Where Are The Fleets?

[Proximo]

So is that an animated computer sim or do you just sit and read the numbers?

[repcisg]

Unfortunatly it is mainly numbers, but it also produces a rough log with positioning info and condition flags. Near the end I had it refine the log in to a sort of black box recording that would ne laeft behind if the ship was destroyed. Some of them make good reading, well sort of.

[Proximo]

It sounds interesting. Would it run on Linux? Does it still exist? I feel a sudden urge to play with it.

Who knows, perhaps if I brush up my C skills a little (lot!) I might be able to program a visual wrapper for it. I've been meaning to get down to the nitty-gritty of C and C++...

[repcisg]

Unfortunatly I have been working in a windows world, so I did it in VB6. It can produce a trace file with the course and position information, and yes I still have it.

[Westy]

If you have x, y, z position info, I can use AutoCAD to place them precisely and then give you any kind of view that you want in 3D.

I've already made a ACAD drawing of the positions of the battlestars based on the top down drawing located here:

http://www.geocities.com/repcisg/index7.html

And using the Z info you gave earlier, I've moved them up and down accordingly. I know you said the Z data wasn't accurate, but you'd get that info, when you do, I'll update the drawing. Tell my what views you want, and I'll pop out some pics for you. If anyone wants this ACAD drawing I have, I'll be happy to provide it. I can give you .dxf or .dwg, your choice.

Also, I'm a pretty decent programmer too, I could port any VB code to c/c++ if anyone wants it in that form.

[repcisg]

Thanks Westy,

I'm going to be in class most of the day, we're studying apprasal laws to day - I'm so excited.

I'll try to get the numbers to you this weekend.

[Dayton3]

Another thought on the origin of those 42 "non Galactica" Vipers.

It stands to reason that several Battlestars managed to get SOME Vipers off. Simple law of averages.

Note, it was more than just launching the Vipers that took time. It was getting the pilots and launch bay crews called to action. Apparently, the Galactica was the only Battlestar that called a Battle Stations alert and thus had pilots and Vipers ready to launch.

Now, assuming that there were 22 Battlestars, it stands to reason that the Galactica wasn't the only one launching patrols. We know that the Galactica launched at least Apollo and Zac .and we know from later during Adamas covert meeting with Tigh at Carrilon that launchiing patrols was standard procedure, EVEN WHEN the council wouldn't allow large scale launches.

Assume each Battlestar launched two patrols totally four fighters, then minus the Galacticas four ships, a total of EIGHTY FOUR Vipers might be out on patrol at the time of the ambusm. Some might not even have made it back until the battle was nearly over.

Originally posted by Westy
If you have x, y, z position info, I can use AutoCAD to place them precisely and then give you any kind of view that you want in 3D.

I've already made a ACAD drawing of the positions of the battlestars based on the top down drawing located here:

http://www.geocities.com/repcisg/index7.html

And using the Z info you gave earlier, I've moved them up and down accordingly. I know you said the Z data wasn't accurate, but you'd get that info, when you do, I'll update the drawing. Tell my what views you want, and I'll pop out some pics for you. If anyone wants this ACAD drawing I have, I'll be happy to provide it. I can give you .dxf or .dwg, your choice.

Also, I'm a pretty decent programmer too, I could port any VB code to c/c++ if anyone wants it in that form.

You make a convincing argument. It appears that there were quite a bit more than 5 battlestars at Cimtar. I never thought about that until I looked at your website on the topic.

[Westy]

I've read countless times that there were only 5 Battlestars there, but I've always wondered why the movie images were so inconsistent. In one shot they were lined up front to rear, in others they were beside each other, etc. In BSG fandom, aren't the films considered "Canon" before anything else? (i.e. books, news articles, etc etc) If that's true, then the only way to explain the shots of the Cimtar fleet, other than just careless attention to detail, is by this educated guesswork of repcisg's. Are there other thoughts on this? I can cite 3 or 4 sources for the 5 Battlestar figure, and I know all of you can too, but is there anything that says what repcisg is saying is not possible?

[SpyOne]

Originally posted by repcisg
I did an image analysis of the Pilot, which I have laid out at

http://www.geocities.com/repcisg/index.html

(snip) Based on the perfomance of the Galactica's weapons during the series and asumming complete suprise the formation works for 900 attackers.

If I may take up this discussion, I went and looked at your page.
I found your analysis of the images interesting, and well researched. I am also very curious about the software you've used. (I run Win98 and large emails are no problem if you feel like sharing. )

However, your analysis of how many vipers fit in the landing bay seems to make a good counter-arguement.

Here goes:
You suggest that a Battlestar uses 2 squadrons (of 37 Vipers each) for defense of the ship. I prefer squadrons of 32 for absolutely no good reason, but will be using my smaller squadron numbers as they are more conservative.
If each of the Battlestars going to the Peace Conference had only those 2 squadrons aboard, that gives us some good numbers for the number of Vipers present.
If there were 22 Battlestars, they brought 1408 Vipers to the battle. If there were only 5, they brought 320.
Now, of course, not all of those Vipers could get launched.

However, the Cylons went to a lot of effort to lauch an extra-sneaky sneak attack, so I think it is a fair assumption that they were prepared for things to go not exactly as planned. They would have a large enough force to wipe the fleet out (or at least cripple it) even if the fleet managed to launch a large percentage of their Vipers.
How many is that? Well, I'd figure at least as many Raiders as Vipers, figuring they are about equally matched. (In fact, I'd say a Viper is slightly better than a Raider, but 2 Raiders defeats 1 Viper easilly.)

If there are 22 Battlestars with 1408 Vipers, if the Battlestars manage to launch half their Vipers then 900 Cylon Raiders are facing nearly even odds (900 to 704) plus 22 Battlestars tips the odds in the Colonial forces' favor.
If there were merely 5 Battlestars and they launched all of their Vipers, the Cylons still have them at nearly 3 to 1, and in fact if each Viper destroys 2 Raiders before going down the Cylons still have more than 50 Riders per Battlestar.

Lastly, if we assume Galactica launched 64 Vipers at Cimtar then the 25 they recovered later represents 39% survival or 61% casualties. Assuming other squadrons suffered similar percentages, the 38 other Vipers Galactica picked up (from Tigh's line "63, 25 of ours") represent an original 156 Vipers from the other 4 Battlestars, or about 39 per. So Galactic managed to launch all her Vipers while the others averaged about half.

Please, pick apart my ideas.

[repcisg]

I’ve been quite busy these last two weeks, finished the State Exams last week (Passed, they don’t give scores), now doing in house classes. But I think will have more time to work this now.

First off, I have a tape of the original 1978 broad cast that I used to capture the images. And it is from this tape that I have done the analysis. Second the simulation, as a simulation, tries to match known actions in the correct sequence with a series of reasonable sequences, events or actions to reproduce the battle. From this certain assumptions can be drawn with reasonable certainty.

The foundation of the Cimtar battle was drawn from the Pearl Harbor attack, from this certain assumptions were made. One, the fleet would be lulled into a false scenes of security. Two no one would be alert and three the fleet would sail with minimal or basic defenses. These were common factors found in the Pearl Harbor disaster. Even though the combined Navy and Army air forces out numbered the attackers few American aircraft actually got off the ground.

With the exception of one carrier, the best ships were in the Atlantic escorting convoys, the older less able ships were in the Pacific. Why? Because the threat was viewed as lower. It was believed there would be time to move ships around if need be.

At Cimtar the situation was similar, no ship was to be on alert, Battlestars are far to big to support only 75 fighters. If you want to there is space for 600 or more. So to me they sailed only with what was considered sufficient for self defense. Their other squadrons were left at home.

Now for the fighters, I allowed about three minutes from the time the alarm is given for the pilots to prep and arrive at their fighters ready for launch. In most cases this was enough time for the Cylon suicide fighters to crash into the landing bays and stop the launches or at least delay them. I did allow for damage control to take place. In addition not all ships would go on alert at the same time, there would be delays caused by confusion and command officers not being on the bridge.

In a surprise attack the last thing you want is to allow you opponent time to fight back or get organized. You want to keep him disorganized and off balance until it is too late. The Cimtar attack does this, as shown in the film.

The big difference between the film and Pearl Harbor, at Cimtar the Fleet is underway. Which means those ships with time to comprehend what is happening have the chance of fleeing the battle before they are destroyed.

To make it work as we see in on the film, I assigned a strike groups to each Battlestar. Part of this strike group is a four or five ship suicide group. Other sections attack the bridge, engines and defensive batteries. This combo wears down the ships defenses and with engine damage mounting prevents it from escaping. As each Battlestar is destroyed the surviving attackers move to the next nearest Battlestar and attack it. The result is a wave like effect moving from left to right through the fleet. Battlestars die is rapid succession. Only the three on the far right rear and #18 survive routinely, along with the Galactica. Some times #19 makes it with #18.

So for those wishing to write stories about Battlestars other than the Galactica or Pegasus, I think I can say with confidence there are four others, possibly five, with untold stories.

[repcisg]

On the topic of five Battlestars, Glen Larson and the production team NEVER said during production there were only five Battlestars. That number came out of a conversation between Glen and a fan at a convention, the fan suggested the number five. To Glen the number was irrelevant to the story and he simply went along with it.

With the exception of the Robert Thurston novels, non of the printed material produced about the Battlestars was ever blessed by or sourced from the production. It is no better than fan fiction and no more cannon than any thing you or I might write.

A second plausible source for the number 5 is the opening sequence of each episode of the series. This is the opening image of the pilot and is the only image of the pilot used during the series. The reasons for this are directly related to the falling out between Larson and the original director Colla, who was fired by Larson during filming of the Pilot.

Officially there is no cannon source other than the film that says how many Battlestars were in the fleet. In the new Mini, Sarbuck implies there were as many as 120.

I will say that I cannot get just the Galactica to survive the attack with only five Battlestars, unless I make them virtually bullet prof, then all survive. At more than 24, more ships survive and the possibility of more than one Battlestar retuning to colonial space becomes a real problem.

So there you have it, I think.

[SpyOne]

Originally posted by repcisg

I will say that I cannot get just the Galactica to survive the attack with only five Battlestars, unless I make them virtually bullet prof, then all survive. At more than 24, more ships survive and the possibility of more than one Battlestar retuning to colonial space becomes a real problem.

So there you have it, I think.

I don't understand this bit.

Are you saying that, if there are only five battlestars in the simulation, it gets hard to have the Galactica survive? Because I should think making the Galactica the only one to survive gets easier with fewer ships.

IMO, and based of foggy memories, Galactica survived mainly because she left the battle area at high speed. Had she remained, she likely would have been destroyed as well, but the Raiders could not pursue her.

Perhaps we're just facing a minor logic-hole in the script. It occurred to me while working on this that if, as we both suppose, the Battlestars left the majority of their fighters behind, that only leaves more fighters defending the colonies. And if the Cylons possessed sufficient forces to destroy the Battlestars and destroy the Colonies, then why the intricate plan?

Here is my guess for an answer to that, and I hope it is supported by stuff from the show. (Been a while since I've seen it.)
The Cylons did not have enough forces. They did have enough to mount a major assault. Baltar gave them passcodes and stuff so they could more easilly overcome the Planetary Defenses, and also lured the Battlestars far away from the Colonies.
This gives the Cylons 2 objectives, and 2 ways to look at things. Either the important thing is destroying the Fleet, because without the Fleet's protection the Colonies will inevitably fall, or the important thing is to destroy the Colonies because without the Colonies the Fleet will inevitably fall. Decide which is more important, and dedicate the majority of your forces there.
However, you will need to delay the fleet if you plan to attack the Colonies, and you will need to damage the Colonies during the assault on the fleet (and they'll change those codes once they realize they've been betrayed).

Therefore, I guess I'm saying that probably the Cylons were trying to threaten and delay the fleet, but that destroying it was just a bonus. The real objective was to prevent the fleet from reinforcing the Colonies, because the destruction of the Colonies was paramount.
Otherwise, the Cylons would need to have committed enough forces to the fleet to be certain of it's destruction. If that were the case, I'd argue that 900 fighters is not enough against 20+ Battlestars, even if they are supposed to be "asleep" and are only carrying a few fighters. The chance that they are more prepared for an attack is too great to blow this great opportunity.

[SpyOne]

Changing gears a bit here:

How did you determine the combat valuse you use? I know it must be guesswork to a great degree, but what did you base your guesswork upon? I mean, how many fighters does it take to destroy a Battlestar? How many fighters does a Battlestar destroy per second? That kind of stuff.

[repcisg]

SpyOne,
You ask some good questions and in part I agree with some of your points. On the question of how many bs there were, it is important to remember the Galactica did not launch until she was actually fired upon. If we assume only five bs then that puts 180 Cylon fighters in firing range before any vipers are launched or defensive turrets are activated. In this scenario she and the rest of the fleet dies very quickly. The attack is just too over whelming.

By increasing the size of the fleet the number of attackers focused on just the Galactica becomes less threatening, less effective. It takes longer for battle damage to mount. Galactica has the time necessary to launch two waves of vipers and escape. We need to remember an attack by 300 Cylon fighters during the series was a major problem even with all her fighters launched.

As with any simulation there are compromises, assumptions are made and lots of trial and error testing (the fun part). For example in the Pilot and series we see laser turrets fire multiple times before getting a hit, so a hit ratio needed to be computed. With each round fired the chance of a hit would improve by that ratio. Viper fire is done the same way as is fire from the Cylons. In testing I found that under certain circumstances the fleet as a whole could escape, but by assigning groups of Cylons to focus on say the engines the BS could be crippled and not able to run. Others would go for the bridge, we see this in the Pilot, this would prevent the ship from being effetely commanded. Others would go for the laser turrets reducing the bs ability to defend itself. Then of course others went for the landing bays to prevent Vipers from being launched, and the Cylon suicide fighters not only disabled the landing bays but started uncontrollable fires which swept up the support arms and into the main hull. One such attack would not be enough but multiple hits would do nicely. The second attacker would take out the fire fighters and damage control teams responding to the first hit.

I had 35 to 40 attackers initially assigned to each bs with 60 assigned to the Presidents ship. This seems to work well and has the Atlantia dying at about the right time. Then the attackers move on to the next ship reinforcing the attack on it and so on. A tidal wave rolling across the fleet, building from left to right.

The basic strategy of the attack falls into the category of a lesser power attacking a greater power. We hear in some of the background conversations how various communications centers stop working. Later in the series we find out Baltar had saboturs on each planet to shut down key defense systems at the right time. With this in place a smaller force could over whelm a larger one, as was done at Pearl Harbor.

That the Cylons had a limited force is underscored by their attacking the inner-planets first then regrouping to attack the outer ones. Then a complete pull back which allowed the Galactica to slip in and pull together the fleet of survivors before heading out. That the Cylons were not strong enough to secure and maintain control over the Colonial worlds for a time after the attack says the Cylon Empire had its limits and may have been smaller or weeker than the Colonials.

[repcisg]

A bit of speculation - both the Cylons and the Colonials used the same fuel to power their ships. At Caralon the fleet found a major mining operation, mining tylium. Where was all that fuel going? Adama suspected it was going to the Cylon, which we find out was true. If Caralon was a major fuel source for the Cylons wouldn’t its destruction cause serious problems for them?

[jewels]

Rep:
on vipers to raiders ratio: isn't there an implication in Saga that 3 to 1 odds (raider to viper) is considered a fair fight or a winable fight? It's in Apollo's comments to Zac after they wipe out the initial Cylon advance patrol of 4 ships and then discover they are outmanned at least a thousand to one.

Jewels

[repcisg]

and then Apollo looks at his scanner and says, "but 10 to 1, thats not fair."

At 900 Cylon fighters (Apollo's estimate) to Galactica's 75 that works out to 12 to 1. The fleet is going to have a bad day!

[Dayton3]

Originally posted by repcisg
A bit of speculation - both the Cylons and the Colonials used the same fuel to power their ships. At Caralon the fleet found a major mining operation, mining tylium. Where was all that fuel going? Adama suspected it was going to the Cylon, which we find out was true. If Caralon was a major fuel source for the Cylons wouldn’t its destruction cause serious problems for them?

Well in Saga of A Star World we also know that the Cylons had a major refueling and support base at Borallus. Sir Uri wanted to go there for refueling (the idiot).

But the point about Carrillon is a good one.

One might speculate tjat it was the loss of Carrillon (and the Imperious Leader and his Base Star) which made the Cylon pursuit of the ragtag fleet so tepid and half hearted at times.

[SpyOne]

Got a few more questions and comments.

Reg, have you considered in your formation analysis stuff that the formation might be changing? I mean, the events take place over several hours. Perhaps one formation was used to travel to the conference, and another once there.
Also, perhaps some ships moved around. For instance, Galactica might move close to Atlantia when Adama was moving between them (to reduce the length of the shuttle trip).
Just some thoughts, there.

Another thing that had occured to me is that, (assuming there were few battlestars at Cimtar rather than many) it seems like the Cylons had been making some advances. The Pegasus can't have gone missing more than a couple of years before Cimtar, IMO, and it seems that the Cylons may have recently put a major dent in the fleet. This would pressure the Colonies into wanting peace talks for reasons in addition to just being nice non-genocidal guys. Needing at the very least time to replace the recently destroyed battlestars, the Colonies renew their requests for an armistice. The Cylons see this as the perfect time for a sneak attack.

Last stray bit: Just as we are supposing that the battlestars were going to Cimtar with minimal Vipers (as a show of trust and such), they may have intentionally left their escort vessels behind for the same cerimonial reasons.

[repcisg]

There is pretty solid evidence the fleet does not change formation prior to the attack. The initial formation seen at the beginning is seen again during Apollo and Zack’s return. We see Zac fly the length of the fleet and the ships are all in the same positions. And this is just after Adam has returned from the presidents ship. Secondly the shuttles used seem to be fast enough to make moving ships around unnecessary. It is normal for military formations to remain stable for reasons of control and safety. You don’t want Battlestars bumping into one another.

In his conversation with Adama, President Adar makes it quite clear “It is the Cylons who sued for peace.” Adar's attitude suggests he sees this as a major victory for the Colonials and the war is truly over. Humanity can be magnanimous in their victory. Adama sees it very differently, which tells me yes humanity is winning but the Cylons are still very powerful and dangerous. To him the victory has come much too easily.

Lastly leaving any escort types at home would be in keeping with Adar’s willing ness to demonstrate humanities trust and magnanimity. Good idea there.

rep

[repcisg]

Another thought on why there were more than five ships. At the beginning of his toast to the delegates seated at the table Adar says, "I know you are all anxious to return to your ships be fore we rendezvous with the Cylons."

What ships? There were at least 12 delegates at the table counting Adam. None joined Adama on the Galactica and none appeared to stay on the Atlantia or so Adars comment implies. So where did they go? If they were 3-4 per ship why not one or two on the Galatica. All implications are she was no different than any other ship.

Just a thought.

[SpyOne]

Good catch about the delegates.

I suspect that that is part of where the whole "12 Battlestars" came from. It seems that Adama is there both as Commander of the Galactica and as the representative of Caprica. This got people assuming that each colony produced 1 Battlestar.

The notion of 5 Battlestars comes from 2 intersecting sources, IMO.
1) Never do more than five appear on screen at once.
2) only five are mentioned by name in the pilot.
However, notes from the production folks add Solaria as being at the Peace Conference. Since Triton (which some have suggested was an eascort ship) is clearly called a Battlestar in dialogue, this would suggest that at least six Battlestars were present.

I would note that Columbia is a little iffy. It only appears in a conversation where both parties have a motive to lie. When the human says he's from the Columbia, he is definitely lying. The only question is whether he made up the name of the ship or chose the name of another ship.
When the Cylon says the Columbia was destroyed at the Peace Conference, he may have been lying or mistaken. Is it possable the Cylons don't know the names of all the Battlestars that were there? I mean, they may have known how many there were but not known their names. Even if they knew them all, the Cylon might not want to reveal to the human how much they know about what ship was where.

Is there a dialogue reference in the pilot about how many Base Stars the Cylons have? I mean in total. This would be a good clue to how many Battlestars would match them.

I'm enjoying this discussion.

[repcisg]

It is graet fun

How many Base ships in the Cylon fleet, tough question. But my estimate would be not as many as most fans would expect. The reason being they just did not need that many. Being a machine race Baseships would be needed to provide long-range transport for fighters. Then act as a service center for local operations until a base can be built. We see in the battle at Cimtar, fighters can operate far from any base with only tanker support, in-flight refueling. The Humans need Battlestars for pilot support. Pilots need to rest, eat, and do the other things Cylon warriors do not need to do.

In the attack we see three Baseships orbiting Caprica and it is implied there are three around the other two inner worlds, for a total of nine Baseships.. After the planets defenses are defeated these Baseship regroup and attack the outer worlds (9 of them). The implication here is, they are lesser worlds with minimal defenses, one Baseship each is be enough.

Then the Cylons with draw. I would assume they are regrouping, recovering the fighters from the attack on the fleet and joining up with the transports carrying the troops assigned to occupy the Colonial home worlds. This would be the right move. Especially if the Cylons have a limit on the number of forces available to them. This combined force would then proceed to invade the Colonial home worlds. Now had the Fleet not been destroyed but only beaten up then the Cylons would have enough firepower to prevent the fleet from stopping the invasion on their home worlds. Either way Humanity in that part of the universe is toast.

The fact that the Imperious leader had to take his ship to Carillon also implies they were short on Baseships.

Later in Living Legend it is obvious the local Cylons do not have a Baseship but rather are depending on fighter-tanker escort groups to cover convoys of supplies. It is only when Baltar arrives do the Cylons have Baseships on site.

Assuming only 9, just for the sake of argument, one is destroyed at Carillon and two at Gamoray. That leaves 6 to cover the Colonial home worlds and pursue the Galactica. And the sixty-four dollar question is would they need more? And if so how fast can they be built and how many would they need?

One thing to remember these machines (Battlestars and Baseships) are going to be very costly in resources to build.

Just as a point of reference, a modern Aircraft Carrier take 8 years to build. A Battlestar has a proximately 560 time the volume of a modern Carrier. If we extrapolate that out based just on volume it would be reasonable to see it take 15 to 20 years to build a Baseship or Battlestar. With that kind of gestation time you would expect to see very old ships remain in operation as long as they were effective. IMO

Originally posted by repcisg
It is graet fun

How many Base ships in the Cylon fleet, tough question. But my estimate would be not as many as most fans would expect. The reason being they just did not need that many. Being a machine race Baseships would be needed to provide long-range transport for fighters. Then act as a service center for local operations until a base can be built. We see in the battle at Cimtar, fighters can operate far from any base with only tanker support, in-flight refueling. The Humans need Battlestars for pilot support. Pilots need to rest, eat, and do the other things Cylon warriors do not need to do.

In the attack we see three Baseships orbiting Caprica and it is implied there are three around the other two inner worlds, for a total of nine Baseships.. After the planets defenses are defeated these Baseship regroup and attack the outer worlds (9 of them). The implication here is, they are lesser worlds with minimal defenses, one Baseship each is be enough.

Then the Cylons with draw. I would assume they are regrouping, recovering the fighters from the attack on the fleet and joining up with the transports carrying the troops assigned to occupy the Colonial home worlds. This would be the right move. Especially if the Cylons have a limit on the number of forces available to them. This combined force would then proceed to invade the Colonial home worlds. Now had the Fleet not been destroyed but only beaten up then the Cylons would have enough firepower to prevent the fleet from stopping the invasion on their home worlds. Either way Humanity in that part of the universe is toast.

The fact that the Imperious leader had to take his ship to Carillon also implies they were short on Baseships.

Later in Living Legend it is obvious the local Cylons do not have a Baseship but rather are depending on fighter-tanker escort groups to cover convoys of supplies. It is only when Baltar arrives do the Cylons have Baseships on site.

Assuming only 9, just for the sake of argument, one is destroyed at Carillon and two at Gamoray. That leaves 6 to cover the Colonial home worlds and pursue the Galactica. And the sixty-four dollar question is would they need more? And if so how fast can they be built and how many would they need?

One thing to remember these machines (Battlestars and Baseships) are going to be very costly in resources to build.

Just as a point of reference, a modern Aircraft Carrier take 8 years to build. A Battlestar has a proximately 560 time the volume of a modern Carrier. If we extrapolate that out based just on volume it would be reasonable to see it take 15 to 20 years to build a Baseship or Battlestar. With that kind of gestation time you would expect to see very old ships remain in operation as long as they were effective. IMO

This is an interesting analysis; however, you are assuming that the colonials and the cylons are limited to a modern-day industrial capacity. The cylons might have many basestars, but they probably have a lot of territory to patrol and protect. Their empire was stated to expand across the "universe". Who knows that actually means though?

[repcisg]

AlphaAce,

Thanks for the input.

You’re right they could have had more, spread out covering their space but because they are machines and not living organisms their needs are different. For example if they found a planet inhabited by a low technology race, they would not need to send a Baseship to subdue them. A few inexpensive transports and fighters would do.

For the Cylons Baseships would be better used out on their frontiers acting as forward basses, very much the way we use a modern carrier. Once bases are established carriers become supplemental or can be moved elsewhere.

But I think, if the Cylons had more they would have used them in taking down the Colonials. After all time was on their side, they had time to marshal their forces and plan in detail how the attack would be carried out. Rather like Japan at Pearl Harbor they used every thing they had.

As a comparison, Moore’s version depicts a Cylon Empire with the forces necessary to hit and stay. He depicts a much more powerful enemy, more like the US forces at the end of WWII.

Originally posted by repcisg
AlphaAce,

Thanks for the input.

You’re right they could have had more, spread out covering their space but because they are machines and not living organisms their needs are different. For example if they found a planet inhabited by a low technology race, they would not need to send a Baseship to subdue them. A few inexpensive transports and fighters would do.

For the Cylons Baseships would be better used out on their frontiers acting as forward basses, very much the way we use a modern carrier. Once bases are established carriers become supplemental or can be moved elsewhere.

But I think, if the Cylons had more they would have used them in taking down the Colonials. After all time was on their side, they had time to marshal their forces and plan in detail how the attack would be carried out. Rather like Japan at Pearl Harbor they used every thing they had.

As a comparison, Moore’s version depicts a Cylon Empire with the forces necessary to hit and stay. He depicts a much more powerful enemy, more like the US forces at the end of WWII.

You could be right about the Cylons and their uses of the basestars; however, we really don't know how many other serious threats there are to their empire. The colonials might have just been a minor threat in comparison. The colonials didn't seem to have a lot of luck actually attacking cylon holdings. For example, Cain's fleet was wiped out (except for the Pegasus) when he launched an offensive into the Cylon Empire. The Cylons had a tough time wiping out the colonials because of their more effective viper squadrons; however, I doubt the colonials at any time actually threatened the existence of the Cylon Empire. That is off topic though.

The Cylons could have pulled back and regrouped because they were not in position to land ground forces when they launched the surprise attack. It is possible that their troop transports were kept safely out of the battle zone until the colonies were bombarded and the fleet destroyed. They then regrouped in order to provide an escort for the transports. I don't see why that means they were limited in the number of basestars they had. Like I said before, they have other borders to defend, so why would they use more than the just the right number of basestars to take out the colonials?

[Dayton3]

I think any objective analysis would show that based on what we saw onscreen, the Cylons had limited resources.

Because if they had plenty of baseships and fighters, there would simply be no need for the treachery and subterfuge they used in "Saga of A Star World". You don't use such machinations if you have the upper hand.

Originally posted by Dayton3
I think any objective analysis would show that based on what we saw onscreen, the Cylons had limited resources.

Because if they had plenty of baseships and fighters, there would simply be no need for the treachery and subterfuge they used in "Saga of A Star World". You don't use such machinations if you have the upper hand.

Indeed, the Cylons could only field a few basestars against the Colonials. I'm not so sure as to the argument that they are limited in basestars though. We are assuming that they are limited in their ability to produce basestars because of the force that wiped out the colonies; however, like I mentioned before they control a vast amount of territory and they had forces strung out across the galaxy while they were pursuing the rag tag fleet. That doesn't strike me as a force with a limited number of basestars. Granted, there isn't evidence to support my supposition that the Cylons regarded the colonials as a minor threat in comparison to other enemies; however, I don't think it is fair to assume that they can't produce a lot of basestars either.

The cylons are machines; therefore, I would argue that it is easier for them to produce fighters and basestars due to a more effective industrial base. That is an assumption on my part, but in several episodes we hear of a vast Cylon Empire.

[repcisg]

I think the key fact illustrating the Cylons had limited ships to work with lies in the fact they had to withdraw to regroup. They did not have the ships needed to hold the Colonial worlds. After all the point of the war was the extermination of the life form known as man. Pulling back after the initial attack gave some of the survivors the opportunity to escape, and gave the Galactica time to slip in and organize a convoy of refugees. The last thing the Cylons wanted to have happen.

Most military organizations would strip other fronts for ships to ensure the success of a major operation like this. The Cylons would function no differently, in fact the cold calculus of their way of thinking would require it.

While machines would have a more efficient industrial base, there are factors that could limit their expansion. One being fuel. If the primary fuel used by them is Tylium and the Colonials controlled the major source of it. The Cylons would find themselves restricted in their growth until the Colonials were defeated. Then the Colonial fuel sources would be in their hands and rapid growth possible.