Both were great, but the versus was even better because it even provided a gripping narrative. Maybe you could even combine it - first a short listing of the stats, and then the longer vs.
I love the fact that NASA went to the writer of Babylon 5 to get permission to use the design for space tugs. He gave it with 1 caveat that it carry the name Starfury!
Ah, a fellow listener to the audio commentary of the DVD? ^^ I hope that JMS will get his wish and see a Star Fury in space in his lifetime (and mine).
Here in 2021. Seems kinda overkill to call a tug StarFury, a name that should only be reserved for something with more fighting spirit. Perhaps the NASA ship should have been called StarTuggery or TugFury.
"The Five Laws of the Starfury" 1- Not an ounce shall be dedicated to atmospheric capabilities. 2- The limitating factor for acceleration and manoeuverabilty shall be the human body tolerance. 3- The weapons shall be so powerful to inflict incapacitating damages against selected targets (engines, weapons, sensors) of a warship, and to quickly destroy every known fighter. 4- The endurance shall be sacrified, to attain top performances in the other fields. 5- The survival of the pilot is a fundamental need. The design and the armor of the fighter shall be aimed to this goal.
For 4, Molari says the Centauri Pilots sometimes just let themselves black out and go on auto pilot in super stressful maneuvers in order to get the advantage.
@@lucielm sorry to say this but that line came from Captain Sheridan when teaching other pilot to face the Centaury’s pilot. It was in the season 2 final episode “The fall of night”
I'll never forget watching the very first regular series episode of Babylon 5 S1E1 "Midnight on the Firing Line". Commander Sinclair leads a wing of Star Furies out to fight and destroy some Raiders (Pirates). The Raider ships are sort of a "flying wing" look (similar to the Cobra III from Elite Dangerous in hindsight). During the fight I had not yet noticed the Newtonian Physics nature of the maneuvering - until it I was slapped across the face with the obvious: Sinclair gets a Raider ship on his tail and then - instead of doing the usual "Star Wars" style of "WWII Fighter" maneuvering, he simply cuts his rear thrusters, pivots a quick 180 while traveling the same vector, and blows the Raider following him to bits. I swear to god - not even joking in the slightest - though in retrospect I must've looked HILARIOUS - But I LEAPED up from the couch, pointed at the TV Screen and shouted with pure excited surprise, glee, and not a little shock: *"OH MY GOD!! PHYSICS!!!"* A friend of mine watching with me just about fell off his chair laughing at my reaction. But he was just as impressed. :D Years later I was just as impressed with the Vipers depiction in the reboot Galactica, but I wasn't NEARLY so over-the-top with my reaction - Babylon 5 was the FIRST I'd ever seen that did that and made it COOL! I wasn't as surprised by the idea when I saw the Vipers so it didn't catch me so completely out of the blue like that. ^_^
Yeah. I remembered watching it on TV and I went nuts, too. For the record, they guys designing ship models for Bab 5 were getting out of hand with 'realism'. They had to be told- repeatedly- that 'nobody is going to notice that' (lol...fans...do...) and 'keep it simple'. For example the EA battleships with their rotating sections, they *were* going to maneuver those things with a gimbals engine pointing 'down' instead of w/e to rotate to port. ( or whatever direction it was.) The thing is, though, they had project deadlines and that was taking a lot more time than was strictly necessary to get the point across.
Ace Combat 4 Elctrosphere also had the space plane mission(s) where vectoral speed and gravational pull all effecting the players craft, but you could also 'kill' engine thrust, use movements thrusters to alter to angles &, and power the engines to build up momentum in another direction - including to do snap 180 turn around for rear defence/attack, spin around again to new vector etc.. Apparently 'Shattered Space' and EVE Online also have some of the same 3D/4D control apsects akin to those LogandarkLighter spoke of in B5 and myself in AC4
The scene that best showcased the physics for me (aside from the Star Furys simply dropping straight out of the fighter bay to launch) was a scene where (Sinclair?) was holding a Star Fury still relative to the rotating Station and was having to thrust "up" to do so.
B5 CGI scenes have aged horribly. The story, characters and actors are amazing though. I feel B5 deserves either a remaster with AI scale up and new graphics. Of a full reboot.
If they could do a B5 reboot, but keep the overall story line, and incorporate up to date CGI, nerds everywhere (me included) would be glued to whatever streaming service had the balls to invest in its production.... Hell, for that matter, just rework the CGI, and keep all the other live action footage.
I think the main reason for that is that it's been so long since there's been a widely circulated adaptation. TV, movie, video game - the last of anything Babylon 5 was in the late 90s. BSG, on the other hand, has had more recent TV show (I believe it was more recent, anyway...) and even some dabbling bits in video gaming. Both are pretty forgotten these days, but as Hollywood runs out of ideas and/or ruins/pisses off fanbases of existing franchises, who knows. I've heard there's a Last Starfighter sequel potentially in the works, so you never know.
@@hdufort no, I agree. But I think that's the reason B5 gets even less love than BSG (which also gets far less love than mainstream things like Star Trek/Wars do), is because it's just been out of the public eye for so long.
@@TheDownrankTrain Ahhh so that's why Disney had to buy Marvel, to get the rights to repulsor technology so they could plug another of the huge plot holes in Star Wars.
You did not mention one important point: The starfury has a flight computer that does target locking and combat manouvers, viper doesn't because of the cylon setting.
Exactly - this translates to - Fury can engage from furhter apart and their missles are more dangerous because their targetting can be more advanced in comparison the simpler ones on vipers - this also translates do combat awareness domain - furries will see you sooner than a viper will and the pilot of the fury can rely more on the computer than a viper pilot can for both manuvering and taking a shot. That said - plasma projectiles shot by fury are noticably slower and more visible than guns on the vipers - that would potentially mean the viper would have more time and agility to dodge the shots at least in theory.
The irony is, at the point he is saying that - (after Adm. Cain points out the Pegasus's combat superiority), he IS sure about that and he is very well aware that Pegasus is leaps and bounds ahead of Galactica technologically. I understand his bravado but any engagement between the two would have ended up miserably for the old' gal. I'm afraid this is the case here as well.
@@BluecopetitaTL not sure about that... the moral of Cain may be questionable, but she did fight cylons with Great succes, so her tactical skill Are not bad. Her strategic... not so sure. There was too much that wictory at all cost attitude that in long run would start hurting her success...
The Starfury is the only scifi fighter NASA actually took a serious interest in, according to Babylon 5 creator NASA has used his designs for future vessel development.
BUT you are forgetting, the fighter that inspired the creation of the Fury! It is much, much more capable and tougher a platform. For a cinematic equivalent look to "The Final Countown" film. Furies or Vipers, in the Japanese Zero role, and a Gunstar, in the American F-14 role! And, as old as the film fighter is, she is STILL the best space combat fighter, ever put to film. And, look, and ye shall find, the Babyon series producers admit, that the Gunstar, did indeed inspire the Star fury design....which, intern, inspired the handling of the updated Vipers.
and 6 years later we're still waiting for more then a drawing from nasa recall nasa no longer sends people into space even anymore since they retired the last shuttles.
I like this breakdown, and understand why the simulation you did for the first installment would be pointless for an engagement between fighters. If you do another engagement between capital ships, however, I'd still like to see the narrative simulation you did before, in addition to the more detailed breakdown and comparison of capabilities you have shown here.
+Quilava the Mercenary I largely agree, although something like the Minbari Sharlin Warcruiser has been shown to be vulnerable to phyical damage to its "fins," which is basically the ship's propulsion system. Since the Sharlin doesn't have a backup it would make them a prime target for Galactica's ballistic weaponry, and if they managed to score a couple of solid hits the Sharlin would be dead in space. With that said the Minbari ECM system is extremely effective, and the Galactica would most likely be flying blindfolded into battle as it's entirely reliant on its DRADIS system to "see" its surroundings. So if the Sharlin managed to fire the first shot it would probably cause severe damage to the Galactica in the best of cases, and just slice it in half with its neutron cannons in a worst case scenario.
JMS himself said any Earth Alliance warship can destroy a Sharlin with not much effort ......IF its allowed to see and hit the Minbari ship...Sharlins are far from inmune to damage by ramming or earth ships weapons... only that they are notoriously hard to track or even getting near them (they have an amazing CIWS )
It's interesting to speculate the combat capabilities of Earthforce by the time we get to The Lost Tales, where the Earth Alliance is beginning to field Warlock class ships (the main weapons of which are basically hard-mounted planetary defence canons). In the Earth-Minbari War, it took the Minbari 4 years of total war to eliminate the EAs defences, and by that stage many Minbari wanted no further part (and this was without bothering to occupy many of the now-defenceless EA colonies, which would be a blood-soaked campaign in itself for both sides. One assumes that the colonies have been using whatever resources they had to hand to gear up for the inevitable invasions), so it makes you wonder about the balance of forces/outcome by the time of TLT. We may have seen a scanario like in Halo, where the War went on for 30 years before one side's defences collapsed and the other flooded in and crushed them. Further, given that the Minbari were tired of the War, it's interesting to speculate what would have happened if the Minbari had been totally victorious at The Battle of The Line (say, if they'd shot down Sinclair's Starfury instead of bring him aboard, missing the chance to discover that he's Valen). Given the immense cost in Minbari lives that a ground campaign in the colonies would involve, would they have staged some punitive orbital strikes on key Earth cities and facilities, declared victory, and gone home? If JMS reboots B5 like he's apparently suggested, that's a story option worth exploring.
I'll see your Kara Thrace and raise you one Jeffrey Sinclair. Apart from their electronic warfare, the Cylons' weapons seemed equal to the colonials. On the other hand Sinclair went up against the technologically superior Minbari, and scored at least 33 enemy fighter kills.
Very interesting video! Also it's a great way to talk about the performance of two vehicles in one video. I do love how the writers or vehicle designers on Babylon 5 actually did research on what a realistic space battle could look like and designed their Starfurry accordingly.
The SA-43 would be potentially between the Viper & the Starfury in abilties and weaknesses IMHO. I remember watching SA:AB, Babylon 5 and the original 80's series/reruns of Battlestar (and Star Fleet - X Bomber too), and have always viewed the Vipers & Star Wars as more a Pacific War style of air combat in space, i.e; generally appearing as more using 2 dimensions, being eaiser for fimling budgets. Space & Babylon, made use of CGI more often, and could likewise present a closer to reality of what space combat could actually be, 3 dimension of axis being able to be used, with the 4th dimension being vector of force or momentum in the relative vaccum of & RCT/OME maneuvering.
@@kevincy5397 The entire series is literally on RUclips. There's a playlist for episodes 2-22 while episodes 1 and 23 are uploaded by two different people. EDIT: I'm assuming you're talking about Space Above and Beyond.
Amazing.. tought personally think there is 3 vital factors not analized: (pedantic assholic follows) -The Viper has inertial dampening.. maybe limited to horizontal forward aceleration as the pilots still suffer Gs.. but it has one (its been calculated acelerations on the Viper mk2 over hundreds of Gs forward due to distances travelled per time in order to achieve the needed average speed, wich sets the minimun aceleration required..and it has a huge amount of Gs).. while the StarFury has not any inertial dampening at all.. wich limits the G to about low 10s max (thats why the pilot is in a vertical standing position) -While the fire rate is much slower.. the firepower of the pulse canon of the StarFury hugelly surpasses the 20mm cannons of the Viper... the Fury canons are rated at 200 megawatts .. thats a huge amount of energy.. the Viper 20mms are powerfull as they are gauss canons and the entire round is explosive (no propellant needed) but still in the series you can see the rounds flying away .. wich suggest that its not that much faster than a conventional cannon.. maybe twice muzzle velocity (the gauss cannon advantage being no need for propellant , more reliable and higher muzzle speed).. also the Fury can fire for much much longer and doesnt need to control ammo use, while the Viper has a limited ammo magazine.. wich allows the Furies to not worry about ammo and perform long attacks and straffings -the starfury is computer assisted and the pilot can rely on the onboard computer for assisting in maneovers, targeting , navigation and complex combat operations.. while the mk.2 Viper is nearly completelly manually flight with only a small basic computer for very basic control asistance (for stability and self-leveling only, totally useless for everything else) and while it has a full sensor and navigation suite its avionics are not very advanced on porpouse (to keep computer use at minimun) On a side note the Fury does have heavy armour compared to the Viper.. only that all fighters and ships in B5 fire shots with so much energy that makes not much difference with the armour.. but a 20mm gun might have a harder time doing critical damage fast enought
yes.. of course the final round impact is the sum of the muzzle speed plus the fighter speed.. but that applies too to the Starfury ..wich relies more in the huge amount of energy each shot carries.. In BSG Vipers usually rely on missiles to do attacks on warships , installations or space stations.. while Vipers could seriously fuck up pretty much anything if given the oportunity of hitting their targets (you see a small group of furies killing a Vorchan in a few seconds, or seriously crippling (combined with B5 defenses fire ) a Primus battlecruiser
tecnologically yes.. the Viper mk.2 is a deliveraty "raw" fighter with as less computers as posible while the fury uses AI and the top computers of its time (you can do all kinds of fancy stuff with the Fury computers.. like have it point the weapons and nose to a certain point while you move the ship arround to avoid return fire.. or making it match rotations of ships or match movements of enemy fighters..all with voice commands).. However a Viper will utterly outrun a Fury...by magnitudes..something a F-5 cant do with A F-35.. and neither design seems particually stealthy (tought there is indeed a stealth variant of the Starfury.. reserved for the psycorps)..and the Viper can operate in atmospheres and gravity wells (it most probably its even VTOL). Oh .. i dont agree that the Viper is much less efficient in atmosphere.. at least within BSG in every atmospheric battle the cylon riders are allways seen running from Vipers (except the old era raiders wich seem more a match in atmosphere) wich suggest the Viper is quite better suited for atmospheric than the cylon raider (having those wings and control surfaces and stabilizers has to have a porpouse beyond the rule of cool)
This is awesome. The technology involved with systems and energy are clear differences, but some things remind me of modern and WW2 aircraft. One thing comes to mind about the viper is the Zero against the Russian Air Force before Pearl Harbor. Their agility and tactics allowed them to have a perfect victory against everyone until they went against American forces.
yep, all the ships do and in some ways I find The Expanse to be even more impressive in their execution and design. Not only are they much larger ships, the internal design and lay out even makes sense on how ships of that size would actually work. Instead of a Star Trek style deck layout that's level with the direction of travel the Roci is more like a block of flats with a massive engine in the basement and a lot of pew pew sticking out the windows 😊
@@MoA-Reload... star trek is based on a future where mankind has shed off its differences between the people and spiecies, the expanse is more realistic in so many ways, that makes it such a good show. that said st was more about giving a message to better the world . i will always be a trekkie but the expanse is soo good.
@@diavalzephyr7505 big Trek fan myself so I wasn't dissing it 😊 Just used them as an example as it's most clear how the ships on Trek are internally when it comes to deck layout and orientation of the crew to direction of travel. Without the trek science crew would end up splattered on the aft bulk heads as soon as they engage Impulse engines, never mind going to warp. Whereas actual big ships with real world science that doesn't delve into a barely theorised "subspace" or artificial gravity would be just like The Expanse. They regularly show gravity being generated via continuous acceleration and also how messy it can get with a sudden stop. An entire episode even accurately shows how dangerous zero/low G can be if you suffer internal injury too.
Might be interesting to go with two franchises that operate at fractions of the speed of light, like say the Andromeda Ascendant and any of the ships from the Honorverse. Both missile-heavy engagements over insane distances.
that would get pretty subjective, though, due to the evolution of military tech in the latter and the stagnation in the former. What point in the Honorverse are we talking- early on in the war, after they developed pods, or after they came up with the new missile systems for the first and second Battles of Manticore (trying not to spoiler here)? One of the things I love about the Honorverse is the clearly shown battlefield-feedback-created rapid acceleration in technology as Manticore and Haven slug it out for years while the Solarians are waaaay behind and stagnant due to not having run into a real challenge in centuries. However, it makes comparisons a bit dicey due to the vastly different tech in the current novels compared to the start of the series.
As long as the engines work by accelerating matter and ejecting it, some sort of working mass is required, even if said mass does not provide the energy and thus cannot be considered fuel in the traditional sense. With real life ion thrusters the most commonly used working mass is ionized (hence ion thruster) xenon gas.
@@MrAranton Pretty much this - and on numerous occasions terms like recharge or refuel are mentioned in the show (when they were talking about the b5 fighters) - on one ocassion Ivanova said she dosent want anyone doing the flyby's with less than half of a fuel tank So while the reactors themselves prob dont have to be replenished to often - the reaction mass for the engines would have to be.
I agree that the computer assist is a notable advantage. Also, the Starfury Thunderbolt would have been a more accurate comparison, as it is transatmospheric, unlike the Aurora.
@@kevinwarner3771 True... But are they good modern computers or 1980's Macintosh computers? They seem to be slow and inaccurate - at least, in the old series. ;)
This was a fascinating match up, and the outcome seems reasonable. I have been told to watch Babylon 5 by quite a few people, and I really need to sit down and watch Galactica from the beginning. Great vid as always!
Babylon 5 shows what man should attempt to become. B5 inspires hope, and shows man overcoming and enduring as they seek to embrace their better angels. While the new Battlestar Galactica shows what man should hope to never fall to, and shows the obsessive immorality and greed man should try to overcome not embrace. The new Battlestar Galactica is nothing short of depressing and emotionally draining in most episodes. Take the time to watch Babylon 5, just know going in you will have to make it through to season 2 before you will see much action as season 1 is almost entirely setting up the major players for the main story to come. Babylon 5 is well worth the time, and you will want to go back and rewatch it over and over so I recommend buying it, not renting it.
It might have been more interesting to have the Starfury Thunderbolt up against a Viper than the Starfury Aurora as the Thunderbolt is more similar in design to a Viper. It has a forward facing rapid fire cannon and airfoils for atmospheric flight, but I suppose as the Aurora won anyway it doesn't matter, lol:)
With a battlestar and an Omega Destroyer being about the same size (Omega slightly longer and taller, Battlestar wider and more central mass) I would like to see the two compared. One is a battleship that carries fighters, the other is an aircraft carrier with guns. One-on-one a Starfury is better than a Viper, but What happens when they are outnumbered more than 2 to 1?
@@matts1166 When outnumbered maneuverability only becomes more important in combat. And the energy based weapons of the Starfury could do significant damage to capital ships as well as fighters, making it a more deadly threat to larger vessels versus the Viper. I would also wonder how the energy based weapons of a Starfury would be affected by range. Being as they are computer assisted in targeting could they hit capital ships at ranges beyond the capital ships' ability to even detect the Starfury? A small target must be closer in order to be detected on lidar (Light based Radar) than a larger one. Lidar being BSG tech, I am not sure what the Starfury had onboard.
@@MoA-Reload... Given that 8472 use energy based weapons and the Replicators are very resistant to that, I'm kind of betting on the Replicators. It seems to take a species with lesser technological development rather than greater to really beat them and that's before they develop humanoid models.
Unfortunately the Donnager is tiny compared to the Valkyrie and even though the Donnager has the superior weapons range, I don't see that countering the mass of the Valkyrie or it's rate of fire.
@C B No contest - Donnager. Like, none. Valkyrie, Galatica, Pegasus, Base star. No match. The BSG universe fights *all* happen at tiny ranges - even the basestars with their missiles engage in visual range. Donny, on the other hand, can engage at throusands of kilometers with her torpedos, and hundreds of kilometers with her rail guns. In addition, Expanse torpedoes are highly maneuverable, and able to follow complex paths. They could just flit around and Flak field provieded by a BSG ship. With her 12 rapid-fire launchers, Donny would waste whatever you name in her opening volley, long before anything in the BSG-verse could even shoot back. The only chance a BSG ship has is to get the drop on her somehow by jumping right next to her. In that case, Donnys lack of mass would mean that she is easy prey to any colonial design, as they have guns to shred her, and even the Cylons would likely overwhelm her PDCs with a mix of Raiders and missiles. But if Donny can dictate the engagement, then the only thing stopping her from wasting the entire colonial fleet is her limited ammo.
@C B Wrong. Wrong on so many levels. The colonials have FTL and artificial gravity, but thats their *only* advanced tech. Anything else is comparable to the Expanse, if not far less advanced. Again, their weapons are all only within visual range. They have no computers to more advanced than what we have today, after having abandoned their advanced AI tech during the first cylon war. They have no direct fire missile defense, instead relying on massed flak volleys, whereas both modern RL military and the Expanse folks have computer-guided systems that can reliably swat missiles down. Expanse railguns in particular and weapons in general are shown to be *extremely* potent, meaning that their are likely more advanced than their BSG counterparts. Just compare the muzzle velocity of Galacticas main battery, or even Peggys, to that of Ecpanse railguns. It's not even a contest. Never mind that a Donnager class ship can carry up to four Corvettes, or eight Morrigans internal, ships that are shown to be more than fast enough to be a difficult target for battlestars, and with enough PDCs to shred Vipers, while still carrying nuclear torpedos. I'm a fan of both BSG and the Expanse. I'm running a BSG roleplay forum, I play Deadlock, and I'm rewatching the series constantly as research for said forum, but the truth is It is NOT a contest. Not even close. Again, the ONLY way a colonial ship would ever beat a Donnager would be in a close-range knife fight, where the Donnys range advantage doesn't matter and the sheer number of colonial guns would probably mean her end. But fights like that don't happen naturally in space, because you can see the enemy at ridiculous distances. You'd need to sneak a Raptor or the Blackbird close enough to relay percise jump coordinates, and given that the Martians have their own stealth tech and were more than capable of tracking the Amun-Ra class stealth ships once they got close and engaged, it is unlikely that such an attempt would succeed.
@@davej3781 How about 14 nuclear detonations at once? Donny has 14 rapid-reload missile tubes, that is 14 nuclear torps per salvo. I can't give you specs on how fast they reload, or how many torps the Donny can carry (I am going to assume "More than enough" though), but Expanse torps are repeatedly shown to have highly advanced guidance and be very agile - they could easily maneuver around a Battlestars static flak field, or at least force the colonial ship to spread her defenses in a thin all-around bubble, father than a focused wall, so some, if not all, torps are bound to get through. And that is only a single salvo. As well, nuclear detonations are far less devastating in space, because the atmospheric shockwave that makes up a good chunk of their destructive potential can't happen without an atmosphere. That is not to say nukes are no danger in space, but their effect is diminished. As I mentioned before, BSG combat is always shown to happen well within visual range, while Expanse torps can be fired from thousands of kilometers - Donny can fire and take out any colonial vessel long before she is ever in danger of being shot at. Also, railguns. Donny has two *massive* railguns with hundreds of kilometers in range, also well beyond BSG weapons range, and while a single shot will do little damage, it will penetrate the Battlestars outer armor at the very least, and perhaps multiple decks, causing loss of atmosphere and the need to react to that - and here again, Donny can fire away in impunity, untouched, until she whittles the Battlestar down. Combine both weapons systems, and its no contest. As I also stated before, the only exception to that is if the Colonials can clearly dictate the engagement, by scouting Donny out with a Raptor and jumping in right on top of her. At point blank range, the Battlestars sheer mass and high amounts of gun firepower completely turn the engagement around, leaving Donny no chance. But if Donny dictates the engagement - and seeing as she spotted stealth ships (admittedly under burn) *before* they entered her torpedo range, she will likely spot a Battlestar long before she is spotted in return - she wins. You don't need to be able to survive a nuke if the enemy can't shoot back at you.
Great video as I loved both shows. I'm gonna add a pojntless but interesting fact about the Starfury design: JMS (the creator of B5) & his crew worked closely with NASA'S Jet Propulsion Lab, they were so impressed with the Starfury design that they asked JMS if they could pinch & adapt the design for a space forklift to work around the ISS. JMS revealed that he agreed to it as long as the design kept the name Starfury. This was back in the 90's & as we haven't even seen a mock up design from NASA I would say this idea has been forgotten years ago but it makes me smile to know that the ship design on my favourite sci-fi show was so good NASA wanted to borrow the idea.
This took awhile to write out, so I hope it's at least entertaining for you, Spacedock! A bit of feedback - and a suggestion - that you may find interesting: The experiment was very much worthwhile, I would say. It is difficult to say whether this is superior or inferior to the previous video, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I will say that there was an opportunity that was missed when doing a directly capability-versus-capability comparison between different craft: You don't necessarily need to limit it to just two contenders, since you're not illustrating a mock-battle. You could have done three fighters - in this case, I would have strongly suggested that the the third contender be none other than the SA-43 Hammerhead from Space: Above and Beyond. I cannot help but believe that the Hammerhead is really what started the idea of seeing space fighter combat that takes advantage of the flight principles mentioned in this video, with visible maneuvering jets that actually show directional changes and such. While they did not always make full use of the freedoms that space combat would allow in terms of maneuverability, they did seem to try to make it clear (best example possibly being the final battle in the episode "Angriest Angel") that they were acknowledging the fact that space combat is definitely different than air combat. So, with that in mind, I will toss in this little not-as-well-researched, but still useful pseudo-add-on to your video :) Propulsion and Mobility: The Hammerhead is in something of a middle-ground of the other two fighters in this area. Like the Colonial Viper, the SA-43 Hammerhead is dependent on reaction control thrusters, but has more of them than the Viper - mounted on its forward stabilizer wings as well as the tips of its broad flight surface wings. While it has more mass than the Viper, this gives the Hammerhead the ability to perform more precise maneuvers with slightly better reaction speed - the ability to change direction is, like the Starfury, only limited by what the pilot's body can handle. While it has two massive HE3-powered SCRAMjet engines, its thrust-output-to-weight brings it to broadly just above the Starfury's acceleration capability. This does not, however, overcome the Starfury's greater ability to change direction *of travel*. In this sense, it is limited broadly similarly like the Viper. This leaves the Hammerhead only modestly faster than the Star Fury, and only modestly more maneuverable than the Colonial Viper - right between the two, but still somewhat at a disadvantage. Armament and Defenses: A forward gimbal-mounted snub-nose electro-magnetic railgun (50-degree firing arc) allows for a wide area of effectiveness, not even requiring the fighter to actually be facing its opponent directly to hit it with its frontal main cannon. In addition, a double-barreled cannon of similar quality to the front-mounted gun is mounted in a turret on the rear of the craft, allowing the Hammerhead to continue to track an opponent even if the opponent is actually out-maneuvering it. Similar to the other fighters, yet yielding a small advantage to the other craft, the Hammerhead is equipped with six missile hard-points under the wings, capable of mounting a variety of warheads of varying yield and design. The Hammerhead is equipped with a defensive countermeasures suite similar to the other fighters, and with its fully-automatic turreted cannons at both ends of the craft, it has a higher survivability potential when trying to shoot down incoming fire. One truly key advantage that the SA-43 has: the Hammerhead is a fair bit more heavily armored than the other two fighters. The durability of the craft is sufficient that it should be able to withstand an assault from a Colonial Viper for at least a short time before starting to take any truly critical damage - considerably longer than the Star Fury would. The Star Fury's armament, however, is sufficient that if it were to hit the Hammerhead directly, it would likely still cause severe damage or destroy the craft. That being said, a glancing blow is something that the Hammerhead would be able to shrug off, unlike the Viper. At eleven-and-a-half meters in length, the side-profile of the Hammerhead is a fair bit longer than that of the Viper, but it is still fairly small in terms of height. However, at twelve-and-a-half meters in width - while not as wide as the Star Fury - the broad wings and overall size of the SA-43 can be a liability compared to the other fighters. Utilities And Other Features: One aspect that sets the SA-43 apart from the other two is that it is a wonderful multi-purpose endo-/exo-atmospheric fighter design - this in itself gives it the position of being the sole fighter in this group actually designed to handle atmospheric flight in a dog-fighting capacity. Similarly to the Starfury, the entire cockpit module can be ejected as an escape/survival pod if the craft were to be destroyed, protecting the pilot. The Hammerhead is also constructed in a modular fashion, intended for quick repair and component replacement, while this is not necessarily true of the other two (certainly not in the case of the Viper, but I am actually not entirely sure about the Starfury). Verdict: If put into direct confrontation with the Starfury numerous times, it would seem that the two would most likely wind up in something of a stalemate, with the rapid-firing, multi-directional armament and better armor protection of the Hammerhead roughly balancing out against the Starfury's greater agility and heavy punch. That being said, if the Hammerhead were to find itself on the back foot near a planet with an atmosphere, it could use it to escape - not so, the other way around. What's more, the Hammerhead could actually be launched from a planet's surface, while the Starfury had no option to do such a thing. If put into direct confrontation with the Colonial Viper, however, the Hammerhead would most likely take everything that the Viper would have to offer, and give plenty more in return than the Viper could handle. But, that being said, if the Viper were to try to evade and run, the Hammerhead would simply not be able to catch it. End result: SA-43 Hammerhead >/= Star Fury Aurora > Colonial Viper Mk II I'm not setting in stone that the Hammerhead is the best of the three - it's just my opinion, but, regardless, it's one fighter I've ALWAYS grouped with the other two. :) Anywho - here's hoping that that didn't bore you. ^.^;
Not sure where you got your information from, but much of it is VERY wrong. Your SA-43 is only 8 metric tons in weight.... it's unarmoured or close enough to it. Even an F22 Raptor today is almost 20 tons and almost twice the length of this thing (19m vs 11.5m). The Starfury is 48 metric tons with 42mm re-enforced armour. Based on the barrel length of the SA-43's weapons, you better hope they are lasers as some people claim and not 'railguns' or conventional cannons. If they ARE railguns as you said, then they do not have the velocity to fire far (though in space it's still infinite) or with a lot of kinetic force. Based on those corrections to your argument: The SA-43 would be about as good as a Viper but likely loose to one based on it's larger and easier to target wings. Against a Starfury it depends on the weapons and their power. If they are railguns or conventional cannons then it's unlikely they could harm a fury without many many shots. If they are energy weapons then it depends on the power of said weapons. Based on all the info I can find (I have not seen this show and it failed after only 1 season, so no episode lore to look at), It's most likely to be conventional autocannons or some form of railgun system as you claim making it next to useless vs a Starfury. Just so you know, even the Viper is next to useless vs 42mm of armour as their penetration scale is around 25-35mm only.
@@Ishlacorrin Excellent summation, and your point about the armor of the Starfury vs the kinetic energy of the projectile weapons of both the Hammerhead and Viper is valid. The well armored Starfury should be able to withstand far more than the others can throw at it, short of missile strikes. While the Starfury could easily dispatch either other ship with even a partial hit to their unarmored frames, and a wing would be removed instantly.
I was a big fan of the Starfury Thunderbolt. It kept all the advantages of the Aurora and covered for it's weaknesses in atmosphere, and it's low refire rate.
It really shows that a lot of thought was put into the ships, when the newer variant actually improves the aspects of it's predecessor that were noticeably flawed. So many 'new varients' of ships in SF just tend to be slightly sharper, cooler-looking versions, without nearly as much thought put in.
This is true. It's for that reason that I'm not a big fan of the new X-Wing they show in The Force Awakens. The engine splits in half which is not mechanically feasible, and aside from a slightly more streamlined fuselage it is not appreciably better than the outgoing model. They just painted one black and inferred it is somehow superior without having to prove it.
The engine split thing was brought up in a science of Star Wars panel at Comicon. This assumed though that the engines used a spinning mechanism that would require the circular housing. If they're meant to be air intake fans then they'd be useless in space. So I assume the original design is just an aesthetic choice. And looking at a cross section of the old X-wing there seems to be no great need for the front of the engines to be circular at all. s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a3/a3/29/a3a3291b3b56dac2ca6d3511147881f9.jpg I will agree full heartedly though that the updated design seems purely aesthetic. Fitting with Abrams doctrine of "new but still the same".
They borrowed a lot from the original concept art for the thing. Personally I like the ARK-170 more and would have based any x-wing replacement on that.
I'd missed the mention of Vipers having limited inertial dampers when watching the show but it has been brought up here. However, without that science magic tech a Starfury pilot could pull more Gs than the Viper pilot because of there body position and orientation in the cockpit and because they are closer to the center of gravity/pivot point of their star fighter.
Excellent review, these are two of my favorite Sci-Fi IPs. I'll have to disagree with your overall assessment though, since both ships excel in differing areas of combat. You certainly nailed down how the StarFury would dominate an engagement based solely on a maneuver fight, but there is more too it than that. Just as single-engine biplanes can outmaneuver faster monoplanes (by a significant margin!), the Viper could use it's greater thrusting ability to "boom and zoom" against the StarFury. It all comes down to pilot training and the specific environment. I'd say they were a match, the main deciding factor(s) would lie with the crew and tactics, not the spaceframe.
No contest, the Thunderbolt would win. It dose everything the standard Starfury dose better and can fly in an atmosphere. Now, if you were talking about the Viper Mk. 7 then it would be a close match. My money would still be on the Thunderbolt, though.
Yeah i'd have to agree. While the Mk7 is far and away better than the Mk2 overall. The Thunderbolt removes the rate-of-fire issue, and without that crucial setback the ship just goes from strength to strength. Mk7 could still win a decent portion of the time, especially if it got lucky with missiles, but that full-auto chin cannon on the Thunderbolt is just lethal, no Viper could fly through a stream of fire from that and come out intact.
That 'chin gun' is actually a rapid fire pulse weapon called a 'Gatling Pulse Cannon' which is a particle weapon that is probably one of the most powerful fighter weapons that the B5 universe (this weapon can harm actual WARSHIPS and can be used to intercept incoming munitions) has seen other than the fighter-variant neutron lasers that the Minbari Nials use, which in addition to it's ten missiles it makes a VERY potent combination. Thunderbolts are also faster, better armored, have a co-pilot that can double as a navigator, better electronics, and a whole lot more.
Much as I love The Battle star Galactica Vipers mk1 the space battles were great to watch, they were entirely atmospheric battles, and always inside a gravity field,
The ability for the starfury too "spin" on the spot, and high speed dodge side to side, gives it a serious advantage over the viper. The star fury can very very easily keep its nose on target constantly, while slide sliding to avoid weapons fire... backing off or burning at odd angles that would force the viper to remove its nose from the starfury to alter its direction. This allows the starfury to act as a "turret in space" maintaining near constant fire if it wants
Meh, the Starfurys would run rings around the Vipers while they expended their limited ammo. They were always shown to have effective targeting systems, and even if the rate of fire was slower, the Starfury still had multiple weapons.
Went in knowing little to nothing about either ship or either show, now very interested in watching both. Quite liked the episode of bacedock versus, I'd love to see more of these and I'll be checking out more of your channel for sure.
Excellent video and analysis. A couple of points though: the _impracticality_ (or words to that effect) of mounting so many engines on a small craft (Starfury) that you cite is taken too much from the perspective of today's tech' but the engine tech' of the future could easily make this a simple matter. You also made much of the Viper's guns having poor lethal;ity on the Starfury but the Viper's missiles would be another matter and each craft's lethality is in the total effect of its combined weapons.
@@Rougeliger _To be fair_ , how much ammo they had or not at any particular time is beside the poiint in a side by side technical comparison of the weapons sytems.
@@Twirlyhead all I meant was that is probably the reason he really probably didn't consider the missiles in the comparison. I actually agree with you. It did seem like he didn't take the missiles into account. Though I don't know how much of a changing factor it would be. It would depend on each ships ecm capabilities. In Galactica the colonials had a sort of technophobia after the first Cylon war. I haven't seen a lot of b5 but they do seem to be a little more open AI and computer assistance.
@@Rougeliger That's true. Though I would say that the Colonials' fear of Cylon hacking/ew made them build stuff to be very resistant to such. For example, it was not hacking but good old fashioned espionage that delivered the Colonial defence codes to them at the beginning of the War.
Very well-reasoned with superior analysis. My only gripe is that you didn't show any clips of the Starfury in action. The battle in the episode "Signs and Portents" features a Starfury doing a reverse-lift up the Z-axis to destroy a chasing opponent. Pity you didn't use that, when you showed so many battles of the Viper.
I think you are spot on about how evenly matched they are. Upon listening to the data points I was quickly reminded about the comparison between a WW2 Japaneee Zero and an American Wildcat. In 1-to-1 engagements the Fury may best the viper at a higher frequency, but I also think that the Vipers limitations could be negated by wing-man tactics.
UNSC infinity VS an executor class star destroyer in your vs vids. i know i've put this one every video for a while and i do apologize i just don't know if its being seen or not and i think it would be really cool.
Infinity wouldn't stand a chaaaance. Executors are like, 7-8 miles long and carry a compliment of hundreds of TIE fighters and bombers. It's got better shielding and firepower to boot. Conversely, the Infinity's only around as large as a Covenant supercarrier. Infinity vs a Star destroyer might be more of a fair matchup.
UNSC Infinity, hands down. I'm a SW fan but, have to acknowledge the Infinity's attack power. The Executor may be bigger but, the Infinity has a harder punch. Any star destroyer has no such concentrated punch. Unless we start talking about the Eclipse-class featured in the Dark Horse comics, then perhaps.
would also like to add that the pilot position in cockpit is different. In starfury, pilot is standing, where in viper the pilot sits on a seat. Standing position allows more resistance to g-forces if I've understood correctly, at least when accelerating forward.
While I agree with the breakdown of capabilities, I disagree with your conclusion. The Starfury is a space superiority fighter and it's performance in an atmosphere (none) isn't a factor as you would not engage Vipers with Starfury Auroras if you were likely to need to fight in an atmosphere. So only the space combat capabilities should be considered as this is the only battlefield these two fighter could meet on...or in, I guess. Also the Staryfury has an onboard computer that will set up and execute movement and attacks that a human pilot would struggle to do effectively. The armor on a Staryfury is also not light. It can take several energy weapon hits from other fighter as we have seen Ivanova not need to eject until after several hits. On one flight a pilot breaks down the toughness of the newer Starfury Thunderbolt as superior to the Auroras in every way except the Aurora's thicker composite armor. A 30mm light armor piecing round is going to struggle hard to penetrate the heavier armor of the Starfury. All other factors being equal (Pilot skill, ship condition, battlefield conditions) the Starfury should come out on top every time for the simple fact that it can tank some of the Viper's damage and the Viper can't tank any damage from a Starfury and the Starfury won't miss because of the targeting computer. (Remember, the viper MK II does not have any form of electric counter measures or computational support because having any form of automated electronics creates a fatal vulnerability against the enemy it was designed to fight.) So really it's not that the Starfury is the better fighter. It's not. It's a far superior heavy space superiority fighter, but I wouldn't want to fight Cylons in one. The Viper is a superior light multi role fighter designed to fight a different enemy, but stacked up against the Starfury, it just doesn't compare.
While I agree that the Starfury would take more hits to kill. The 30mm guns on the viper is nothing to sneeze at. They can be loaded with armor piercing and high explosive. irl the A-10 has a 30mm cannon that has been used against tanks. The end result is typically a mission kill but not necessarily a complete destruction kill. In combat all you need is a mission kill. We have seen several times in bsg vipers taking out heavier enemies such as the heavy raiders enough times to know that it is possible though it takes a lot more time. From my own perspective if you have a ship that is the size of a small car and it is fighting a fighter the size of a semi truck (not actually sizes obviously), the smaller fighter is going to be harder to hit. Smaller vessels have a smaller radar cross section therefore it can be harder to hit. Size does matter. That said you are right, one shot and the viper is a million pieces of metal floating through space. In the end I think the viper vs starfury is similar to the TIE vs X wing. The xwing is shown to be a much better fighter but the tie is cheap and easily fielded in large numbers. Viper is used very similarly to the tie while the Starfury and the xwing are used in a similar manner. Even though the x wing is the superior fighter the tie still managed to compete.
pit the Starfury against the original Viper from Battlestar Galactica TOS ....those Vipers used energy weapons as well...they were also every bit as maneuverable as the 'reimagined' Galactica universe including the ability to eject the entire cockpit as a survival pod
Drahk Raider Fighters have my favorite design EVER, from an aesthetic standpoint, with Shadow Vessels following close behind. I'd love to see Drahk, Shadow, Vorlon, ISA, Borg, and Dominion vessels pitted against each other at some point.
chng hemeng Exactly. those TIES are horrible. you can't even see very far to the left or right. A tie intercepter or defender would be a slightly better match.
I actually forget if there are imperial navy ships larger than the battleship. As far as i know, it goes: escort frigate light cruiser cruiser heavy cruiser/battlecruiser grand cruiser battleship If there are larger ships than the battleship, then they would make a better match for the executor i think
There are technically larger ships, but past their Battleship line, Imperial starships tend to be less "starship" and more "mobile fortress with guns" like the Phalanx or The Rock.
Two most realistic zero-G, vacuum space fighters and dogfight styles other than Hammerhead from Space Above And Beyond.. and Bubble fighter from first few minutes of Lost In Space movie.. these four are my fav starfighters.. not forgetting e Starfury Thunderbolt.. But how would a pilot survive e Gs alone..? *Tabletop anyone? ;)
Federation "Peregrine" attack craft VS Cylon Raider (new and old style) OR F303 Prometheus. Systems Commonwealth Andromeda Ascendant VS Moya (Farscape) F304 (Odyssey or Daedalus) Vs USS Voyager Even if you don't do any of these, hope i could help spark an idea :) Top Channel BTW
SillyMidOff I would rather the Andromeda Ascendant take on something of similar armament. Moya was a prisoner transport ship, and the crew had repeatedly mentioned that the only "weapon" Moya has is it's Starburst drive for escaping engagements. It might be better to look at Crais' Command Carrier instead, or one of the other military ships in the Farscape universe.
NightRaven 1901 that's why I recommend the Command Carrier that Captain Bailar Crais helmed in Farscape. It carries a strong armament, and has a similar fighter complement for a full vs battle.
+JaxMerrick yeah... I spoke without thinking about Moyà... Only watched Farscape a couple of times and for some reason thought it was rather formidable... Derp. Was more about giving him left field ideas than out and out match ups.
I watched both shows and I agree the Star Fury would win most battles if the pilots were of similar skill level. Maneuverability is king in a battle like this, I imagine them literally doing circles around a Viper. Nice video. I will check out more of your stuff.
Ok, a couple of problems in this assessment. First, you treat the Starfury as a solid object with its maximum dimensions, but there's a lot of empty space between the pylons. So how large of a target the Starfury is depends a lot on the orientation of the Starfury towards its attacker - which the Starfury can adjust easily. Secondly, aside from the downsides of the thrust vectoring in the Viper, the position of the pilot vis-a-vis the engines produces unique health risks when the Viper turns sharply compared to the Starfury, where the pilot is practically located on the axis around which the ship turns. Lastly, there's the issue of the speed of the "projectile" - a mass accelerator slinging a solid physical object will have a hard time bringing it to substantial speed - much harder than a directed energy weapon, even if it was a particle accelerator. This poses unique problems in space, where distances and speed are large, and especially so when engaging a highly maneuverable opponent. It requires much longer lead, which is especially problematic against a vehicle that can change its trajectory as easily as the Starfury - using the guns thus becomes practical for the Viper at a shorter range than for the Starfury.
@Matthew Caughey The diffence in rate of fire between the starfury and Viper isn't great viper fires 20 rounds per second per gun vs the starfuries 16 per gun, so 40 shots vs 64 per second so the starfury actually put out more "lead" down wind than the Viper does without worry about running out ammo after 30-40 seconds.
Good assessment of the two ships. The Starfury as well uses a g couch that keeps the pilot in an almost vertical position to aid in handling of extreme g maneuvers. Where as the Vipers has a seat like a plane.
Two big decive advantage of Starfury.. 1.In oposition of information in video Starfury has thick armor and EA ship's armor is very durable vs kinetic weapons . Viper need multiple hits to make any harm to Starfury, only cocpit is a weak point in Starfury. 2.Starfury uses AI system to overcome the effect of g-force on pilot and to support all pilot function. In Viper is only pilot, Starfury is a complex system. Sorry but Starfury just rip Viper like F-16 vs MiG-15. Just a modern fighter vs obsolete single high maneuvere fighter.
@@TorianTammas actually an f 16 would have a difficult time hitting an old ww2 plane like an A6M Zero because of the speed difference. If the f 16 tried flying the same speed as a ww2 plane it would actually stall. They would have to use a missile if they didn't want to risk stalling. But who wants to waste a missile on a plane barely going 300 mph? Lol
Yeah the official lore shows the Starfury is 48 metric tons because of 42mm re-enforced armour. The Vipers 30mm Autocannons with conventional ammo could only penetrate 25-35mm even at really close range.
Hi there, new fan. I am a huge fan of Space: Above and Beyond. I thought it was interesting that you pointed out how the fighters used Newtonian principles in their portrayal and you love to hear how the Hammerhead would fair in a fight with these birds as well. In fact, I'd love to see any episode on things from S:AAB. An episode on the Saratoga, etc. Thanks!
either the autumn class and a galactica are around the same size and have compatible tech levels...... which is why i don't care to see an infinity vs a mercury class (the Pegasus belongs to that class of battlestar) not only is a infinity got a whole other level of tech it is about 10 times the size of a mercury like comparing a speedboat to a dreadnought
Sorry if I'm repeating something that's been said a dozen times, but a big advantage for the Fury is that it has that targeting computer/HUD that renders 3D images of the battle ahead. While Viper pilots are translating DRADIS and 'mk1 eyeball' data an SF pilot is able to target a crisp green wireframe image of the enemy on that computer. A little nose wiggle and those pulse cannons are hurling a dozen or so football sized bolts of plasma at and around your viper.
something to take into consideration here is that both fighter are not ftl capable on their own needing a carrier vessel the carry for a viper was a Battlestar with a valkyrie having 30-40 vipers and a bigger battlestar like a Mercury or Galactica having 200+ vipers. the nova class dreadnought only carried 36 starfury and the warlock only carried 48 and the shinano class a dedicated carrier only had 96 starfury so in an true engagement the starfury in a best case scenario would be outnumbered two to one and in most cases about five to one
Also Earth force is far bigger than the Colonial Fleet, at it's largest size the Colonial Fleet only had 120 battlestars, Earth force on the other hand has around 20000 capital and escort ships.
Videos like this make we want to get my books to screen even faster. I would love to see how my fighters and ships compare under your assessment, especially since I do my best to fit to Newtonian physics as well.
Let's not forget about the targeting computers of the two spacecraft. The Earthforce Starfury is likely to be networked into a C3 combat system and will have much more advanced avionics (spacionics?) than the Mark II Viper. For the Viper was designed for a war with Cylons... and the Colonial military had to regress to non-networked, more primitive systems to prevent their takeover by Cylon computer viruses. That would provide a serious boost to the accuracy of the Starfury, offsetting it's slower rate of fire. And then there is the time delay between energy weapons and mass projectiles. The Starfury and its particle cannons will find their weapons hitting (or missing) at lightspeed... which means no real time for the Viper pilot to dodge or react. Whereas the projectile cannons of the Viper shoot at more standard, ballistic speeds. Considering the greater distances involved in space combat, this gives the Starfury pilot some time to react, perhaps time enough to get out of the line of fire before they reach him. Furthermore, this leads into the last issue. The effective ranges of the weaponry. Energy weapons, as they do reach the enemy at lightspeed, have a *FAR* greater effective range. So the Starfury pilot will be able to engage the Viper long before the Viper could effectively return fire.
That's what I thought. Plasma weapons, both in irl and in fiction, can't travel at the speed of light. Plasma has mass. Anything with mass would need infinite energy to travel at the speed of light. In Halo, the Covenant's plasma weapons are actually characterized by being relatively slow moving compared to the missiles and MAC guns of the UNSC, but a single plasma torpedo can be guided around obstacles, and can effectively one shot most UNSC ships. And yeah, no contest on the Avionics. I'll agree on that point.
I enjoyed your video, but I disagree with you conclusion. The first reason is the deference in their weapons. Although the Starfury could kill a Viper with one hit the viper uses the same size round that we use to kill tanks. Assuming theirs is similar to ours; there is little chance the Starfury's armor could stop it. Even if it were a 20 mm round, I suspect at least most of the rounds would penetrate and explode inside. (Most aircraft rounds are designed to do so) that coupled with its rate of fire, which I estimate to be about 300 rounds per minute per gun for a collective weight of 600 rounds per minute or 10 rounds per second, and the greater velocity of its projectiles, I believe makes the vipers armament is superior to the Starfury's as an anti-fighter weapon. The viper could kill the Starfury in one or two passes; though that is far from guaranteed. My second point has to do with acceleration. Although the Starfury can change the direction it's facing faster than the viper, the viper still has substantially greater acceleration which means it can in fact change its trajectory faster than the Starfury; the viper's tendency to slide into such monomers would be more or less a nonissue unless it was trying to avoid collision. Starfury's greater control over its trajectory does not give it a significant advantage in mobility over the viper because it still can't change it's trajectory as fast as the viper can. On the other hand, the viper's greater acceleration means that unless the Starfury has a head start on it, the viper can always get way; giving it more control over the fight. The Starfury can't catch up to it, so it has to wait for the viper to come to it, thus the viper pilots can choose the terms of the engagement. And so I believe the viper has the edge here.
as he stated. he cant factor in pilots, their training, their experiance. none of it. otherwise it could be ruled a draw. think of it as two drones just programed to shoot the other down. no special orders. just kill.
Nope, those are conventional 30mm guns, just with better propellants than we can come up with. Those are actually useless against anything with even limited amounts of armor in B5. The usual kinetic weapon of choice tend to be electro-magnetic in nature (i.e. railguns, coilguns/gauss rifles, 'I fling asteroids at you' mass drivers, kinetic kill missiles that go 20% of lightspeed, among others) than flung via propellant in B5. Oh, and all of these weapons are consistently far slower than their energy counterparts (i.e. particle/laser/pulse/molecular (usually messing with strong/weak forces)/antimatter/First One Bullshit) that go significant fractions of light speed as in B5 Wars (the tabletop game that is used to simulate battles in B5) has them fire during the MOVEMENT phase instead of the attack phase.
I think you have your physics wrong. In order for either ship to change their trajectory, they need to first change their direction. While the Vipers can make high-G banks for fast turns, the Starfury can pop a 180 in less than one second. That means the Starfury wins in all forms of maneuverability. Additionally, the position of the Starfury pilot is better for resisting G forces, as they're at the pivot point and therefore experiencing far less. The Viper pilots have the same limits as modern fighter pilots.
@@johnwolf2349 The sharp turns we see Vipers do on screen are definitely High-G turns. A nearly instant 180 is, by any reasonable standard, a high-g maneuver. According to Starbuck's training speech in the first season, a Viper can flip end over end in .35 seconds. Which is impressive, but the Starfuries are shown to turn much faster than that, owing to their engine positions. Also unlike the Viper, they can pivot in place. Both state that they turn fast enough to knock out their pilots, which means they both can do seriously high-g turns, enough to incapacitate the pilots. In both cases, canon says their limits are up to the pilot's ability to resist those high g maneuvers. However, the Starfury puts the pilot at the center of the pivot, which minimizes G-forces. That means that while both can make impressively hugh-g maneuvers, the Starfury is better placed to help the pilot withstand it.
I think that the Viper would have an edge over the Starfury in the fact that it has longer range with it's weapons. Energy weapons usually suffer from diffraction or the inverse square law, while solid objects, once accelerated, will keep going. This means the Viper could open up from a range where the Starfury's weapons prove ineffective.
Although I like getting various facts, this style of VS just lacks the storytelling element of the "Sovereign VS Scimitar" episode and is therefore much less entertaining to watch.
This channel is fantastic and I am loving the videos. This is a comparison of my two all-time favourite sci-fi fighters and I'm inclined to agree with your conclusion that the Starfury would edge it. Of course if it was a Thunderbolt it'd be no contest at all!
I liked this video but was a much bigger fan of the previous video with Sovereign. The format, in my opinion, was just a tad better, it was the reason I subscribed to this channel (super big fan by the way). I think, even if it were to show one possible scenario, a battle scene like the last one would be better. Maybe showing a squadron of 5 dog it out. Still 10/10!! Would sub again!
Starfury wins hands down. Pulse Cannons beat Kinetic Cannons. There is also the fact that the Starfury's standing cockpit give it an advantage in high gee maneuvers compared to the Viper.
It's only an advantage when accelerating straight forward and backwards. But maneuverability is more than that. If accelerating up or down, then the standing position is at a disadvantage. Also, maneuverability is more than accelerating in a straight line. Turning and spinning on all three axes is important too. While the Starfury has bigger more powerful engines than the Viper to help it do that, I haven't actually noticed any difference in turn speed when watching the two in combat. Worse for the Starfury, the pilot is actually forward of the Starfury's center of gravity, the point around which the fighter turns in all three dimensions, while the Viper cockpit is at the exact center of gravity. Coupled with the Viper pilot's more compact sitting position, the Viper pilot simply experiences less G forces for a given spin speed in any axis than the Starfury pilot does. But I do think the Starfury would win, but not because of maneuverability. The Starfury will win because Starfury pilots routinely hit their targets with their first shot. Viper pilots? Not so much. Kinda helps to have a working targeting system that you're not afraid will be compromised by your enemies. But if the tech were equalized (ie, same targeting systems and same weapon firepower), I suspect the Viper's smaller size and center of gravity cockpit position would give it the advantage.
I'd love to see this same same match, but with the Thunderbolt Star Fury instead of the Aurora. Nice work!
7 лет назад+14
Maneuverability in space... yeah that doesn´t seem all that important. Can´t really imagine how any of these crafts would even get to damned visual range in real combat with all those missiles... :D We can do that already in fact, modern fighters don´t fight at visual range. But handwaving this, it is actually well done video, taking all important facts from series and interpreting them in nice and somewhat "realistic" way
To be honest the whole idea of a Space Fighter has no real place in reality, it's a role that would either be filled by drones or not at all really. But yeah if I could put a thousand battles between these two ships through some kind of supercomputer I expect only about 10% of them would be anything other than the two ships spamming missiles at eachother and the ship with the worst luck going down first.
This assumes however that both sides wouldn't have counter measures that could jam the guidance systems of long range projectiles. I think BSG has covered this, though I haven't watched enough to be sure. There's also the factor of point defense weaponry to shoot down incoming missiles/torpedoes and fighters/drones at close range. Something I don't see in Star Trek or Star wars, but see a lot in B5 and Stargate. Its also a lot easier to evade missiles from farther away even with weapon lock than up close. The maximum range of weapons also plays a factor. Or the importance of hitting specific parts of a target. Or whether or not a larger ship has blind spots to exploit. Fighters in general are only useful in that they are usually small and much harder to hit. Their smaller mass makes them better able to change trajectory and evade weapons much more easily than larger ships. And depending on the defenses of their target, a squadron of fighters could more effectively deliver a weapons payload than their more expensive capital ship counterparts. This is the only reason the Federation bothered at all to start using Maquis style attack ships in the Dominion War. They could be easily destroyed, but could deliver the same photon torpedoes as a 300-700 meter ship at a fraction of the cost.
7 лет назад+1
Darwin Xavier I don't really think that there is such thing as Max range of projectile weapons in space... They just fly until they hit, so if your target has constant vector, you can hit him from other side of solar system. And given that, I have to think why would you create fighter to carry your missiles... Instead of just giving more fuel to that missile? Your missile is smaller, lighter, doesn't need life support, oxygen, radiation shielding... And doesn't need to decelerate and come back to base/carrier after its mission is done.. It's so much more efficient, that I can't think of many reasons to create fighters at all for that... Except for fact that it's much less fun :-D
Some weapons do fizzle out after a certain range or duration. The energy might not completely go away but it could dissipate enough to be ineffective. Just letting the missile do all the work from a distance would depend on whether or not you could effectively and cost efficiently give it a good enough AI to dodge defenses like a fighter, or pilot it remotely from a mothership. STVGR explored the former in "Warhead" and "Dreadnought" with highly intelligent, heavily armed doomsday missiles. Stargate explored the latter with its enormous swarms of Ancient drones. Advanced AIs or transmission systems would be mandatory for effective long range bombardment without the projectile being shot down. Or enough resources to fire so many missiles that likely at least some would make it through. It all comes down to cost much of the time.
7 лет назад+1
Well considerig what modern ALPHA AI can do in fighter jets combat, I guess that problem with enough powerful AI is already solved... This AI can shoot down any human pilot in any simulation without too much effort and can be run on average notebook. And it probably gets only better from now on. Such missiles could be hanging in space even for weeks, waiting for remote activation, launching engines and attacking any adversary from unexpected angles... We have this ongoing trope, that missile must be launched, than have its engine burning for few minutes and this engine burn is her actual total lifetime before its useless - while in space, this really doesn´t have to be the case, as there is no gravity that would drag it down. Probably most convenient weapon platform for space combat, would be "missile pod". Lets say 10-30 missiles in pod, and this pod would have some energy generator that would keep missiles filled with enough operational energy, so they are always ready to be used when needed. it would provide basic diagnostics and minor autonomous repairs and would shield delicate missiles against radiation/debris. There is no need for lifesupport and such, and it doesn´t need to move much (missiles are the moving part), so it can be VERY stealthy. And once launched, every missile can operate as autonomous AI drone, maneuvering, waiting, drifting and attacking according to its orders, and each mission can take even few weeks to months, depending on the mission you need this warhead to do for you. Almost something like in expanse books, where UN launched all their missiles, and they flew for many days, changing their trajectories and targets as told...
2 of my favorite space fighter designs. All time favorite is still the Starfury Thunderbolt. An honorable mention is the Thunderfigher from Buck Rogers.
I thoroughly disagree with this conclusion. The viper's higher acceleration means that its pilot can engage and disengage at will. Essentially, the Viper dictates the time, place, and tempo of the engagement, If things start to go poorly, the Viper pilot can disengage, re-position, and re-engage in a more advantageous circumstance. The value of being able to dictate the terms of the engagement can't be overstated. Additionally, the stopping power of a 30mm MAC cannon round appears understated. While directed energy weapons would no doubt be capable of burning through the hull of a Viper, a 30mm round, even without such a slug being accelerated as it is in the viper, would be structurally fatal to a target as small as a fighter. The sheer amount of force imparted by such an impact could warp, bend, or tear away parts of the star fury with a single hit. The Viper is not known for connecting with only one shot at a time. The way I see this match is a case of first hit wins, and when one fighter dictates how things start off, while having an out should things go south, I tend to place my bets on the pilot in the initiative posture as opposed to the reactive.
I would say thats partialy true - if a viper commits it has no choice but to attack and in order to so he cant do fancy evasives - fury can do evasives at whim even while firing on the target and it can do so i a manner imposbile to match by the viper - literally the fury can dance around the viper shooting it at all the times and the only thing the viper can do to survive is to burn at max speed and pray it can shake/evade the incoming fire in order to get away from firinig range in one piece. Literally the fury can do evasives/advance/retreat to/from enemy in all 3 axis at the same time and still fire on the target - thats smth not possible for the viper to do. So imho viper would be better at ambushes but in straight dogffight - well it would get whacked most of the time.
That actually depends on the trajectory of both the target and the projectile. You could, hypothetically, reach the velocity of the projectile and match the direction of the kinetic weapon and have it tickle you. This would necessitate an explosive tip which has loads of other concerns stapled onto it. Of course, unlikely that this would be a concern, but even getting close to the speed of the projectile, assuming you're not hitting it head-on, could severely reduce its kinetic effectiveness. The supposed advantage of an energy based weapon is that its impact is effectively an explosive trigger OR mere contact is sufficient to cause immense damage.
@@planaraspect9461 That's very much a corner case. If a target was able to match your weapons velocity you'd probably not hit at all. More than likely targets on an intercepting trajectory will Will result in impact velocities far far greater than the weapon's mussel velocity. Also you wouldn't use explosives ammo. Solid slugs at those kind of speeds will just slice right through armor and deliver damage that energy weapons would be very hard pressed to compare to.
@@endorsedbryce That said, there's one more problem. The Starfury's weapons are at least in universe known to hit and destroy similar sized ships in a single shot. Vs the Viper who peppers a single target till it ruptures something that explodes. The Starfury has a fusion generator and it's engines are powered by particle thrust given off by generator. Meaning, there are no fuel lines to cut only power cables. Not much to rupture. It would give a kill but it would take more accurate firing and aiming.
That was surprisingly well done. The limited array of large engines on the Viper is something I hadn’t considered before. I’d always assumed similar maneuverability, as both are limited to the tolerance of the pilot - no inertial compensation technology. But the Starfury could almost certainly stop faster, or slow its momentum faster, with powerful engines both front and rear. But for other maneuvers, I’d still consider them comparable. Both are still limited by the tolerance of the pilot. True, the Viper is lighter, but this is offset by the Starfury’s larger engines. So, to me, the better assessment would be that they are comparable in turns and lateral moves, but with the Viper being more fuel efficient in doing so, but with the Starfury being more capable of backward thrust. I have a website where I discuss similar topics, so I rather enjoyed the video.
I feel like the use of the Viper Mk.2, as well as overlooking multiple aspects of the Viper (it's inertial dampener, its small size, the homing missiles, ect) - is a clear attempt to stack the deck in favor of the Starfury. There is a much more modern, capable, and advanced version of the Viper (MkVII), which has better pretty much everything when compared to the Mk.2, not to mention a target that large would be so easy to find on Dradis that a pilot of a Viper would never need to use visual to track. Not saying the Starfury wouldn't win, mind you - Though I am saying I sense a favoritism to Babylon 5 and the Starfury, by comparing the least capable version of the Viper, to one of the more capable variants of the Starfury. It's like saying, who would win, Officeman, or Superman, of course superman would win, officeman is just a office worker with nothing in his favor.
The example is an exaggeration and the favoritism is unlikely, just look at the Top 5s and all the videos on Battlestar Galactica Spacedock did. Though indeed, should have used the Mark 7.
I had no idea the mk2 or mk 7 viper was supposed to have inertial dampening as the show has the pilots moving around and grunting like there's no inertial dampening at all. The viper mk2 is about the same length as a starfury and I can't find any information on width. Although the smaller profile from face on was noted in the video. The Starfury weights more to a LOT more depending on what information you go with. Honestly this comparison wasn't terrible favorable to the starfury either as he left out important in universe facts. In universe the sturfury is heavily armored and takes glancing blows from CAPITAL ship weapons like a champ. The magnetic vanes that control thrust vectoring are powerful enough to allow a star fury to continue operations effectively with 1 engine completely down. Multiple engine failures can be dealt with but that does dramatically reduce the fighter's performance. He completely missed the automation available to the starfury pilot including pre-programmed maneuvering AND the ability to shoot off axis with the aid of the computer system. So the pilot can concentrated on evasive maneuvers while the ship automatically takes pot shots at the target. The thunderbolt is everything the aurora has but better including more hardpoints and faster firing harder hitting guns. Having said that the viper mk2 is a damned pretty fighter.
It seems almost like a perfect comparison to WWI dogfights between Sopwith Camels and Fokker DR1s. Camels had powerful forward engines but had problems due to drag which hampered their maneuverability, while the DR1s had the extra wing which let them maneuver really well at the expense that they were often heavier and likely slower to accelerate. Both planes were rather evenly matched but the DR1s walked away with more kills than not thanks to aces like the Red Baron.
Bit of a different style to the last Versus, still experimenting with ideas. Would love to know what you all think. :D
Both were great, but the versus was even better because it even provided a gripping narrative. Maybe you could even combine it - first a short listing of the stats, and then the longer vs.
in any case, I'm looking foward to your next one... it certainly will be awesome.
Amazing video!!!
You could combine both styles next time!!!
Spacedock love the video and thank you about the information because i can't watch the shows. I know all of these because of wikia
Spacedock love the video and thank you about the information because i can't watch the shows. I know all of these because of wikia
I love the fact that NASA went to the writer of Babylon 5 to get permission to use the design for space tugs. He gave it with 1 caveat that it carry the name Starfury!
Ah, a fellow listener to the audio commentary of the DVD? ^^
I hope that JMS will get his wish and see a Star Fury in space in his lifetime (and mine).
Should call it Tonka Class. There is a Tonka class starfury in cannon.
Here in 2021. Seems kinda overkill to call a tug StarFury, a name that should only be reserved for something with more fighting spirit. Perhaps the NASA ship should have been called StarTuggery or TugFury.
@Allen ... Nice, even better. It even sounds like a rock band name (maybe because I'm thinking of Bryan Ferry).
Starfury is the first Sci-fi TV fighter to look like it belongs in space and isn't an aeroplane that flew too high and got lost.. :)
to be fair Vipers are used in space and atmosphere, so it's more an SSTO than a traditional space craft
"The Five Laws of the Starfury"
1- Not an ounce shall be dedicated to atmospheric capabilities.
2- The limitating factor for acceleration and manoeuverabilty shall be the human body tolerance.
3- The weapons shall be so powerful to inflict incapacitating damages against selected targets (engines, weapons, sensors) of a warship, and to quickly destroy every known fighter.
4- The endurance shall be sacrified, to attain top performances in the other fields.
5- The survival of the pilot is a fundamental need. The design and the armor of the fighter shall be aimed to this goal.
It's a great example of "Do one job extremely well, don't do multiple jobs adequately."
For 4, Molari says the Centauri Pilots sometimes just let themselves black out and go on auto pilot in super stressful maneuvers in order to get the advantage.
I'd still rather have a Viper badge on my sleeve any day of the week
6- Evonova is always right.
@@lucielm sorry to say this but that line came from Captain Sheridan when teaching other pilot to face the Centaury’s pilot. It was in the season 2 final episode “The fall of night”
I'll never forget watching the very first regular series episode of Babylon 5 S1E1 "Midnight on the Firing Line". Commander Sinclair leads a wing of Star Furies out to fight and destroy some Raiders (Pirates). The Raider ships are sort of a "flying wing" look (similar to the Cobra III from Elite Dangerous in hindsight).
During the fight I had not yet noticed the Newtonian Physics nature of the maneuvering - until it I was slapped across the face with the obvious: Sinclair gets a Raider ship on his tail and then - instead of doing the usual "Star Wars" style of "WWII Fighter" maneuvering, he simply cuts his rear thrusters, pivots a quick 180 while traveling the same vector, and blows the Raider following him to bits.
I swear to god - not even joking in the slightest - though in retrospect I must've looked HILARIOUS - But I LEAPED up from the couch, pointed at the TV Screen and shouted with pure excited surprise, glee, and not a little shock:
*"OH MY GOD!! PHYSICS!!!"*
A friend of mine watching with me just about fell off his chair laughing at my reaction. But he was just as impressed. :D
Years later I was just as impressed with the Vipers depiction in the reboot Galactica, but I wasn't NEARLY so over-the-top with my reaction - Babylon 5 was the FIRST I'd ever seen that did that and made it COOL! I wasn't as surprised by the idea when I saw the Vipers so it didn't catch me so completely out of the blue like that. ^_^
The guys who designed the starfury for B5 have admitted to being inspired by the fighter in the last starfighter.
Yeah. I remembered watching it on TV and I went nuts, too.
For the record, they guys designing ship models for Bab 5 were getting out of hand with 'realism'. They had to be told- repeatedly- that 'nobody is going to notice that' (lol...fans...do...) and 'keep it simple'. For example the EA battleships with their rotating sections, they *were* going to maneuver those things with a gimbals engine pointing 'down' instead of w/e to rotate to port. ( or whatever direction it was.)
The thing is, though, they had project deadlines and that was taking a lot more time than was strictly necessary to get the point across.
Ace Combat 4 Elctrosphere also had the space plane mission(s) where vectoral speed and gravational pull all effecting the players craft, but you could also 'kill' engine thrust, use movements thrusters to alter to angles &, and power the engines to build up momentum in another direction - including to do snap 180 turn around for rear defence/attack, spin around again to new vector etc..
Apparently 'Shattered Space' and EVE Online also have some of the same 3D/4D control apsects akin to those LogandarkLighter spoke of in B5 and myself in AC4
The scene that best showcased the physics for me (aside from the Star Furys simply dropping straight out of the fighter bay to launch) was a scene where (Sinclair?) was holding a Star Fury still relative to the rotating Station and was having to thrust "up" to do so.
@@NonDescriptEntity2024 Deathblossom...
Babylon 5, I miss you. :(
Keep up the B5 stuff, I love it. B5 doesn't get nearly enought love anymore.
B5 CGI scenes have aged horribly. The story, characters and actors are amazing though. I feel B5 deserves either a remaster with AI scale up and new graphics. Of a full reboot.
If they could do a B5 reboot, but keep the overall story line, and incorporate up to date CGI, nerds everywhere (me included) would be glued to whatever streaming service had the balls to invest in its production.... Hell, for that matter, just rework the CGI, and keep all the other live action footage.
I think the main reason for that is that it's been so long since there's been a widely circulated adaptation. TV, movie, video game - the last of anything Babylon 5 was in the late 90s. BSG, on the other hand, has had more recent TV show (I believe it was more recent, anyway...) and even some dabbling bits in video gaming.
Both are pretty forgotten these days, but as Hollywood runs out of ideas and/or ruins/pisses off fanbases of existing franchises, who knows. I've heard there's a Last Starfighter sequel potentially in the works, so you never know.
@@SubduedRadical The BSG reboot that aired from 2003 to 2009 was outstanding. I'd wish for a B5 reboot of the same level of quality.
@@hdufort no, I agree.
But I think that's the reason B5 gets even less love than BSG (which also gets far less love than mainstream things like Star Trek/Wars do), is because it's just been out of the public eye for so long.
How viper turn:rcs system
How the Babylon 5 starfighter turn:4 thrust vector engines
How x wing turn:magic
Repulsor system in the nose
@@TheDownrankTrain Ahhh so that's why Disney had to buy Marvel, to get the rights to repulsor technology so they could plug another of the huge plot holes in Star Wars.
@@TheDownrankTrain my understanding of repulsion is it needs something to push off of. I'm only a part time nerd tho so I'm probably wrong.
You did not mention one important point: The starfury has a flight computer that does target locking and combat manouvers, viper doesn't because of the cylon setting.
Exactly - this translates to - Fury can engage from furhter apart and their missles are more dangerous because their targetting can be more advanced in comparison the simpler ones on vipers - this also translates do combat awareness domain - furries will see you sooner than a viper will and the pilot of the fury can rely more on the computer than a viper pilot can for both manuvering and taking a shot. That said - plasma projectiles shot by fury are noticably slower and more visible than guns on the vipers - that would potentially mean the viper would have more time and agility to dodge the shots at least in theory.
"I'm not so sure about that."
- Commander William Adama
Gunfights with ballistic weapons.
The irony is, at the point he is saying that - (after Adm. Cain points out the Pegasus's combat superiority), he IS sure about that and he is very well aware that Pegasus is leaps and bounds ahead of Galactica technologically. I understand his bravado but any engagement between the two would have ended up miserably for the old' gal. I'm afraid this is the case here as well.
Yeah, except Admiral Cain wasn't really the best when it came to tactics - especially compared to Adama.
@@BluecopetitaTL not sure about that... the moral of Cain may be questionable, but she did fight cylons with Great succes, so her tactical skill Are not bad. Her strategic... not so sure. There was too much that wictory at all cost attitude that in long run would start hurting her success...
Sheridan was also a master of nukes. He was Starkiller for a reason.
The Starfury is the only scifi fighter NASA actually took a serious interest in, according to Babylon 5 creator NASA has used his designs for future vessel development.
BUT you are forgetting, the fighter that inspired the creation of the Fury!
It is much, much more capable and tougher a platform.
For a cinematic equivalent look to "The Final Countown" film. Furies or Vipers, in the Japanese Zero role, and a Gunstar, in the American F-14 role!
And, as old as the film fighter is, she is STILL the best space combat fighter, ever put to film.
And, look, and ye shall find, the Babyon series producers admit, that the Gunstar, did indeed inspire the Star fury design....which, intern, inspired the handling of the updated Vipers.
The bridge of the original Enterprise was studied by the military, and the Space:1999 Eagles were studied by NASA for their practical modular design.
and 6 years later we're still waiting for more then a drawing from nasa recall nasa no longer sends people into space even anymore since they retired the last shuttles.
I like this breakdown, and understand why the simulation you did for the first installment would be pointless for an engagement between fighters. If you do another engagement between capital ships, however, I'd still like to see the narrative simulation you did before, in addition to the more detailed breakdown and comparison of capabilities you have shown here.
I think if you added Legendary Pilots the simulation would be cool. Ivanova V.S. Apollo
+Quilava the Mercenary I largely agree, although something like the Minbari Sharlin Warcruiser has been shown to be vulnerable to phyical damage to its "fins," which is basically the ship's propulsion system. Since the Sharlin doesn't have a backup it would make them a prime target for Galactica's ballistic weaponry, and if they managed to score a couple of solid hits the Sharlin would be dead in space.
With that said the Minbari ECM system is extremely effective, and the Galactica would most likely be flying blindfolded into battle as it's entirely reliant on its DRADIS system to "see" its surroundings. So if the Sharlin managed to fire the first shot it would probably cause severe damage to the Galactica in the best of cases, and just slice it in half with its neutron cannons in a worst case scenario.
JMS himself said any Earth Alliance warship can destroy a Sharlin with not much effort ......IF its allowed to see and hit the Minbari ship...Sharlins are far from inmune to damage by ramming or earth ships weapons... only that they are notoriously hard to track or even getting near them (they have an amazing CIWS )
It's interesting to speculate the combat capabilities of Earthforce by the time we get to The Lost Tales, where the Earth Alliance is beginning to field Warlock class ships (the main weapons of which are basically hard-mounted planetary defence canons). In the Earth-Minbari War, it took the Minbari 4 years of total war to eliminate the EAs defences, and by that stage many Minbari wanted no further part (and this was without bothering to occupy many of the now-defenceless EA colonies, which would be a blood-soaked campaign in itself for both sides. One assumes that the colonies have been using whatever resources they had to hand to gear up for the inevitable invasions), so it makes you wonder about the balance of forces/outcome by the time of TLT. We may have seen a scanario like in Halo, where the War went on for 30 years before one side's defences collapsed and the other flooded in and crushed them.
Further, given that the Minbari were tired of the War, it's interesting to speculate what would have happened if the Minbari had been totally victorious at The Battle of The Line (say, if they'd shot down Sinclair's Starfury instead of bring him aboard, missing the chance to discover that he's Valen). Given the immense cost in Minbari lives that a ground campaign in the colonies would involve, would they have staged some punitive orbital strikes on key Earth cities and facilities, declared victory, and gone home? If JMS reboots B5 like he's apparently suggested, that's a story option worth exploring.
I'll see your Kara Thrace and raise you one Jeffrey Sinclair. Apart from their electronic warfare, the Cylons' weapons seemed equal to the colonials. On the other hand Sinclair went up against the technologically superior Minbari, and scored at least 33 enemy fighter kills.
Very interesting video! Also it's a great way to talk about the performance of two vehicles in one video.
I do love how the writers or vehicle designers on Babylon 5 actually did research on what a realistic space battle could look like and designed their Starfurry accordingly.
How about a comparison between the colonial viper and the hammerhead fighter in space above and beyond
The Hammerhead had a tailgun turret but IIRC they were only used in one early episode then the writers seemed to completely forget that.
@@greggv8 It was quite a bit in other episodes as well, just with very little effect
I loved that show growing up! Can't find the complete series on anything, other then a dvd box set, you know of a place to watch it?
The SA-43 would be potentially between the Viper & the Starfury in abilties and weaknesses IMHO.
I remember watching SA:AB, Babylon 5 and the original 80's series/reruns of Battlestar (and Star Fleet - X Bomber too), and have always viewed the Vipers & Star Wars as more a Pacific War style of air combat in space, i.e; generally appearing as more using 2 dimensions, being eaiser for fimling budgets.
Space & Babylon, made use of CGI more often, and could likewise present a closer to reality of what space combat could actually be, 3 dimension of axis being able to be used, with the 4th dimension being vector of force or momentum in the relative vaccum of & RCT/OME maneuvering.
@@kevincy5397 The entire series is literally on RUclips. There's a playlist for episodes 2-22 while episodes 1 and 23 are uploaded by two different people.
EDIT: I'm assuming you're talking about Space Above and Beyond.
Amazing.. tought personally think there is 3 vital factors not analized: (pedantic assholic follows)
-The Viper has inertial dampening.. maybe limited to horizontal forward aceleration as the pilots still suffer Gs.. but it has one (its been calculated acelerations on the Viper mk2 over hundreds of Gs forward due to distances travelled per time in order to achieve the needed average speed, wich sets the minimun aceleration required..and it has a huge amount of Gs).. while the StarFury has not any inertial dampening at all.. wich limits the G to about low 10s max (thats why the pilot is in a vertical standing position)
-While the fire rate is much slower.. the firepower of the pulse canon of the StarFury hugelly surpasses the 20mm cannons of the Viper... the Fury canons are rated at 200 megawatts .. thats a huge amount of energy.. the Viper 20mms are powerfull as they are gauss canons and the entire round is explosive (no propellant needed) but still in the series you can see the rounds flying away .. wich suggest that its not that much faster than a conventional cannon.. maybe twice muzzle velocity (the gauss cannon advantage being no need for propellant , more reliable and higher muzzle speed).. also the Fury can fire for much much longer and doesnt need to control ammo use, while the Viper has a limited ammo magazine.. wich allows the Furies to not worry about ammo and perform long attacks and straffings
-the starfury is computer assisted and the pilot can rely on the onboard computer for assisting in maneovers, targeting , navigation and complex combat operations.. while the mk.2 Viper is nearly completelly manually flight with only a small basic computer for very basic control asistance (for stability and self-leveling only, totally useless for everything else) and while it has a full sensor and navigation suite its avionics are not very advanced on porpouse (to keep computer use at minimun)
On a side note the Fury does have heavy armour compared to the Viper.. only that all fighters and ships in B5 fire shots with so much energy that makes not much difference with the armour.. but a 20mm gun might have a harder time doing critical damage fast enought
remember though, we see the viper's tracer rounds moving relative to the viper's own speed, so the rounds are moving much faster than they appear
yes.. of course the final round impact is the sum of the muzzle speed plus the fighter speed.. but that applies too to the Starfury ..wich relies more in the huge amount of energy each shot carries.. In BSG Vipers usually rely on missiles to do attacks on warships , installations or space stations.. while Vipers could seriously fuck up pretty much anything if given the oportunity of hitting their targets (you see a small group of furies killing a Vorchan in a few seconds, or seriously crippling (combined with B5 defenses fire ) a Primus battlecruiser
Sooo.... what you're saying is the Viper is a juiced up F-5 Freedom Fighter and the StarFury is an over-encumbered F-35 Joint Strike Fighter?
tecnologically yes.. the Viper mk.2 is a deliveraty "raw" fighter with as less computers as posible while the fury uses AI and the top computers of its time (you can do all kinds of fancy stuff with the Fury computers.. like have it point the weapons and nose to a certain point while you move the ship arround to avoid return fire.. or making it match rotations of ships or match movements of enemy fighters..all with voice commands).. However a Viper will utterly outrun a Fury...by magnitudes..something a F-5 cant do with A F-35.. and neither design seems particually stealthy (tought there is indeed a stealth variant of the Starfury.. reserved for the psycorps)..and the Viper can operate in atmospheres and gravity wells (it most probably its even VTOL).
Oh .. i dont agree that the Viper is much less efficient in atmosphere.. at least within BSG in every atmospheric battle the cylon riders are allways seen running from Vipers (except the old era raiders wich seem more a match in atmosphere) wich suggest the Viper is quite better suited for atmospheric than the cylon raider (having those wings and control surfaces and stabilizers has to have a porpouse beyond the rule of cool)
Johnathan Schmidt: Nah. Unlike the F-35, the 'Fury works .XD
Love this versus! Well thought-out. A tough call, too, making it all the more interesting! Keep 'em coming.
This is awesome. The technology involved with systems and energy are clear differences, but some things remind me of modern and WW2 aircraft.
One thing comes to mind about the viper is the Zero against the Russian Air Force before Pearl Harbor. Their agility and tactics allowed them to have a perfect victory against everyone until they went against American forces.
Thats why i love the Rocinante from the expanse too, it works in the same way i believe.
yep, all the ships do and in some ways I find The Expanse to be even more impressive in their execution and design. Not only are they much larger ships, the internal design and lay out even makes sense on how ships of that size would actually work. Instead of a Star Trek style deck layout that's level with the direction of travel the Roci is more like a block of flats with a massive engine in the basement and a lot of pew pew sticking out the windows 😊
@@MoA-Reload... star trek is based on a future where mankind has shed off its differences between the people and spiecies, the expanse is more realistic in so many ways, that makes it such a good show. that said st was more about giving a message to better the world . i will always be a trekkie but the expanse is soo good.
@@diavalzephyr7505 big Trek fan myself so I wasn't dissing it 😊 Just used them as an example as it's most clear how the ships on Trek are internally when it comes to deck layout and orientation of the crew to direction of travel. Without the trek science crew would end up splattered on the aft bulk heads as soon as they engage Impulse engines, never mind going to warp. Whereas actual big ships with real world science that doesn't delve into a barely theorised "subspace" or artificial gravity would be just like The Expanse. They regularly show gravity being generated via continuous acceleration and also how messy it can get with a sudden stop. An entire episode even accurately shows how dangerous zero/low G can be if you suffer internal injury too.
@@MoA-Reload... I know keep up the good work 👍
Might be interesting to go with two franchises that operate at fractions of the speed of light, like say the Andromeda Ascendant and any of the ships from the Honorverse. Both missile-heavy engagements over insane distances.
that would get pretty subjective, though, due to the evolution of military tech in the latter and the stagnation in the former. What point in the Honorverse are we talking- early on in the war, after they developed pods, or after they came up with the new missile systems for the first and second Battles of Manticore (trying not to spoiler here)? One of the things I love about the Honorverse is the clearly shown battlefield-feedback-created rapid acceleration in technology as Manticore and Haven slug it out for years while the Solarians are waaaay behind and stagnant due to not having run into a real challenge in centuries. However, it makes comparisons a bit dicey due to the vastly different tech in the current novels compared to the start of the series.
I don't think Starfuries run off fuel, but instead a fusion reactor that powers the engines, so fuel wouldn't matter.....
Correct.
As long as the engines work by accelerating matter and ejecting it, some sort of working mass is required, even if said mass does not provide the energy and thus cannot be considered fuel in the traditional sense. With real life ion thrusters the most commonly used working mass is ionized (hence ion thruster) xenon gas.
@@MrAranton Pretty much this - and on numerous occasions terms like recharge or refuel are mentioned in the show (when they were talking about the b5 fighters) - on one ocassion Ivanova said she dosent want anyone doing the flyby's with less than half of a fuel tank So while the reactors themselves prob dont have to be replenished to often - the reaction mass for the engines would have to be.
I think the reactor is for the weapons and avionics of the craft, not the engines
@@davidlewis5312 the engines on a Starfiry are Ion engines….ion drives theoretically don’t require fuel just power
A starfury is computer assisted targeting and piloting. I would put the advantages for the fury.
The more modern versions of viper were Also Computer assistent... but we all know how it did go...
I agree that the computer assist is a notable advantage. Also, the Starfury Thunderbolt would have been a more accurate comparison, as it is transatmospheric, unlike the Aurora.
I have a secret...Cylons ARE Computer-assisted!
@@kevinwarner3771 True... But are they good modern computers or 1980's Macintosh computers? They seem to be slow and inaccurate - at least, in the old series. ;)
@@haukionkannel only because the cylons were given the computer source code by Baltar
This was a fascinating match up, and the outcome seems reasonable. I have been told to watch Babylon 5 by quite a few people, and I really need to sit down and watch Galactica from the beginning. Great vid as always!
It's been a year good, sir. Have you had a chance to watch Babylon 5 yet?
Babylon 5 shows what man should attempt to become. B5 inspires hope, and shows man overcoming and enduring as they seek to embrace their better angels. While the new Battlestar Galactica shows what man should hope to never fall to, and shows the obsessive immorality and greed man should try to overcome not embrace. The new Battlestar Galactica is nothing short of depressing and emotionally draining in most episodes.
Take the time to watch Babylon 5, just know going in you will have to make it through to season 2 before you will see much action as season 1 is almost entirely setting up the major players for the main story to come. Babylon 5 is well worth the time, and you will want to go back and rewatch it over and over so I recommend buying it, not renting it.
It might have been more interesting to have the Starfury Thunderbolt up against a Viper than the Starfury Aurora as the Thunderbolt is more similar in design to a Viper. It has a forward facing rapid fire cannon and airfoils for atmospheric flight, but I suppose as the Aurora won anyway it doesn't matter, lol:)
With a battlestar and an Omega Destroyer being about the same size (Omega slightly longer and taller, Battlestar wider and more central mass) I would like to see the two compared. One is a battleship that carries fighters, the other is an aircraft carrier with guns. One-on-one a Starfury is better than a Viper, but What happens when they are outnumbered more than 2 to 1?
@@matts1166 When outnumbered maneuverability only becomes more important in combat. And the energy based weapons of the Starfury could do significant damage to capital ships as well as fighters, making it a more deadly threat to larger vessels versus the Viper.
I would also wonder how the energy based weapons of a Starfury would be affected by range. Being as they are computer assisted in targeting could they hit capital ships at ranges beyond the capital ships' ability to even detect the Starfury? A small target must be closer in order to be detected on lidar (Light based Radar) than a larger one. Lidar being BSG tech, I am not sure what the Starfury had onboard.
@@Dang_Near_Fed_Up Don't forget that Vipers were able to be fitted with tactical nukes, although admittedly this isn't their standard load.
Replicators (Stargate SG-1 version) vs the Borg (Star Trek: the Next Generation). That'd be an interesting fight.
I think the Borg would win. They would find a way
@@wadedewell That's what the Asguard thought originally...
@@rakaydosdraj8405 yup! Replicators would win
ooo, or see if the Replicators could succeed were the Borg got their butts kicked and face up against Species 8472 😈
@@MoA-Reload... Given that 8472 use energy based weapons and the Replicators are very resistant to that, I'm kind of betting on the Replicators. It seems to take a species with lesser technological development rather than greater to really beat them and that's before they develop humanoid models.
Well I like to see comparison of the BSG Valkyrie and Donnager from Expanse.
Unfortunately the Donnager is tiny compared to the Valkyrie and even though the Donnager has the superior weapons range, I don't see that countering the mass of the Valkyrie or it's rate of fire.
@C B No contest - Donnager. Like, none. Valkyrie, Galatica, Pegasus, Base star. No match. The BSG universe fights *all* happen at tiny ranges - even the basestars with their missiles engage in visual range. Donny, on the other hand, can engage at throusands of kilometers with her torpedos, and hundreds of kilometers with her rail guns. In addition, Expanse torpedoes are highly maneuverable, and able to follow complex paths. They could just flit around and Flak field provieded by a BSG ship. With her 12 rapid-fire launchers, Donny would waste whatever you name in her opening volley, long before anything in the BSG-verse could even shoot back.
The only chance a BSG ship has is to get the drop on her somehow by jumping right next to her. In that case, Donnys lack of mass would mean that she is easy prey to any colonial design, as they have guns to shred her, and even the Cylons would likely overwhelm her PDCs with a mix of Raiders and missiles.
But if Donny can dictate the engagement, then the only thing stopping her from wasting the entire colonial fleet is her limited ammo.
@C B Wrong. Wrong on so many levels. The colonials have FTL and artificial gravity, but thats their *only* advanced tech. Anything else is comparable to the Expanse, if not far less advanced.
Again, their weapons are all only within visual range. They have no computers to more advanced than what we have today, after having abandoned their advanced AI tech during the first cylon war.
They have no direct fire missile defense, instead relying on massed flak volleys, whereas both modern RL military and the Expanse folks have computer-guided systems that can reliably swat missiles down. Expanse railguns in particular and weapons in general are shown to be *extremely* potent, meaning that their are likely more advanced than their BSG counterparts.
Just compare the muzzle velocity of Galacticas main battery, or even Peggys, to that of Ecpanse railguns. It's not even a contest.
Never mind that a Donnager class ship can carry up to four Corvettes, or eight Morrigans internal, ships that are shown to be more than fast enough to be a difficult target for battlestars, and with enough PDCs to shred Vipers, while still carrying nuclear torpedos.
I'm a fan of both BSG and the Expanse. I'm running a BSG roleplay forum, I play Deadlock, and I'm rewatching the series constantly as research for said forum, but the truth is
It is NOT a contest.
Not even close.
Again, the ONLY way a colonial ship would ever beat a Donnager would be in a close-range knife fight, where the Donnys range advantage doesn't matter and the sheer number of colonial guns would probably mean her end.
But fights like that don't happen naturally in space, because you can see the enemy at ridiculous distances.
You'd need to sneak a Raptor or the Blackbird close enough to relay percise jump coordinates, and given that the Martians have their own stealth tech and were more than capable of tracking the Amun-Ra class stealth ships once they got close and engaged, it is unlikely that such an attempt would succeed.
@@GandalfReagge a colonial battlestar can take a nuclear detonation at point-blank range; what's the Donny going to do that matches that?
@@davej3781 How about 14 nuclear detonations at once? Donny has 14 rapid-reload missile tubes, that is 14 nuclear torps per salvo. I can't give you specs on how fast they reload, or how many torps the Donny can carry (I am going to assume "More than enough" though), but Expanse torps are repeatedly shown to have highly advanced guidance and be very agile - they could easily maneuver around a Battlestars static flak field, or at least force the colonial ship to spread her defenses in a thin all-around bubble, father than a focused wall, so some, if not all, torps are bound to get through. And that is only a single salvo.
As well, nuclear detonations are far less devastating in space, because the atmospheric shockwave that makes up a good chunk of their destructive potential can't happen without an atmosphere. That is not to say nukes are no danger in space, but their effect is diminished.
As I mentioned before, BSG combat is always shown to happen well within visual range, while Expanse torps can be fired from thousands of kilometers - Donny can fire and take out any colonial vessel long before she is ever in danger of being shot at.
Also, railguns. Donny has two *massive* railguns with hundreds of kilometers in range, also well beyond BSG weapons range, and while a single shot will do little damage, it will penetrate the Battlestars outer armor at the very least, and perhaps multiple decks, causing loss of atmosphere and the need to react to that - and here again, Donny can fire away in impunity, untouched, until she whittles the Battlestar down.
Combine both weapons systems, and its no contest.
As I also stated before, the only exception to that is if the Colonials can clearly dictate the engagement, by scouting Donny out with a Raptor and jumping in right on top of her. At point blank range, the Battlestars sheer mass and high amounts of gun firepower completely turn the engagement around, leaving Donny no chance.
But if Donny dictates the engagement - and seeing as she spotted stealth ships (admittedly under burn) *before* they entered her torpedo range, she will likely spot a Battlestar long before she is spotted in return - she wins.
You don't need to be able to survive a nuke if the enemy can't shoot back at you.
Great video as I loved both shows.
I'm gonna add a pojntless but interesting fact about the Starfury design: JMS (the creator of B5) & his crew worked closely with NASA'S Jet Propulsion Lab, they were so impressed with the Starfury design that they asked JMS if they could pinch & adapt the design for a space forklift to work around the ISS. JMS revealed that he agreed to it as long as the design kept the name Starfury. This was back in the 90's & as we haven't even seen a mock up design from NASA I would say this idea has been forgotten years ago but it makes me smile to know that the ship design on my favourite sci-fi show was so good NASA wanted to borrow the idea.
Wing Commander's Tiger's Claw (and squadrons) vs Battlestar Galactica (and squadrons AND colonial fleet).
Claw wins! It has energy-shielding (as to the Wing Commander fighters!) :)
Love the analysis ..
Reminiscent of the Harrier in the Falklands with VIFFING ...would love to see some Eagles from Space 1999 on here
This took awhile to write out, so I hope it's at least entertaining for you, Spacedock!
A bit of feedback - and a suggestion - that you may find interesting:
The experiment was very much worthwhile, I would say. It is difficult to say whether this is superior or inferior to the previous video, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I will say that there was an opportunity that was missed when doing a directly capability-versus-capability comparison between different craft: You don't necessarily need to limit it to just two contenders, since you're not illustrating a mock-battle. You could have done three fighters - in this case, I would have strongly suggested that the the third contender be none other than the SA-43 Hammerhead from Space: Above and Beyond.
I cannot help but believe that the Hammerhead is really what started the idea of seeing space fighter combat that takes advantage of the flight principles mentioned in this video, with visible maneuvering jets that actually show directional changes and such. While they did not always make full use of the freedoms that space combat would allow in terms of maneuverability, they did seem to try to make it clear (best example possibly being the final battle in the episode "Angriest Angel") that they were acknowledging the fact that space combat is definitely different than air combat. So, with that in mind, I will toss in this little not-as-well-researched, but still useful pseudo-add-on to your video :)
Propulsion and Mobility:
The Hammerhead is in something of a middle-ground of the other two fighters in this area. Like the Colonial Viper, the SA-43 Hammerhead is dependent on reaction control thrusters, but has more of them than the Viper - mounted on its forward stabilizer wings as well as the tips of its broad flight surface wings. While it has more mass than the Viper, this gives the Hammerhead the ability to perform more precise maneuvers with slightly better reaction speed - the ability to change direction is, like the Starfury, only limited by what the pilot's body can handle.
While it has two massive HE3-powered SCRAMjet engines, its thrust-output-to-weight brings it to broadly just above the Starfury's acceleration capability. This does not, however, overcome the Starfury's greater ability to change direction *of travel*. In this sense, it is limited broadly similarly like the Viper.
This leaves the Hammerhead only modestly faster than the Star Fury, and only modestly more maneuverable than the Colonial Viper - right between the two, but still somewhat at a disadvantage.
Armament and Defenses:
A forward gimbal-mounted snub-nose electro-magnetic railgun (50-degree firing arc) allows for a wide area of effectiveness, not even requiring the fighter to actually be facing its opponent directly to hit it with its frontal main cannon. In addition, a double-barreled cannon of similar quality to the front-mounted gun is mounted in a turret on the rear of the craft, allowing the Hammerhead to continue to track an opponent even if the opponent is actually out-maneuvering it.
Similar to the other fighters, yet yielding a small advantage to the other craft, the Hammerhead is equipped with six missile hard-points under the wings, capable of mounting a variety of warheads of varying yield and design.
The Hammerhead is equipped with a defensive countermeasures suite similar to the other fighters, and with its fully-automatic turreted cannons at both ends of the craft, it has a higher survivability potential when trying to shoot down incoming fire.
One truly key advantage that the SA-43 has: the Hammerhead is a fair bit more heavily armored than the other two fighters. The durability of the craft is sufficient that it should be able to withstand an assault from a Colonial Viper for at least a short time before starting to take any truly critical damage - considerably longer than the Star Fury would. The Star Fury's armament, however, is sufficient that if it were to hit the Hammerhead directly, it would likely still cause severe damage or destroy the craft. That being said, a glancing blow is something that the Hammerhead would be able to shrug off, unlike the Viper.
At eleven-and-a-half meters in length, the side-profile of the Hammerhead is a fair bit longer than that of the Viper, but it is still fairly small in terms of height. However, at twelve-and-a-half meters in width - while not as wide as the Star Fury - the broad wings and overall size of the SA-43 can be a liability compared to the other fighters.
Utilities And Other Features:
One aspect that sets the SA-43 apart from the other two is that it is a wonderful multi-purpose endo-/exo-atmospheric fighter design - this in itself gives it the position of being the sole fighter in this group actually designed to handle atmospheric flight in a dog-fighting capacity.
Similarly to the Starfury, the entire cockpit module can be ejected as an escape/survival pod if the craft were to be destroyed, protecting the pilot. The Hammerhead is also constructed in a modular fashion, intended for quick repair and component replacement, while this is not necessarily true of the other two (certainly not in the case of the Viper, but I am actually not entirely sure about the Starfury).
Verdict:
If put into direct confrontation with the Starfury numerous times, it would seem that the two would most likely wind up in something of a stalemate, with the rapid-firing, multi-directional armament and better armor protection of the Hammerhead roughly balancing out against the Starfury's greater agility and heavy punch. That being said, if the Hammerhead were to find itself on the back foot near a planet with an atmosphere, it could use it to escape - not so, the other way around. What's more, the Hammerhead could actually be launched from a planet's surface, while the Starfury had no option to do such a thing.
If put into direct confrontation with the Colonial Viper, however, the Hammerhead would most likely take everything that the Viper would have to offer, and give plenty more in return than the Viper could handle. But, that being said, if the Viper were to try to evade and run, the Hammerhead would simply not be able to catch it.
End result: SA-43 Hammerhead >/= Star Fury Aurora > Colonial Viper Mk II
I'm not setting in stone that the Hammerhead is the best of the three - it's just my opinion, but, regardless, it's one fighter I've ALWAYS grouped with the other two. :)
Anywho - here's hoping that that didn't bore you. ^.^;
Not sure where you got your information from, but much of it is VERY wrong. Your SA-43 is only 8 metric tons in weight.... it's unarmoured or close enough to it. Even an F22 Raptor today is almost 20 tons and almost twice the length of this thing (19m vs 11.5m). The Starfury is 48 metric tons with 42mm re-enforced armour. Based on the barrel length of the SA-43's weapons, you better hope they are lasers as some people claim and not 'railguns' or conventional cannons. If they ARE railguns as you said, then they do not have the velocity to fire far (though in space it's still infinite) or with a lot of kinetic force.
Based on those corrections to your argument: The SA-43 would be about as good as a Viper but likely loose to one based on it's larger and easier to target wings. Against a Starfury it depends on the weapons and their power. If they are railguns or conventional cannons then it's unlikely they could harm a fury without many many shots. If they are energy weapons then it depends on the power of said weapons. Based on all the info I can find (I have not seen this show and it failed after only 1 season, so no episode lore to look at), It's most likely to be conventional autocannons or some form of railgun system as you claim making it next to useless vs a Starfury.
Just so you know, even the Viper is next to useless vs 42mm of armour as their penetration scale is around 25-35mm only.
@@Ishlacorrin Excellent summation, and your point about the armor of the Starfury vs the kinetic energy of the projectile weapons of both the Hammerhead and Viper is valid. The well armored Starfury should be able to withstand far more than the others can throw at it, short of missile strikes. While the Starfury could easily dispatch either other ship with even a partial hit to their unarmored frames, and a wing would be removed instantly.
Loved it!! As a sci-fi writer, this was VERY useful, and TY for posting it!
I was a big fan of the Starfury Thunderbolt. It kept all the advantages of the Aurora and covered for it's weaknesses in atmosphere, and it's low refire rate.
It really shows that a lot of thought was put into the ships, when the newer variant actually improves the aspects of it's predecessor that were noticeably flawed. So many 'new varients' of ships in SF just tend to be slightly sharper, cooler-looking versions, without nearly as much thought put in.
This is true. It's for that reason that I'm not a big fan of the new X-Wing they show in The Force Awakens. The engine splits in half which is not mechanically feasible, and aside from a slightly more streamlined fuselage it is not appreciably better than the outgoing model. They just painted one black and inferred it is somehow superior without having to prove it.
The engine split thing was brought up in a science of Star Wars panel at Comicon. This assumed though that the engines used a spinning mechanism that would require the circular housing. If they're meant to be air intake fans then they'd be useless in space. So I assume the original design is just an aesthetic choice. And looking at a cross section of the old X-wing there seems to be no great need for the front of the engines to be circular at all.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a3/a3/29/a3a3291b3b56dac2ca6d3511147881f9.jpg
I will agree full heartedly though that the updated design seems purely aesthetic. Fitting with Abrams doctrine of "new but still the same".
They borrowed a lot from the original concept art for the thing. Personally I like the ARK-170 more and would have based any x-wing replacement on that.
If I'm not mistaken though, the Thunderbolt is less maneuverable in space than the Aurora.
Two of my favorite space fighter! Thanks a lot, great video!
I'd missed the mention of Vipers having limited inertial dampers when watching the show but it has been brought up here.
However, without that science magic tech a Starfury pilot could pull more Gs than the Viper pilot because of there body position and orientation in the cockpit and because they are closer to the center of gravity/pivot point of their star fighter.
In fact if you watch the show closely, Starfuries pivots around the pilot, not around itself.
Excellent review, these are two of my favorite Sci-Fi IPs. I'll have to disagree with your overall assessment though, since both ships excel in differing areas of combat. You certainly nailed down how the StarFury would dominate an engagement based solely on a maneuver fight, but there is more too it than that. Just as single-engine biplanes can outmaneuver faster monoplanes (by a significant margin!), the Viper could use it's greater thrusting ability to "boom and zoom" against the StarFury. It all comes down to pilot training and the specific environment. I'd say they were a match, the main deciding factor(s) would lie with the crew and tactics, not the spaceframe.
Completely agree, but I would have pitted the Thunderbolt Starfury vs. the Viper.
No contest, the Thunderbolt would win. It dose everything the standard Starfury dose better and can fly in an atmosphere. Now, if you were talking about the Viper Mk. 7 then it would be a close match. My money would still be on the Thunderbolt, though.
Yeah i'd have to agree. While the Mk7 is far and away better than the Mk2 overall. The Thunderbolt removes the rate-of-fire issue, and without that crucial setback the ship just goes from strength to strength. Mk7 could still win a decent portion of the time, especially if it got lucky with missiles, but that full-auto chin cannon on the Thunderbolt is just lethal, no Viper could fly through a stream of fire from that and come out intact.
That 'chin gun' is actually a rapid fire pulse weapon called a 'Gatling Pulse Cannon' which is a particle weapon that is probably one of the most powerful fighter weapons that the B5 universe (this weapon can harm actual WARSHIPS and can be used to intercept incoming munitions) has seen other than the fighter-variant neutron lasers that the Minbari Nials use, which in addition to it's ten missiles it makes a VERY potent combination. Thunderbolts are also faster, better armored, have a co-pilot that can double as a navigator, better electronics, and a whole lot more.
Much as I love The Battle star Galactica Vipers mk1 the space battles were great to watch, they were entirely atmospheric battles, and always inside a gravity field,
This format made sense for this engagement, but so far, the reman warbird vs mass effect reaper skit was preferable, to me anyways.
The ability for the starfury too "spin" on the spot, and high speed dodge side to side, gives it a serious advantage over the viper. The star fury can very very easily keep its nose on target constantly, while slide sliding to avoid weapons fire... backing off or burning at odd angles that would force the viper to remove its nose from the starfury to alter its direction. This allows the starfury to act as a "turret in space" maintaining near constant fire if it wants
Meh, the Starfurys would run rings around the Vipers while they expended their limited ammo. They were always shown to have effective targeting systems, and even if the rate of fire was slower, the Starfury still had multiple weapons.
Went in knowing little to nothing about either ship or either show, now very interested in watching both. Quite liked the episode of bacedock versus, I'd love to see more of these and I'll be checking out more of your channel for sure.
Excellent video and analysis. A couple of points though: the _impracticality_ (or words to that effect) of mounting so many engines on a small craft (Starfury) that you cite is taken too much from the perspective of today's tech' but the engine tech' of the future could easily make this a simple matter. You also made much of the Viper's guns having poor lethal;ity on the Starfury but the Viper's missiles would be another matter and each craft's lethality is in the total effect of its combined weapons.
To be fair. The vipers rarely carried missiles due to being nearly irreplaceable. The same is said with the raptors in the show.
@@Rougeliger _To be fair_ , how much ammo they had or not at any particular time is beside the poiint in a side by side technical comparison of the weapons sytems.
@@Twirlyhead all I meant was that is probably the reason he really probably didn't consider the missiles in the comparison. I actually agree with you. It did seem like he didn't take the missiles into account. Though I don't know how much of a changing factor it would be. It would depend on each ships ecm capabilities. In Galactica the colonials had a sort of technophobia after the first Cylon war. I haven't seen a lot of b5 but they do seem to be a little more open AI and computer assistance.
@@Rougeliger That's true. Though I would say that the Colonials' fear of Cylon hacking/ew made them build stuff to be very resistant to such. For example, it was not hacking but good old fashioned espionage that delivered the Colonial defence codes to them at the beginning of the War.
@@Twirlyhead that's a good point. It just goes to show that you can't always rely on technology. Some times you just have to do something yourself
Very well-reasoned with superior analysis. My only gripe is that you didn't show any clips of the Starfury in action. The battle in the episode "Signs and Portents" features a Starfury doing a reverse-lift up the Z-axis to destroy a chasing opponent. Pity you didn't use that, when you showed so many battles of the Viper.
Colonial Viper vs Wraith Dart
I have never watched Stargate but by the look of the Dart, I don't think it would be very different from a 1v1 Viper vs Viper lol
I think you are spot on about how evenly matched they are. Upon listening to the data points I was quickly reminded about the comparison between a WW2 Japaneee Zero and an American Wildcat. In 1-to-1 engagements the Fury may best the viper at a higher frequency, but I also think that the Vipers limitations could be negated by wing-man tactics.
UNSC infinity VS an executor class star destroyer in your vs vids. i know i've put this one every video for a while and i do apologize i just don't know if its being seen or not and i think it would be really cool.
I think the UNSC Infinity VS a Mass Effect Reaper would be a better fight due to the fact that both sides uses Mass based weapons.
Zachery Manning The UNSC infinity would definitely win with its rail guns and its spartans.
Infinity wouldn't stand a chaaaance. Executors are like, 7-8 miles long and carry a compliment of hundreds of TIE fighters and bombers. It's got better shielding and firepower to boot. Conversely, the Infinity's only around as large as a Covenant supercarrier. Infinity vs a Star destroyer might be more of a fair matchup.
Sultan a boarding party of about 200 spartans would destroy that ship from the inside.
UNSC Infinity, hands down. I'm a SW fan but, have to acknowledge the Infinity's attack power.
The Executor may be bigger but, the Infinity has a harder punch. Any star destroyer has no such concentrated punch. Unless we start talking about the Eclipse-class featured in the Dark Horse comics, then perhaps.
Why do I just love watching these videos late at night 😊
The Gunstar laughs at these little ships.
would also like to add that the pilot position in cockpit is different. In starfury, pilot is standing, where in viper the pilot sits on a seat. Standing position allows more resistance to g-forces if I've understood correctly, at least when accelerating forward.
While I agree with the breakdown of capabilities, I disagree with your conclusion.
The Starfury is a space superiority fighter and it's performance in an atmosphere (none) isn't a factor as you would not engage Vipers with Starfury Auroras if you were likely to need to fight in an atmosphere. So only the space combat capabilities should be considered as this is the only battlefield these two fighter could meet on...or in, I guess.
Also the Staryfury has an onboard computer that will set up and execute movement and attacks that a human pilot would struggle to do effectively. The armor on a Staryfury is also not light. It can take several energy weapon hits from other fighter as we have seen Ivanova not need to eject until after several hits. On one flight a pilot breaks down the toughness of the newer Starfury Thunderbolt as superior to the Auroras in every way except the Aurora's thicker composite armor. A 30mm light armor piecing round is going to struggle hard to penetrate the heavier armor of the Starfury.
All other factors being equal (Pilot skill, ship condition, battlefield conditions) the Starfury should come out on top every time for the simple fact that it can tank some of the Viper's damage and the Viper can't tank any damage from a Starfury and the Starfury won't miss because of the targeting computer. (Remember, the viper MK II does not have any form of electric counter measures or computational support because having any form of automated electronics creates a fatal vulnerability against the enemy it was designed to fight.)
So really it's not that the Starfury is the better fighter. It's not. It's a far superior heavy space superiority fighter, but I wouldn't want to fight Cylons in one.
The Viper is a superior light multi role fighter designed to fight a different enemy, but stacked up against the Starfury, it just doesn't compare.
While I agree that the Starfury would take more hits to kill. The 30mm guns on the viper is nothing to sneeze at. They can be loaded with armor piercing and high explosive. irl the A-10 has a 30mm cannon that has been used against tanks. The end result is typically a mission kill but not necessarily a complete destruction kill. In combat all you need is a mission kill. We have seen several times in bsg vipers taking out heavier enemies such as the heavy raiders enough times to know that it is possible though it takes a lot more time. From my own perspective if you have a ship that is the size of a small car and it is fighting a fighter the size of a semi truck (not actually sizes obviously), the smaller fighter is going to be harder to hit. Smaller vessels have a smaller radar cross section therefore it can be harder to hit. Size does matter. That said you are right, one shot and the viper is a million pieces of metal floating through space. In the end I think the viper vs starfury is similar to the TIE vs X wing. The xwing is shown to be a much better fighter but the tie is cheap and easily fielded in large numbers. Viper is used very similarly to the tie while the Starfury and the xwing are used in a similar manner. Even though the x wing is the superior fighter the tie still managed to compete.
pit the Starfury against the original Viper from Battlestar Galactica TOS ....those Vipers used energy weapons as well...they were also every bit as maneuverable as the 'reimagined' Galactica universe including the ability to eject the entire cockpit as a survival pod
Drahk Raider Fighters have my favorite design EVER, from an aesthetic standpoint, with Shadow Vessels following close behind.
I'd love to see Drahk, Shadow, Vorlon, ISA, Borg, and Dominion vessels pitted against each other at some point.
A Veritech fighter versus some sort of Battletech Mech in surface combat.
Phoenix hawk because reasons
Battlecruiser (Hiigaran) would be another cool should to elaborate on. Would also like to see said ship in a vs Battlestar from BSG!
Wait, what about, "Space Above and Beyond..."?
Really enjoy the videos, I think I liked this format a little better than the last video. Seems a bit more objective.
Star Wars TIE-Fighter vs Stargate F-302
Necrogigas TIE loses every time. I have never watched star gate but those TIES are flying coffins.
chng hemeng Exactly. those TIES are horrible. you can't even see very far to the left or right. A tie intercepter or defender would be a slightly better match.
IMO i would like more to see F-302 vs X-wing
Too much logic Yeah that would also be a fun match to watch
What the fuck are you rambling on about?
I think leaving out the Viper's compliment of heat and aspect-seeking missiles in the final recap and analysis is a huge oversight.
Imperium of Man Retribution Class Battleship versus Executor Star Dreadnought.
I actually forget if there are imperial navy ships larger than the battleship.
As far as i know, it goes:
escort
frigate
light cruiser
cruiser
heavy cruiser/battlecruiser
grand cruiser
battleship
If there are larger ships than the battleship, then they would make a better match for the executor i think
There are technically larger ships, but past their Battleship line, Imperial starships tend to be less "starship" and more "mobile fortress with guns" like the Phalanx or The Rock.
Thanks for that comprehensive analysis!
Two most realistic zero-G, vacuum space fighters and dogfight styles other than Hammerhead from Space Above And Beyond.. and Bubble fighter from first few minutes of Lost In Space movie.. these four are my fav starfighters.. not forgetting e Starfury Thunderbolt..
But how would a pilot survive e Gs alone..?
*Tabletop anyone? ;)
Just got my 3mm/fleet scale minis.. yahoo..
Liked the last versus but the analysis of different systems was very good
Federation "Peregrine" attack craft VS Cylon Raider (new and old style) OR F303 Prometheus.
Systems Commonwealth Andromeda Ascendant VS Moya (Farscape)
F304 (Odyssey or Daedalus) Vs USS Voyager
Even if you don't do any of these, hope i could help spark an idea :)
Top Channel BTW
SillyMidOff I would rather the Andromeda Ascendant take on something of similar armament. Moya was a prisoner transport ship, and the crew had repeatedly mentioned that the only "weapon" Moya has is it's Starburst drive for escaping engagements. It might be better to look at Crais' Command Carrier instead, or one of the other military ships in the Farscape universe.
NightRaven 1901 that's why I recommend the Command Carrier that Captain Bailar Crais helmed in Farscape. It carries a strong armament, and has a similar fighter complement for a full vs battle.
NightRaven 1901 Thank you.
+JaxMerrick yeah... I spoke without thinking about Moyà... Only watched Farscape a couple of times and for some reason thought it was rather formidable... Derp. Was more about giving him left field ideas than out and out match ups.
SillyMidOff it happens. I had to double check meself on Andromeda Ascendant.
I watched both shows and I agree the Star Fury would win most battles if the pilots were of similar skill level. Maneuverability is king in a battle like this, I imagine them literally doing circles around a Viper. Nice video. I will check out more of your stuff.
Ok, a couple of problems in this assessment.
First, you treat the Starfury as a solid object with its maximum dimensions, but there's a lot of empty space between the pylons. So how large of a target the Starfury is depends a lot on the orientation of the Starfury towards its attacker - which the Starfury can adjust easily.
Secondly, aside from the downsides of the thrust vectoring in the Viper, the position of the pilot vis-a-vis the engines produces unique health risks when the Viper turns sharply compared to the Starfury, where the pilot is practically located on the axis around which the ship turns.
Lastly, there's the issue of the speed of the "projectile" - a mass accelerator slinging a solid physical object will have a hard time bringing it to substantial speed - much harder than a directed energy weapon, even if it was a particle accelerator. This poses unique problems in space, where distances and speed are large, and especially so when engaging a highly maneuverable opponent. It requires much longer lead, which is especially problematic against a vehicle that can change its trajectory as easily as the Starfury - using the guns thus becomes practical for the Viper at a shorter range than for the Starfury.
Oliver H a
@Matthew Caughey The diffence in rate of fire between the starfury and Viper isn't great viper fires 20 rounds per second per gun vs the starfuries 16 per gun, so 40 shots vs 64 per second so the starfury actually put out more "lead" down wind than the Viper does without worry about running out ammo after 30-40 seconds.
Good assessment of the two ships. The Starfury as well uses a g couch that keeps the pilot in an almost vertical position to aid in handling of extreme g maneuvers. Where as the Vipers has a seat like a plane.
Two big decive advantage of Starfury.. 1.In oposition of information in video Starfury has thick armor and EA ship's armor is very durable vs kinetic weapons . Viper need multiple hits to make any harm to Starfury, only cocpit is a weak point in Starfury. 2.Starfury uses AI system to overcome the effect of g-force on pilot and to support all pilot function. In Viper is only pilot, Starfury is a complex system. Sorry but Starfury just rip Viper like F-16 vs MiG-15. Just a modern fighter vs obsolete single high maneuvere fighter.
But it's really good job with video. I love them all.
It is more like an F16 against some WW2 plane. The Starfury outclasses it on every level.
@@TorianTammas actually an f 16 would have a difficult time hitting an old ww2 plane like an A6M Zero because of the speed difference. If the f 16 tried flying the same speed as a ww2 plane it would actually stall. They would have to use a missile if they didn't want to risk stalling. But who wants to waste a missile on a plane barely going 300 mph? Lol
Yeah the official lore shows the Starfury is 48 metric tons because of 42mm re-enforced armour. The Vipers 30mm Autocannons with conventional ammo could only penetrate 25-35mm even at really close range.
Hi there, new fan. I am a huge fan of Space: Above and Beyond. I thought it was interesting that you pointed out how the fighters used Newtonian principles in their portrayal and you love to hear how the Hammerhead would fair in a fight with these birds as well. In fact, I'd love to see any episode on things from S:AAB. An episode on the Saratoga, etc. Thanks!
Anvil F7C-M Super Hornet (star citizen) vs Viper mk3 (elite dangerous).
Damn good show. Well done sir.
The Delta Flyer vs Millennium Falcon
Will Alexander Delta flyer
Can we get more of these please I love it it's so well done and entertaining
I'm for the Starfury. More maneuverable, plus the weapons are more powerful.
Kick Ass Video SpaceDock !
Still waiting for Autumn Class Heavy Refit vs Battlestar Galactica :(
You mean Halcyon class heavy refit (Pillar of Autumn CE) or the Autumn Class designed based off the said heavy refit Halcyon?
either the autumn class and a galactica are around the same size and have compatible tech levels...... which is why i don't care to see an infinity vs a mercury class (the Pegasus belongs to that class of battlestar) not only is a infinity got a whole other level of tech it is about 10 times the size of a mercury like comparing a speedboat to a dreadnought
The former yes.
Sorry if I'm repeating something that's been said a dozen times, but a big advantage for the Fury is that it has that targeting computer/HUD that renders 3D images of the battle ahead. While Viper pilots are translating DRADIS and 'mk1 eyeball' data an SF pilot is able to target a crisp green wireframe image of the enemy on that computer. A little nose wiggle and those pulse cannons are hurling a dozen or so football sized bolts of plasma at and around your viper.
something to take into consideration here is that both fighter are not ftl capable on their own needing a carrier vessel the carry for a viper was a Battlestar with a valkyrie having 30-40 vipers and a bigger battlestar like a Mercury or Galactica having 200+ vipers. the nova class dreadnought only carried 36 starfury and the warlock only carried 48 and the shinano class a dedicated carrier only had 96 starfury so in an true engagement the starfury in a best case scenario would be outnumbered two to one and in most cases about five to one
Brian southparkstudio
On theother hand, an omega would cut the battlstar to shreds and then give support fire to its fury wings.
Also Earth force is far bigger than the Colonial Fleet, at it's largest size the Colonial Fleet only had 120 battlestars, Earth force on the other hand has around 20000 capital and escort ships.
Great match-up and video. Love your content.
SSV Normandy vs Whitestar
no2party that would be awesome
a no brainer, Whitestar by a mile
Videos like this make we want to get my books to screen even faster. I would love to see how my fighters and ships compare under your assessment, especially since I do my best to fit to Newtonian physics as well.
Let's not forget about the targeting computers of the two spacecraft.
The Earthforce Starfury is likely to be networked into a C3 combat system and will have much more advanced avionics (spacionics?) than the Mark II Viper. For the Viper was designed for a war with Cylons... and the Colonial military had to regress to non-networked, more primitive systems to prevent their takeover by Cylon computer viruses.
That would provide a serious boost to the accuracy of the Starfury, offsetting it's slower rate of fire.
And then there is the time delay between energy weapons and mass projectiles. The Starfury and its particle cannons will find their weapons hitting (or missing) at lightspeed... which means no real time for the Viper pilot to dodge or react. Whereas the projectile cannons of the Viper shoot at more standard, ballistic speeds. Considering the greater distances involved in space combat, this gives the Starfury pilot some time to react, perhaps time enough to get out of the line of fire before they reach him.
Furthermore, this leads into the last issue. The effective ranges of the weaponry. Energy weapons, as they do reach the enemy at lightspeed, have a *FAR* greater effective range. So the Starfury pilot will be able to engage the Viper long before the Viper could effectively return fire.
Is it stated that the pulse weapons of the Star Fury fire their projectiles at the speed of light?
Any form of directed energy travels at the speed of light.
Really? Even plasma weapons, which are specifically shown to not travel at the speed of light? They're direct energy weapons.
In fact, I just checked, and the Pulse cannon weapons of the Star Furies fire plasma.
That's what I thought. Plasma weapons, both in irl and in fiction, can't travel at the speed of light. Plasma has mass. Anything with mass would need infinite energy to travel at the speed of light.
In Halo, the Covenant's plasma weapons are actually characterized by being relatively slow moving compared to the missiles and MAC guns of the UNSC, but a single plasma torpedo can be guided around obstacles, and can effectively one shot most UNSC ships.
And yeah, no contest on the Avionics. I'll agree on that point.
So cool. The Viper and the Starfury are my two favourite sci fi space fighters. Really cool to see them compared to one another.
I enjoyed your video, but I disagree with you conclusion. The first reason is the deference in their weapons. Although the Starfury could kill a Viper with one hit the viper uses the same size round that we use to kill tanks. Assuming theirs is similar to ours; there is little chance the Starfury's armor could stop it. Even if it were a 20 mm round, I suspect at least most of the rounds would penetrate and explode inside. (Most aircraft rounds are designed to do so) that coupled with its rate of fire, which I estimate to be about 300 rounds per minute per gun for a collective weight of 600 rounds per minute or 10 rounds per second, and the greater velocity of its projectiles, I believe makes the vipers armament is superior to the Starfury's as an anti-fighter weapon. The viper could kill the Starfury in one or two passes; though that is far from guaranteed. My second point has to do with acceleration. Although the Starfury can change the direction it's facing faster than the viper, the viper still has substantially greater acceleration which means it can in fact change its trajectory faster than the Starfury; the viper's tendency to slide into such monomers would be more or less a nonissue unless it was trying to avoid collision. Starfury's greater control over its trajectory does not give it a significant advantage in mobility over the viper because it still can't change it's trajectory as fast as the viper can. On the other hand, the viper's greater acceleration means that unless the Starfury has a head start on it, the viper can always get way; giving it more control over the fight. The Starfury can't catch up to it, so it has to wait for the viper to come to it, thus the viper pilots can choose the terms of the engagement. And so I believe the viper has the edge here.
as he stated. he cant factor in pilots, their training, their experiance. none of it. otherwise it could be ruled a draw. think of it as two drones just programed to shoot the other down. no special orders. just kill.
Nope, those are conventional 30mm guns, just with better propellants than we can come up with. Those are actually useless against anything with even limited amounts of armor in B5. The usual kinetic weapon of choice tend to be electro-magnetic in nature (i.e. railguns, coilguns/gauss rifles, 'I fling asteroids at you' mass drivers, kinetic kill missiles that go 20% of lightspeed, among others) than flung via propellant in B5. Oh, and all of these weapons are consistently far slower than their energy counterparts (i.e. particle/laser/pulse/molecular (usually messing with strong/weak forces)/antimatter/First One Bullshit) that go significant fractions of light speed as in B5 Wars (the tabletop game that is used to simulate battles in B5) has them fire during the MOVEMENT phase instead of the attack phase.
I think you have your physics wrong.
In order for either ship to change their trajectory, they need to first change their direction. While the Vipers can make high-G banks for fast turns, the Starfury can pop a 180 in less than one second. That means the Starfury wins in all forms of maneuverability.
Additionally, the position of the Starfury pilot is better for resisting G forces, as they're at the pivot point and therefore experiencing far less. The Viper pilots have the same limits as modern fighter pilots.
@@grandmastercain The Viper does not do 'high g turns' and is shown also making nearly instant 180 degree turns.
@@johnwolf2349 The sharp turns we see Vipers do on screen are definitely High-G turns. A nearly instant 180 is, by any reasonable standard, a high-g maneuver.
According to Starbuck's training speech in the first season, a Viper can flip end over end in .35 seconds. Which is impressive, but the Starfuries are shown to turn much faster than that, owing to their engine positions. Also unlike the Viper, they can pivot in place.
Both state that they turn fast enough to knock out their pilots, which means they both can do seriously high-g turns, enough to incapacitate the pilots. In both cases, canon says their limits are up to the pilot's ability to resist those high g maneuvers. However, the Starfury puts the pilot at the center of the pivot, which minimizes G-forces. That means that while both can make impressively hugh-g maneuvers, the Starfury is better placed to help the pilot withstand it.
Love the Battlezone II background music. I'm a big fan of BZII since around Y2k.
I think that the Viper would have an edge over the Starfury in the fact that it has longer range with it's weapons. Energy weapons usually suffer from diffraction or the inverse square law, while solid objects, once accelerated, will keep going. This means the Viper could open up from a range where the Starfury's weapons prove ineffective.
Love this since I do tend to like fighters in sci-fi. Also love the Viper! Nice job!
Although I like getting various facts, this style of VS just lacks the storytelling element of the "Sovereign VS Scimitar" episode and is therefore much less entertaining to watch.
This channel is fantastic and I am loving the videos.
This is a comparison of my two all-time favourite sci-fi fighters and I'm inclined to agree with your conclusion that the Starfury would edge it. Of course if it was a Thunderbolt it'd be no contest at all!
Veritech Skull - 1 V.S. Earthforce Star Fury.
I would pay (A little Money) to see that Dog-Fight.
I would like to see a match between Darth Vader V.S. Max Sterling
Max Sterling wins this every time!
Who would beat max?
Anthony Lakas Robotech/macross
Great analisis and good conclusions my friend.
Sorry I’m leaning towards the viper on this one personally I love the sleek lines on the viper
Viper looks better, but Starfury is a better killer.
I liked this video but was a much bigger fan of the previous video with Sovereign. The format, in my opinion, was just a tad better, it was the reason I subscribed to this channel (super big fan by the way). I think, even if it were to show one possible scenario, a battle scene like the last one would be better. Maybe showing a squadron of 5 dog it out.
Still 10/10!! Would sub again!
Starfury wins hands down. Pulse Cannons beat Kinetic Cannons. There is also the fact that the Starfury's standing cockpit give it an advantage in high gee maneuvers compared to the Viper.
It's only an advantage when accelerating straight forward and backwards. But maneuverability is more than that. If accelerating up or down, then the standing position is at a disadvantage.
Also, maneuverability is more than accelerating in a straight line. Turning and spinning on all three axes is important too. While the Starfury has bigger more powerful engines than the Viper to help it do that, I haven't actually noticed any difference in turn speed when watching the two in combat.
Worse for the Starfury, the pilot is actually forward of the Starfury's center of gravity, the point around which the fighter turns in all three dimensions, while the Viper cockpit is at the exact center of gravity. Coupled with the Viper pilot's more compact sitting position, the Viper pilot simply experiences less G forces for a given spin speed in any axis than the Starfury pilot does.
But I do think the Starfury would win, but not because of maneuverability. The Starfury will win because Starfury pilots routinely hit their targets with their first shot. Viper pilots? Not so much. Kinda helps to have a working targeting system that you're not afraid will be compromised by your enemies. But if the tech were equalized (ie, same targeting systems and same weapon firepower), I suspect the Viper's smaller size and center of gravity cockpit position would give it the advantage.
I'd love to see this same same match, but with the Thunderbolt Star Fury instead of the Aurora. Nice work!
Maneuverability in space... yeah that doesn´t seem all that important. Can´t really imagine how any of these crafts would even get to damned visual range in real combat with all those missiles... :D We can do that already in fact, modern fighters don´t fight at visual range.
But handwaving this, it is actually well done video, taking all important facts from series and interpreting them in nice and somewhat "realistic" way
To be honest the whole idea of a Space Fighter has no real place in reality, it's a role that would either be filled by drones or not at all really. But yeah if I could put a thousand battles between these two ships through some kind of supercomputer I expect only about 10% of them would be anything other than the two ships spamming missiles at eachother and the ship with the worst luck going down first.
This assumes however that both sides wouldn't have counter measures that could jam the guidance systems of long range projectiles. I think BSG has covered this, though I haven't watched enough to be sure. There's also the factor of point defense weaponry to shoot down incoming missiles/torpedoes and fighters/drones at close range. Something I don't see in Star Trek or Star wars, but see a lot in B5 and Stargate. Its also a lot easier to evade missiles from farther away even with weapon lock than up close. The maximum range of weapons also plays a factor. Or the importance of hitting specific parts of a target. Or whether or not a larger ship has blind spots to exploit.
Fighters in general are only useful in that they are usually small and much harder to hit. Their smaller mass makes them better able to change trajectory and evade weapons much more easily than larger ships. And depending on the defenses of their target, a squadron of fighters could more effectively deliver a weapons payload than their more expensive capital ship counterparts. This is the only reason the Federation bothered at all to start using Maquis style attack ships in the Dominion War. They could be easily destroyed, but could deliver the same photon torpedoes as a 300-700 meter ship at a fraction of the cost.
Darwin Xavier I don't really think that there is such thing as Max range of projectile weapons in space... They just fly until they hit, so if your target has constant vector, you can hit him from other side of solar system.
And given that, I have to think why would you create fighter to carry your missiles... Instead of just giving more fuel to that missile? Your missile is smaller, lighter, doesn't need life support, oxygen, radiation shielding... And doesn't need to decelerate and come back to base/carrier after its mission is done.. It's so much more efficient, that I can't think of many reasons to create fighters at all for that... Except for fact that it's much less fun :-D
Some weapons do fizzle out after a certain range or duration. The energy might not completely go away but it could dissipate enough to be ineffective. Just letting the missile do all the work from a distance would depend on whether or not you could effectively and cost efficiently give it a good enough AI to dodge defenses like a fighter, or pilot it remotely from a mothership. STVGR explored the former in "Warhead" and "Dreadnought" with highly intelligent, heavily armed doomsday missiles. Stargate explored the latter with its enormous swarms of Ancient drones. Advanced AIs or transmission systems would be mandatory for effective long range bombardment without the projectile being shot down. Or enough resources to fire so many missiles that likely at least some would make it through. It all comes down to cost much of the time.
Well considerig what modern ALPHA AI can do in fighter jets combat, I guess that problem with enough powerful AI is already solved... This AI can shoot down any human pilot in any simulation without too much effort and can be run on average notebook. And it probably gets only better from now on.
Such missiles could be hanging in space even for weeks, waiting for remote activation, launching engines and attacking any adversary from unexpected angles... We have this ongoing trope, that missile must be launched, than have its engine burning for few minutes and this engine burn is her actual total lifetime before its useless - while in space, this really doesn´t have to be the case, as there is no gravity that would drag it down.
Probably most convenient weapon platform for space combat, would be "missile pod". Lets say 10-30 missiles in pod, and this pod would have some energy generator that would keep missiles filled with enough operational energy, so they are always ready to be used when needed. it would provide basic diagnostics and minor autonomous repairs and would shield delicate missiles against radiation/debris. There is no need for lifesupport and such, and it doesn´t need to move much (missiles are the moving part), so it can be VERY stealthy.
And once launched, every missile can operate as autonomous AI drone, maneuvering, waiting, drifting and attacking according to its orders, and each mission can take even few weeks to months, depending on the mission you need this warhead to do for you.
Almost something like in expanse books, where UN launched all their missiles, and they flew for many days, changing their trajectories and targets as told...
2 of my favorite space fighter designs. All time favorite is still the Starfury Thunderbolt. An honorable mention is the Thunderfigher from Buck Rogers.
I thoroughly disagree with this conclusion. The viper's higher acceleration means that its pilot can engage and disengage at will. Essentially, the Viper dictates the time, place, and tempo of the engagement, If things start to go poorly, the Viper pilot can disengage, re-position, and re-engage in a more advantageous circumstance. The value of being able to dictate the terms of the engagement can't be overstated.
Additionally, the stopping power of a 30mm MAC cannon round appears understated. While directed energy weapons would no doubt be capable of burning through the hull of a Viper, a 30mm round, even without such a slug being accelerated as it is in the viper, would be structurally fatal to a target as small as a fighter. The sheer amount of force imparted by such an impact could warp, bend, or tear away parts of the star fury with a single hit. The Viper is not known for connecting with only one shot at a time.
The way I see this match is a case of first hit wins, and when one fighter dictates how things start off, while having an out should things go south, I tend to place my bets on the pilot in the initiative posture as opposed to the reactive.
I would say thats partialy true - if a viper commits it has no choice but to attack and in order to so he cant do fancy evasives - fury can do evasives at whim even while firing on the target and it can do so i a manner imposbile to match by the viper - literally the fury can dance around the viper shooting it at all the times and the only thing the viper can do to survive is to burn at max speed and pray it can shake/evade the incoming fire in order to get away from firinig range in one piece. Literally the fury can do evasives/advance/retreat to/from enemy in all 3 axis at the same time and still fire on the target - thats smth not possible for the viper to do. So imho viper would be better at ambushes but in straight dogffight - well it would get whacked most of the time.
good job on this versus more please.
I feel that you are massively underestimating the damage potential of kinetic weapons in space at high velocity.
That actually depends on the trajectory of both the target and the projectile. You could, hypothetically, reach the velocity of the projectile and match the direction of the kinetic weapon and have it tickle you. This would necessitate an explosive tip which has loads of other concerns stapled onto it. Of course, unlikely that this would be a concern, but even getting close to the speed of the projectile, assuming you're not hitting it head-on, could severely reduce its kinetic effectiveness. The supposed advantage of an energy based weapon is that its impact is effectively an explosive trigger OR mere contact is sufficient to cause immense damage.
@@planaraspect9461 That's very much a corner case. If a target was able to match your weapons velocity you'd probably not hit at all. More than likely targets on an intercepting trajectory will Will result in impact velocities far far greater than the weapon's mussel velocity. Also you wouldn't use explosives ammo. Solid slugs at those kind of speeds will just slice right through armor and deliver damage that energy weapons would be very hard pressed to compare to.
@@endorsedbryce That said, there's one more problem. The Starfury's weapons are at least in universe known to hit and destroy similar sized ships in a single shot. Vs the Viper who peppers a single target till it ruptures something that explodes. The Starfury has a fusion generator and it's engines are powered by particle thrust given off by generator. Meaning, there are no fuel lines to cut only power cables. Not much to rupture. It would give a kill but it would take more accurate firing and aiming.
That was surprisingly well done. The limited array of large engines on the Viper is something I hadn’t considered before. I’d always assumed similar maneuverability, as both are limited to the tolerance of the pilot - no inertial compensation technology. But the Starfury could almost certainly stop faster, or slow its momentum faster, with powerful engines both front and rear.
But for other maneuvers, I’d still consider them comparable. Both are still limited by the tolerance of the pilot. True, the Viper is lighter, but this is offset by the Starfury’s larger engines. So, to me, the better assessment would be that they are comparable in turns and lateral moves, but with the Viper being more fuel efficient in doing so, but with the Starfury being more capable of backward thrust.
I have a website where I discuss similar topics, so I rather enjoyed the video.
I feel like the use of the Viper Mk.2, as well as overlooking multiple aspects of the Viper (it's inertial dampener, its small size, the homing missiles, ect) - is a clear attempt to stack the deck in favor of the Starfury. There is a much more modern, capable, and advanced version of the Viper (MkVII), which has better pretty much everything when compared to the Mk.2, not to mention a target that large would be so easy to find on Dradis that a pilot of a Viper would never need to use visual to track.
Not saying the Starfury wouldn't win, mind you - Though I am saying I sense a favoritism to Babylon 5 and the Starfury, by comparing the least capable version of the Viper, to one of the more capable variants of the Starfury.
It's like saying, who would win, Officeman, or Superman, of course superman would win, officeman is just a office worker with nothing in his favor.
The example is an exaggeration and the favoritism is unlikely, just look at the Top 5s and all the videos on Battlestar Galactica Spacedock did.
Though indeed, should have used the Mark 7.
@@eclypse1513 In the case of the mark 7 then the thunderbolt starfury would be the reasonable comparison.
I had no idea the mk2 or mk 7 viper was supposed to have inertial dampening as the show has the pilots moving around and grunting like there's no inertial dampening at all. The viper mk2 is about the same length as a starfury and I can't find any information on width. Although the smaller profile from face on was noted in the video. The Starfury weights more to a LOT more depending on what information you go with.
Honestly this comparison wasn't terrible favorable to the starfury either as he left out important in universe facts. In universe the sturfury is heavily armored and takes glancing blows from CAPITAL ship weapons like a champ. The magnetic vanes that control thrust vectoring are powerful enough to allow a star fury to continue operations effectively with 1 engine completely down. Multiple engine failures can be dealt with but that does dramatically reduce the fighter's performance. He completely missed the automation available to the starfury pilot including pre-programmed maneuvering AND the ability to shoot off axis with the aid of the computer system. So the pilot can concentrated on evasive maneuvers while the ship automatically takes pot shots at the target.
The thunderbolt is everything the aurora has but better including more hardpoints and faster firing harder hitting guns.
Having said that the viper mk2 is a damned pretty fighter.
It seems almost like a perfect comparison to WWI dogfights between Sopwith Camels and Fokker DR1s. Camels had powerful
forward engines but had problems due to drag which hampered their maneuverability, while the DR1s had the extra wing which let them maneuver really well at the expense that they were often heavier and likely slower to accelerate. Both planes were rather evenly matched but the DR1s walked away with more kills than not thanks to aces like the Red Baron.