sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (05/22/85)
Let's take a look at the capabilities of each ship. I'm going to
ignore speed comparisons between the Galactica and Enterprise, as well
as the relative power of their energy weapons because we simply aren't
given enough information to make a reasonable and fair comparison.
The only shields that the Battlestar Galactica has are just heavy
metal panels that slide into place. Her armament consists of several
automatic high-speed laser turrets, and some nuclear rockets that look
amazingly like IBCMs (wonder why). The Vipers use some sort of short
range energy weapon for firepower. Both Vipers and the Battlestar are
capable of supra-light speeds, exactly how fast is not said.
The Enterprise has photon torpedoes and phasers, which haven't
been explained well, but are quite effective nonetheless. There is an
extreme lack of consistency as to just how powerful these buggers are.
I have seen effects from 1 hit = atomization to 1 hit = burn a little
hole in the side of the ship. For comparison purposes, we will assume
they are as powerful as we saw in TWOK. The enterprise also has a
very effective energy/mass deflection system that usually seems to
absorb two good hits before Scotty starts yelling.
The Death Star is a bad s.o.b. She can do Hyperspace, has an
energy beam that can blow a planet into Volkswagen sized chunks in one
shot, powerful tractor beams, and has the support of (normally) at
least 5 destroyers and, oh, about 500 tie fighters (energy beams,
hyperspeed, highly maneuverable). She has a Nazi-style trained crew,
and some leaders that eat babies. She was designed to be the flagship
of the Empire, it's symbol of absolute domination and control, and the
final arbiter of Empire justice. We won't even consider pitting the
Enterprise or Galactica against this monster. They wouldn't even make
good target practice.
Pitting the Battlestar against the Enterprise, we find that the
Enterprise loses big. The Enterprise's targeting system is extremely
slow, and simply can't deal with a massive multiple attack such as a
concerted attack by Vipers. The Galactica maintains distance, and the
Vipers wear away the Enterprise's shields and finish her off. Only a
surprise attack by the Enterprise could hope to succeed. If the Galac-
tica couldn't launch her Vipers, she might be in real trouble due to
lack of shielding. Then again, if she fired many of her laser turrets
at once, she could probably take down the Enterprise's shields, neu-
tralizing the advantage.
--
- Sean Casey UUCP: {cbosgd,anlams,hasmed}!ukma!sean
- Department of Mathematics ARPA: ukma!sean@ANL-MCS.ARPA
- University of Kentucky