**correction** At the end of the Earth Minbari war, prototypes of the omega class destroyer were released early to help with the war effort. Happy Holidays everyone!!!
you forgot Omega X and Excalibur. and i think you downplay the fleet too much. post Mimbari war after the rebuild they were on par with the centauri in strength. only the Minbari, Vorlons, and shadows had a clear leg up on them and because those races were 1000 plus more advance
I love how since humanity is sperdrunning becoming a galactic superpower, our technology is functional but extremely simple, with most ships being boxes with guns and engines
It's true though, logical brutalist function over form. And that's why i love the Human designs in B5, no big sweeping curves wings or planes in space, because why would you need them? Big Engines, big guns, copy/paste... boom you're a superpower. Meanwhile all the Alien ships (expect perhaps the Narns) with hundreds or thousands of years of culture, tradition and history have indulged... and dare i say it... stagnated.
This actually has a comparison in Modern History. In the cold war between the Soviet Union and America in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. The soviets used quantity and simplicity (for the most part) for their military, while the Americans tried to make up for Soviet numbers with weapons technology. Soviet tanks and planes were simpler than American ones but they had the advantage in numbers. Eventually though the advances in Americas military technology could not easily be countered by numbers, as shown by the events of the gulf war. While the Soviets were more advanced, more competent, better trained, and had better moral than the Iraqi's, it still is telling how quickly and absolutely lopsided the war turned out to be with far more advanced technology of the Allies being overwhelming in its lethal capacity. Kinda what happened to Earth during the Earth Mimbari War. Another example is from the cold war. While the Americans were paying big bucks to design a pen to wright upside down and in 0 gravity to be used in space, the Soviets simply relied on a pencil to do the same thing.
@@scottperry7311 Always nice to find someone else that appreciates history! Just a couple of things, the soviets were “that” far behind the US in terms of technology, and the US was never “that” far behind in terms of numbers. The Soviet’s did indeed prefer a mass assault doctrine, so when calculating force numbers would include reserve and outdated/obsolete designs in their roster. However the US, would tend to mothball older designs that were no longer combat effective. And indeed in some areas of Tank design for example their super large calibre 125mm guns, Also… the pen/pencil thing was a myth, they both just used pencils.
@@jonojjt6 True. I spoke in pretty broad generalities. The parity of forces and technological advancement of the two sides ebbed and flowed to some degree but became more apparent as the cold war matured. In the 1940s the Soviets had a massive army, while the U.S. only fielded abound 80 or so divisions in total (but had millions of potential soldiers in reserve). At that time as well the technological advantage of the Americans was slim if even present at all in most fields, except radar and the atomic bomb. By the end of the cold war the U.S. had a volunteer military, while in many aspects the equipment it used was now much more superior. One exception to this was the U.S. Navy, which was the largest navy, by far, at the end of WWII, by the end of the cold war the Soviets had a produced a large surface fleet (the Soviets always had a very large submarine fleet, even before WWII) but again the technological advantage rested with the U.S. But both were superpowers and part of the reason for that was that their ability to project force and their technological development compared to other nations was superior. The two side were the equal of each other in many ways, some greater and some lesser. The fear of a nuclear exchange, "Mutually assured destruction" kept open warfare between the two at bay. But through proxy states they tested each other and their military equipment's ability in real world conditions. Ultimately it was not the military might of the U.S. that caused the Soviets Union to collapse, it ability of the Soviet economy to keep pace with U.S. military spending and at the same time provide for the other necessities of their country, along with some other significant factors. Again I am speaking in vast generalities here and there are many examples I can think of that work to the contrary of the trend.
The Explorer class is one of the reasons we humans spread so quickly. The Centauri did their part, but building new jump gates so quickly really is something to be in awe of.
There are a few Earth Force ships missing: 1) The Shadow/Omega hybrid (“Between the darkness and the light”) 2) A two-seater starfury where one pilot was a rear gunner in a separate cockpit looking aft. (“a voice in the wilderness”) 3) Earth Force one (“Chrysalis”) Honourable mentions as these may not technically be part of the military: 4) The psi-corps mothership (“the corps is mother, the corps is father”) 5) The hybrid shadow ship from Crusade that destroyed the EAS Cerberus (“the path of sorrows”)
A fully armed Omega, including fighters, is a great ship to pilot against some equally pointed Narn, or other equals on the tech levels in Babylon 5 Wars. Great game.
Did it ever feature the upgraded Nova that used gravity engines? The books explored it and made a point that with the advent of artifical gravity for EA the Nova, Hyperion, and those few Olympus classes left suddenly became even more useful
You missed off the Omega's mine launchers, these are the massive gunports on the front of the ship but were never used in the show, the blue spherical ball of energy launched by the B5 defense grid are supposed to be mines as well.
Your comment reminded me of the energy mines used by the Narn in that last-ditch attack on a Centauri base. I'd like to think that they are holdovers from the original intent of having Omegas use them.
Those forward-facing launchers were unbelievably powerful weapons. The yield on the ordnance they launched was measured in _gigatons._ For a sense of scale, the entire thermonuclear payload of an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, with the most powerful warheads in service mounted, comes to about 91.2 megatons. Assuming the Omega's launchers deliver 2 gigatons per shot, that would make each shot from the Omega's launcher hit with just slightly less explosive force than TWENTY-TWO Ohio-class submarines firing off every last missile they have. Forget laying minefields: that's the sort of firepower you'd want if you were trying to crack _planets._
The Explorer Class was really not made for combat. Most of its armaments would be mining equipment designed to collect minerals in space to increase its self-sufficiency. This class was only really used to build new Jump Gates ahead of the major Earth corporations who would go into these new systems with survey ships and other civilian vessels. In extreme cases, I can see the Explorer Class being used as a lightly-armed "mobile space station" that can act as a temporary Forward Operations Base during times of war.
Still, the ability to make jump gates is why the EA was so wealthy for how young it was as a space faring race. They could tax practically anyone who used their gates and in return Earth maintained those gates and if one broke they would either fix it or replace it. That's a hell of an economic power boost.
The carrier is mentioned by Sheridan in dialogue. ( as powerful as a carrier group) i assume its protected by a naval battle group of about 9 ships wiith ten in total. Its never seen onscreen but the black star battle. The Lexington was part of a group of ten ships. A carrier group perhaps ?
Nice, some of the ships I`ve seen for the 1st time. It`s amazing how fast humans were able to develop their weapons on par with others based on purchased old technology. In Star Trek Vulcans would go crazy with such a tempo. Also I think the Warlock class served as an inspiration for the Corvette-class (the Expanse). Same angles in forepart
I have nearly all the B5 Wars stuff in my treasure vault. I loved the show and watch some of it every other year. Nice to see new videos creeping up on YT about it.
Unfortunately one of those is it being curb-stomped by the Centauri in a vision shown to Sheridan by Galen. Then again, Galen could’ve deliberately fabricated it to get Sheridan moving in the right direction
@@artembentsionov I think that is true, it is possible that Galen just fabricate it. We can't know for sure what would really happen. Warlock is created to go toe vs toe with Sharlin warcruiser but taking that centari love their Vorhan wolfpacks, a single Warlock may destroy one or two of them before itself been blasted. Second warlock engaged and destroyed one, it would probably be able to destroy rest.
@@Zagoreni02A of course, if we take the Technomage trilogy into account, Galen could probably destroy a Warlock by himself. Even Kosh wasn’t sure which of them was stronger
@@artembentsionov Warlock is well designed ship, it is truly shame we didn't see more. It is possible that we may see them in reboot that is if they dont change EA ship designs completly, and that would suck. Modern version wtih todays CGI of Hyperion, Nova, Omega and Warlock.
@@Zagoreni02A like most fans, I’m both hopeful and wary of the new show. JMS tried to have other spin-offs (like Crusade, Lost Tales, and Legends of the Rangers) and they failed
😎👍 Very cool and very nicely greatly fabulously well done and very nicely informatively explained and executed in every detail way shape and format provided on the Earth Alliance Fleet Analysis / Of Babylon 5 Ships, A job very nicely wonderfully well done indeed Sir!👌.
Is that what Ivanova had them rip out? Or was that something else? I have no objections to using non-evil shadow tech (and like that they mix it with minbari) but the main characters all were drowning in Vorlon propaganda so I get their reluctance.
@@specialnewb9821 they don't explain what the secret shadow device is. But one of the books state. That in bay one of her ship is kosh's transport. That ship negates the shadow device. The book doesn't say or I forgot if the book says the the armor was ran by the ship or was replaced with vorlon armor. Nothing on the vorlon ship I can after she becomes the One
I remember Sheridan making a comment about having seen Centari pull maneuvers in their fighters that would leave humans a pink smear on the back wall!!! 🤠👍
If I remember correctly the Warlock integrates its smaller weapons into a Mk. 3 interceptor grid. Also worth noting is that it is the first mobile platform capable of carrying the most powerful cannons in the EA arsenal which were up until this point reserved for the stationary aegis platforms.
@@artembentsionov i still think they are a Close 2nd to the refined antimatter beams and slicers. It still takes humans a massive lumbering vessel to wield 2 of them versus any of the minbari ships that wield many beams.
@@wolfgangjr74 I think TV Tropes would call the Minbari a Higher-Tech Species. They’d been fighting a massive war 1000 years before the events of the show (so roughly around the 13th-14th century), so it would make sense for them to have better tech. The Sharlin wasn’t even around for that war. They used an older version of the Tinashi frigate, called Tinash-Haza war cruiser back then. On the other hand, humans sure do advance fast. I guess it helps they’ve had help with tech. The Narns sold them older Centauri weapons
@@artembentsionov absolutely agree. The assistance via interference by the senior races with shadow technology and development from other alien base technologies sure did help catch them up in a few hundred years versus thousands. Honestly. What a fantastic show for its time.
I think the StarFuy is one of the most dynamic fighters ever put on screen - and functionally realistic as well. The Thunderbolts were a great natural progression. During the early seasons, they seemed like such a force to be reckoned with, taking care of Raiders and more with ease. But by the time of the Shadow/Civil Wars, they just became cannon fodder. Every battle, they seemed to get obliterated right and left. 😢
The raiders fighters were inferior, and they were up against a first class military with much better training and organisation. The casualties against against peer adversaries would be much higher.
@5:40 Particle engines need a reactor of some sort to power them. You can't just siphon power off of a particle accelerator, which is basically what B5s particle engines are. This isn't a dad's 70s scottsdale with a chevy small block 350 wit an alternator on it. You need something like a fission reactor or a fusion reactor to create not only the power but, in some cases, the heat needed to start the initial reactions of an accelerator system. The two are connected but definately separate.
In canon the Centauri actually are very cautious about Earth warships as there weapons are easily capable of destroying Centauri warships and the Centauri know it. Also particle thrust engines are the sublight drive systems all EarthForce capital ships are powered by fusion reactors.
The Fusion Reactor and the Particle Thrust Engine are all one unit, so the Omega Class Destroyer actually has four fusion plants. That's why you see Omegas stop fighting and go dark in the series when they sustain significant damage to the drive section.
The omega close also has two underslung plasma mortar canons seen in the show it's the same thing B5 shoots that's on a pivoting turret that fires green globs of energy. The nova also has them too
The British royal navy had the same issue they had the largest navy in the world around a thousand ships . Then the made hms dreadnaut the most advanced ship ever. But it made the fleet obsolete. And everyone coped it .
@@Fatherofheroesandheroines wasn't an Ocean going warship, the low freeboard rendered it extremely dangerous to sail in anything other than mild seas, that's why they had little effect other than the introduction of Turrets and that wasn't a new idea
@@andreww2098 except it was an ironclad well before the Dreadnaught. Whcih was my point. IT was FAR more revolutionary than that. It and the MErrimac made history.
The Olympus class Corvette was brought back into production after the Mimbari War due to the speed of construction and lack of ships for border protection. As the Omega's came online the Olympus class were relegated to 2nd line duties.
I love Babylon 5, and that great board game, B5 Wars. I had most of the second edition, and a ton of great cross-universe stuff from the internet. The Battlestar Galactica stuff was especially great for the universe of B5. It is every alien, if they truly are out there, that we will emerge upon the galaxy as not an upstart race of easily brushed aside hailless monkies, but as equals, and advancing so fast that we soon become the new Vorlons, as was our fate in B5 :D
Been waiting. I LOVE Babylon 5. Even with the few flaws, I love the show. However I got to be honest I'm doubtful about its comeback. One I'm scared they are going to ruin it like many other franchises, and two I loved the original cast. Bruce and Mira. Andreas and bill etc. Perfect casting.. One strength of earth force was they could learn very quickly and adapt.. Given time...
@@UtopianBroadcast1 It's the fact of jms that gives me a little sliver of hope. I'm just scared in this day and age if one he'll be allowed to follow his vision and two, well do I need to say? Not the days of the 90s anymore.. And I couldn't in a million years see anyone replace Michael, Jerry, Bill, Jeff, Andreas, Richard, Stephen, Bruce, Peter, and the lovely mira who is smile could melt hearts both as mira and delenn 😊
Well, two points- JMS is heading the reboot, so its not like someone who doesn't understand what B5 is about is coming in. And secondly, hey, the chances of any new OG B5 coming out is pretty much nil at this point- so we have a chance for something better, while the OG material is still there to enjoy if ignoring the reboot works best for you. (Hell, the reboot *might* generate enough interest in the classic to get a proper remastering beyond AI upscaling.)
@@Sephiroth144 I wouldn't be shocked if in ten years skilled amatures are deepfaking OG B5 actors onto the reboot cast. A pleasant symmetry with JMS doing all the OG effects on an Amiga PC. (Really a pro workstation but still..)
@@UtopianBroadcast1 JMS is just a woke as the rest of Hollywood. B5 came out before all that nonsense started. I would have loved to see his original idea in full but I doubt this re-boot is going to be anything more then another way to push an agenda not good story telling.
My favourite from the show is actually not an Earth Alliance ship. My favourite is the G'Quan heavy cruiser of the Narn. The Warlock class also makes use of Shadow technology btw.
So I don’t know if it’s considered part of the fleet but there is a variant on the starfury that’s designed for none military use it’s normally painted in a yellow colour scheme and is fitted with front mounted arms, in the show we see it used by the maintenance crew to clear wreckage and other detritus from around the station but I believe it’s also used in construction too.
An important note about the advent of the Thunderbolt Starfuries: In order to be atmosphere capable, the profile and therefore the mass distribution of the ship was substantially changed in order to allow for aerodynamics. Furthermore, aerodynamic considerations places the pilot much further forward and far away from where the center, unlike in the original class of starfury. The first consequence of this is that it has a much higher moment of inertia, making it more difficult, to turn and therefore reduces its maneuverability. The second consequence is also a reduction in maneuverability as it introduces a hard limit: the pilot remaining conscious. The original starfury excelled because a pilot closer to the center of mass experiences smaller accelerations during quick turns. For atmospheric operations, the lower degree of maneuverability is not much of a problem due to the nature of atmospheric flight. However, this is a substantial trade off while operating in space as it's a noticeable downgrade in combat effectiveness. The larger profile of the Thunderbolt also makes it a larger target and therefore easier to hit. Unclear if it's a big difference though, and this was never mentioned in the show, as far as I remember.
I know this video is old but there’s an awesome Japanese manga and anime called Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars that involves ship to ship warfare. One on my favorite series that I like to share with others. After watching a few of your videos I think you would enjoy the Syfy of this series
Hey can you please look into the series SDF Macross. It would be fun to look into the ships of that series. Also how would the UNSC from Halo fair against the Earth Alliance from Babylon 5?
The explorer class was _not_ well armed compared to anything but maybe the much smaller and obsolete Olympus. It's not really a warship and was only intended to protect itself from three or four fighters and be able to run away from anything more serious.
For a faction to be “dominant”, it presumably wouldn’t be kerb stomped by another faction such as the Minbari. A powerful faction, yes. Dominant? Well…
Really the only dominant factions in B5 would be the Vorlons or Shadows. No other races in the time period we see (even the other First Ones) could match their combination of numbers and tech. The Walkers of Sigma have great tech on par with the Vorlons or Shadows, but only one ship vs massive fleets of Shadows and Vorlons. The younger races have large fleets, but are qualitatively not even close to Vorlon or Shadow ships.
By the end of B5 Earthforce has pretty much approached parity with the Minbari fleet, especially with the Warlock and advancements in sensors. Even in the Earth Minbari war, the lethality of their weapons wasn't really an issue, it was simply getting a targeting lock.
@@seandlax9 The Walocks were smoked by White Stars, which are much smaller in size. Not sure on what basis they’ve reached parity. And there is no chance Earth Force could have stood toe to toe against the Vorlons or Shadows.
@@seandlax9 maybe on a one-to-one basis. But there were only like 50 Warlocks vs probably hundreds or thousands of Sharlins. The original plan was to gradually phase out the Omegas and replace them with the Warlocks, but the costs of Warlocks proved to be far too high, so instead they were made leaders of Omega. So the Minbari still have the decided advantage
IIRC the Omega's had variable weapon layouts. The Laser Batteries (which presumably are the same lasers the Narn G'Quan cruisers use and were bought from Narn during the E-M War) are seen on the older Omega's. In the newer Omega's they appear to be mostly replaced by a set of heavy Plasma Pulse Cannons, which perhaps is the newer, more powerful weapon Earthforce acquired or developed later. I do not recall seeing any obvious visual evidence that the pulse cannons were more powerful than the lasers in their damage output, but they did seem to have a more rapid rate of fire and may also have needed less time to recharge between full bursts.
Omegas have 6 variants with different loadouts. Standard has the lasers and pulse cannons. Laser version replaces pulse cannons with medium lasers. Plasma uses all pulse cannons. Carrier carries abt 2x starfury numbers and so on.
You missed mines on the Omega. The ship was supposed to have Gigaton class mines but show budget meant that they were never seen on screen. Nonetheless they are listed as an official armament of the vessel. It's also, contrary to your closing statement, and its successor being significantly more powerful, considered the 3rd best ship of its tonnage among the younger races behind the Mimbari and Centauri. The Warlock was specifically built as a Sharlin killer and is considered the main reason Earth won the Drakh war.
Great breakdown! I would highly recommend digging into the older table top game "Babylon 5 Wars" Its a good way to compare ship to ship firepower and abilities while also being endorsed by Straczynski as canon.
Good video that i just had recommended to me. One small suggestion would be to slow down your speech a bot which should help you with not mumbling quite qs much and will make your presentation clearer. Overall though, this was a nice trip back thru nostalgia.
Good breakdown, but Particle Projectors and "Interceptors" are one and the same...they are simply refered to differently depending on whether they are performing Offense or Defense (Projectors when delivering Outgoing Fire, and Interceptors when shooting down Incoming Fire.) Leave it to Humanity to hack Physics and figure out a way to shoot down Energy with more Energy.
How did Earth become a superpower so quickly? 1 Earth was isolated, a “Boring and uninteresting part of the galaxy” according to the Centauri. Earth was able to grab 24 colony worlds unopposed. 2 Timing: Earth was stupendously lucky to arrive just as the Centauri Empire went into decline. A century earlier they would have been conquered. As it stood the Centauri were happy to sell advanced technology to a rapidly growing economy. 3 Adaptability. Earth was desperate to catch up with more advanced races and grabbed all the tech they could find while employing it in novel ways. 4 Free Trade. Unlike any other power humans believed in free trade above all and expanded their trade routes to all races. Earth was the only power on good terms with every League member. Soon it became customary for alien races to use earth cargo ships as neutral parties. And Earth built gates faster and further than anyone else. The economic boom was startling.
You could have mentioned the shadow variant of the Omega Class. That was both interesting and frightening to see. By the way the ships I like the most are the Warlock Class and the Hyperion Class.
One question i have about these ships that mabe you can answer, Utopian? B5 ships are huge, we are talking way bigger than in other Sci Fi universes. Omega is almost 50% longer than a Imperial Star destroyer etc. A Star fury is like 7½ meter, and the thunder bolt is 15 meter? check. Why on earth can they only carry 24-36 of these? A ship that size should easily be able to hold hundreds in layered hangars. The super carrier you mentioned was 2000 meters (almost twice the ISD Size) and it had 96 fighters? 96 fighters stacked end to end would be at 1300 meters long at most. and thats if you put them nose to tail. If we tak inte account that a ship that size is most likly 30-40 decks high, it should easily hold 10 times that number, including hangar bays and maintenance areas for each fighter. Also the explorer ship is 6500 meters long and a crew of little over 300? It should be able to house hundreds of thousands, if not millions as well as thousands of fighters and dozens, if not hundreds of canons etc. To be honest it feels like the Warlock is the only thing that has somewhere near the amount of things on it that you would expect. In short, the armaments, fighter wings and crew compliments seems to be a 10th of what they should be, why is that?
Babylon 5 always tries to be as realistic as possible, but it still doesn't explain the huge difference in size. Based on appearance, I think there is allot of unused space. For example if you take a look at the explorer class there are only three sections( hanger bay(front), living area(middle), and the engine(back)). The rest of the ship is put together with block structures which makes the ship so long. Also, theres probably allot of storage areas for food and supplies. Lets be honest they probably dont get allot of supplies during patrol.we also have to consider that the designer probably winged it and guess the size of the ships.
The Explorer class has very little habitable space, the majority of its length is given over to carrying supplies for the long missions (2-3 year voyages) and pre-assembled sections required to assemble Jumpgates. Omega is long but a star Destroyer is more than half as wide as it is long (and about 20% of the ships volume is dedicated to a starship hanger thats empty most of the time), Earthforce ships are pretty narrow and have an armour thickness of 13m before you even get to the superstructure of the ship. If you compare them to the supercarriers of today which are about 300x100m and carry around 100 aircraft those aircraft are absolutely rammed in including parking them on the outside of the ship and the vast majority of the ship is dedicated to hanger space. In short the Babylon 5 ships are more realistic of what space would be required to carry an actual starfighter wing.
Machine shops and maintenance bays could have taken up a bulk of that space, not to mention possible storage depots stocked with repair parts to keep the Starfurries combat ready between sorties.
I think you might want to go and check your facts again mate. " Omega is almost 50% longer than a Imperial Star destroyer etc." An Omega is just over 1,700 meters long while a Star Destroyer is 1,600.... that's very close. The Omega is roughly 300m x 300m x 1700m with the rotating section added on to that and a smaller part below the hanger added as well. Please note I'm doing this by 'eye' so it's not 100% accurate. That's roughly 200 million Meters Cubed. The Star Destroyer took a lot of work but as there are accurate size charts it's probably more accurate as well and comes out at 400 million meters cubed. An Omega has 36 starfuries at roughly the same size as 2 tie fighters sitting side by side (they are roughly equal length and height but the fury is twice as wide). It can also carry up to 18,000 troops with supplies and equipment but only has a crew of 850. The star destroyer on the other hand has 144 Tie fighters, can carry 9,700 troops with supplies equipment and vehicles and has a crew of 37,000. So if 1 Fury = 2 Tie then an Omega that is HALF the volume of a Star Destroyer can hold 72 Tie fighters or half the amount as expected. Has far less crew but twice as many troops. If we double the numbers to account for the Omega being half the volume of a Star Destroyer then we get very similar numbers. The big difference is that the Omega seems to require far less crew to operate, something that makes sense for a Sci-Fi ship that will be mostly computerised.
Added note, the USS Nimitz Supercarrier is roughly 1/5 the size of an Omega with a total personnel of about 6,000. So if it was the size of an Omega it would have 30,000 people. Taking into account space required for supplies that space travel would require and ocean travel does not, as well as advances in technology. Going from 30k to 19k people is not an unrealistic situation. Especially when you add in all the room taken up by the armoured hull that is a dozen or so meters thick all around the ship.
The corvettes and frigates are Impressive, because they lack artificial gravity. How did the crew operate over long period of times in zero g? Also how did the crew do combat while under acceleration in random directions during movement?
The Thunderbolt maneuverability is close to Nial thanks to its unique design but the speed and acceleration is still 2 to 3 times slower compare to the Nial. As for raw firepower, I would say its close to the Nial as its pulse cannon is actually a Gatling cannon. It's the reason why it says 4 linked, unidirectional pulse cannon even though there's only one cannon in the front of the nose. They took the cannon of the Aurora which is powerful enough to damage warships but slow rate of fire and made to it into a Gatling pulse cannon to increase its rate of fire by a large margin. You can actually see this example during the Battle of Coriana VI in the Babylon 5 episode "Into the Fire" where two Vorlon fighters were chasing two Thunderbolts and one of the Thunderbolts turned around and destroyed one of the Vorlon fighters and another scene showing two Thunderbolts turning around and started firing showing the high rate of fire of the cannon. Another good example of its rate of fire is the episode "Severed Dreams" showing the difference between the Auroras and Thunderbolts in term of rate of fire.
@@UtopianBroadcast1 Thank you. Also here's my list of fleet video requests for you to keep in mind (now some of these fleets you might not be familiar with, just so you know): LIST: 1. Dalek Empire Fleet (from Doctor Who) 2. Gamilas/Gamilon Empire (Space Battleship Yamato) 3. Klingon Empire Fleet (Star Trek) 4. Earth Federation Defense Fleet (Space Battleship Yamato) 5. Cylon Empire Fleet (Must include every single Cylon ship design from both the classic 1979 TV Series and 2004 rebooted "Battlestar Galactica" TV Series)
Nice video and quite a good commentary which I agree with except for the last part where you said the weakness of Ea ships is due to them quickly being outdated when fighting a greater foe. I don’t think this is the case as even during the earth-Minbari war, the so called outdated Hyperions and Novas still fought hard to the point that the warrior caste couldn’t believe the casualties they sustained despite winning most battles. If there is a weakness, is that EA main ships DONT specialize in particular roles, most of them operate as a combination of battleship and aircraft carrier (Omega and later Warloxk) Compared to centauri Vorchans which are almost dedicated shipkillers but with no fighter defense. Not to mention having very poor maneuverability of bricks but also having armor harder than a Centauri’s skull.
How did you miss the Earth/Shadow hybrid cruiser? The only reason Susan's fleet was able to destroy them was because they were willing to throw as many Whitestars at the problem as it took regardless of how many got destroyed in the process. If you throw enough suicide bombers at a problem you'll eventually make it go away. Those cruisers were very good at shredding the Whitestar class ship, which was the most advanced ship short of the Vorlons and Shadows. If Susan had had a few less Whitestars or President Clark's fleet had had a few more of the hybrid cruisers the whole rebellion would have folded like a French army.
Well, the Warlock did in fact overpower the Centauri and would even be a huge threat for a Sharlin, due to its even more advanced sensor and targeting systems and also massivly increased armor, (LR)firepower, fighter capacity, speed, maneuverability and so on, its so mighty that it not just dwarfed the Omega by size, but also declassed it with ease. And lets not forget that the 2 main beam cannons are the same kind that was used on earths AEGIS defense sattelites and what they did to some ships with just one hit, could be seen in the series or with the Drakh War.
The Warlock indeed was incredibly powerful, but I feel a mistake EA made is that they made it too costly to produce. The production of a Warlock was pretty slow and resource-intensive and one Warlock can be overwhelmed by weaker but more numerous ships. Still an awesome warship though. The first in its kind that could one-shot a Sharlin. Even the Minbari would have to think carefully about approaching an EA fleet with a few Warlocks in it.
@@JH24821 Well numbers are always a weakness, same with the Excalibur and Victory, that is no reason not to build them tho.^^ And that is also prettty much the only valid strategy against a ship of this class, as almost nothing can stand against them for longer than a few seconds, especially when them beams blow right thru them. ;) Well the Warlock was a completly new kind of ship, with an incredible amount of new and advanced tech, up to 15meters of new armor, includig shadow tech and so on, no wonder they are expensive to make, but with streamlining and further advances they will either get a littler cheaper or even more powerful and resilient for the same cost. The Warlock was not just a new Highend Ship, it was a Statement and it sure got heard. :) When i think about the Standoff at B5 when Delenn came with the few Sharlins "If you value your lives, be somewhere else!" - if that werent just 2 Omegas and crap, but Warlocks, which fortunately didnt exist at this time yet, this couldve gone entirely different...
@@wolfwilkopter2231 100% agreed. The Warlock fullfilled its purpose as "heavyhitter" perfectly. It would increase the fire power of any Omega destroyer fleet by a lot just by adding one or more of them. I do wonder though if EA would later have developed a less costly version of the Warlock to start replacing the Omegas. That would have been an incredibly tense showdown because both Sharlin and Warlock have the capacity to one-shot each other. It could have ended with all ships being disabled or destroyed. I assume Delenn would have been safe in her White Star. No point in targeting her (I don't think they would have dared) with the Sharlins next to her.
Pulse Cannons fire fire balls or pulses of energy/plasma, along with beam lasers the standard weapon you see most ships firing in show, rail guns use magnetic rails to sling projectiles at a target for some old fashioned kenetic damage and particle canons fire a confinous beam of sub-atomic particles at near light speed and are frankly terrifying
I enjoyed this video and thought it was well done. I do think you missed two very important related points. The first is that Earth force was rapidly progressing technologically and that is why it kept producing new classes. It did not create new classes for every conflict. It tried to produce the best classes it could within the technological, financial and political constraints it had. This would be akin to navies during the 19th century which went from the height of the age of sale, to paddle wheel and steam frigates, pre-dreadnought battleships in a century. Think of the growth of the Japanese between 1853, when the United States open to them up to the world, and 1904-05 when Japan would defeat russia, one of the great European powers. Japan would go from not even having its own Navy to destroying one of the most advanced fleets in the world and having an even more advanced Fleet of their own in less than three generations. This rapid technological change meant that not all Earth Force platforms were able to be upgraded fully. One of the fundamental problems with all of the Earth Force vessels before the Omega class destroyer was their lack of artificial gravity. Without artificial gravity, Cruise were not only very uncomfortable, but could only properly function for a few weeks or months. The Omega class was capable of being significantly upgraded as seen with the Omega-X class, which contained Shadow technology.
The Dilgar war is what catapulted the EA into prominence as a major power. And yes...the pulse weaponry...particle based bolt cannons and pulsars that the Dilgar used were adopted by most of the races of the galaxy...with some exceptions...i.e. Minbari, Ancients, Grome, Vree, Pakmara, Kor-Lyran, Hyach, Kal-Tonna-Sha, Cascor, Brakiri .. In the SI timeline...the Dilgar were able to increase both the power and rate of fire. Thus the Heavy Bolter and Multipulse...their primary defense being the Scatter Pulsar...able to fire 12 pulses in a tight pattern. Though their most feared weapns were their Gamma Ray Lasers and Meson Totpedoes...the Grasers because they made a mockery of armor...and the Meson Torpedoes would rapidly strip a target of weapons and sensors as their launchers were very fast firing and accurate. Those coupled with their gravity phasing shield projectors made their pincer hulls into a rekindling of an old nightmare wrapped in black coloured screens that hid details of a ship and messed with the targeting sensors of those firing at tthem.
I love the Warlock, I would have gladly served under Captain Ivannova ;) The Marathon - A smaler ship to the warlock was also build, but using Shadow tech in addition to alliance tech ;)
I always thought the militaries of the Earth Alliance and the Centauri were on a similar level. Humans were said to be a rapidly growing race, while the Centauri were said to be a dying race.
Good job but you forgot the third military service. Security appears to be a gendarme type organization, I have never seen totally explained. in or out of cannon. Been watching a lot of European crime shows recently, that is what made me think of it.
Something that has always bothered me about the B5 ships with spinning sections for gravity is the restrictions on maneuverability. The stability produced by that much spinning mass would make a turn difficult or impossible, considering current physics. It would be reasonable to stop the spin before battle of course.
I’ve read a (non-B5) book where they did exactly that. They had to stop rotation to avoid the stress of maneuvers from tearing the rotational section apart
@@artembentsionov Yes. I would think that any sudden attempt to turn a ship with a rotating section like this could produce lots of dammage. Heck taking a hit on the spinning section could put it out of balance and make the whole ship unstable etc. As I said I find it odd that I've never seen this mentioned, but I've not really been looking.
Something about the rotating sections that I've never heard addressed is according to newton's laws of motion the so called zero gravity section is also spinning. I mean look at the Omega Destroyer. Change the camera perspective and the central section is still while the rest of the ship is spinning in the opposite direction. Change it again and bother sections are spinning half speed in opposite directions. So the entire ship should have gravity right?
@@tancar2004 I think you are talking about your position. If you are on the rotating part the part you are on appears fixed while the rest of the universe seems to rotate? If that is the case Newton does make the distinction between inertial frames (no acceleration) and frames where there is a form of acceleration (like rotation). They are not directly interchangeable and you can of course test the frame you are in to see if there is an acceleartion. Clearly if you are in the rotating part of the ship you are in a non inertial frame as you are experiencing a type of gravity. Not true in the non rotating parts of the ship.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Starfury was more heavily armed than the typical Minbari fighter. Firepower was never the Starfuries' problem; even the Minbari acknowledged that those Human ships were among the most heavily armed and agile fighters in the galaxy. The issue was that Human sensors and targeting systems couldn't lock on to Minbari ships, even a decade after the Earth-Minbari War. That meant Human ships had to close to _visual_ range, and take aim with the basic Mk.1 eyeball like the Red Baron in WW1, before they could bring that firepower to bear - taking hideous losses the whole way in from Minbari beam cannons that had no trouble at all establishing a target lock.
The Warlock wade extensive use of reverse engineered Shadow tech. They were not ready before the end of the civil war, which was why shadow omegas were deployed instead as Sheridan's fleet moved on Earth. Also, the Thunderbolt was actually LESS effective than the Starfury in space. Making the spaceframe atmospheric capable moved the pilot away from the center of gravity, making it less maneuverable without the pilot blacking out. The Earthforce fleet was as a general rule one of the most "hard" sci-fi fleets that has been designed, which isn't surprising given how much input the show took from NASA.
**correction** At the end of the Earth Minbari war, prototypes of the omega class destroyer were released early to help with the war effort. Happy Holidays everyone!!!
you forgot Omega X and Excalibur. and i think you downplay the fleet too much. post Mimbari war after the rebuild they were on par with the centauri in strength. only the Minbari, Vorlons, and shadows had a clear leg up on them and because those races were 1000 plus more advance
I love how since humanity is sperdrunning becoming a galactic superpower, our technology is functional but extremely simple, with most ships being boxes with guns and engines
It's true though, logical brutalist function over form. And that's why i love the Human designs in B5, no big sweeping curves wings or planes in space, because why would you need them?
Big Engines, big guns, copy/paste... boom you're a superpower.
Meanwhile all the Alien ships (expect perhaps the Narns) with hundreds or thousands of years of culture, tradition and history have indulged... and dare i say it... stagnated.
This actually has a comparison in Modern History. In the cold war between the Soviet Union and America in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. The soviets used quantity and simplicity (for the most part) for their military, while the Americans tried to make up for Soviet numbers with weapons technology. Soviet tanks and planes were simpler than American ones but they had the advantage in numbers. Eventually though the advances in Americas military technology could not easily be countered by numbers, as shown by the events of the gulf war. While the Soviets were more advanced, more competent, better trained, and had better moral than the Iraqi's, it still is telling how quickly and absolutely lopsided the war turned out to be with far more advanced technology of the Allies being overwhelming in its lethal capacity. Kinda what happened to Earth during the Earth Mimbari War.
Another example is from the cold war. While the Americans were paying big bucks to design a pen to wright upside down and in 0 gravity to be used in space, the Soviets simply relied on a pencil to do the same thing.
@@scottperry7311 Always nice to find someone else that appreciates history! Just a couple of things, the soviets were “that” far behind the US in terms of technology, and the US was never “that” far behind in terms of numbers. The Soviet’s did indeed prefer a mass assault doctrine, so when calculating force numbers would include reserve and outdated/obsolete designs in their roster. However the US, would tend to mothball older designs that were no longer combat effective. And indeed in some areas of Tank design for example their super large calibre 125mm guns,
Also… the pen/pencil thing was a myth, they both just used pencils.
They strangely use centrifugal technology while everyone else discovered artificial gravity
@@jonojjt6 True. I spoke in pretty broad generalities. The parity of forces and technological advancement of the two sides ebbed and flowed to some degree but became more apparent as the cold war matured. In the 1940s the Soviets had a massive army, while the U.S. only fielded abound 80 or so divisions in total (but had millions of potential soldiers in reserve). At that time as well the technological advantage of the Americans was slim if even present at all in most fields, except radar and the atomic bomb. By the end of the cold war the U.S. had a volunteer military, while in many aspects the equipment it used was now much more superior. One exception to this was the U.S. Navy, which was the largest navy, by far, at the end of WWII, by the end of the cold war the Soviets had a produced a large surface fleet (the Soviets always had a very large submarine fleet, even before WWII) but again the technological advantage rested with the U.S.
But both were superpowers and part of the reason for that was that their ability to project force and their technological development compared to other nations was superior. The two side were the equal of each other in many ways, some greater and some lesser. The fear of a nuclear exchange, "Mutually assured destruction" kept open warfare between the two at bay. But through proxy states they tested each other and their military equipment's ability in real world conditions. Ultimately it was not the military might of the U.S. that caused the Soviets Union to collapse, it ability of the Soviet economy to keep pace with U.S. military spending and at the same time provide for the other necessities of their country, along with some other significant factors. Again I am speaking in vast generalities here and there are many examples I can think of that work to the contrary of the trend.
What kind of guns do you want on your ships?
Earthforce: All of them.
The Starfury design is so realistic that some NASA engineers even expressed interest in the idea of one-man pods like that (not for combat, of course)
Right, not for combat, wink, wink.
I also liked the utility pod from 2001:A Space Odyssey.. It seemed really functional for maintenance and repairs in space.
The Explorer class is one of the reasons we humans spread so quickly. The Centauri did their part, but building new jump gates so quickly really is something to be in awe of.
There are a few Earth Force ships missing:
1) The Shadow/Omega hybrid (“Between the darkness and the light”)
2) A two-seater starfury where one pilot was a rear gunner in a separate cockpit looking aft. (“a voice in the wilderness”)
3) Earth Force one (“Chrysalis”)
Honourable mentions as these may not technically be part of the military:
4) The psi-corps mothership (“the corps is mother, the corps is father”)
5) The hybrid shadow ship from Crusade that destroyed the EAS Cerberus (“the path of sorrows”)
Presumably the video focused on serialized models. Most of these are one-offs, except for the Starfury and the Omega-X
@@artembentsionov There are plenty of ships mentioned that were never shown in the tv series or movies though?
@@petertenthije true. The board game has more, and it’s canon
The hybrid was basically a standard Omega that they allowed shadow biopolymer armor to grow on. No two of them were the same as a result.
Earth Force One would be just a civil transport, so it's not really a surprise that it isn't mentioned.
Omega destoyer has heavy patricle beam cannon (two of them)
four actually - two forward and two aft.
A fully armed Omega, including fighters, is a great ship to pilot against some equally pointed Narn, or other equals on the tech levels in Babylon 5 Wars. Great game.
Did it ever feature the upgraded Nova that used gravity engines? The books explored it and made a point that with the advent of artifical gravity for EA the Nova, Hyperion, and those few Olympus classes left suddenly became even more useful
You missed off the Omega's mine launchers, these are the massive gunports on the front of the ship but were never used in the show, the blue spherical ball of energy launched by the B5 defense grid are supposed to be mines as well.
Also the nuclear missile broadside batteries.
Your comment reminded me of the energy mines used by the Narn in that last-ditch attack on a Centauri base. I'd like to think that they are holdovers from the original intent of having Omegas use them.
Those forward-facing launchers were unbelievably powerful weapons. The yield on the ordnance they launched was measured in _gigatons._ For a sense of scale, the entire thermonuclear payload of an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, with the most powerful warheads in service mounted, comes to about 91.2 megatons.
Assuming the Omega's launchers deliver 2 gigatons per shot, that would make each shot from the Omega's launcher hit with just slightly less explosive force than TWENTY-TWO Ohio-class submarines firing off every last missile they have.
Forget laying minefields: that's the sort of firepower you'd want if you were trying to crack _planets._
The Explorer Class was really not made for combat. Most of its armaments would be mining equipment designed to collect minerals in space to increase its self-sufficiency. This class was only really used to build new Jump Gates ahead of the major Earth corporations who would go into these new systems with survey ships and other civilian vessels. In extreme cases, I can see the Explorer Class being used as a lightly-armed "mobile space station" that can act as a temporary Forward Operations Base during times of war.
Still, the ability to make jump gates is why the EA was so wealthy for how young it was as a space faring race. They could tax practically anyone who used their gates and in return Earth maintained those gates and if one broke they would either fix it or replace it. That's a hell of an economic power boost.
Fleet and base defense in this case would be incredibly important. The EA would have to dedicate an entire fleet arm to protect it.
The carrier is mentioned by Sheridan in dialogue. ( as powerful as a carrier group) i assume its protected by a naval battle group of about 9 ships wiith ten in total. Its never seen onscreen but the black star battle. The Lexington was part of a group of ten ships. A carrier group perhaps ?
Nice, some of the ships I`ve seen for the 1st time. It`s amazing how fast humans were able to develop their weapons on par with others based on purchased old technology. In Star Trek Vulcans would go crazy with such a tempo.
Also I think the Warlock class served as an inspiration for the Corvette-class (the Expanse). Same angles in forepart
I have nearly all the B5 Wars stuff in my treasure vault. I loved the show and watch some of it every other year. Nice to see new videos creeping up on YT about it.
WHY WASN'T THE EXCALIBUR INCLUDED IN THIS LIST OF EARTH ALLIANCE SHIPS ? ? ?🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Warlock class is my favorite. Despite having far far less screen time its beast.
Unfortunately one of those is it being curb-stomped by the Centauri in a vision shown to Sheridan by Galen. Then again, Galen could’ve deliberately fabricated it to get Sheridan moving in the right direction
@@artembentsionov I think that is true, it is possible that Galen just fabricate it. We can't know for sure what would really happen. Warlock is created to go toe vs toe with Sharlin warcruiser but taking that centari love their Vorhan wolfpacks, a single Warlock may destroy one or two of them before itself been blasted. Second warlock engaged and destroyed one, it would probably be able to destroy rest.
@@Zagoreni02A of course, if we take the Technomage trilogy into account, Galen could probably destroy a Warlock by himself. Even Kosh wasn’t sure which of them was stronger
@@artembentsionov Warlock is well designed ship, it is truly shame we didn't see more. It is possible that we may see them in reboot that is if they dont change EA ship designs completly, and that would suck. Modern version wtih todays CGI of Hyperion, Nova, Omega and Warlock.
@@Zagoreni02A like most fans, I’m both hopeful and wary of the new show. JMS tried to have other spin-offs (like Crusade, Lost Tales, and Legends of the Rangers) and they failed
😎👍 Very cool and very nicely greatly fabulously well done and very nicely informatively explained and executed in every detail way shape and format provided on the Earth Alliance Fleet Analysis / Of Babylon 5 Ships, A job very nicely wonderfully well done indeed Sir!👌.
Thanks been looking forward to this one
Warlock also has Shadow armor (full operational) sandwiched between armor plating. armor-shadow-armor
Is that what Ivanova had them rip out? Or was that something else?
I have no objections to using non-evil shadow tech (and like that they mix it with minbari) but the main characters all were drowning in Vorlon propaganda so I get their reluctance.
@@specialnewb9821 they don't explain what the secret shadow device is. But one of the books state. That in bay one of her ship is kosh's transport. That ship negates the shadow device. The book doesn't say or I forgot if the book says the the armor was ran by the ship or was replaced with vorlon armor. Nothing on the vorlon ship I can after she becomes the One
I remember Sheridan making a comment about having seen Centari pull maneuvers in their fighters that would leave humans a pink smear on the back wall!!! 🤠👍
If I remember correctly the Warlock integrates its smaller weapons into a Mk. 3 interceptor grid. Also worth noting is that it is the first mobile platform capable of carrying the most powerful cannons in the EA arsenal which were up until this point reserved for the stationary aegis platforms.
G.O.D Particle Cannons. Even the Minbari respected those things.
@@wolfgangjr74 I wonder how they stack up against the Sharlin’s antimatter beam
@@artembentsionov i still think they are a Close 2nd to the refined antimatter beams and slicers. It still takes humans a massive lumbering vessel to wield 2 of them versus any of the minbari ships that wield many beams.
@@wolfgangjr74 I think TV Tropes would call the Minbari a Higher-Tech Species. They’d been fighting a massive war 1000 years before the events of the show (so roughly around the 13th-14th century), so it would make sense for them to have better tech. The Sharlin wasn’t even around for that war. They used an older version of the Tinashi frigate, called Tinash-Haza war cruiser back then.
On the other hand, humans sure do advance fast. I guess it helps they’ve had help with tech. The Narns sold them older Centauri weapons
@@artembentsionov absolutely agree. The assistance via interference by the senior races with shadow technology and development from other alien base technologies sure did help catch them up in a few hundred years versus thousands. Honestly. What a fantastic show for its time.
I think the StarFuy is one of the most dynamic fighters ever put on screen - and functionally realistic as well. The Thunderbolts were a great natural progression. During the early seasons, they seemed like such a force to be reckoned with, taking care of Raiders and more with ease. But by the time of the Shadow/Civil Wars, they just became cannon fodder. Every battle, they seemed to get obliterated right and left. 😢
The raiders fighters were inferior, and they were up against a first class military with much better training and organisation. The casualties against against peer adversaries would be much higher.
I love it! Well done sir! I love the Warlock!😎👍
Can you please analyze the High Guard fleet from Andromeda? I know they haven’t shown too many ships, but I believe more info is available on the wiki
@5:40 Particle engines need a reactor of some sort to power them. You can't just siphon power off of a particle accelerator, which is basically what B5s particle engines are. This isn't a dad's 70s scottsdale with a chevy small block 350 wit an alternator on it. You need something like a fission reactor or a fusion reactor to create not only the power but, in some cases, the heat needed to start the initial reactions of an accelerator system. The two are connected but definately separate.
In canon the Centauri actually are very cautious about Earth warships as there weapons are easily capable of destroying Centauri warships and the Centauri know it. Also particle thrust engines are the sublight drive systems all EarthForce capital ships are powered by fusion reactors.
The Fusion Reactor and the Particle Thrust Engine are all one unit, so the Omega Class Destroyer actually has four fusion plants.
That's why you see Omegas stop fighting and go dark in the series when they sustain significant damage to the drive section.
"Starfury. So simple, so elegant, so deadly." Centauri.
The omega close also has two underslung plasma mortar canons seen in the show it's the same thing B5 shoots that's on a pivoting turret that fires green globs of energy. The nova also has them too
Can you do fleet analysis for the expanse TV show plz
Sure!
The British royal navy had the same issue they had the largest navy in the world around a thousand ships . Then the made hms dreadnaut the most advanced ship ever. But it made the fleet obsolete. And everyone coped it .
Untrue.
The cruisers and destroyers remained the backbone.
Fyi: those were the ships that did the heavy lifting.
To be honest. Dreadnaught made everyone's navies obsolete, when they slapped 3 times firepower of normal battleships on one ship.
Somebody forgot about the Monitor...
@@Fatherofheroesandheroines wasn't an Ocean going warship, the low freeboard rendered it extremely dangerous to sail in anything other than mild seas, that's why they had little effect other than the introduction of Turrets and that wasn't a new idea
@@andreww2098 except it was an ironclad well before the Dreadnaught. Whcih was my point. IT was FAR more revolutionary than that. It and the MErrimac made history.
The Olympus class Corvette was brought back into production after the Mimbari War due to the speed of construction and lack of ships for border protection. As the Omega's came online the Olympus class were relegated to 2nd line duties.
I love Babylon 5, and that great board game, B5 Wars. I had most of the second edition, and a ton of great cross-universe stuff from the internet. The Battlestar Galactica stuff was especially great for the universe of B5. It is every alien, if they truly are out there, that we will emerge upon the galaxy as not an upstart race of easily brushed aside hailless monkies, but as equals, and advancing so fast that we soon become the new Vorlons, as was our fate in B5 :D
Been waiting. I LOVE Babylon 5. Even with the few flaws, I love the show.
However I got to be honest I'm doubtful about its comeback.
One I'm scared they are going to ruin it like many other franchises, and two I loved the original cast.
Bruce and Mira. Andreas and bill etc.
Perfect casting..
One strength of earth force was they could learn very quickly and adapt..
Given time...
I agree with you. Im also doubtful about the come back, but JMS always seems like he knows what he's doing so we will have to see. 🤷♂️
@@UtopianBroadcast1
It's the fact of jms that gives me a little sliver of hope.
I'm just scared in this day and age if one he'll be allowed to follow his vision and two, well do I need to say?
Not the days of the 90s anymore..
And I couldn't in a million years see anyone replace Michael, Jerry, Bill, Jeff, Andreas, Richard, Stephen, Bruce, Peter, and the lovely mira who is smile could melt hearts both as mira and delenn 😊
Well, two points- JMS is heading the reboot, so its not like someone who doesn't understand what B5 is about is coming in. And secondly, hey, the chances of any new OG B5 coming out is pretty much nil at this point- so we have a chance for something better, while the OG material is still there to enjoy if ignoring the reboot works best for you. (Hell, the reboot *might* generate enough interest in the classic to get a proper remastering beyond AI upscaling.)
@@Sephiroth144 I wouldn't be shocked if in ten years skilled amatures are deepfaking OG B5 actors onto the reboot cast. A pleasant symmetry with JMS doing all the OG effects on an Amiga PC. (Really a pro workstation but still..)
@@UtopianBroadcast1 JMS is just a woke as the rest of Hollywood. B5 came out before all that nonsense started. I would have loved to see his original idea in full but I doubt this re-boot is going to be anything more then another way to push an agenda not good story telling.
is there any detaailed info about Galen's ship? One thing was revealed, it's faster than even a Whitestar.
My favourite from the show is actually not an Earth Alliance ship. My favourite is the G'Quan heavy cruiser of the Narn.
The Warlock class also makes use of Shadow technology btw.
The Earth Alliance Uniforms were my favorite Sci Fi Uniforms and the Omega Class was my favorite ship on the show.
I got the whole set of babaloin 5. But in VHF.lol😀 . I've forgotten many ships. So am glad I watch this👍😊
So I don’t know if it’s considered part of the fleet but there is a variant on the starfury that’s designed for none military use it’s normally painted in a yellow colour scheme and is fitted with front mounted arms, in the show we see it used by the maintenance crew to clear wreckage and other detritus from around the station but I believe it’s also used in construction too.
An important note about the advent of the Thunderbolt Starfuries: In order to be atmosphere capable, the profile and therefore the mass distribution of the ship was substantially changed in order to allow for aerodynamics. Furthermore, aerodynamic considerations places the pilot much further forward and far away from where the center, unlike in the original class of starfury. The first consequence of this is that it has a much higher moment of inertia, making it more difficult, to turn and therefore reduces its maneuverability. The second consequence is also a reduction in maneuverability as it introduces a hard limit: the pilot remaining conscious. The original starfury excelled because a pilot closer to the center of mass experiences smaller accelerations during quick turns. For atmospheric operations, the lower degree of maneuverability is not much of a problem due to the nature of atmospheric flight. However, this is a substantial trade off while operating in space as it's a noticeable downgrade in combat effectiveness.
The larger profile of the Thunderbolt also makes it a larger target and therefore easier to hit. Unclear if it's a big difference though, and this was never mentioned in the show, as far as I remember.
Pretty sure it compensates for this with armor, better engines, and sheer firepower, with it's only real competition being a Minbari Nial
@@seandlax9 That rings a couple bells in my memory, and would be exactly how they'd definitely compensate for it if it is a big deal.
Love the Poseidon class carrier. Loved it so much I made 3D model of it and printed it. Still needs a few tweaks to get it perfect but I’m close.
Could you talk about the League of Non Aligned Worlds? I really like some of their ship designes :)
The Vree were interesting; they were the 'greys' and had saucers with what my friend called "a shadow-shredder" cannon.
Maybe look in to The Dominion Fleet.
Respect and keep up the epic work.
I know this video is old but there’s an awesome Japanese manga and anime called Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars that involves ship to ship warfare. One on my favorite series that I like to share with others. After watching a few of your videos I think you would enjoy the Syfy of this series
Hey can you please look into the series SDF Macross. It would be fun to look into the ships of that series. Also how would the UNSC from Halo fair against the Earth Alliance from Babylon 5?
That depends on what point in the separate timelines we're basing the fleets on.
Great job , but i have to grinn a little with the startrek pannel underneath .
The explorer class was _not_ well armed compared to anything but maybe the much smaller and obsolete Olympus. It's not really a warship and was only intended to protect itself from three or four fighters and be able to run away from anything more serious.
For a faction to be “dominant”, it presumably wouldn’t be kerb stomped by another faction such as the Minbari. A powerful faction, yes. Dominant? Well…
Or by the Centauri in a possible future
Really the only dominant factions in B5 would be the Vorlons or Shadows. No other races in the time period we see (even the other First Ones) could match their combination of numbers and tech. The Walkers of Sigma have great tech on par with the Vorlons or Shadows, but only one ship vs massive fleets of Shadows and Vorlons. The younger races have large fleets, but are qualitatively not even close to Vorlon or Shadow ships.
By the end of B5 Earthforce has pretty much approached parity with the Minbari fleet, especially with the Warlock and advancements in sensors. Even in the Earth Minbari war, the lethality of their weapons wasn't really an issue, it was simply getting a targeting lock.
@@seandlax9
The Walocks were smoked by White Stars, which are much smaller in size. Not sure on what basis they’ve reached parity.
And there is no chance Earth Force could have stood toe to toe against the Vorlons or Shadows.
@@seandlax9 maybe on a one-to-one basis. But there were only like 50 Warlocks vs probably hundreds or thousands of Sharlins. The original plan was to gradually phase out the Omegas and replace them with the Warlocks, but the costs of Warlocks proved to be far too high, so instead they were made leaders of Omega.
So the Minbari still have the decided advantage
Time for a thumbs up…good content.
IIRC the Omega's had variable weapon layouts. The Laser Batteries (which presumably are the same lasers the Narn G'Quan cruisers use and were bought from Narn during the E-M War) are seen on the older Omega's. In the newer Omega's they appear to be mostly replaced by a set of heavy Plasma Pulse Cannons, which perhaps is the newer, more powerful weapon Earthforce acquired or developed later. I do not recall seeing any obvious visual evidence that the pulse cannons were more powerful than the lasers in their damage output, but they did seem to have a more rapid rate of fire and may also have needed less time to recharge between full bursts.
Omegas have 6 variants with different loadouts. Standard has the lasers and pulse cannons. Laser version replaces pulse cannons with medium lasers. Plasma uses all pulse cannons. Carrier carries abt 2x starfury numbers and so on.
I would love to see your take of the Original Battlestar Galactic fleets and such.
You missed mines on the Omega. The ship was supposed to have Gigaton class mines but show budget meant that they were never seen on screen. Nonetheless they are listed as an official armament of the vessel. It's also, contrary to your closing statement, and its successor being significantly more powerful, considered the 3rd best ship of its tonnage among the younger races behind the Mimbari and Centauri. The Warlock was specifically built as a Sharlin killer and is considered the main reason Earth won the Drakh war.
Great video and info. Thank you.
Great breakdown! I would highly recommend digging into the older table top game "Babylon 5 Wars" Its a good way to compare ship to ship firepower and abilities while also being endorsed by Straczynski as canon.
Nothing on the Shadow Omega destroyers?
Yeah odd. He brings in ships i *NEVER* heard pf but misses one of the syrongest classes seen on screen for the EA
What about the hybrid shadow ship?
The Explorer class rotating habitation module looks like it came from the Babylon shipyard.
Good video that i just had recommended to me. One small suggestion would be to slow down your speech a bot which should help you with not mumbling quite qs much and will make your presentation clearer. Overall though, this was a nice trip back thru nostalgia.
Those earthforce uniforms though...👍
Good breakdown, but Particle Projectors and "Interceptors" are one and the same...they are simply refered to differently depending on whether they are performing Offense or Defense (Projectors when delivering Outgoing Fire, and Interceptors when shooting down Incoming Fire.)
Leave it to Humanity to hack Physics and figure out a way to shoot down Energy with more Energy.
Bro, what is the music right at the end of this video? Been trying to find it forever! Thanks
How did Earth become a superpower so quickly?
1 Earth was isolated, a “Boring and uninteresting part of the galaxy” according to the Centauri. Earth was able to grab 24 colony worlds unopposed.
2 Timing: Earth was stupendously lucky to arrive just as the Centauri Empire went into decline. A century earlier they would have been conquered. As it stood the Centauri were happy to sell advanced technology to a rapidly growing economy.
3 Adaptability. Earth was desperate to catch up with more advanced races and grabbed all the tech they could find while employing it in novel ways.
4 Free Trade. Unlike any other power humans believed in free trade above all and expanded their trade routes to all races. Earth was the only power on good terms with every League member. Soon it became customary for alien races to use earth cargo ships as neutral parties. And Earth built gates faster and further than anyone else. The economic boom was startling.
I like to know when the new Babylon 5 series will be on the.
You could have mentioned the shadow variant of the Omega Class. That was both interesting and frightening to see.
By the way the ships I like the most are the Warlock Class and the Hyperion Class.
One question i have about these ships that mabe you can answer, Utopian?
B5 ships are huge, we are talking way bigger than in other Sci Fi universes. Omega is almost 50% longer than a Imperial Star destroyer etc.
A Star fury is like 7½ meter, and the thunder bolt is 15 meter? check.
Why on earth can they only carry 24-36 of these? A ship that size should easily be able to hold hundreds in layered hangars.
The super carrier you mentioned was 2000 meters (almost twice the ISD Size) and it had 96 fighters?
96 fighters stacked end to end would be at 1300 meters long at most. and thats if you put them nose to tail.
If we tak inte account that a ship that size is most likly 30-40 decks high, it should easily hold 10 times that number, including hangar bays and maintenance areas for each fighter.
Also the explorer ship is 6500 meters long and a crew of little over 300? It should be able to house hundreds of thousands, if not millions as well as thousands of fighters and dozens, if not hundreds of canons etc.
To be honest it feels like the Warlock is the only thing that has somewhere near the amount of things on it that you would expect.
In short, the armaments, fighter wings and crew compliments seems to be a 10th of what they should be, why is that?
Babylon 5 always tries to be as realistic as possible, but it still doesn't explain the huge difference in size. Based on appearance, I think there is allot of unused space. For example if you take a look at the explorer class there are only three sections( hanger bay(front), living area(middle), and the engine(back)). The rest of the ship is put together with block structures which makes the ship so long. Also, theres probably allot of storage areas for food and supplies. Lets be honest they probably dont get allot of supplies during patrol.we also have to consider that the designer probably winged it and guess the size of the ships.
The Explorer class has very little habitable space, the majority of its length is given over to carrying supplies for the long missions (2-3 year voyages) and pre-assembled sections required to assemble Jumpgates. Omega is long but a star Destroyer is more than half as wide as it is long (and about 20% of the ships volume is dedicated to a starship hanger thats empty most of the time), Earthforce ships are pretty narrow and have an armour thickness of 13m before you even get to the superstructure of the ship. If you compare them to the supercarriers of today which are about 300x100m and carry around 100 aircraft those aircraft are absolutely rammed in including parking them on the outside of the ship and the vast majority of the ship is dedicated to hanger space. In short the Babylon 5 ships are more realistic of what space would be required to carry an actual starfighter wing.
Machine shops and maintenance bays could have taken up a bulk of that space, not to mention possible storage depots stocked with repair parts to keep the Starfurries combat ready between sorties.
I think you might want to go and check your facts again mate.
" Omega is almost 50% longer than a Imperial Star destroyer etc."
An Omega is just over 1,700 meters long while a Star Destroyer is 1,600.... that's very close. The Omega is roughly 300m x 300m x 1700m with the rotating section added on to that and a smaller part below the hanger added as well. Please note I'm doing this by 'eye' so it's not 100% accurate. That's roughly 200 million Meters Cubed. The Star Destroyer took a lot of work but as there are accurate size charts it's probably more accurate as well and comes out at 400 million meters cubed.
An Omega has 36 starfuries at roughly the same size as 2 tie fighters sitting side by side (they are roughly equal length and height but the fury is twice as wide). It can also carry up to 18,000 troops with supplies and equipment but only has a crew of 850. The star destroyer on the other hand has 144 Tie fighters, can carry 9,700 troops with supplies equipment and vehicles and has a crew of 37,000.
So if 1 Fury = 2 Tie then an Omega that is HALF the volume of a Star Destroyer can hold 72 Tie fighters or half the amount as expected. Has far less crew but twice as many troops. If we double the numbers to account for the Omega being half the volume of a Star Destroyer then we get very similar numbers. The big difference is that the Omega seems to require far less crew to operate, something that makes sense for a Sci-Fi ship that will be mostly computerised.
Added note, the USS Nimitz Supercarrier is roughly 1/5 the size of an Omega with a total personnel of about 6,000. So if it was the size of an Omega it would have 30,000 people. Taking into account space required for supplies that space travel would require and ocean travel does not, as well as advances in technology. Going from 30k to 19k people is not an unrealistic situation. Especially when you add in all the room taken up by the armoured hull that is a dozen or so meters thick all around the ship.
*Omega Class* for sure
The corvettes and frigates are Impressive, because they lack artificial gravity. How did the crew operate over long period of times in zero g? Also how did the crew do combat while under acceleration in random directions during movement?
Warlock was my favorite but we barely saw it. Its the design I loved.
Explorer class my fav!
The Thunderbolt maneuverability is close to Nial thanks to its unique design but the speed and acceleration is still 2 to 3 times slower compare to the Nial. As for raw firepower, I would say its close to the Nial as its pulse cannon is actually a Gatling cannon. It's the reason why it says 4 linked, unidirectional pulse cannon even though there's only one cannon in the front of the nose. They took the cannon of the Aurora which is powerful enough to damage warships but slow rate of fire and made to it into a Gatling pulse cannon to increase its rate of fire by a large margin. You can actually see this example during the Battle of Coriana VI in the Babylon 5 episode "Into the Fire" where two Vorlon fighters were chasing two Thunderbolts and one of the Thunderbolts turned around and destroyed one of the Vorlon fighters and another scene showing two Thunderbolts turning around and started firing showing the high rate of fire of the cannon. Another good example of its rate of fire is the episode "Severed Dreams" showing the difference between the Auroras and Thunderbolts in term of rate of fire.
Utopian Broadcast
6.58K subscribers Do you ever take Fleet Analysis video requests? I have some for you.
@James Olberding Sure. Couple of viewers requested a analysis of the different expanse fleets.
@@UtopianBroadcast1 Thank you. Also here's my list of fleet video requests for you to keep in mind (now some of these fleets you might not be familiar with, just so you know):
LIST:
1. Dalek Empire Fleet (from Doctor Who)
2. Gamilas/Gamilon Empire (Space Battleship Yamato)
3. Klingon Empire Fleet (Star Trek)
4. Earth Federation Defense Fleet (Space Battleship Yamato)
5. Cylon Empire Fleet (Must include every single Cylon ship design from both the classic 1979 TV Series and 2004 rebooted "Battlestar Galactica" TV Series)
Nice video and quite a good commentary which I agree with except for the last part where you said the weakness of Ea ships is due to them quickly being outdated when fighting a greater foe. I don’t think this is the case as even during the earth-Minbari war, the so called outdated Hyperions and Novas still fought hard to the point that the warrior caste couldn’t believe the casualties they sustained despite winning most battles.
If there is a weakness, is that EA main ships DONT specialize in particular roles, most of them operate as a combination of battleship and aircraft carrier (Omega and later Warloxk) Compared to centauri Vorchans which are almost dedicated shipkillers but with no fighter defense.
Not to mention having very poor maneuverability of bricks but also having armor harder than a Centauri’s skull.
Also the Warlock armor was based of shadow tech. It has made of some sort of Self regenerating nano tech.
I always had a soft spot for the venerable Hyperion class.
The opening description of Earth Alliance is pretty much the typical progression of almost every human space faring civilization in scifi.
How did you miss the Earth/Shadow hybrid cruiser? The only reason Susan's fleet was able to destroy them was because they were willing to throw as many Whitestars at the problem as it took regardless of how many got destroyed in the process. If you throw enough suicide bombers at a problem you'll eventually make it go away. Those cruisers were very good at shredding the Whitestar class ship, which was the most advanced ship short of the Vorlons and Shadows. If Susan had had a few less Whitestars or President Clark's fleet had had a few more of the hybrid cruisers the whole rebellion would have folded like a French army.
Well, the Warlock did in fact overpower the Centauri and would even be a huge threat for a Sharlin, due to its even more advanced sensor and targeting systems and also massivly increased armor, (LR)firepower, fighter capacity, speed, maneuverability and so on, its so mighty that it not just dwarfed the Omega by size, but also declassed it with ease.
And lets not forget that the 2 main beam cannons are the same kind that was used on earths AEGIS defense sattelites and what they did to some ships with just one hit, could be seen in the series or with the Drakh War.
The Warlock indeed was incredibly powerful, but I feel a mistake EA made is that they made it too costly to produce. The production of a Warlock was pretty slow and resource-intensive and one Warlock can be overwhelmed by weaker but more numerous ships. Still an awesome warship though. The first in its kind that could one-shot a Sharlin. Even the Minbari would have to think carefully about approaching an EA fleet with a few Warlocks in it.
@@JH24821
Well numbers are always a weakness, same with the Excalibur and Victory, that is no reason not to build them tho.^^
And that is also prettty much the only valid strategy against a ship of this class, as almost nothing can stand against them for longer than a few seconds, especially when them beams blow right thru them. ;)
Well the Warlock was a completly new kind of ship, with an incredible amount of new and advanced tech, up to 15meters of new armor, includig shadow tech and so on, no wonder they are expensive to make, but with streamlining and further advances they will either get a littler cheaper or even more powerful and resilient for the same cost.
The Warlock was not just a new Highend Ship, it was a Statement and it sure got heard. :)
When i think about the Standoff at B5 when Delenn came with the few Sharlins "If you value your lives, be somewhere else!" - if that werent just 2 Omegas and crap, but Warlocks, which fortunately didnt exist at this time yet, this couldve gone entirely different...
@@wolfwilkopter2231 100% agreed. The Warlock fullfilled its purpose as "heavyhitter" perfectly. It would increase the fire power of any Omega destroyer fleet by a lot just by adding one or more of them. I do wonder though if EA would later have developed a less costly version of the Warlock to start replacing the Omegas.
That would have been an incredibly tense showdown because both Sharlin and Warlock have the capacity to one-shot each other. It could have ended with all ships being disabled or destroyed. I assume Delenn would have been safe in her White Star. No point in targeting her (I don't think they would have dared) with the Sharlins next to her.
I was about to say why didn't you include the Victory class destroyer but it is an Interstellar Alliance vessel.
How much would a basic ship cost in universe? This is important I’m playing bab 5 rpg and I need to bargain with the dm
What about the Excalibur class?
Plasma pulse cannons, particle cannons, rail guns. What's the difference between them
Pulse Cannons fire fire balls or pulses of energy/plasma, along with beam lasers the standard weapon you see most ships firing in show, rail guns use magnetic rails to sling projectiles at a target for some old fashioned kenetic damage and particle canons fire a confinous beam of sub-atomic particles at near light speed and are frankly terrifying
Why no guided missiles?
I enjoyed this video and thought it was well done. I do think you missed two very important related points. The first is that Earth force was rapidly progressing technologically and that is why it kept producing new classes. It did not create new classes for every conflict. It tried to produce the best classes it could within the technological, financial and political constraints it had. This would be akin to navies during the 19th century which went from the height of the age of sale, to paddle wheel and steam frigates, pre-dreadnought battleships in a century. Think of the growth of the Japanese between 1853, when the United States open to them up to the world, and 1904-05 when Japan would defeat russia, one of the great European powers. Japan would go from not even having its own Navy to destroying one of the most advanced fleets in the world and having an even more advanced Fleet of their own in less than three generations.
This rapid technological change meant that not all Earth Force platforms were able to be upgraded fully. One of the fundamental problems with all of the Earth Force vessels before the Omega class destroyer was their lack of artificial gravity. Without artificial gravity, Cruise were not only very uncomfortable, but could only properly function for a few weeks or months.
The Omega class was capable of being significantly upgraded as seen with the Omega-X class, which contained Shadow technology.
Please cover the vree!
Sure. It will most likely come out at the end of December or early January.
The Dilgar war is what catapulted the EA into prominence as a major power. And yes...the pulse weaponry...particle based bolt cannons and pulsars that the Dilgar used were adopted by most of the races of the galaxy...with some exceptions...i.e. Minbari, Ancients, Grome, Vree, Pakmara, Kor-Lyran, Hyach, Kal-Tonna-Sha, Cascor, Brakiri ..
In the SI timeline...the Dilgar were able to increase both the power and rate of fire. Thus the Heavy Bolter and Multipulse...their primary defense being the Scatter Pulsar...able to fire 12 pulses in a tight pattern. Though their most feared weapns were their Gamma Ray Lasers and Meson Totpedoes...the Grasers because they made a mockery of armor...and the Meson Torpedoes would rapidly strip a target of weapons and sensors as their launchers were very fast firing and accurate. Those coupled with their gravity phasing shield projectors made their pincer hulls into a rekindling of an old nightmare wrapped in black coloured screens that hid details of a ship and messed with the targeting sensors of those firing at tthem.
Am I the only one to notice that the Earth Force fighter looks an awful lot like an X-Wing from Star Wars?
I love the Warlock, I would have gladly served under Captain Ivannova ;) The Marathon - A smaler ship to the warlock was also build, but using Shadow tech in addition to alliance tech ;)
I always thought the militaries of the Earth Alliance and the Centauri were on a similar level. Humans were said to be a rapidly growing race, while the Centauri were said to be a dying race.
You should do a review or play free space Babylon 5 project Game and it’s free too.
que raro que lucas no fue a molestar con eso de que los star fury tienen cierto parecido a sus alas x ,como sucedio en su momento con galactica.
Good job but you forgot the third military service. Security appears to be a gendarme type organization, I have never seen totally explained. in or out of cannon. Been watching a lot of European crime shows recently, that is what made me think of it.
uhm... Earth Force did a lot in starfighter field... During the Shadow war, you could see a Thunderbolt oneshot a Shadow fighter.
All they need are the Omega destroyer and the Warlock.
While he rattled off the Armaments of the Warlock Class, who else was mentally singing, "and a partridge in a pear tree."
Something that has always bothered me about the B5 ships with spinning sections for gravity is the restrictions on maneuverability. The stability produced by that much spinning mass would make a turn difficult or impossible, considering current physics. It would be reasonable to stop the spin before battle of course.
I’ve read a (non-B5) book where they did exactly that. They had to stop rotation to avoid the stress of maneuvers from tearing the rotational section apart
@@artembentsionov Yes. I would think that any sudden attempt to turn a ship with a rotating section like this could produce lots of dammage. Heck taking a hit on the spinning section could put it out of balance and make the whole ship unstable etc. As I said I find it odd that I've never seen this mentioned, but I've not really been looking.
Something about the rotating sections that I've never heard addressed is according to newton's laws of motion the so called zero gravity section is also spinning. I mean look at the Omega Destroyer. Change the camera perspective and the central section is still while the rest of the ship is spinning in the opposite direction. Change it again and bother sections are spinning half speed in opposite directions. So the entire ship should have gravity right?
@@tancar2004 I think you are talking about your position. If you are on the rotating part the part you are on appears fixed while the rest of the universe seems to rotate? If that is the case Newton does make the distinction between inertial frames (no acceleration) and frames where there is a form of acceleration (like rotation). They are not directly interchangeable and you can of course test the frame you are in to see if there is an acceleartion. Clearly if you are in the rotating part of the ship you are in a non inertial frame as you are experiencing a type of gravity. Not true in the non rotating parts of the ship.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Starfury was more heavily armed than the typical Minbari fighter. Firepower was never the Starfuries' problem; even the Minbari acknowledged that those Human ships were among the most heavily armed and agile fighters in the galaxy.
The issue was that Human sensors and targeting systems couldn't lock on to Minbari ships, even a decade after the Earth-Minbari War. That meant Human ships had to close to _visual_ range, and take aim with the basic Mk.1 eyeball like the Red Baron in WW1, before they could bring that firepower to bear - taking hideous losses the whole way in from Minbari beam cannons that had no trouble at all establishing a target lock.
I thought the WARLOCK class ships were built using shadow technology
I did not remember how Babylon 5 ships were similar to Battlestar Galactica in that fleets focus around carrier ships
The omega doesn't has lasers, what it does has is the ability to switch from pulse plasma batteries to beam plasma batteries.
The Warlock wade extensive use of reverse engineered Shadow tech. They were not ready before the end of the civil war, which was why shadow omegas were deployed instead as Sheridan's fleet moved on Earth. Also, the Thunderbolt was actually LESS effective than the Starfury in space. Making the spaceframe atmospheric capable moved the pilot away from the center of gravity, making it less maneuverable without the pilot blacking out. The Earthforce fleet was as a general rule one of the most "hard" sci-fi fleets that has been designed, which isn't surprising given how much input the show took from NASA.
Totally agreed! I also thought that the thunderbolt was inferior to starfury's in space due to increased weight and centre of gravity etc
reactor is a power source
particle thrust consumes power
ships are powered by reactors, ship thrust is provided by thrusters
Yeah it's like the way it ended made no sense
A new series is beinf created!!