BC-304 vs. Imperial Star Destroyer

[Mister Oragahn]

seriously, are there exact stats for the BC-304 anywhere to be found? I have yet ot see a detailed weapons load out other then what can be firued based ont he number of missile doors are seen in one particular picture.

There are bases. For example, we can get a low end about the railguns, by assuming first that they have the same attributes as those mounted in Atlantis.
Everett was very specific about what those railguns were capable of.

EVERETT: We brought along a few rail guns. They were originally slated for Prometheus to replace their current close-in armament for their next refit. They will deliver an impact velocity of mach-five at fifty miles; a standard magazine will hold ten thousand rounds.

Mach 5 at 50 miles, which means a greater initial velocity, which is nice because in vacuum, this velocity won't decrease, so the weapon will keep its power, and this over much superior ranges.
Besides, from the show's combat sequences, we can get a rate of fire.

Of course, for a 304, a rather big ship, it appears rather logical that the railguns could be of a bigger caliber, able to propel the pellets faster, and have much more ammo.

We also know that in No Man's Land, when a 304 fires all of its Mk 3s, which were the only nukes transported back then, it equals to a finite number, since we can actually count the dots on screen.

We've seen earth ships use various missiles.

• Low yield missiles to shoot down small and fragile spaceships. Used by the Prometheus to destroy an al'kesh, and by the Daedalus to destroy a wraith scoutship.
• Mark 3 warheads. All of them were fired in "No Man's Land". A single hit on a wraith hiveship generated large secondary explosions after a succeful hit, so it's assumed that those warheads are much more powerful than even the ten years old gatebusters, so probably many tens of gigatons.
• Mark 8 tactical warheads, fired in "The Siege Part II". They were intercepted by wraith darts, so Caldwell and Sheppard decided to beam them. It's possible that one of them was used later on for the trick, but looking at how the hiveships were immediately vaporized and engulfed in huge fireballs once a warhead exploded inside, they're likely far far more powerful than the two 26 MT warheads also beamed aboard a hiveship, in "The Pegasus Project", which triggered a couple of chained explosions, before the wraith ship went down.
  So the Mk 8s would likely be much more powerful, like hundreds or thousands of megatons.
• A nuke from Daedalus' armory, used to trick the Wraith, in "The Siege Part III". By judging the size and duration of the fireball, it was around a 2 megatons piece.
• Warheads with a blue trail, used in "Family Ties". Depending on what really exploded at the surface of the planet, naqahdah stockpiles or not, the yield could either be in the medium to high megaton range, or gigaton range.
• In "The Pegasus Project", they used at least five warheads (one and two more on the stargate, and at least two beamed aboard the wraith hiveship), each with a yield of 26 megatons, with directed energy cone and apparently, a possibility to be dialed down, seemingly to 5%, but that's speculative due to the nature of McKay's words.
  These warheads didn't seem to be ultimately specific to this mission, so they could likely come from a 304's pile.
• Horizon, a weapon platform that consists of a MIRV, carried on a Reentry Ballistic Missile, and able to carry ten new generation gatebusters (missile like warheads of the size of a sidewinder). It was used in "First Strike" to deploy 6 gatebusters (812 gigatons a piece at least) and 4 decoys. The Horizon is a mission specific weapon, and unlikely to be a standard weapon. 304s aren't likely to transport even one Horizon under normal conditions.

CALDWELL: I want all operable missile tubes loaded with Mark Three tactical warheads.

KLEINMAN: That'd be every one of our nukes, sir.

CALDWELL: I'm aware of that. Secondly, I want to disable all firing safeties to enable the launch of every one of our missiles the moment we exit hyperspace.

Thus we know that there are enough tubes on the Daedalus to fire, all at once, an amount of nukes as numerous as the Mk 3s used in this episode. The number of tubes can be cut if each tube can be charged with more than one missile.

Everett also came with 6 gigaton space mines:

EVERETT: Six naquadah-enhanced nuclear warheads, twelve hundred megatons apiece. They emit almost zero EM and are otherwise invisible to radar. Once deployed, they will detonate by proximity fuse.

FORD: Space mines?

MARINE: That's right. We use jumpers in stealth mode to place them in a pattern between the armada and Atlantis. Major, we were hoping you could help us with that.

In the tradition of using gigaton level weaponry, started from the first day Earth close interests were directly menaced by an alien fleet, Everett came with warheads which could be carried by one or two persons, on wheeled carriages.

It's therefore very likely that 304s do at least, under normal conditions, pack a couple of such weaheads, at least, as missiles.

[TKG]

yeah but that doens't really answer the nagging question. no one can even seem to get an exact count on the numbers of said weapons. I can guess the ships weight based on it's dimensions, but I can't figure it's weapons load out just that it has a number of each weapons type from stuff said int he shows. perhaps they keep it intentionally vague.

[Jimbo-DR]

I'm sure they don't want to give an actual number because then observant people like Mr. O will rip them apart on every inconsistancy they have. Regardless, its been made clear that a 304 can carry one helluva lot of firepower in the form of nuclear missles and other warheads.

[Mister Oragahn]

I wouldn't say intentionally, but they certainly make no effort to get a clear answer on that.

When asgard upgrades come, the rays are fired from random spots which are just the same spots where the same old railguns are.

Plus the railguns don't move. In Siege Pt II, they don't move, so you see them firing off axis.
Yet in BSG, the point defense cannons are seen rotating, despite the large angles.

They just don't care, and it's hard to come to an answer when the weapons will be rated in joules according to the plot's need, or the will of the artist.

Seriously, the space battles is so ****tily handled, most of the time, that they should forget about them. It doesn't stand the comparison with BSG or B5.

Let's get more ground action and ground vehicles damn it. It's literally crazy, when you think about it, how a show, that is about stargates and people walking through them, has done so little about creating a reach lore of elements bound to earth or, at best, the air.

[Jimbo-DR]

I love the space battles I just wish they'd pay more attention to them.

Edit: Was thinking of some of the screw ups they've made and remember what you said about how much farther apart real battles would be. Then I thought back to the Season 1 Finale and Season 2 Premiere. They blow up 2 Ha'taks with fricken C4 because the dumbasses double parked them literally on top of each other. Seriously what kind of advanced Alien race parks their big bad Earth busting spaceships right next to each other when there's a whole planet to decimate.

[Konrad9]

I'm just about ready to go to sleep, so I don't have time to read through the whole thread at the moment, and won't remember this in the morning.

Star Wars weaponry uses laser beams with small amounts of plasma loaded in, which is what does the actual damage.

The ion cannons on the Star Destroyer would probably wreak havoc on the 304, enabling the lasers to completely bypass the shields and actually do damage.

But if the 304's shields were up, there would be little to no damage.

Laser blasts with a little plasma, not very strong.

[Mister Oragahn]

I'm sure they don't want to give an actual number because then observant people like Mr. O will rip them apart on every inconsistancy they have. Regardless, its been made clear that a 304 can carry one helluva lot of firepower in the form of nuclear missles and other warheads.

It's not my goal to "rip them apart".

I may be naïve, but I find it rather easy to define what each ship does, how it moves, where the weapons are, since you're going to do spacebattles, how these weapons globally work, and above all define from the get go the dimensions.

I'm baffled that just so many times when a show/spin-off is produced, millions of buck are spent in CG, but no one actually spends a few days of spare time to make things right and coherent in that domain.

I mean, if you're really loving your show, wouldn't you actually make sure that the story's pretty much coherent, and every aspect around it rather solid and credible?

For example, size charts. Either with a top, front and side view of each ship, or each model placed on a 3D isometric grid.

For example, the small grid would have one square = 1 m, and would go up to a maximum of 100 squares (100 m). It would show all the ships which range from fighters to small troop transports, puddle jumpers, darts, scoutships and bombers, plus a few other things seen such as the one shot small asgard crafts seen buzzing around the O'neill. We'd also see a stargate for comparison purpose, and of course the Asuran stargate satellite cannon and an Ori supergate segment.
A 1.6 m tall human silhouette would be put in as well.

The medium grid would focus on slightly bigger ships, so each square = 10 m. The maximum width would be 1000 m.
Most of the ships to be seen here would be Tau'ri ships, but we'd also get the various ha'taks, wraith cruisers and else.
Of course, you'd need to drop a fighter, say a F-302 and an al'kesh, to get a sense of scale.
You'd see a Spider-class Replicator ship.

You may also drop ships which would, at max, be like 1 km wide more or so.

Then, for all bigger structures, you'd need to jump to an even bigger grid.
Each square = 100 m. Maximum width, 10 km.
It shows all Lantian big ships (warships and cityships), an Ori mothership, an Ori supergate, a ha'tak for comparative purpose, all Asgard ships (the three big classes seen thus far), the Medusa-class Replicator ship, all those alien ships rarely seen more than once, and of course all those bigger Goa'uld ships (Pops' and Anubis' superships).

And then you bring in the biggest grid, necessary at the moment.
One square = 1 km, with a grid maximum width of 100 km.
This is where the wraith hiveship will reign supreme (until an Big Dumb Object is introduced), with a few 2 to 3 km wide structures, from the previous grid, placed there for comparative purposes.

All vessels, in all grids, would have their height, width and lenght displayed.

That way, nobody could screw up, and we'd avoid seeing an O'neill as small as a 304.

[Konrad9]

It's not my goal to "rip them apart".

I may be naïve, but I find it rather easy to define what each ship does, how it moves, where the weapons are, since you're going to do spacebattles, how these weapons globally work, and above all define from the get go the dimensions.

I'm baffled that just so many times when a show/spin-off is produced, millions of buck are spent in CG, but no one actually spends a few days of spare time to make things right and coherent in that domain.

I mean, if you're really loving your show, wouldn't you actually make sure that the story's pretty much coherent, and every aspect around it rather solid and credible?

For example, size charts. Either with a top, front and side view of each ship, or each model placed on a 3D isometric grid.

For example, the small grid would have one square = 1 m, and would go up to a maximum of 100 squares (100 m). It would show all the ships which range from fighters to small troop transports, puddle jumpers, darts, scoutships and bombers, plus a few other things seen such as the one shot small asgard crafts seen buzzing around the O'neill. We'd also see a stargate for comparison purpose, and of course the Asuran stargate satellite cannon and an Ori supergate segment.
A 1.6 m tall human silhouette would be put in as well.

The medium grid would focus on slightly bigger ships, so each square = 10 m. The maximum width would be 1000 m.
Most of the ships to be seen here would be Tau'ri ships, but we'd also get the various ha'taks, wraith cruisers and else.
Of course, you'd need to drop a fighter, say a F-302 and an al'kesh, to get a sense of scale.
You'd see a Spider-class Replicator ship.

You may also drop ships which would, at max, be like 1 km wide more or so.

Then, for all bigger structures, you'd need to jump to an even bigger grid.
Each square = 100 m. Maximum width, 10 km.
It shows all Lantian big ships (warships and cityships), an Ori mothership, an Ori supergate, a ha'tak for comparative purpose, all Asgard ships (the three big classes seen thus far), the Medusa-class Replicator ship, all those alien ships rarely seen more than once, and of course all those bigger Goa'uld ships (Pops' and Anubis' superships).

And then you bring in the biggest grid, necessary at the moment.
One square = 1 km, with a grid maximum width of 100 km.
This is where the wraith hiveship will reign supreme (until an Big Dumb Object is introduced), with a few 2 to 3 km wide structures, from the previous grid, placed there for comparative purposes.

All vessels, in all grids, would have their height, width and lenght displayed.

That way, nobody could screw up, and we'd avoid seeing an O'neill as small as a 304.

Oh if only.

[TKG]

Well Since last post I found a partial answer.
The promethius is said to have about 10 launch tubes, (6 aft 4 foreward), while in the following image you get a good angle on the launch doors.

http://www.thescifiworld.net/img/zoc...x01_fr_100.jpg


based off that theres either eight sets of doors indicating 8 foreward firing launch systems or theres sixteen it's kind of hard to tell fromt he angle I'd lean towards the former myself.

Any thoughts?

[Mister Oragahn]

Yep, I was checkign that on other images, and it's 8 x 2 upwards. There's no forward or backward firing arc for those silos.

However, Family Ties has revealed the existence of downward firing tubes, with the ability to fire missiles much more like torpedoes rather than ballistic weapons.

No Man's Land





Family Ties



It seems that the hatches are open. They should be, logically, if they're weapon silos, but you know, there are chances that they didn't bother with that, and didn't even know where to claim the missiles would be launched from, so they probably looked at some pieces of machinery on the hull and say "missile tubes".

However, if there are panels open, like doors, they would likely be silos, rather than a tubes, and it would be hard to fire the missiles in such a straight forward fashion, unless the hatches open to reveal launching ramps which are already pointing downward and forward.

[TKG]

could it then be the missile silos are not mounted laterally but vertically instead? That in turn could explain the short turn arc as seen in some of the combat sequences as well as the metnion of "rear firing" tubes if the launch dorrs are oriented downward and towards the rear making it easier to fire in
that direction.

[darth_timon]

Right, I have but a bit of time this evening, to post a few comments about The Base Delta Zero....

What is the Base Delta Zero?

Depending on who you talk to, it is the act of destroying every trace of civilisation from a world, or rendering that world uninhabitable. Both camps agree that orbital bombardment is the manner in which the destruction is carried out.

The argument from Curtis Saxton and Mike Wong is that this operation is the latter- that the Base Delta Zero represents the complete destruction of a planet's surface, to the point where the surface is left evenly cratered and perhaps even left as molten lava (Reference to Dankayo and the unnamed city in the Jedi Knight book). Both Mr Saxton and Mr Wong have on their respective websites conclusions that claim this operation can be carried out in a matter of hours, by either a single Star Destroyer, or a handful of them.

Objections

Mr Oraghan, you object primarily on the groups that the evidence does not specify time scales or fleet numbers. You refer to the Imperial Source Book and it's statement that a bombardment fleet numbers at around 100 vessels, which may or may not include Star Destroyers. You also point out that the slagging of cities and surfaces can be accomplished with many smaller strikes with less total energy than a few large strikes.

Somewhere previously, in another post, I worked out that it would take 1.6TT to destroy an area the size of New York city with a single nuke.

Just so we're clear, 1.6TT would destroy an area of 805KM.

A 1MT nuke would destroy an area about 7KM in size. 7 goes into 805KM 115 times by my reckoning, so we get 115MT to destroy New York if lots of smaller nukes are used.

The challenge though, lies in proving that Star Destroyers operate on the principle of firing lots of small shots down on their target when performing a BDZ. Further muddying the waters is that the city referred to in the Jedi Knight book was reduced to a 'sea of molten lava'. How much MORE firepower is needed to complete that feat?

We can finicky and argue about the definition of 'sea', though most people would tend to agree that a sea is large body of water/liquid. 115 1MT nukes will not turn an area the size of New York into molten lava. For that matter, a single 1.6TT shot will not turn an area the size of New York into molten lava. I'm sure we can both agree that greater firepower is needed to accomplish this.

To evenly crater a world even as small as Pluto, would take either thousands of kiloton blasts, or depending on the size of the craters, hundreds of megaton-level blasts. It is unlikely that three Star Destroyers would spend ages above Dankayo bombing the surface, as I would imagine three warships like that could be put to better use else where. Whilst I cannot give you 100% proof that they completed their mission in an hour, to deliver that much firepower over the course of even three or four hours makes for impressive reading. This is of course, assuming Dankayo is as small as Pluto, which is generous, since Dankayo is implied to have an atmosphere.

Unless the Empire actually ordered those three ships to remain at Dankayo and spend more than a few hours to pummel the surface, the event would have to be carried out quite quickly. The smaller the time frame for the operation, the more firepower a Star Destroyer can put out in that time, given the scale of the damage to the planet.

More later- have to deal with two things- 1- pesky ant infestation, and 2, going out to a party. Won't be long though, debating under the influence of alcohol is noooooooooot good.

[Mister Oragahn]

I would like to insist, once more, how it is important to not make mistakes and unintentionally rewrite history.
So let's proceed.

Right, I have but a bit of time this evening, to post a few comments about The Base Delta Zero....

What is the Base Delta Zero?

Depending on who you talk to, it is the act of destroying every trace of civilisation from a world, or rendering that world uninhabitable. Both camps agree that orbital bombardment is the manner in which the destruction is carried out.

The argument from Curtis Saxton and Mike Wong is that this operation is the latter- that the Base Delta Zero represents the complete destruction of a planet's surface, to the point where the surface is left evenly cratered and perhaps even left as molten lava (Reference to Dankayo and the unnamed city in the Jedi Knight book).

Let's make no mistake here. Wong and Saxton all and only argue that the surface planet is melted to a one meter depth, so basically all is left is a lavfa covered world. They claim that a single ISD can do that in one hour or less.

Let's remember, again, that Dankayo only described the tiny rebel base as being slagged, and defined the rest of the world as evenly crattered, which means much less energy, and not seas of lava.
Let's remember as well that we've seen that the ships were in no urge at all.
As for the city in the Jedi Knight book, again, unspecified amount of time, many ships were involved in the operation, and only the city is glassed, which considerably limits the total amount of energy, and massively reduces the global wattage.

Both Mr Saxton and Mr Wong have on their respective websites conclusions that claim this operation can be carried out in a matter of hours, by either a single Star Destroyer, or a handful of them.

Objections

Mr Oraghan, you object primarily on the groups that the evidence does not specify time scales or fleet numbers. You refer to the Imperial Source Book and it's statement that a bombardment fleet numbers at around 100 vessels, which may or may not include Star Destroyers. You also point out that the slagging of cities and surfaces can be accomplished with many smaller strikes with less total energy than a few large strikes.

Somewhere previously, in another post, I worked out that it would take 1.6TT to destroy an area the size of New York city with a single nuke.

Just so we're clear, 1.6TT would destroy an area of 805KM.

A 1MT nuke would destroy an area about 7KM in size. 7 goes into 805KM 115 times by my reckoning, so we get 115MT to destroy New York if lots of smaller nukes are used.

The challenge though, lies in proving that Star Destroyers operate on the principle of firing lots of small shots down on their target when performing a BDZ. Further muddying the waters is that the city referred to in the Jedi Knight book was reduced to a 'sea of molten lava'. How much MORE firepower is needed to complete that feat?

As I proved multiple times, it's foolish, if not literally incorrect, to belive that these operations happen in the timeframes claimed by Saxton and Wong.

You could even add one more gigaton (1000 MT) of energy to the total mix, it would never even remotely ever approach the claims made by our two friends.

We can finicky and argue about the definition of 'sea', though most people would tend to agree that a sea is large body of water/liquid. 115 1MT nukes will not turn an area the size of New York into molten lava. For that matter, a single 1.6TT shot will not turn an area the size of New York into molten lava. I'm sure we can both agree that greater firepower is needed to accomplish this.

Since you used Wong's calculator, let's see what he says to cover a whole city like New york within ground contact fireballs, the only way to create that artificial lava.

With 1 megaton explosion, you get a radius of 700m (1.4 km for the fireball diamter).
This means a surface area of 4,398.2297 m², or 0.004398 km².

New York has a surface area of 171 km² (approx.).

So you'd need basically 38,881 1 MT shots to engulf the whole city into a fictionnal vaporizing fireball. A total of 38.881 GT.

With 10 MT shots, you'd need around 15,119 10 MT shots. A total of 151.19 GT. Notice how the total necessary energy released in such a fashion becomes higher, to cover the same area.

Now let's return to an even lower yield for each shot. Say a Hiroshima level around 15 KT per bolt.
This requires a total of 209,302 15 KT shots. The total energy is 3,139,530 KT, or around 3.1 GT.

We obviously see that the more time they take, and the lower the yields, they stil achieve the same result with much less waste of energy.

At 1 MT per shot, thus 38,881 shots, with a ship having 60 TLs, with each of them, say, able to fire every two seconds (so that makes 30 shots per second), we get a duration of 0.36 hour. That's just slightly over twenty minutes only!

So is that small amount of time still excessive, for a star destroyer from Star Wars, to melt a city of the size of New York, considering what the films have shown thus far?

No. As simple as that.

To evenly crater a world even as small as Pluto, would take either thousands of kiloton blasts, or depending on the size of the craters, hundreds of megaton-level blasts. It is unlikely that three Star Destroyers would spend ages above Dankayo bombing the surface, as I would imagine three warships like that could be put to better use else where.

If the ships could be used elsewhere, why even send three of them just to slag a remote tiny rebel base?
It doesn't add up, and as I've shown, they were not in an urge at all to blast Dankayo.

Plus thousands of kiloton blasts is actually pretty quick to deliver, especially with three ships orbiting a small moon.
Say you have, again, 30 1 KT shots per second, it takes, ahem... 33 seconds only.

And that's for one ship only!

As you see, there is no point reaching absurd numbers as they do.

Whilst I cannot give you 100% proof that they completed their mission in an hour, to deliver that much firepower over the course of even three or four hours makes for impressive reading. This is of course, assuming Dankayo is as small as Pluto, which is generous, since Dankayo is implied to have an atmosphere.

Pluto has an atmosphere, and it's been devalued to a dwarf planet.

Unless the Empire actually ordered those three ships to remain at Dankayo and spend more than a few hours to pummel the surface, the event would have to be carried out quite quickly. The smaller the time frame for the operation, the more firepower a Star Destroyer can put out in that time, given the scale of the damage to the planet.

Well, obviously, the quickier they want it done, the more energy they need to throw, and actually waste at exponentional rates.
The point is that first, there's no need to waste so much energy, and secondly, again, I have presented proof that there was no urge to ravage Dankayo.

[TKG]

oh good lord! edont tell me we're back on this non-thread related topic again...

[monkey_man132]

Well Since last post I found a partial answer.
The promethius is said to have about 10 launch tubes, (6 aft 4 foreward), while in the following image you get a good angle on the launch doors.

http://www.thescifiworld.net/img/zoc...x01_fr_100.jpg


based off that theres either eight sets of doors indicating 8 foreward firing launch systems or theres sixteen it's kind of hard to tell fromt he angle I'd lean towards the former myself.

Any thoughts?

That isn't a screen shot, its a drawing. Well, it looks like one.