• The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.

b5lr ship

I had a thought yesterday. We already had the big cool high tech ship that can kill anything it goes up against with the Excalibur. With the Liandra maybe we'll get the other direction, the small beat to hell ship that is undergunned and underpowered, forcing the crew to use their wits instead of their muscle. I am thinking of something like Moya in Farscape-it can really only run from a fight.

I was thinking wouldn't it be cool if the few cast members we know of were the entire crew, maybe Liandra would be the B5 equivalent of a PT boat. But then another problem came up. If the ship was that small, it couldn't make its own jumppoint. Of course that cripples the ship even more, it can't fight a bigger ship, it has to really do some fancy flying to get to a jumpgate and escape. I dont know. I would guess that the Liandra would be able to make its own jumpgate, so it would have to be bigger than a Whitestar. Maybe a freighter or a tanker? Something thats not even supposed to be a military vessle, refitted to fight?

------------------
Marcus, "Well They said I was carrying around a lot of repressed anger.
Lennier, "and?"
Marcus, "I'm not repressed anymore."


[This message has been edited by Cern (edited May 30, 2001).]
 
You mean a Q-Ship? Maybe. It could have been outfitted with lots of guns. If you catch you enemy by surprise (have the guns hidden/sheilded so they can't detect them) you could take out medium ships, and maybe hurt a ship like the Omega, but you'd better hope they don't have time to hit back or BOOM!

------------------
"Nonono. Is not Great Machine. Is...Not-So-Great Machine. It make good snow-cone though." - Zathras
 
Technically, we've already SEEN carrier type ships in Babylon 5. The Command & Control ships the Raiders used. One was captured by Ivanova leading a squadron of starfuries. The other was destroyed by the Shadows.

In either case, neither was worth much in terms of Defending itself. They were nothing but launch platforms for their fighters.

Which, strangely enough, describes _Todays_ aircraft carriers. USA Today to the contrary, they are really just Very Large Targets. We devote entire Fleets of other ships to just protecting them. Sure, they have lots of space for conference rooms. Without that fleet of other ships to run interference, they'd be on the bottom of the ocean.

Carriers are good only in large Fleet type operations. They are primarily an Attack base for a small air force. They are used in American Navy for two very simple reasons:

1. After Pearl Harbor they were the only large ships we had left. All the Battleships were sunk or too badly damaged to fight. The Carriers took over. By the time the Battleships were repaired, the Pilots were in control. In the 50+ years since WW2, the pilots have never lost control of the US Navy, so we continue to use Carriers.

2. American naval doctrine is based around Attacking an enemy before he can get Near the US. IOW, do the fighting on Somebody Else's Real Estate. Carriers are very good for this. Battleships are actually better for defense but, again, our doctrine doesn't really consider Defense of the US mainland necessary. The few times Battleships have been used by the US Navy since WW2, it was strictly in a support position, never in a lead.

The one large difference between a Battleship and a Carrier is that a battleship is designed to both Defend itself and Attack an enemy at the same time.

The Most significant battleship engagement of WW2 was against the German battleship Bismarc. It took an entire British fleet 19 hours to sink it _After_ it was disabled so that it was a sitting duck. It just sat there and took everything they could hit it with for hour after hour.

Now _Thats_ the sort of ship I'd like to see the Valen be.




------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cern:
I had a thought yesterday. We already had the big cool high tech ship that can kill anything it goes up against with the Excalibur. With the Liandra maybe we'll get the other direction, the small beat to hell ship that is undergunned and underpowered, forcing the crew to use their wits instead of their muscle. I am thinking of something like Moya in Farscape-it can really only run from a fight.

I was thinking wouldn't it be cool if the few cast members we know of were the entire crew, maybe Liandra would be the B5 equivalent of a PT boat. But then another problem came up. If the ship was that small, it couldn't make its own jumppoint. Of course that cripples the ship even more, it can't fight a bigger ship, it has to really do some fancy flying to get to a jumpgate and escape. I dont know. I would guess that the Liandra would be able to make its own jumpgate, so it would have to be bigger than a Whitestar. Maybe a freighter or a tanker? Something thats not even supposed to be a military vessle, refitted to fight?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Yeah it would be cool if the Liandra was a old ship, that would be pretty powerful if it was fully working but had been badly neglected, and guessing at the class of ship it could be the old slyle Minbari Sharlin (seen in War without end)


I really, really hope that the main ship will end up being the Valen some new kick arse ship.
I'm fed up with the main vessel being "A NEW NEW SEEN BEFORE UBER PROTOTYPE!!!!!!!" like in TNG or Voyager or crusade etc....

I would like the main ship to be (if somthing happens to the Liandra) a Omega class destroyer (on loan from EA) a Whitestar or maybe a Sharlin.




------------------
 
Coincidently, spacefaring reintroduced destroyer groups, which under modern warfare have been overthrown by submarines. What if something similar in space happened? A Starship capable of complete operation within hyperspace? It would have to be an incredibly powerful ship to pull it off. Imagine it though, a planetary blocklade is in progress by a malevolent race. A hyperspace cruiser scans the local area for the orbital positions of each ship and targets them from it's hiding place in hyperspace. It launches all necessary ordnance at the enemy vessels, opening a jump point for the weapons to travel through, each weapon homes in on it's target crippling or destroying them. The ship then jumps into normal space and secures them with a marine operation, then returns to hyperspace patrol. Now that would be a wicked ship, and no-one would be able to mobilize effectively against them as we are told, engagements in hyperspace have never gone well for either side. The only effective countermeasure would be to create a "submarine hunter" class warship that could target these vessels from normal space. Am I any good at inventions then?

------------------
"We Live for the One. We die for the One!"
 
Good idea.

But there are hyperspace early-warning probes, energy weapons are ineffective if fired through jump points and missiles/mines can be easily intercepted.

Ships can enter hyperspace to hunt down the attacker. Hyperspace combat is quite possible, although a bit risky.

The best way to attack a ship from hyperspace is to open a jump point in it, tearing it apart. (Requires very precise jump engines.)

------------------
Canned flarn is a sacrilege.
 
Which the Minbari do have, but you wouldn't need a special ship to do it. Maybe the Liandra is some sort of scout ship? Not many guns, but fast, stealthy, and just big enough to open a jumpoint (or not).

------------------
"Nonono. Is not Great Machine. Is...Not-So-Great Machine. It make good snow-cone though." - Zathras
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DavidB:
Yeah it would be cool if the Liandra was a old ship, that would be pretty powerful if it was fully working but had been badly neglected, and guessing at the class of ship it could be the old slyle Minbari Sharlin (seen in War without end)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It's 20 years old - not a 1000.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Coincidently, spacefaring reintroduced destroyer groups, which under modern warfare have been overthrown by submarines. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, they haven't. Destroyers were superceded by the Frigate class which has as one of its primary missions, guess what?, hunting and killing Submarines.

Submarines almost never attacked destroyers. They hid from them.


I think JMS has already posted that the show will introduce a New starship. Pretty good bet that ship is the Valen.




------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Ships can enter hyperspace to hunt down the attacker. Hyperspace combat is quite
possible, although a bit risky. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was stated somewhere in the dialogue (Ivanova, I think) that every battle that was ever attmpted in Hyperspace ended in disaster for _Both_ sides and that no one in their right mind even considers it anymore.

Something about conditions in Hyperspace causing too many malfuctions.

That said, we have seen minor uses of weapons in hyperspace without causing trouble for the attacking ship. I suspect it's the effects of a lot of Large energy discharges all at once that causes the problem.

Perhaps too much energy concentrated in one place in Hyperspace tends to make weapons backfire occcasionally. That would certainly discourage their use.
frown.gif


------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by drakh:
Originally posted by DavidB:
Yeah it would be cool if the Liandra was a old ship, that would be pretty powerful if it was fully working but had been badly neglected, and guessing at the class of ship it could be the old slyle Minbari Sharlin (seen in War without end)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It's 20 years old - not a 1000.
Click to expand...

Its completely possible that the same DESIGN is or was in service untill recently. At admitadly small numbers. You don't just get rid of a ship because its old.

------------------
 
I think that there's still a ships based on the old design in service. Not sure though.
As for combat in hyperspace, you also wouldn't have room to manuver. It certainly would help either side to have half of their ships go off the beacon and get lost forever (Whoops)
crazy.gif
The rest would be sitting ducks and smash each other apart.

------------------
"Nonono. Is not Great Machine. Is...Not-So-Great Machine. It make good snow-cone though." - Zathras
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
(...)

Perhaps too much energy concentrated in one place in Hyperspace tends to make weapons backfire occcasionally. That would certainly discourage their use.
frown.gif

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think the mere action of opening fire in hyperspace is the problem. It's simply just a much more hostile enviornment.

For one thing the visibility is low, you can't realy lock on to an enemy untill you are practicaly on top of them (compared to normal space anyway). In such close quarter figthing it would be very hard to avoid dammages, and if you happen to loose communication or engine power for just a short while you might never find your way out again once those systems come on-line again.

It would be dangerous to use fighters too, they could easily stray to far in a dogfight, and ejecting from a dammaged fighter wouldn't do much good.

------------------
 
I read somewhere that the first Minbari/Vorlon tech ships were few in numbers but still in service nonetheless. I'm trying to find the link with the picture i saw, but this might be the ship.

------------------
 
I wish it was just a plain ol Whitestar

------------------
All your base are belong to us.
 
If they're protecting trade routes (as Rangers sometimes do) maybe it's one of those beat up, brick type trading ships with not a lot of weapons, so raiders will attack the ship and ask it to surrender. Then, on boarding - ha ha! - it's full of Rangers who then proceed to whup ass.

laugh.gif


But then again, maybe not.

------------------
Nuke 'em all
Nukemall
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Then, on boarding - ha ha! - it's full of Rangers who then proceed to whup ass.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not. That'd be a guaranteed way to get a Lot of Rangers killed. Cornered rats are the worst kind.




------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?
 
Especially if the Raiders realize someone's been laying traps and simply blow the ship up.

------------------
"Nonono. Is not Great Machine. Is...Not-So-Great Machine. It make good snow-cone though." - Zathras
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Especially if the Raiders realize someone's been laying traps and simply blow the ship up.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly. They scan the ship. Hey, most freighters have a crew of only 7 or 8 people. This one has more passengers than a pleasure liner.
shocked.gif


Well, Blow holes in the crew section, make sure they're all dead and lets see if there's anything in the Cargo section to pay for the fuel and ammo we wasted.




------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 37 (members: 3, guests: 34)

Share this page

Back
Top