those things are like jackrabbits the way they leap about. And that's only the Mk. II, the new Mk. VII's can presumably do even greater manuevers at higher speeds. Anyways, Cylon Raiders are primarily missile armamed as well, and the Vipers get the better of them all the time.
.35 seconds to flip. That is a long, long time when dealing with an AI. And there is only so fast a viper can turn before the pilot blacks out. AI controlled fighters never have that problem.


Perhaps since the UNSC is individually stronger than the Colonial Fleet, we should give the Colonies a numerical advantage in this scenario to compensate.

Fine with me. Double the number of Colonials? The UNSC forces engage at extreme ranges with projectiles traveling at .1+ c and weighing several hundred pounds. A single hit will take out a Battlestar. And with AI's controlling them they don't miss.

Vipers are defeated by the point defense systems.

The thing is the colonials just don't have time. UNSC ships are controlled by AI's that process data so much faster and work together so much better than humans can that they pretty much can't lose.

And if the Colonials network their computers (which they did on every ship except galactica before the Cylons attacked) then they lose. Cortana would make the Cylons look like script kiddies.

The Colonials already will have no communications. They can't hope to get through UNSC jamming. Every message will be intercepted and decoded. And The AI's can even fake messages.

[Executor]

There's no gravity in space. Therefore no Gs when a pilot is doing extreme manuevres. Theoretically, a pilot's combat manuevres are only limited by his imagination. Of course, in reality things like reflexes and speed of thought would make all the difference.

Also remember that not all AIs were created equal. Oh sure, Cortana is exceptional, but I doubt EVERY AI is on Cortana's level. And there are such things are circular error probables, so yes, even an AI-aimed MAC round could indeed miss. A bit of junk in space could throw off the trajectory of your MAC slug. The fact that space is a void makes everything different. Hell, in real life they have to extremely careful just manuevering the Space Shuttle because a bit of debris flying through space could mess up the whole thing. The extreme manueverability of Colonial forces, even their battlestars, makes them hard targets. Besides, the MAC takes a while to reload as I understand it. And whereas each cruiser has one MAC, each battlestar gets several main guns, I think 24-26. And they fire a lot faster than the MAC on a cruiser.

Colonial Advantages thus far:
-Rate of Fire
-Capital Ship Manueverability
-Fighter Superiority (I think)

UNSC Advantages thus far:
-Higher powered capital ship main guns
-AIs
-Capital Ship Survivability

[MeklorIlavator]

There's no gravity in space. Therefore no Gs when a pilot is doing extreme manuevres. Theoretically, a pilot's combat manuevres are only limited by his imagination. Of course, in reality things like reflexes and speed of thought would make all the difference.

Actually, there is always gravity. In space it's usually pretty weak, but the real problem in maneuvers is inertia. And that is present as long as matter exists, so I would say it might factor in.



Also remember that not all AIs were created equal. Oh sure, Cortana is exceptional, but I doubt EVERY AI is on Cortana's level. And there are such things are circular error probables, so yes, even an AI-aimed MAC round could indeed miss.
They may miss ocasionally, but they would hit much more often. Its like saying that the GPS systems in the competition's car's have margins error, when when your's only have ABC maps. Also, are we sure that top UNSC ships only have 1 MAC? I thought that some of the Larger Ships had 2?



A bit of junk in space could throw off the trajectory of your MAC slug. The fact that space is a void makes everything different. Hell, in real life they have to extremely careful just manuevering the Space Shuttle because a bit of debris flying through space could mess up the whole thing. The extreme manueverability of Colonial forces, even their battlestars, makes them hard targets. Besides, the MAC takes a while to reload as I understand it. And whereas each cruiser has one MAC, each battlestar gets several main guns, I think 24-26. And they fire a lot faster than the MAC on a cruiser.
One reason that space debris are dangerous to astronauts is the fact that we've pretty much been trashing the space around our planet for a couple of decades now, so out in deep space(or in a less trashed area) the chances of this would be incredibly low. Also, the MAC rounds are moving so fast that it would have to be a pretty massive object to divert it. Maybe something around the size of a Battlestar...

[Emperor Tippy]

There's no gravity in space. Therefore no Gs when a pilot is doing extreme manuevres. Theoretically, a pilot's combat manuevres are only limited by his imagination. Of course, in reality things like reflexes and speed of thought would make all the difference.
Gravity doesn't matter, its the inertia. Say your goign straight at 200 mph. Your ship makes a 90 degree turn. Your body keeps going forward. AI's dont have that problem.


Also remember that not all AIs were created equal. Oh sure, Cortana is exceptional, but I doubt EVERY AI is on Cortana's level. And there are such things are circular error probables, so yes, even an AI-aimed MAC round could indeed miss. A bit of junk in space could throw off the trajectory of your MAC slug. The fact that space is a void makes everything different.
Every smart AI is on the level of Cortona in ship to ship combat. She is better at codebreaking but otherwise she is jsut another smart AI. Space junk? It won't do a thing, the MAC round will vaporize it and not even notice.


Hell, in real life they have to extremely careful just manuevering the Space Shuttle because a bit of debris flying through space could mess up the whole thing.
Yes, and space ships aren't anything like what we are talking about here.


The extreme manueverability of Colonial forces, even their battlestars, makes them hard targets. Besides, the MAC takes a while to reload as I understand it. And whereas each cruiser has one MAC, each battlestar gets several main guns, I think 24-26. And they fire a lot faster than the MAC on a cruiser.
UNSC cruisers have dodged plasma lances from Covenant flagships. I don't know where you are getting the idea that they aren't maneuverable because it's just not true. The UNSC MAC guns firer better than 1 round per minute, and 1 round will knock out any Colonial ship.


Colonial Advantages thus far:
-Rate of Fire
-Capital Ship Manueverability
-Fighter Superiority (I think)
1. Agreed
2. Unproven
3. Disagree


UNSC Advantages thus far:
-Higher powered capital ship main guns
-AIs
-Capital Ship Survivability
Add point defense systems, ground forces, electronic warfare, experience, commander capability, sensors, networked computers, and a dozen other things.

[13_CBS]

I don't quite remember the HAlo fluff, but remind me: if UNSC ships are so good (with AI and all), why does the navy keep getting they asses handed to them by the Cov? Is it simply because the Cov ships have shields?

[MeklorIlavator]

I don't quite remember the HAlo fluff, but remind me: if UNSC ships are so good (with AI and all), why does the navy keep getting they asses handed to them by the Cov? Is it simply because the Cov ships have shields?

Plus Plasma Weapons are more powerful and supposedly have some sort of homing system. Plus, the Cov outnumber the UNSC by a large amount.

[Emperor Tippy]

I don't quite remember the HAlo fluff, but remind me: if UNSC ships are so good (with AI and all), why does the navy keep getting they asses handed to them by the Cov? Is it simply because the Cov ships have shields?

Massive technical superiority in their ships. The covenant vessels are faster, can jump out of slipstream closer to planets (and even in atmosphere). Their plasma weapons are guided and a single hit can gut most vessels. Covenant shields can take outrageous amounts of damage and even after you punch through the shields you have to deal with the armored hull.

The Covenant also has an extreme numbers advantage.

It's said in one of the books that the only real reason that the UNSC is holding on and has been able to last 25 years is because of their AI's and computer systems.

[warty goblin]

Because the covenent have even better ships with energy shields and weapons capable of glassing a planet.

[Somebloke]

I have to make a few points on behalf of the Colonies.

Firstly, the Battlestar of the series' title is a terrible example of what the Twelve Colonies could acheive. Firstly, it is an antique (even described as such in the opening scene- for heaven's sake, it's launching bay was a gift shop). Secondly, it was undermanned and with limited ammunition. Thirdly, it was responsible for the defeat of an entire fleet.

What we have seen of the Pegusus shows that a modern Battlestar is equipped with ship-destroying main guns, multiple nukes, and the capacity to launch stealth-capable (potentially- I mean, they whipped one out of spare parts at one point. For fun) Vipers capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads simultaneously. Said Vipers were also capable of shredding a Cylon Ressurection ship with small-arms fire alone- and these were antiques again. Certainly the Pegusus has engaged Cylon forces many times it's own size and come out the winner.

Secondly, Colony computer technology was advanced enough to create the cylons decades ago- while the Colony Battlestars may not have emotional AIs on board they have enough power in their software to shoot nukes out of the air and calculate pinpoint Jumps within minutes.

Which brings me to the third point- Battlestars, and even smaller vessels, are capable of FTL Jumps on par with Covenant slipspace jumps. The Galactica has repeatedly used this to stage nasty hit-and-run routines against Cylon forces- they would certainly have a maneuvorability edge against the UNSC.

Finally, apart from a small squad of marines originally sent to guard a ship no-one though would ever fight again, we really have not seen what the Colony marine/armed forces are capable of when they really, really want something.

The Colonies would at least have a fighting chance, if they used caution and relied on hit-and-run tactics.

[Emperor Tippy]

I have to make a few points on behalf of the Colonies.

Firstly, the Battlestar of the series' title is a terrible example of what the Twelve Colonies could acheive. Firstly, it is an antique (even described as such in the opening scene- for heaven's sake, it's launching bay was a gift shop). Secondly, it was undermanned and with limited ammunition. Thirdly, it was responsible for the defeat of an entire fleet.

What we have seen of the Pegusus shows that a modern Battlestar is equipped with ship-destroying main guns, multiple nukes, and the capacity to launch stealth-capable (potentially- I mean, they whipped one out of spare parts at one point. For fun) Vipers capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads simultaneously. Said Vipers were also capable of shredding a Cylon Ressurection ship with small-arms fire alone- and these were antiques again. Certainly the Pegusus has engaged Cylon forces many times it's own size and come out the winner.
I'm fine with giving the colonies all Pegasus battlestar's. The stealth fighter wasn't intentionally stealth ed, that was a side effect of the materials they had on hand to make it. Cylon Resurrection ships are so poorly made it's not even funny. You would never find a UNSC ship that badly designed.


Secondly, Colony computer technology was advanced enough to create the cylons decades ago- while the Colony Battlestars may not have emotional AIs on board they have enough power in their software to shoot nukes out of the air and calculate pinpoint Jumps within minutes.
So? The UNSC has has colonies all over the galaxy for hundreds of years. Their AI's are so far ahead of the colonial computer systems that its not even funny. Your desktop has enough processing power to shoot a nuke out of the air, it's not difficult from a computer stand point.


Which brings me to the third point- Battlestars, and even smaller vessels, are capable of FTL Jumps on par with Covenant slipspace jumps. The Galactica has repeatedly used this to stage nasty hit-and-run routines against Cylon forces- they would certainly have a maneuvorability edge against the UNSC.
On par with covenant slipspace? Please. They jump like 10 light years at a go and it takes somethign like 30 miniutes to calculate each jump. Even the UNSC slipspace drives are better than that.


Finally, apart from a small squad of marines originally sent to guard a ship no-one though would ever fight again, we really have not seen what the Colony marine/armed forces are capable of when they really, really want something.

The Colonies would at least have a fighting chance, if they used caution and relied on hit-and-run tactics.
Not really. They will never hit a UNSC ship with any weapon because of the UNSC point defense weapons. Vipers are a non issue. Hell, the UNSC ships could ignore the vipers and just let them plink away at their armor. 2 feet thick titanium A armor covering the whole ship. Vipers might chip the paint.

Jumps take to long for the Colonials to calculate to be of any real use in a tactical sense and are to short range to be of strategic use.

The main guns of a battlestar might work but what's their range and rate of fire?

Nuke's are good but they won't penetrate the point defense grid.

[Somebloke]

My understanding of UNSC jump tech is that they cannot make precise jumps- only rough jumps that often miss by a wide margin. Correct me if I am wrong and someone's been lying their little head off on Wikipedia. And Colony ships only need a few minutes to make jump calculations when they are under pressure- even quicker if they have pre-prepared.

As for the computing power, the point made earlier was that the AIs indicate faster response times and powerful computing power. The only really difference between UNSC ships and Battlestars is that they could make their ships self-aware, but choose not to because of what happened to the cylons. They have comparable computing power, and while their response time is slower, once a human decides on a course of action the computers can handle the situation just fine. Let me put it to you this way- other than the AIs (which the colonies also created and then moved on from) how can you claim UNSC computing power is superior?

And my point about the stealth fighter is that any civilisation that have a handful of mechanics knock one up in their spare time could quite easily produce a lot more.

And I really promised myself I would never find myself doing this sort of thing on a Saturday night...sigh.

[Logic]

Not really. They will never hit a UNSC ship with any weapon because of the UNSC point defense weapons. Vipers are a non issue. Hell, the UNSC ships could ignore the vipers and just let them plink away at their armor. 2 feet thick titanium A armor covering the whole ship. Vipers might chip the paint.
I have to disagree with this. They would not only chip the paint, but also put little bullet sized divots in the armor. Which would not change the protection value of the armor, so the point that the Vipers could be ignored is still a valid one.

[Emperor Tippy]

My understanding of UNSC jump tech is that they cannot make precise jumps- only rough jumps that often miss by a wide margin. Correct me if I am wrong and someone's been lying their little head off on Wikipedia. And Colony ships only need a few minutes to make jump calculations when they are under pressure- even quicker if they have pre-prepared.
The UNSC? No. You said the covenant in your last post. The UNSC jump tech is faster than the Colonial jump tech in strategic speed but isn't useful in a tactical sense (jumping around the same system). Covenant tech is faster in both a strategic and tactical sense. As for making the calculations, that doesn't take the UNSC any time at all. It does take time for the colonials (3 miniutes with networked computers, correct?). And if the colonials network their computers the UNSC AI's take them over.


As for the computing power, the point made earlier was that the AIs indicate faster response times and powerful computing power. The only really difference between UNSC ships and Battlestars is that they could make their ships self-aware, but choose not to because of what happened to the cylons. They have comparable computing power, and while their response time is slower, once a human decides on a course of action the computers can handle the situation just fine. Let me put it to you this way- other than the AIs (which the colonies also created and then moved on from) how can you claim UNSC computing power is superior?
AI's give a faster response time because they can make intelligent decisions. And the Cylons are nothing compared to a smart AI in intelligence or ability.

Name all of the instances where computers are used in Battlestar Galatica in any tactical or strategic sense.


And my point about the stealth fighter is that any civilisation that have a handful of mechanics knock one up in their spare time could quite easily produce a lot more.
So? The UNSC has a stealth cruiser. And a ton of regular stealth vessels.

[Neftren]

They've even got Spartan Mark IIIs with STEALTH SUITS!

[Foeofthelance]

Actually, I'm going to have to give Space to the Colonials. Battlestars serve as a dual purpose Battleship/Carrier role, and are armed a bit better. From the OP, emphasis mine:


The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC, for the purposes of this discussion is freed of their war with the Covenant. They have a powerful military with dozens of capital ships and thousands of Marines all over their stretch of the Galaxy. The main armaments are their MACs (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon), a kinetic-energy weapon which fires slugs of tungsten. The top-of-the-line capital ship of the UNSC is the Marathon-class Cruiser. The Marathon is 1.5km in length, armed with a single MAC, multiple missile pods, many 50mm all-purpose guns, and a few squadrons of Longsword fighter-bombers. For purposes of fairness, the Spartan Project never happened as far as this debate is concerned.

Admittedly, I'm very vague on Halo, but most navies work their tactics based on their main weapons. The USNC is using a kinetic energy, line of sight gun, backed up by missiles. The flaw there is, of course, unlike an energy/speed of light weapon the otherside can dodge relative to the round.

The Battlestars are basically broadside oriented. Their main style of fire is to simply overwhelm the enemy with a combination of KEW/missiles, and are built to take the same.

Assuming the ships have equal manouverability, the Battlestars win. Space is big, and the ships are moving while the rounds are firing. But where as the USNC ships have to pick one possibility to fire at, the Battlestars can spam the area around where the USNC ships will be as well as where they are, making the likelyhood of a hit much greater. Worse, they can deploy Vipers which are just as manouverable, if not more so, then their missiles. So either the USNC deploys their fighters, which most likely would get mopped up, or they watch as their antimissile systems go nuts trying to sort threats out from Vipers that are simply playing chicken. Either way, the Battlestars have managed to flood the flight zone with contacts, which they are designed to do. The Vipers and Raptors would probably also make mincemeat out of the smaller USNC support ships, as they aren't as likely to be well armored.

One final point: When the Pegasus was destroyed, her crew was abandoning ship, letting the A.I. deal with three (two? Was the other one destroyed already?) Baseships, and it still managed to put up enough fight to not only let the Galactica get away, despite being nearly crippled as well, but it managed to take one of the Basestars with it.

Halo takes the ground combat, unquestioned. Seriously, guys in vests versus combat armor? No contest, none taken, none given. But then looked at it, it makes sense for BSG to take space and Halo to take the ground. BSG is space opera, so the ships are meant to handle it. Halo is FPS, and so that's where its strength lies.

And God pity the poor Covenant and Cylons when both sides realize they've been duped into fighting each other, and decided to deal with the real threats...

[Emperor Tippy]

Actually, I'm going to have to give Space to the Colonials. Battlestars serve as a dual purpose Battleship/Carrier role, and are armed a bit better. From the OP, emphasis mine:



Admittedly, I'm very vague on Halo, but most navies work their tactics based on their main weapons. The USNC is using a kinetic energy, line of sight gun, backed up by missiles. The flaw there is, of course, unlike an energy/speed of light weapon the otherside can dodge relative to the round.
You do realize just how fast that MAC round is going, right? One fired from the earth at the moon would take around 10 seconds to hit. From launch to impact at regular combat distances is less than second. And it will already be a tenth of the way to the battlestar before it is detected. A single one will destroy a Battlestar without a problem.


The Battlestars are basically broadside oriented. Their main style of fire is to simply overwhelm the enemy with a combination of KEW/missiles, and are built to take the same.
A battlestar can take a over a hundred megatons of energy spread out over roughly a foot?


Assuming the ships have equal manouverability, the Battlestars win. Space is big, and the ships are moving while the rounds are firing. But where as the USNC ships have to pick one possibility to fire at, the Battlestars can spam the area around where the USNC ships will be as well as where they are, making the likelyhood of a hit much greater. Worse, they can deploy Vipers which are just as manouverable, if not more so, then their missiles. So either the USNC deploys their fighters, which most likely would get mopped up, or they watch as their antimissile systems go nuts trying to sort threats out from Vipers that are simply playing chicken. Either way, the Battlestars have managed to flood the flight zone with contacts, which they are designed to do. The Vipers and Raptors would probably also make mincemeat out of the smaller USNC support ships, as they aren't as likely to be well armored.
Yet again you just don't seem to get this. Vipers and Raptors do not matter at all. They are physically incapable of damaging any UNSC capital ship. And they will not make it past the Point Defense Systems on any of those capital ships to even get a chance at trying.

There is no reason to believe that Battlestars are more maneuverable than UNSC ships either.

A battlestar has what, a hundred fighters, tops? Let's give each one 2 missiles. How long from launch to impact on those missiles? 5 seconds seems fair. They would be destroyed before they hit the ship. Hundreds of thousands of rounds per second from each point defense gun. Every round aimed by an AI controlled gun. The missiles would be torn to shreds.

And every UNSC ship has it's 2 feet of Titanium A, even frigates.

Now the UNSC launches their 600 Longsword fighter's. All operate with a hive mind, all are piloted with better reflexes than a human can ever have, all work together perfectly, everyone is totally ruthless. The colonial fighters would be torn to shreds. AI control beats human control every time.


One final point: When the Pegasus was destroyed, her crew was abandoning ship, letting the A.I. deal with three (two? Was the other one destroyed already?) Baseships, and it still managed to put up enough fight to not only let the Galactica get away, despite being nearly crippled as well, but it managed to take one of the Basestars with it.
What AI? Just because it has a computer system doesn't imply it has anything like an AI.


Halo takes the ground combat, unquestioned. Seriously, guys in vests versus combat armor? No contest, none taken, none given. But then looked at it, it makes sense for BSG to take space and Halo to take the ground. BSG is space opera, so the ships are meant to handle it. Halo is FPS, and so that's where its strength lies.
Um, no. Halo takes the space combat just as easily as it takes the ground combat.

The following are all of the things that the Colonials have to find a way to defeat before they can even hope to take on the UNSC:
1. UNSC jamming which makes it impossible for the colonials to find the UNSC ships.
2. UNSC hacking (they make the Cylons look like babies in this regard)
3. No communications (all jammed), meaning that the colonial ships cant' coordinate
4. The UNSC ships point defense grid.
5. Dodging rounds traveling at .1 c when you can't detect them coming (because of the jamming)
6. The coordination of the UNSC fleet (they act as 1).
7. 600 (minimum) LongSword fighters that fight as a hive mind.
8. 2,000 antiship missiles coming at your fleet (minimum).


The colonial military and the Cylons seriously suck in terms of power.


And God pity the poor Covenant and Cylons when both sides realize they've been duped into fighting each other, and decided to deal with the real threats...
What? The covenant defeats the Cylons in a week. Crushes the Twelve Colonies in a day. And then comes on to fight the UNSC again.

The UNSC is bad ass in space. They fight smart and have the advantage in all areas that matter: communications, coordination, response time, armor, firepower, planning, strategy, ECM, ECCM.

The Colonials will be fighting blind and deaf.

[Mr._Blinky]

The Vipers and Raptors would probably also make mincemeat out of the smaller USNC support ships, as they aren't as likely to be well armored.
Yeah, "not as well armored" being a relative term. In the same way "your rounds are useless" is relative to "your rounds might dink the hull a bit". Seriously, unless a Colonial pilot suddenly managed to miraculously pull an Anikin Skywalker *shudder* and fly into the launch bay of the UNSC ship, they can't do anything and will just be ignored. And if they were to do that, then the moment they crash land, the marines won't act all surprised and stand around pointing. The pilot will immediately get about ten rockets to the face. And even if by support ship you mean the Longswords, each of those packs armor far, far, far superior to anything on the vipers. They're real space superiority fighters, meaning multi-man crews with massive amounts of torpedoes and missiles meant for extremely long range engagement, and that's assuming that the AIs don't just take control.

Also, I feel I should note that Cortana wasn't even designed for warfare. She's a hacking program. If the UNSC used an actual tactical AI, well...

[Foeofthelance]

First, one major point. The BSG computer have never been detailed in depth, as there has never been a reason to. So saying, "Well, Halo computers can do this, so they are obviously superior!" is as bad as the Star Wars "We have Jedi!" arguement. The BSG computers are being given short shrift, despite what they have to do in series, even if it is never mentioned. Think about it. They can plot jumps based off of thousand year old data in mere minutes, and are designed to deal with a military threat, which is, essentially, a bunch of sentient computers. There is absolutely no reason to believe that they are in anyway inferior. After all, they've done a rather good job of ensuring the survival of an antique (and are probably antiques themselves) against a modern opponent, one facing slightly, ok, blatantly, terrible odds.


You do realize just how fast that MAC round is going, right? One fired from the earth at the moon would take around 10 seconds to hit. From launch to impact at regular combat distances is less than second. And it will already be a tenth of the way to the battlestar before it is detected. A single one will destroy a Battlestar without a problem.

Center to center, the moon is 384,403 km away from the Earth. Surface to surface is less. In space combat, that's essentially knife fighting range. For a bombardment platform like a Mercury class, several million kilometers is probably close range. This is why missiles are used folks. Easier to get them to keep accelerating once they're out the tubes.


A battlestar can take a over a hundred megatons of energy spread out over roughly a foot?

Admittedly, probably not, if it's center of mass, but they still have to hit that foot. Space is not flat. Think of it this way, there are five base directions in space combat, Up, Down, Left, Right, and Center. On a moving ship, a MAC gun would have to pick one of those five to target, and hope the target is obliging enough to co-operate. A battlestar, on the other hand, is designed to simply go after all those points at once with a combination of nukes (AoE) and KEWs. That's the advantage the battlestars have. They don't care if 4/5 of their shots miss, as they've probably hit with the fifth.


Yet again you just don't seem to get this. Vipers and Raptors do not matter at all. They are physically incapable of damaging any UNSC capital ship. And they will not make it past the Point Defense Systems on any of those capital ships to even get a chance at trying.

And you missed my point entirely. They don't even need to fire at the USNC ships to be effective, they just need to spend time being ballistic. An antimissile system is going to consider objects on three levels: Incoming, which is a threat; Parallel, which is a possible threat; and Outgoing, which is not a threat.

All the Vipers have to do is play tag with the battlestar's missiles, and the antimissile system will read them as threats, and will try for them in the same. They brake, turn, and head back, causing the system to lose them as a non-threat. Each viper targeted is another missile not targeted. If they do this close enough, the system will probably become horribly cofused, as contacts begin just appearing. Will the Vipers take loses? Definitely. Not all their pilots are named Starbuck after all. But would it still be an effective tactic? Definitely.

As for jamming, how do we even know that it would work? Jamming is based on blocking isolated frequencies. Battlestars use dradar as their main contact point. How similiar to lidar or radar this is unknown. But since typical radar jamming techniques don't work on lidar, as far as I know, what makes people so sure what ever the USNC is using as a jammer would affect dradar?

Different series have different capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. But trying to claim that one explored aspect is inherently stronger than an unexplored one is flawed. The possibility is to go either way, therefore it should be decided in neither, unless there is cause. For example, I would feel confident in saying that a Mercury class probably has stronger antimissile capabilites, both in number of armament and fire control, than a USNC cruiser. Why? Because a Mercury is meant to engage in battles with ships designed to flood space with fire, whereas the USNC ships are designed more for point effect weapons, and are therefore less worried about missile swarms.

[Mr._Blinky]

Yeah, but essentially the fight is, in human terms, like this:

Me, with a grenade, attacking a guy five hundred feet away. Said other guy happens to be using a .50 cal sniper rifle, and is the best marksman on the planet.

Also, I'm wearing a red shirt.

And I'm moving in slow motion.

The AIs aren't going to miss, even at extreme range. The reason we know that the computers in Galactica can't handle the same things is that despite their better anti-missile defenses (I will concede that this is probably true), missiles, nukes, and relatively slow-moving Cylon heavy raiders have been known to frequently get through. If they had a UNSC level smart tactical AI, those missiles would be taken down a second or so after they left the tubes. The minds of an AI move hundreds of thousands of times faster than a humans, so they have what amounts to hundreds of thousands of times as long to fine tune their aim. The computers on the Galactica and Pegasus are powerful computing machines, but they are far from intelligent, and pale in comparison to UNSC AIs.

As for the Vipers confusing the missiles, they really wouldn't. I'm pretty sure that an AI is smart enough to puzzle out which incoming are a threat and which aren't, and readjust aim accordingly. You just aren't going to fool it.

As for engagement range, it's clearly much shorter than you think. In the show, both the Pegasus and Galactica are both repeatedly shown closing to what in space terms is more of a hugging distance. Seriously, that's why the Vipers actually attack the enemy ships, because they're withing range to do so. If they were millions of kilometers apart, the fighters would be useless. Also, since the ships can actually see each other, it is clearly only a few kilometers distant. Visual range isn't really that long. If they could engage each other at longer ranges, they would in order to avoid Raiders, so we have to assume that they can't.

[Quezovercoatl]

Your claim of millions of kilometres would make more sense if this (http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8428/pdvd382jb3.png) was not a more accurate example of ship to ship combat in nBSG. What is worse than ships fighting at eight kilometres is that those shells are taking four seconds to cross that distance.
The UNSC has the advantage in accuracy and range, being able to hit something smaller than a battlestar at thirty thousand kilometres and being able to detect it at eighty million kilometres (note the ship is then mentioned as taking an hour to reach without slipstream, which would mean UNSC ship can travel at over twenty thousand kilometres per second.)
The firepower of the small MAC guns (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon gun?) on frigates and destroyers is some what uncertain and appear to be somewhere between low double digit megaton and high triple digit gigaton, even at a minimum that is going to be concentrated in to a very small portion of the battlestar’s hull. Compare with Cylon nukes that are small enough that they can be faked with a fifty kiloton detonation. A shot from a frigate would at the least rip of one of the Pegasus’s flight pods.
In a cinematic for Halo 2 you can see the inter-atmospheric agility and acceleration of a frigate, it is better than what I have seen for battlestars. In The Fall Of Reach both destroyers and cruisers use their emergency chemical rockets to avoid covenant weapons, in one case dodging a freaking laser.

So sing it with me: "When a fight is just plain wrong, we all sing the Curbstomp Song." (http://www.samuraipenguinstudios.com/node/24)

[Destro_Yersul]

And you missed my point entirely. They don't even need to fire at the USNC ships to be effective, they just need to spend time being ballistic. An antimissile system is going to consider objects on three levels: Incoming, which is a threat; Parallel, which is a possible threat; and Outgoing, which is not a threat.

Actually, the UNSC doesn't use antimissile systems. They have 50mm point defence autocannons slaved the the ship's AI. The AI looks at the FOF tags of everything moving. If said tag doesn't match a UNSC code, or doesn't exist, said moving object will be introduced to lots and lots of automatic weapon fire.

MAC rounds move 40% the speed of light. That's stupidly fast. Firing solutions take seconds to calculate when done by an AI. An AI that just factored in maneuverability, trajectory and velocity to its calculations. That MAC round is not likely to miss.

UNSC capital ship armour is 2 meters of titanium-A. Have fun trying to get through that.

On the ground: ODSTs are the toughest troops the UNSC has, not counting SPARTANS. The ballistic armour and potential to be deployed anywhere within seconds make them a force to be reckoned with.

The Pelicans can carry a tank around. That one tank can shred dozens upon dozens of troops in a very short time frame. Warthogs, which, I might add, are recon vehicles, carry a chaingun as standard armament.

UNSC takes this, hands down.

[Neftren]

I think I ought to clarify this:

Longswords and Pelicans are piloted by HUMAN PILOTS.

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Right, now that's out of the way, I'll get started. In space, there may be 5 different directions a ship is going, but if you've ever played a game such as MacTrek or NeTrek, you will realize that it's harder to turn the faster you're going. Simple law of physics there. Now assuming that we're moving at some form of combat/flank speed, it'll be pretty hard to turn fast enough to avoid an augmented superhuman shot delivered via AI. Also, I don't think there's very much that can pierce 2 meters of Titanium. Just not going to happen unless you're the Covenant with a huge payload of plasma torpedoes and a massive numerical superiority, which they have.


Longswords, as I mentioned before, are human piloted. While Cortana is shown to be piloting one at the end of Halo 1, after you escape on a Longsword, they are still primarily piloted by pilots as is shown in the books. The other spacefaring small vehicle would be the unarmed Pelican. Which can carry 2 pilots and a Sgt. Johnson standing behind them in the cockpit, and in the back, at least 8 more guys... in addition to that, you can add a Scorpion Tank, Warthogs A, B and Gauss or a ton of supply canisters holding anything from sniper rifles to rocket launchers. On the ground, the Marines would totally defeat the colonial forces.

[Emperor Tippy]

I think I ought to clarify this:

Longswords and Pelicans are piloted by HUMAN PILOTS.

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They are show not be pilotable by both and we are never shown Longswords used in any space combat so it can go either way.


Longswords, as I mentioned before, are human piloted. While Cortana is shown to be piloting one at the end of Halo 1, after you escape on a Longsword, they are still primarily piloted by pilots as is shown in the books.
Incorrect. We are never shown man piloted Longswords. They can be human piloted and they can be AI piloted. We are never told either way what the USNC regularly has piloting them. Extrapolating from shown UNSC tactics it is more likely that Longswords are AI controlled whenever possible.

[Quezovercoatl]

Incorrect. We are never shown man piloted Longswords. They can be human piloted and they can be AI piloted. We are never told either way what the USNC regularly has piloting them. Extrapolating from shown UNSC tactics it is more likely that Longswords are AI controlled whenever possible.

In The Fall Of Reach in the battle between the Frigate Commonwealth and a covenant ship we Longswords piloted by humans and no mention of this being in anyway unusual.

[Emperor Tippy]

Was that when they were going to pick up the Spartan armor? And it being the first time that they had ever fought the covenant?

[Mr._Blinky]

In The Fall Of Reach in the battle between the Frigate Commonwealth and a covenant ship we Longswords piloted by humans and no mention of this being in anyway unusual.

Actually I was just rereading Fall of Reach yesterday and found a passage mentioning remote-piloted Longswords. I'll see if I can find the page number.