>Reply-To: logh@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>To: logh@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>Subject: Re: [LoGH] Babylon 5 vs Galactic Empire
>Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 21:57:10 -0600
>
> >
> > Frankly I think show vs show 'military' comparisons usually don't work well
> > because they have different doctrines behind ship design, different theories
> > about FTL technology and so forth. In the end it sounds too much like "My
> > dad can beat up your dad."
>
>Or whether Superman can beat Mighty Mouse. Agreed, but I still think
>those LGH forward shields are rather impressive given the fact that they
>are standing up to 5 million klick ranged beam weapons. The joules
>those lasers are putting out to be a threat at that range means they are
>that much deadlier up close- sometimes the shield even works at direct
>visual range (under 50 km).
>
>So that raises a serious question- why haven't the LGH powers worked up
>a better-protected class of ships? Or at the very least something with
>more physical armor if power/weight ratios for overall shielding are
>impractical? To what extent is doctrine, economics, internal politics
>or the need for hulls for imperial patrolling (in the case of the
>Empire) driving ship design as opposed to just engineering issues?
>
>To use a real world example, the US could have built an air force
>composed of SR-71 fighters. One high-speed fighter could barrel through
>an area controlled by an enemy, blaze away at anything with wings and be
>very very hard to hit with SAMs or air-to-air missiles.
>
>But it was impractical due to the limitations of the titanium supply,
>you can't keep up enough of them long enough to cover an area due to
>limited platform numbers/prodigous fuel usage and you must operate off
>of a totally secure base. Perhaps most importantly, the number of
>planes and pilots would have probably dropped by a factor of ten, which
>means far fewer air force general positions. Nobody wants to work
>themselves out of a job (probably the real reason we don't have AI in
>general use, IMHO).
>
>So is something similar going on that gives us our Napoleonic bomber
>stream battles?
If you examine the FPA flagships, the old school FPA and Imperial flagships in Spiral Labyrinth, and the nobles' flagships, one gets the distinct impression of dinosaurs. They mount either an enormous engine or large banks of smaller ones and carry numerous main cannons. The lack of new construction of these dinosaurs would indicate a realization of passing the point of diminishing returns. The crew, maintenance, and construction costs might be prohibitive to undertake full scale production of such ships as the standard combat ships. Those FPA flagships can have 5x or up to 10x the firepower of the standard battleship! Also when it comes down to huge fleet battles, the better performance of that one individual ship would be negligible in the larger picture, meaning there would be even less justification for their cost. From what little I can read of the ALBA book, it certainly seems to hint the nobles' ships were highly in!
efficient. So the ships we see may not be the most powerful possible but be the most viable balance between cost and performance.
One also notes ships of the old generation often have armor plates or a band of different colored armor along their sides. My hypothesis for this is that this represents a gradual progression of armor technology, with the new material being used initially as additional armor over vulnerable areas. As skill progressed, ships shifted over to construction using entirely this new composite instead of the old one. This could also explain why ships went from more refined curves in the last generation to the blocky ships seen in the vast majority of LOGH episodes. As more refined techniques for shaping this material are introduced, then we start to see more smooth ships again.
Imperial ships also carry land troops and armored vehicles as standard, reducing space available. FPA ships on the other hand need to have shuttles and shuttle bays to ferry personnel and equipment since they are not designed to land on planets.
Finally if you're going to be part of a fleet numbering in the thousands, the chance of being individually picked out and targetted drops (unless you're on a flagship) so there is safety in numbers.
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