Funnily enough, Alex's approach was literally impossible, as a slingshot trajectory to Ganymede even in the best scenario should have taken much, much, much longer (weeks to months) rather than the few minutes or hours it seems to take Alex.
I think you forgot the last battle that Roci was fighting in season 5. That when Roci do a spinny spin whilst using her PDCs to take down multiple enemies. That was cool as shit.
now their Martian pilot will be replaced with another Earther, and additionally another and not just any Earther, but the daughter of an Earther who killed 100 000 Belters on Eros, got added to their crew..so much for "unity" for that matter, not to mention that even before this the Roci wasn't welcomed on Mars, neither the Belt, and that's why they did all their supply, resupply, service, maitenance on Earth-owned Tycho run by an Earther, or on Luna, and so much for "an independent" ship for that matter..
I know it's season 6 scene, but my fave is the one where Holden did a backflip snapshot with the railgun and took out the Inaros escort. What an impossible move. Also cool af. Makes me believe the scene was still written for Alex at the helm. Too bad Anvar had to be written off, I liked his character.
I remember specifically being so nervous for that scene as it drew closer. The way it is written in the books is fantastic. I was so relieved when they knocked it out of the park. And it actually made going back to the scene in the book even better.
I loved the sequence in season 5, episode 8 (I think) when the Rocci chased down the Zemayah and the Zemayah then launched all her torpedoes in a spiral formation so they couldn't all be taken out by counter-explosions. "I'm putting us into a spin!" Bull said. What an amazing move and what a fantastic scene when the Rocci's PDC's opened up and took out all the torpedoes. One of my favorite moments in the whole series!
Risky space maneuvers are kind of a win-no worries scenario. If it works, you can proudly look back and humbly admit "I meant to do that" as you brag over your beer. If it doesn't work. ..... Well, in your last seconds admit it was quite a ride before you can't worry about anything anymore.
How about that time the Roci escorted the Somnambulist out of an active warzone with Holden threatening all factions involved with mutually assured destruction?
In the final engagement you described you didn't mention how the Roci fired missiles at the Razorback not to destroy it but to escort it protecting the Razorback against further missile attacks, clear tactical thinking from the mind of someone well trained in the UN Navy underscored by what you then went on to describe.
What wondered me at the Donnager, was that there were no marines with goliath armors. Especially when considering that there were some on the Sirocco and in the 7th and 8th book everyone seems to have them.
By that point in the show the Donnager was policing the belt against pirates with her Fleet of 2 Morrigan Class Destroyers and 2 Corvette Class Frigates, she was the mothership just there to refuel, resupply and rearm them so she was not exactly at max strength when she was attacked plus much like the crew themselves nobody thought there was anything or anyone powerful or crazy enough to challange the Martian Navy Flagship let alone beat the biggest baddest battleship in the system, so probably they had no Goliath Armours ready and charged when they were attacked.
@@marcofava Yes that's likely, also it could be that they had some of them on board, but not the time to take them on. They new several hours before the fight started that the enemys were coming but didn't thought they'd be crazy enough to take on the Donnager in CQB.
@@TN-lz8qs One thing i would also add is that the Donnager was fully expecting a battle in space to destruction, it was not expecting the enemy to try to board it, as throughout the ship you see very few armed crewmen or expecting a boarding party, so yeah best bet is they were not expecting it.
@@marcofava Yeah why would they. And who should have attacked them? The locations of the UNN ships were known and the OPA? They wouldn't have been able to destroy it with all their ships at once. They couldn't know some d*cks with stealth ships set up a suicide trap.
The Scirocco-class is a dedicated troop carrier while the Donnager is not. The Scirocco has breaching pods and boarding skiffs and is designed for putting troops into battle. The Donnager is designed to pummel the enemy in space. It makes sense the former would be more likely to have a contingent of force recon marines.
I would rank Uncle Mateo's ice hauler SCIF, rock tow cable sling shot at the MCRN Patrol Destroyer towards the top. The ice projectiles nearly destroyed the Martians. A couple meters either way and Ole Mateo might not have been torpedoed into particle projectiles himself. Maybe a lucky rock found big Mickie Bully guy. "Noooo Unlce Mateo Come Back......"
One of the things that always confused me... how did the boarding parties (and only the pods that survived) from only two (relatively) small craft overwhelm the entire crew of the Donnager. They would be fighing in hostile terrain, against a larger force, against whatever internal defenses exist, and have the added difficulty of being on offense.
Like what people said they weren’t expecting it and most on board were newly trained recruits and the boarder’s had advance armor on them with advance weapons as well and highly trained as well
I was amazed by how few crew the Donnager had. It would likely be crewed up if tensions with earth had been higher, but doing anti-piracy out in the Jovian system they probably had it running on little more than a skeleton crew.
@@bayarsejar5831 Pheobe only went silent a few weeks before the events in expanse season 1. My guess is the Donnager was already in the area on anti piracy patrols and training new officers when it got the call to go check on the station.
Don’t know what the point of the boarding was. They knew the Captain would scuttle if they got to the bridge. And they lost 4 out of 6 ships, and probably the other 2 when the Donnager went up. How do you get troops working for a company, not a nation, to be willing to almost certainly die on a mission?
Now do in Sci-fi in general. I can name one from SDF Macross: the time the Battle 7 jumped from high orbit into a planet's atmosphere. Eat your heart out BSG Reimagined Adama, Max Genus beat you in daring maneuvers.
One thing to remember is that Lithium is valuable now, as well as in the future. It is also rare which is what made Illus so valuable to everybody involved.
that one and the Zmeya one are two worst plot armored "battles", fought by plot armored "captains" of plot armored ships, and additionally full of production errors..
@@lazarusboi6289 the Zmeya: the Roci struggled hard for 70sec, so if the Zmeya fired(half)missiles burning towars the Roci instead of away, the Roci would have much less time to react and got killed, the Roci shot down 6,7 more missiles than the Zmeya fired, PDC was shown jammed on weapons console before it got jammed, the Zmeya, for some reason, didn't wait for the Roci to dock and board them first and then blow themselves up.. Drummer's mutininy lasted for 3min, during which she fired at the Free Navy allies, ordered ships to stand down against Fleet Command orders, mentioned fire control issue and that fire control issue injured Karal, asked for assistance, and fired at them too after they approached, and that meant that everything she said before was a big lie, and the Serrio Mal did nothing, then the Roci entered missile range long before they entered the range of their super light 10km/s railgun, and the Serrio Mal did nothing, then the Roci started shooting on the Koto, and the Serrio Mal did nothing, and the Serrio Mal fired only for defense and as a response after the Roci fired 4 missiles at them first, and then the Roci fired 6 more railgun slugs(at together 8)but entered the battle with 7 shown on weapons console, where was in the end of the battle also shown 1 missile out of 20 in the magazine after fired 6 all together(4 here, 2 at Zmeya's missiles), so they've lost 13 missiles, but have too many railgun slugs?..or they were throwing punches with the Serrio Mal and fired those 13 at them before Josep fired 18 at them too, but with Roci's 4 missile salvo, 13 missiles is more than 3 salvos, and that means that the Serrio Mal also fired at least 2 12-missile salvos, and the Roci didn't have enough bullets to defend from that(as Holden and Bull knew and stated)cause they wasted 2/3 of their bullets shooting(and 90% missing)at more missiles than the Zmeya fired..so yeah, those two battles really sucked, but different to the Zmeya battle, the Drummer mutiny battle was visually great..
You are just flat out wrong 1. The battle with the Zmeya At first glance, you seem to have a point, there's no way the Roci could destroy such a large volley of torpedoes and come out relatively unscaved. To this I have three rebuttals. The first of which being the immaculate technology put in place by the MCRN. The MCRN has the best PDC tracking systems in the entire system, even the UNN's PDC's cannot even compare to the MCRNs. Point number two is the type of torpedoes being fired at the Roci. Those missiles were belter missiles, those of which being the worst type of missiles in the entire system, bad avoidance systems and are far outclassed by their counterparts. MCRN pdcs can easily take down a volley of shitty belter torpedoes with no issue. "But you can only take down so many, there were to many for the Roci to handle". This brings me to point three, if you look at the positioning of the torpedoes fired from the Zmeya, they essentially line up 1 after the other for the Roci to destroy. Its a lot easier for a ship to kill 15 torpedoes on at a time then 15 torpedoes at the same time. In this case, they all came at the Roci pretty much one at a time. If they had all Zerg rushed the Roci at the same time, it might've been a different story. 2. The Free Navy Battle This one is even easier to rebuttal then the first one. It is shown in the show that the Holden and Bull thought that this battle was going to be the end for them. And if Drummer hadn't switched sides, it would've been. (To be fair, there is a zero percent chance that Drummer would kill Holden). Keep in mind, the Roci is equipped with light keel mounted railgun that can shred smaller ships at close range, (which we see in the battle). The battle begins with Drummers faction basically switching sides, this turns the 1v5 into a 4v2 which is already good enough. The Tynan fired its missiles at the Koto which allowed the Roci to come in close with the railgun and that was. Thats not plot armor thats just good strategy and common sense. For the serrio mal, the Roci and the Serrio mal exchanged one small volley which both ships can easily destroy, then another one of Drummers faction fires on the Serrio mal which allows the Roci to get in close with the railgun which is game over. You may say, its plot armor for drummers faction to switch sides, its just not. Drummer would never kill Holden if she could decide not to. She could never do that to Naomi, plus not to mention this betrayal had been building up all season. Its not plot armor, the two battles are entertaining and realistic in the bounds of the universe and its characters. Also I dont know what production errors you're talking about, the battle is gorgeous, with subtle details of scientific accuracies. The Expanse has and still does have the best battles in sci fi, they become more and more realistic as you know more about the universe itself.
@@dokkatoo1894 you are just talking B.S. and acting like a fanboy, look I like the Expanse too, but they dropped the ball in last 4 eps of s5, if the Zmeya fired those missiles burning towards the Roci it would all be over in 10sec and the Roci destroyed, cause they've struggled too much and too long with missiles fired the way that gives them a lot of time to react, and the Zmeya had 24 no-reload missile tubes, fired one at Tycho before that, and we saw 23 on Roci's screen, but one was protoml missile, after what we saw 22 missile salvo, then the Roci fired 2 for Zmeya's 2 and shot down 20 with 20th that jammed their PDC, and it was over, but, more coming, all together 7 more, yeah sure, producer of that ep is a moron, or they did so many cuts and re-shoots and lost themselves in it, and Drummer would be punished by her so and too obvious and too long mutiny, and the Roci would get fired upon long before they've entered their railgun range; slug velocity ONLY 10km/s(you have data in 4x01)standard MCRN light has 200-300km/s and still missiles have over 10 000 and much more km range with no trouble at all...
I'd love to be able to experience IFF for the first time again. That was such an amazing episode and that sequence was unlike anything we'd seen in scifi before. Using their missiles as "escort" for the Razorback, using the blast from missiles to intercept incoming missiles targeting the Razorback but her own PDC's for anything thrown at them, using EMP to blind the enemy at just the right moment and best of all the Roci isn't racing anywhere. She's literally tapping the breaks and allowing the Razorback and the UNN ship to catch up instead of the stereotypical punch the throttle and swoop in to the rescue like it's a WW2 dogfight. Have to say though the Roci vs Pella one ups it. The book does a better job at conveying it but it still comes through on the show that Bobbie wasn't just shooting where the Pella would be. She was creating a circumstance that would have the Pella move to where she WANTED it to be for the PDC rounds to be there to hit them in the face. Pella saw the missiles coming in, knew the rail gun would be fired but didn't expect the PDC's to be a threat so missed it. Love how the show didn't wreck it with exposition and just let it play out though letting us figure it out for ourselves. The Expanse did an amazing job with theses action sequences. Most of them you know exactly where everyone is in relation to each other and even those times where it's a "wtf? Where'd that come from?", quick rewind and watch a little closer and the answers there. So many tiny details going on too, imo it's going to be a long time for anyone to reach the bar The Expanse left
Saw the whole show in about 12 days, excellent show. Fantastic. And from the comments, the Genymede approach was good. When Alex show down the torpedo after Naomi rescuing 52 belters. Drummer helping the Rocinante. There is alot of good space battles, alot of good scene. From your clips , I really loved the sequence you showed at 10.40 with the Barbapiccola. When Rocinante rescues Boobie and Avasarala as you show here. Alot of good sequence. Fantastic show.
Brilliant video as always, though I never need a break from your visage: that is always a welcome gift. This just goes to show how poor the Martian Military machine is at evolving and pushing forwards: counting a pilot like Alex out of the running is a fatal mistake and one wonders how many other talented pilots have been passed over. RIP Alex.
I'm definitely not sure Bull is going to be able to handle the Roci with the same level of poise and dexterity that Alex did! I'll give him a fair chance though! .
Yeah I just rewatched it tonight that’s was bad ass. Like the coolest parts of all the fights are when they do something awesome. And that’s one of the most awesome ones.
What slips most people's memories is that the Donnager destroyed four of the Amon-Ra class ships before they got close enough to launch breaching pods. We also have no indication that the remaining two frigates were able to escape the blast when Capt. Yao scuttled the Donnie.
Great video! You highlighted it in your best damn space pirate video, the Tynan attack on Marco Inaros was pretty damn solid. I LOVE that the expanse does space battle so well. However, I have to agree with you on the number 1, it is definitely not talked about enough!
@@hresvelgr7193 Umm they'll likely be in season 6 towards the end of the season, didn't you guys see the very end of season 6? In a vidcall Cortez was on Iaconia talking about the shipyard they found in orbit and that it'd be operational in a few months with design work on new ships being nearly complete. Also the show likely will not be canceled after season 6 as apparently the renewal won't be done till season 6 premieres as that's how Amazon does their renewals. I imagine season 7 and 8 will be slightly difficult though just as they'll have to do some serious aging of the actors. But The Expanse has a rather fantastic make-up/prop/FX department so I imagine they'll be able to pull it off. I just more worry that the world will have devolved into a global conflict(possibly nuclear) before they get to actually film season 7 lol.
@@AGTheOSHAViolationsCounter Apparently they are putting the main show on hold after Season 6 and working on some other stories until they are ready to start Season 7
@@rodrigolopes2633oh, I get it, well it got a new paint job, weapons are the same(only not MCRN anymore)and they got that super light UNN railgun between s3 and s4, but yeah it looks better with new paint...
@@elvisibra plus the planetary, unassisted, landing gear. I believe it also got an armor and system upgrade on Tycho in the last season. Before Fred Johnson's assassination
@@violet_skrs Tycho doesn't have MCRN hull plate armor, they've just done some repairs on existing one and replaced some plates, and system upgrade on Tycho is actually system downgrade compared to MCRN, cause UN, Earth, Luna and Tycho don't have tech good as Mars has
20G is not a meausre of speed but of acceleration. As soon as you cut acceleration you could go basically any speed in space without realy noticing it's effect.
Not sure if this came out before or after Season 6, but if it was after, you definitely missed the Flip and Rail Gun shot versus the Free Navy Triple Team
So like something that occurs to me. Generally most content is viewed on mobile. This kind of makes QR codes a bit less effective. Also this video is awesome, thank you!
I have to say that I agree with your list and order exactly, except that I would have made it 10 and add the Battle of the Ring Gate, in season 5, as number two. And just bump everything else down one notch. He may be evil, but he shows the same (out-side the box) tactical genus as James Holden. Without James' natural morals of course. Which is one of the reasons why he is such an excellent villain.
18:00 The comment that Alex "couldn't hack it" in the Martian Navy is incorrect. He retired after 20 years. He didn't pilot proper warships, but he did have a perfectly normal career.
Fine just kill off Alex, but replace a character like him with a similiar or even better character, also can they get a martian to their ship too? So Roci's crew is kinda diversed.
The only thing I didn't enjoy was being reminded of the death of the Donnager. That ep grabs you by the balls and the feels and gives 'em both a good twist.
The ridiculous thing about the Donnager is that a couple of frigates seem to have more marines than a massive battleship. There also don’t appear to be some means of defending against boarders
The Donnager is one hell of a battle ship, but they didn't thought that someone was going to board them, while the attacking frigattes prepared for this. They knew that their only chance was to board the Donnager, so they filled their ships with infantry.
@@TN-lz8qs just speaks of Martian overconfidence. And it’s not like they don’t have enough people. Isn’t the Martian population something like 9 billion? As ridiculous as it sounds for a planet without a breathable atmosphere. Or at least add automated systems to fight off or delay boarders
@@artembentsionov Yes that's really weird, if you have such a ship, why don't you just install some kind of pdc(not that big but you know what I mean) at the entry of the bridge, the Maschine deck and the reactor control room. The population is about 4 billion.
The expanses attention to detail hand facts is superb That's no ship could land other than chemical on a planet without using the main drive we even hear the sonic boom from the Rocinante, and how much do you think a thing like that weighs, on the belta world And what about Ascension protocol ! ( Riddick) back into space thrusters there too. The main Drive is Atomic powered leaving lots of Chernobyl in its wake THE EXPANSE is the best.
In the final example, when the Roci blew the engines off the UNN a ship, they used two rail gun shots, not missiles. The idea of the attack was to blind the UNN ship with the nukes. Presumably the Roci shielded its sensors for the moment of the blast. However, if this were possible, it would have been used decades ago in other battles. A warship would have redundant sensors that would come online immediately. Though the Roci had sent about 6 missiles so if the detonations were timed right they could take out the backups as well. And the UNN ship should have been able to launch a swarm of missiles even after losing its engines, and killed the Roci. At the end Jim says they’re down to 10% of PDC rounds, could not have got them all.
The Roci didn't have a railgun yet. That was installed later. You'll note the shots had blue drive-plumes of missiles, not the purple-white streaks of railgun slugs.
nope, he used Martian torpedoes. The Roci never had a railgun at that point - in fact Alex never once got to fire the railgun against live opponents, he fired once when he blew up a moon and a few times when he used the railgun as a thruster. He fired a load of Martian torpedoes towards the heavy cruiser, and exploded the plasma warheads of the Martian torpedoes just out of PDC range. No-one expected him to use the explosion as a screen, there was nothing wrong with the sensors on the UNN cruiser, they just had nowhere near enough time to react and fire when then Roci came through, and as you seem many times in the series, an engine hit pretty much always causes a power overload forcing you to shut down then restart the reactor - even the Donnager suffered this. Thats why they could not fire back. The Roci and Razorback will have hauled ass before the UNN cruiser could start up again.
You haven't mentioned how Naomi set Chetskoka onto a spiralling course. You won't believe the number of muppets who think such maneuvre is impossible in absence of atmosphere.
Blowing up the aid ship was a necessary thing that had to be done because they wouldn’t be able to destroy the threat permanently. In fact I personally believed they deserved it, if they had inspected all vessels and stations with this virus onboard they should have know by now that there are never any survivors, all the people aboard would most likely be casualties.
One of the coolest scenes in The Expanse: Miller taking his pet-Nuke for a walk around Eros
You missed Alex's impossible approach to Ganymede through two hostile fleets.
Funnily enough, Alex's approach was literally impossible, as a slingshot trajectory to Ganymede even in the best scenario should have taken much, much, much longer (weeks to months) rather than the few minutes or hours it seems to take Alex.
@@briantien7146 Exactly why I call it Alex's impossible approach to Ganymede. The distances involved in this manoeuvre are immense.
@@milanondrak5564 I've heard that even the writers ended up not particularly liking that scene because of the inaccuracies it involved.
@@briantien7146 I’ll wait to hear the discourse in the Ty and That Guy podcast
@@briantien7146 It didn't happen in the book I don't think
I think you forgot the last battle that Roci was fighting in season 5. That when Roci do a spinny spin whilst using her PDCs to take down multiple enemies. That was cool as shit.
"I'll try spinning! That's a good trick!" - Bull
SPINNY SPIN, I'm dead hahaha
Did a back-flip and broke the [frigate's] neck!
@@vikiai4241 And saved the day! :D
That's what happens when you put a Martian tactical pro with an Earther tactical genius. You get win.
My man Alex is the real MVP
It's a shame he was touchy :(
@@LeafBoye talking about the actor ?
@@horizon_universe9349 mhm, such a shame
@@LeafBoye yeah, fame really does things to people
now their Martian pilot will be replaced with another Earther, and additionally another and not just any Earther, but the daughter of an Earther who killed 100 000 Belters on Eros, got added to their crew..so much for "unity" for that matter, not to mention that even before this the Roci wasn't welcomed on Mars, neither the Belt, and that's why they did all their supply, resupply, service, maitenance on Earth-owned Tycho run by an Earther, or on Luna, and so much for "an independent" ship for that matter..
I know it's season 6 scene, but my fave is the one where Holden did a backflip snapshot with the railgun and took out the Inaros escort. What an impossible move. Also cool af. Makes me believe the scene was still written for Alex at the helm. Too bad Anvar had to be written off, I liked his character.
Yeah sexual harassment will doom a career. Too bad I liked his character 2.
I call that maneuver the Rocinante Quickdraw.
Agreed, I called it the "360 railgun no-scope" maneuver and holy shit was it really impressive!
I remember specifically being so nervous for that scene as it drew closer. The way it is written in the books is fantastic. I was so relieved when they knocked it out of the park. And it actually made going back to the scene in the book even better.
Wonder if they could have gotten someone else to play Alex
Spot on me mi beratna! Per your usual! Glad to see Alex getting the proper press he deserves. Man was the best pilot to ever fly the dark skies.
😢🙌🙌
I loved the sequence in season 5, episode 8 (I think) when the Rocci chased down the Zemayah and the Zemayah then launched all her torpedoes in a spiral formation so they couldn't all be taken out by counter-explosions. "I'm putting us into a spin!" Bull said. What an amazing move and what a fantastic scene when the Rocci's PDC's opened up and took out all the torpedoes. One of my favorite moments in the whole series!
Risky space maneuvers are kind of a win-no worries scenario. If it works, you can proudly look back and humbly admit "I meant to do that" as you brag over your beer. If it doesn't work. .....
Well, in your last seconds admit it was quite a ride before you can't worry about anything anymore.
If it works: 😃👍
If it fails: 😐well sh!t😑
Reminds me of a interview with an EOD tech
How do you say so calm
Either the bomb is diffused or I'm dead so either way no one else is hurt
Yes, we had the … if you make a mistake… you’ll never know. Line
I can't believe we got a call out to the Barba Picola scene and no mention using the freakin rail gun to stay in orbit
How about that time the Roci escorted the Somnambulist out of an active warzone with Holden threatening all factions involved with mutually assured destruction?
That was Badass.
Chilling speech.
"this is the war ship Rocinante..."
he reminded everyone that the rocci isnt some junkyard but high end martian tech
In the final engagement you described you didn't mention how the Roci fired missiles at the Razorback not to destroy it but to escort it protecting the Razorback against further missile attacks, clear tactical thinking from the mind of someone well trained in the UN Navy underscored by what you then went on to describe.
What wondered me at the Donnager, was that there were no marines with goliath armors. Especially when considering that there were some on the Sirocco and in the 7th and 8th book everyone seems to have them.
By that point in the show the Donnager was policing the belt against pirates with her Fleet of 2 Morrigan Class Destroyers and 2 Corvette Class Frigates, she was the mothership just there to refuel, resupply and rearm them so she was not exactly at max strength when she was attacked plus much like the crew themselves nobody thought there was anything or anyone powerful or crazy enough to challange the Martian Navy Flagship let alone beat the biggest baddest battleship in the system, so probably they had no Goliath Armours ready and charged when they were attacked.
@@marcofava Yes that's likely, also it could be that they had some of them on board, but not the time to take them on. They new several hours before the fight started that the enemys were coming but didn't thought they'd be crazy enough to take on the Donnager in CQB.
@@TN-lz8qs One thing i would also add is that the Donnager was fully expecting a battle in space to destruction, it was not expecting the enemy to try to board it, as throughout the ship you see very few armed crewmen or expecting a boarding party, so yeah best bet is they were not expecting it.
@@marcofava Yeah why would they. And who should have attacked them? The locations of the UNN ships were known and the OPA? They wouldn't have been able to destroy it with all their ships at once. They couldn't know some d*cks with stealth ships set up a suicide trap.
The Scirocco-class is a dedicated troop carrier while the Donnager is not. The Scirocco has breaching pods and boarding skiffs and is designed for putting troops into battle. The Donnager is designed to pummel the enemy in space. It makes sense the former would be more likely to have a contingent of force recon marines.
I would rank Uncle Mateo's ice hauler SCIF, rock tow cable sling shot at the MCRN Patrol Destroyer towards the top. The ice projectiles nearly destroyed the Martians. A couple meters either way and Ole Mateo might not have been torpedoed into particle projectiles himself. Maybe a lucky rock found big Mickie Bully guy. "Noooo Unlce Mateo Come Back......"
"a man's gotta stand up!" "some day things gonna change" "a man is gonna stand up!"..
Mateo x20K
Things have changed..
One of the things that always confused me... how did the boarding parties (and only the pods that survived) from only two (relatively) small craft overwhelm the entire crew of the Donnager. They would be fighing in hostile terrain, against a larger force, against whatever internal defenses exist, and have the added difficulty of being on offense.
Like what people said they weren’t expecting it and most on board were newly trained recruits and the boarder’s had advance armor on them with advance weapons as well and highly trained as well
I was amazed by how few crew the Donnager had.
It would likely be crewed up if tensions with earth had been higher, but doing anti-piracy out in the Jovian system they probably had it running on little more than a skeleton crew.
@@niallkinsella2687 I thought they were just dispatched from mars to Pheobe and the Captain was the only experience person from those pirates raids.
@@bayarsejar5831
Pheobe only went silent a few weeks before the events in expanse season 1.
My guess is the Donnager was already in the area on anti piracy patrols and training new officers when it got the call to go check on the station.
Don’t know what the point of the boarding was. They knew the Captain would scuttle if they got to the bridge. And they lost 4 out of 6 ships, and probably the other 2 when the Donnager went up. How do you get troops working for a company, not a nation, to be willing to almost certainly die on a mission?
Now do in Sci-fi in general. I can name one from SDF Macross: the time the Battle 7 jumped from high orbit into a planet's atmosphere. Eat your heart out BSG Reimagined Adama, Max Genus beat you in daring maneuvers.
I seem to recall them doing risky maneuvers in all of the stargate series.
@@KHH595 the one-second hyperspace jump into Anubis’s shields is definitely worth a mention
Roci flip & rip with the rail gun hands down insane...
The only thing one can say about Manéo Espinoza is, that liquidated was never ment that litteraly before. 😁
Nice break down of Expanse riskiest ship maneuvers American Ben...always appreciate your take on the the Expanse...many thanks. :)
Thx Simon, always appreciate your comments.
One thing to remember is that Lithium is valuable now, as well as in the future. It is also rare which is what made Illus so valuable to everybody involved.
Not gonna lie that"dammit" hit me harder cause this is my first expanse video of your's XD
this list should definitely be updated with bobby's insane gunnery skills during flip and railgun-fire against the pella🔥🔥
The real science that powers this show is the absolute star, in my book!
The space maneuvers in the expanse are just so frakin' cool. Really did miss them in season 5.
I see your list and raise you the Roci Vs. Free Navy Ships Koto and Serio Mal. That was the perfect comedy of errors.
that one and the Zmeya one are two worst plot armored "battles", fought by plot armored "captains" of plot armored ships, and additionally full of production errors..
@@elvisibra could you elaborate on that?
@@lazarusboi6289 the Zmeya: the Roci struggled hard for 70sec, so if the Zmeya fired(half)missiles burning towars the Roci instead of away, the Roci would have much less time to react and got killed, the Roci shot down 6,7 more missiles than the Zmeya fired, PDC was shown jammed on weapons console before it got jammed, the Zmeya, for some reason, didn't wait for the Roci to dock and board them first and then blow themselves up..
Drummer's mutininy lasted for 3min, during which she fired at the Free Navy allies, ordered ships to stand down against Fleet Command orders, mentioned fire control issue and that fire control issue injured Karal, asked for assistance, and fired at them too after they approached, and that meant that everything she said before was a big lie, and the Serrio Mal did nothing, then the Roci entered missile range long before they entered the range of their super light 10km/s railgun, and the Serrio Mal did nothing, then the Roci started shooting on the Koto, and the Serrio Mal did nothing, and the Serrio Mal fired only for defense and as a response after the Roci fired 4 missiles at them first, and then the Roci fired 6 more railgun slugs(at together 8)but entered the battle with 7 shown on weapons console, where was in the end of the battle also shown 1 missile out of 20 in the magazine after fired 6 all together(4 here, 2 at Zmeya's missiles), so they've lost 13 missiles, but have too many railgun slugs?..or they were throwing punches with the Serrio Mal and fired those 13 at them before Josep fired 18 at them too, but with Roci's 4 missile salvo, 13 missiles is more than 3 salvos, and that means that the Serrio Mal also fired at least 2 12-missile salvos, and the Roci didn't have enough bullets to defend from that(as Holden and Bull knew and stated)cause they wasted 2/3 of their bullets shooting(and 90% missing)at more missiles than the Zmeya fired..so yeah, those two battles really sucked, but different to the Zmeya battle, the Drummer mutiny battle was visually great..
You are just flat out wrong
1. The battle with the Zmeya
At first glance, you seem to have a point, there's no way the Roci could destroy such a large volley of torpedoes and come out relatively unscaved. To this I have three rebuttals.
The first of which being the immaculate technology put in place by the MCRN. The MCRN has the best PDC tracking systems in the entire system, even the UNN's PDC's cannot even compare to the MCRNs. Point number two is the type of torpedoes being fired at the Roci. Those missiles were belter missiles, those of which being the worst type of missiles in the entire system, bad avoidance systems and are far outclassed by their counterparts. MCRN pdcs can easily take down a volley of shitty belter torpedoes with no issue. "But you can only take down so many, there were to many for the Roci to handle". This brings me to point three, if you look at the positioning of the torpedoes fired from the Zmeya, they essentially line up 1 after the other for the Roci to destroy. Its a lot easier for a ship to kill 15 torpedoes on at a time then 15 torpedoes at the same time. In this case, they all came at the Roci pretty much one at a time. If they had all Zerg rushed the Roci at the same time, it might've been a different story.
2. The Free Navy Battle
This one is even easier to rebuttal then the first one. It is shown in the show that the Holden and Bull thought that this battle was going to be the end for them. And if Drummer hadn't switched sides, it would've been. (To be fair, there is a zero percent chance that Drummer would kill Holden). Keep in mind, the Roci is equipped with light keel mounted railgun that can shred smaller ships at close range, (which we see in the battle). The battle begins with Drummers faction basically switching sides, this turns the 1v5 into a 4v2 which is already good enough. The Tynan fired its missiles at the Koto which allowed the Roci to come in close with the railgun and that was. Thats not plot armor thats just good strategy and common sense. For the serrio mal, the Roci and the Serrio mal exchanged one small volley which both ships can easily destroy, then another one of Drummers faction fires on the Serrio mal which allows the Roci to get in close with the railgun which is game over.
You may say, its plot armor for drummers faction to switch sides, its just not. Drummer would never kill Holden if she could decide not to. She could never do that to Naomi, plus not to mention this betrayal had been building up all season.
Its not plot armor, the two battles are entertaining and realistic in the bounds of the universe and its characters. Also I dont know what production errors you're talking about, the battle is gorgeous, with subtle details of scientific accuracies.
The Expanse has and still does have the best battles in sci fi, they become more and more realistic as you know more about the universe itself.
@@dokkatoo1894 you are just talking B.S. and acting like a fanboy, look I like the Expanse too, but they dropped the ball in last 4 eps of s5, if the Zmeya fired those missiles burning towards the Roci it would all be over in 10sec and the Roci destroyed, cause they've struggled too much and too long with missiles fired the way that gives them a lot of time to react, and the Zmeya had 24 no-reload missile tubes, fired one at Tycho before that, and we saw 23 on Roci's screen, but one was protoml missile, after what we saw 22 missile salvo, then the Roci fired 2 for Zmeya's 2 and shot down 20 with 20th that jammed their PDC, and it was over, but, more coming, all together 7 more, yeah sure, producer of that ep is a moron, or they did so many cuts and re-shoots and lost themselves in it, and Drummer would be punished by her so and too obvious and too long mutiny, and the Roci would get fired upon long before they've entered their railgun range; slug velocity ONLY 10km/s(you have data in 4x01)standard MCRN light has 200-300km/s and still missiles have over 10 000 and much more km range with no trouble at all...
Love the show... Love the books more... Many many thanks for making videos about this phenomenal story!
My all time favorite Sci-fi show is Star Gate SG-1 but The Expanse is so close, I love that show.
I'd love to be able to experience IFF for the first time again. That was such an amazing episode and that sequence was unlike anything we'd seen in scifi before. Using their missiles as "escort" for the Razorback, using the blast from missiles to intercept incoming missiles targeting the Razorback but her own PDC's for anything thrown at them, using EMP to blind the enemy at just the right moment and best of all the Roci isn't racing anywhere. She's literally tapping the breaks and allowing the Razorback and the UNN ship to catch up instead of the stereotypical punch the throttle and swoop in to the rescue like it's a WW2 dogfight.
Have to say though the Roci vs Pella one ups it. The book does a better job at conveying it but it still comes through on the show that Bobbie wasn't just shooting where the Pella would be. She was creating a circumstance that would have the Pella move to where she WANTED it to be for the PDC rounds to be there to hit them in the face. Pella saw the missiles coming in, knew the rail gun would be fired but didn't expect the PDC's to be a threat so missed it. Love how the show didn't wreck it with exposition and just let it play out though letting us figure it out for ourselves.
The Expanse did an amazing job with theses action sequences. Most of them you know exactly where everyone is in relation to each other and even those times where it's a "wtf? Where'd that come from?", quick rewind and watch a little closer and the answers there. So many tiny details going on too, imo it's going to be a long time for anyone to reach the bar The Expanse left
Everything now falls one place back due to the Draper maneuver against the Pella
Saw the whole show in about 12 days, excellent show. Fantastic. And from the comments, the Genymede approach was good. When Alex show down the torpedo after Naomi rescuing 52 belters. Drummer helping the Rocinante. There is alot of good space battles, alot of good scene. From your clips , I really loved the sequence you showed at 10.40 with the Barbapiccola. When Rocinante rescues Boobie and Avasarala as you show here. Alot of good sequence. Fantastic show.
With the donnager battle you missed that their lack of effective pdc cover led to them losing 2 ships to missiles
so like all of the ship sequences in the expanse? They always are so epic looking.
Damn the last time I was this early Taiwan was still China
You mean china was Taiwan
@@levitschetter5288 yes
Pretty sure all of these have now been outdone but the 360 Noscope with a Railgun in Season 6.
Brilliant video as always, though I never need a break from your visage: that is always a welcome gift.
This just goes to show how poor the Martian Military machine is at evolving and pushing forwards: counting a pilot like Alex out of the running is a fatal mistake and one wonders how many other talented pilots have been passed over.
RIP Alex.
I'm definitely not sure Bull is going to be able to handle the Roci with the same level of poise and dexterity that Alex did! I'll give him a fair chance though! .
How is Maneuver#1 talked about the least?
That was insane!!! (O_o)
Yeah I just rewatched it tonight that’s was bad ass. Like the coolest parts of all the fights are when they do something awesome. And that’s one of the most awesome ones.
No. 10 - 360 no scope "dodge this"
Anything Expanse, i'm sold.
THANK YOU for the first place!
Loved the video Dude! Thanks
Wow what a video… refreshed the good memories, thanks for making it. Loved it 🤩
What slips most people's memories is that the Donnager destroyed four of the Amon-Ra class ships before they got close enough to launch breaching pods. We also
have no indication that the remaining two frigates were able to escape the blast when Capt. Yao scuttled the Donnie.
Great video! You highlighted it in your best damn space pirate video, the Tynan attack on Marco Inaros was pretty damn solid. I LOVE that the expanse does space battle so well. However, I have to agree with you on the number 1, it is definitely not talked about enough!
I would add Bobbie's kick flip against the Pella and Bull's Spin-o-rama against the Zmeya.
Mate you're looking much better with the new hairstyle.
I like how the "most replayed" portion of the video is the very end of the raid shadow legends plug xD
As of now, #1 is the 360 no-scope.
They blew up the docking ring on Eros to prevent anyone boarding it on its way to the sun... Not to blow it up
Such a great show.
How can I scan the QR code with my phone, when I'm watching the video on my phone?
They were all good!
Outstanding!!!
I'm still disappointed the shows ending before we get to see Bobbie give the laconians back there antimatter
I’m disappointed we won’t get to see the Magnetar class battlecruisers. Those ships are fucking badass.
@@hresvelgr7193 Umm they'll likely be in season 6 towards the end of the season, didn't you guys see the very end of season 6? In a vidcall Cortez was on Iaconia talking about the shipyard they found in orbit and that it'd be operational in a few months with design work on new ships being nearly complete. Also the show likely will not be canceled after season 6 as apparently the renewal won't be done till season 6 premieres as that's how Amazon does their renewals. I imagine season 7 and 8 will be slightly difficult though just as they'll have to do some serious aging of the actors. But The Expanse has a rather fantastic make-up/prop/FX department so I imagine they'll be able to pull it off. I just more worry that the world will have devolved into a global conflict(possibly nuclear) before they get to actually film season 7 lol.
@@AGTheOSHAViolationsCounter Apparently they are putting the main show on hold after Season 6 and working on some other stories until they are ready to start Season 7
Good stuff, love the expanse. You guys have great content, keep it up.
Yeah an Expanse video. Yahoo!
Pretty Cool ! I am wanting to see more like this.
Great work as always.
well, *cough* season 6, ep 3 *cough*
So I love the drama and action
How about a vídeo comparing Theo roci pre and post upgrade...you guys are great
what/which upgrade?
@@elvisibra looks like like has more weapons and armor in the last season
@@rodrigolopes2633oh, I get it, well it got a new paint job, weapons are the same(only not MCRN anymore)and they got that super light UNN railgun between s3 and s4, but yeah it looks better with new paint...
@@elvisibra plus the planetary, unassisted, landing gear. I believe it also got an armor and system upgrade on Tycho in the last season. Before Fred Johnson's assassination
@@violet_skrs Tycho doesn't have MCRN hull plate armor, they've just done some repairs on existing one and replaced some plates, and system upgrade on Tycho is actually system downgrade compared to MCRN, cause UN, Earth, Luna and Tycho don't have tech good as Mars has
Wait till season 6 it gets even better.
20G is not a meausre of speed but of acceleration. As soon as you cut acceleration you could go basically any speed in space without realy noticing it's effect.
Actually we do want to see it. That's part of the awesomeness about the scene
Not sure if this came out before or after Season 6, but if it was after, you definitely missed the Flip and Rail Gun shot versus the Free Navy Triple Team
So like something that occurs to me. Generally most content is viewed on mobile. This kind of makes QR codes a bit less effective.
Also this video is awesome, thank you!
There's gotta be a part 2 to this. All time best maneuver is S6 E3
I have to say that I agree with your list and order exactly, except that I would have made it 10 and add the Battle of the Ring Gate, in season 5, as number two. And just bump everything else down one notch.
He may be evil, but he shows the same (out-side the box) tactical genus as James Holden.
Without James' natural morals of course. Which is one of the reasons why he is such an excellent villain.
I wanna see a TV series on slingshot pilots
Video starts at 4:35
18:00 The comment that Alex "couldn't hack it" in the Martian Navy is incorrect. He retired after 20 years. He didn't pilot proper warships, but he did have a perfectly normal career.
Oh no you’ve got raids
I'm disappointed that the slingshot maneuver around Jupiter's moons was not on the list.
Can you to a list of tactics with more than one spaceship?
You forgot how the roci used its railgun to gain speed while towing the barbapicolla.
What’s this about him not being able to hack it in the MCRN? He was in the navy for 20 years and retired with full honors.
The brass said he couldn't hack it flying the badass gunships, so Alex was a bus pilot.
15:36 mate its 3d drifting..... its the DK of space. Fast and the Furious 2230
Fine just kill off Alex, but replace a character like him with a similiar or even better character, also can they get a martian to their ship too? So Roci's crew is kinda diversed.
The only thing I didn't enjoy was being reminded of the death of the Donnager. That ep grabs you by the balls and the feels and gives 'em both a good twist.
The ridiculous thing about the Donnager is that a couple of frigates seem to have more marines than a massive battleship. There also don’t appear to be some means of defending against boarders
The Donnager is one hell of a battle ship, but they didn't thought that someone was going to board them, while the attacking frigattes prepared for this. They knew that their only chance was to board the Donnager, so they filled their ships with infantry.
@@TN-lz8qs just speaks of Martian overconfidence. And it’s not like they don’t have enough people. Isn’t the Martian population something like 9 billion? As ridiculous as it sounds for a planet without a breathable atmosphere. Or at least add automated systems to fight off or delay boarders
@@artembentsionov Yes that's really weird, if you have such a ship, why don't you just install some kind of pdc(not that big but you know what I mean) at the entry of the bridge, the Maschine deck and the reactor control room. The population is about 4 billion.
@@TN-lz8qs that still feels like a lot for a place where people can only survive in domes
@@artembentsionov Yes, maybe they found a way to dig tunnels very fast
You picked the correct #1...
The expanses attention to detail hand facts is superb
That's no ship could land other than chemical
on a planet without using the main drive we even hear the sonic boom from the Rocinante, and how much do you think a thing like that weighs, on the belta world
And what about Ascension protocol !
( Riddick) back into space thrusters there too.
The main Drive is Atomic powered leaving lots of Chernobyl in its wake
THE EXPANSE is the best.
Epic!
what about rocinante vs free navy? What a battle
Update: Holden Manoeuvre
brilliant please god do a video on laconia when season 6 drops PLEASE
The only reason Alex didn't make it in the MCRN is that standard issue MCRN underwear isn't up to the job.
In the final example, when the Roci blew the engines off the UNN a ship, they used two rail gun shots, not missiles. The idea of the attack was to blind the UNN ship with the nukes. Presumably the Roci shielded its sensors for the moment of the blast. However, if this were possible, it would have been used decades ago in other battles. A warship would have redundant sensors that would come online immediately. Though the Roci had sent about 6 missiles so if the detonations were timed right they could take out the backups as well.
And the UNN ship should have been able to launch a swarm of missiles even after losing its engines, and killed the Roci. At the end Jim says they’re down to 10% of PDC rounds, could not have got them all.
The Roci didn't have a railgun yet. That was installed later. You'll note the shots had blue drive-plumes of missiles, not the purple-white streaks of railgun slugs.
nope, he used Martian torpedoes.
The Roci never had a railgun at that point - in fact Alex never once got to fire the railgun against live opponents, he fired once when he blew up a moon and a few times when he used the railgun as a thruster.
He fired a load of Martian torpedoes towards the heavy cruiser, and exploded the plasma warheads of the Martian torpedoes just out of PDC range. No-one expected him to use the explosion as a screen, there was nothing wrong with the sensors on the UNN cruiser, they just had nowhere near enough time to react and fire when then Roci came through, and as you seem many times in the series, an engine hit pretty much always causes a power overload forcing you to shut down then restart the reactor - even the Donnager suffered this. Thats why they could not fire back. The Roci and Razorback will have hauled ass before the UNN cruiser could start up again.
What happened to mineo was that his ship stopped, he didn't😂
you missed the boarding by protogen on the Anubis
I think you need to update the list following season 6
You haven't mentioned how Naomi set Chetskoka onto a spiralling course. You won't believe the number of muppets who think such maneuvre is impossible in absence of atmosphere.
I’m not quite sure on that manoeuvre. It is possible but very very difficult to pull off and everything has to be lined up perfectly
The Beast Mothership from Homeworld Cataclysm
The Union Jack flag in the intro is hung upside down.
None as good as the Riker Maneuver.😂
I wonder what the captain said in the report lol
7:38 cousin. In the books, she’s his cousin.
Woah
"Evasive maneuvers, technobabble alpha !!!" - oh no sorry, that's luckily another franchise.
Wait what happened 17:45 mark?
Holden prematurely detonated the Roci's torpedos to blind the sensors of the pursuing UNN ship.
What? They added the civilian ship to justify Miller staying behind? In the book he was just suicidal
Blowing up the aid ship was a necessary thing that had to be done because they wouldn’t be able to destroy the threat permanently. In fact I personally believed they deserved it, if they had inspected all vessels and stations with this virus onboard they should have know by now that there are never any survivors, all the people aboard would most likely be casualties.
Agreed