[boewolf]

I'm just wondering what sort of weapons you people are considering for your Battlestars?  I ask so I can get something similar for the Battlestar I've been working on for a while now.

[karajorma]

You'll really have to see if any of our tablers are willing to release specifics cause I don't know anything beyond "Ones that look like the show"

[boewolf]

So basically flak on top of flak on top of flak

[newman]

That would depend on the battlestar.. As I recall, the Pegasus had some pretty nasty forward
firing guns that could take out a basestar in a single salvo. And flak on top of flak on top of flak
Point is, if you've designed your own battlestar, the question is what sort of battlestar did you
envision it to be? Is it a carrier/battleship, like the Pegasus, or more of a light escort/scout like
the Valkyrie, or something else..

[Shade]

Let's see. For capital ship work, we have two types of gun: Super-heavy (but fixed) batteries like you see on the Pegasus (which can do great damage with just a couple of shots), and a fairly rapid-fire turreted artillery type like you see on Galactica (which do fairly trivial damage compared to the fixed batteries but make up for it in sheer mass of fire - Plus they can be aimed).

For fighter defense, we're got a flak-type weapon which is not entirely unlike FS2 flak (fires really fast but isn't that accurate. Ours have higher velocity and longer range, though. Good against large numbers of fighters), and a Phalanx-like weapon that is accurate and effective when engaging a single fighter but not much good against many. Of those the latter is somewhat able to intercept warheads whereas the flak is just too inaccurate. Even between them a ship still needs fighter cover to deal with any significant number of incoming warheads though.

I've probably missed some weapon types, but that should cover the basics.

[boewolf]

Thanks for the info.  I think ill be working on some cap flak and use some blob turrets for the time being.

[Snagger]

Don't forget the space-to-ground nuclear missiles.

We never saw Galactica with big forward guns like Peg, but that doesn't mean she didn't have soemthing similar - it might just have been that there weren't any munitions of that type at Ragnar.  I'd expect them to normally have some nuclear shells for the large turrets if she doesn't have big guns - there's little point in having aimable turrets and high rates of fire if the ordanance can't penetrate the enemy's hull, but you only need one or two heavy punches to knock out an enemy capital ship.

[StarSlayer]

Remember that the heavy flak turret that Galactica uses is also used by Pegasus and pretty much every capital ship we have seen aside from the Valkyrie class, so it appears to be the Colonial's primary naval gun.  In addition those were the guns the Colonials utilized in the Battle of the Rez, considering how that went I would say they are plenty powerful enough for ship to ship combat.

[IceFire]

It also seems like the heavy turret is more than just flak to me.  It seems like they have multiple ammo types...because in a couple of the battles you see these being used offensively which suggests to me a separate type of ammo is stored up for that sort of mode.  Then they can switch the ammo feed to defense when needed and it helps provide part of the flak screen.  My thinking is that the Battlestars can do this quickly and the commander can balance their overall defensive and offensive fire depending on the numbers and which turrets are operating in whichever mode.

[Shade]

Yeah. We actually have both a normal and a 'Heavy' version of that weapon, with the heavy being capship-targets only, so it's possible to set them up as you want them to get the same overall effect as seen in the show.

[IceFire]

Yeah. We actually have both a normal and a 'Heavy' version of that weapon, with the heavy being capship-targets only, so it's possible to set them up as you want them to get the same overall effect as seen in the show.

Sounds like an excellent way to deal with that.  Should look pretty fantastic when its all done too

[Snagger]

It also seems like the heavy turret is more than just flak to me.  It seems like they have multiple ammo types...because in a couple of the battles you see these being used offensively which suggests to me a separate type of ammo is stored up for that sort of mode.  Then they can switch the ammo feed to defense when needed and it helps provide part of the flak screen.  My thinking is that the Battlestars can do this quickly and the commander can balance their overall defensive and offensive fire depending on the numbers and which turrets are operating in whichever mode.

That is most definitely the case - they're main gun turrets that fire various types of munition, just like a Main Battle Tank can fire sabot, high explosive and other types of round.  The flak they fire is just another selection of warhead.  they don't fire flack at the Basestars or the Res ship, and as I said, they probably had nuclear rounds or those guns during normal deployment.

[Echelon9]

... they probably had nuclear rounds or those guns during normal deployment.

I'd say unlikely the main guns have any sort of nuclear rounds. The dedicated nuclear missiles are a different story.

My rationale is that we'd all have seen the extensive protocol the CIC has to go through to load nuclear missiles, open the tube doors, activate the warheads and then finally authorise the use of nuclear armaments by the ranking officer before they can be fired. Note also that the Cylons are able to detect the latent radioactivity of the warheads once they are open to space, so having regular nuclear based armaments in use would give away the position of a Battlestar.

[Sidestep]

You may be right that the nukes aren't fired through the same guns, as far as I know it's everyone's best guess at the moment, although i tend to agree with Snagger on his assessment.

However, having regular nuclear based armaments wouldn't give away the position of a Battlestar, as you yourself said, the Cylons can only detect them once they are open to space. The only reason they would be open to space would be if they were being fired, in which case the Cylons already know the Battlestar is there or the Battlestar is getting the first shot in, leaving the Cylons with not enough time to react.

If they were fired through different guns, they would still have to be opened to space before being fired or they would blow a hole through their hull

So I would say both theories are plausible.

[Snagger]

The protocols issue is a fair point, though they could just be for the high yield planetary strike munitions as we saw on the Algae planet fight, but the concern over "radiological alarm" isn't a plausible argument - if you're close enough to the enemy to be using the turrets, I'd imagine there's a fair chance they'll have seen you already.

The problem with relying on missiles to deliver the nuclear warheads is that the missiles are big and slow, while a gun fired projectile can be tiny for the same size warhead, a lot faster and un-jammmable (and can't be spoofed into returning to the launch ship).  The chances of the gun munition being intercepted are virtually nil, while the chance of a nuclear tipped missile being intercepted are almost 100%.  Which makes the most tactical sense?

[Vip]

The protocols issue is a fair point, though they could just be for the high yield planetary strike munitions as we saw on the Algae planet fight, but the concern over "radiological alarm" isn't a plausible argument - if you're close enough to the enemy to be using the turrets, I'd imagine there's a fair chance they'll have seen you already.

Ummm, the final charge of the Pegasus, anybody ?

[StarSlayer]

Cylons thought she was bluffing

[David cgc]

The problem with relying on missiles to deliver the nuclear warheads is that the missiles are big and slow, while a gun fired projectile can be tiny for the same size warhead, a lot faster and un-jammmable (and can't be spoofed into returning to the launch ship).  The chances of the gun munition being intercepted are virtually nil, while the chance of a nuclear tipped missile being intercepted are almost 100%.  Which makes the most tactical sense?

However, the shells battlestars fire tend to miss a lot, for whatever reason. Considering the limited number of nuclear weapons Galactica had (though Pegasus doubtless had some more), I doubt they'd just throw them at the Cylons and hope for the best.

The only time I'd consider a nuke might've been loaded into the standard batteries is in the Pegasus's first salvo at the Battle of New Caprica, after that first Baseship went up after only one hit. And even then, two or three shells were clean misses before one was on target. In light of that, I'd be more inclined to chalk it up to a lucky shot, and the Pegasus hit the fuel or munitions stores for the Raiders or something.

[Angelus]

I think, the Pegasus jumped in very close ( in fire range ) of the Basestars, the Cylons had little to no reaction time.

[SpardaSon21]

I'm guessing that the Battlestars use typical human weapons for their anti-capital work.  Fast-moving hunks of metal.  Most likely tungsten carbide or U-238, if they are chemically propelled.  If they are railguns some strong, dense high-resistance metal would be used.  My money is on railguns.  Chemical weapons tend to be volatile and a hit on a munitions bunker would end up blowing up the Galactica.  With rail-accelerated projectiles the rounds just get bounced around.

Yes, railguns use lots of power.  However I bet going faster than the speed of light uses a lot of power too.  And the term "spooling up" when talking about FTL drives seems to indicate they don't need to recharge so much as they need to get back up to speed after jumping similar to a flywheel.