The Long-Range Heavy Bomber

[cobrastrikelead]

has possibilities.

To a Cylon, wouldn't it be a destabalizing weapon?

Before, if either side wanted to raid the other's homeworlds, they have to fire up the baseships and battlestars, pull in the flight crews, pull in supplies and whatever else was needed.
And the other side would have a reasonably good chance to detect the enemies intentions thru sensors, spies, analysis of activities, etc.
But if the Colonials developed a heavy bomber with the speed of a Viper, range enough to strike the Cylon home from interstellar distances, and the first strike power of a battlestar, Cylon planners might recognize the vulnerability of their centralized systems to such a bomber-fleet. That the Cylon empire would be vulnerable to a first-strike KO by the Colonials before the Cylons could get the necessary defense put together.

And so, if the Colonials insisted on deploying such a weapons system, might not the more intelligent course of action be to find some way of getting at them, before they got at you??

sounds like you are talking about something that would resemble an Eastern Alliance destroyer. There are probably tech limitations that make the neccasary combination of speed/range/payload impossible, at least within a reasonable budget. And then again we do not know how extensive the defences of the Cylon core systems are.

This goes goes back to the arguments that both the U.S. and U.K. had in the 1950's between the respective navies and air forces of those countries, between a flexible carrier strategy and mass bomber strategy.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by cobrastrikelead

has possibilities.

To a Cylon, wouldn't it be a destabalizing weapon?

Before, if either side wanted to raid the other's homeworlds, they have to fire up the baseships and battlestars, pull in the flight crews, pull in supplies and whatever else was needed.
And the other side would have a reasonably good chance to detect the enemies intentions thru sensors, spies, analysis of activities, etc.
But if the Colonials developed a heavy bomber with the speed of a Viper, range enough to strike the Cylon home from interstellar distances, and the first strike power of a battlestar, Cylon planners might recognize the vulnerability of their centralized systems to such a bomber-fleet. That the Cylon empire would be vulnerable to a first-strike KO by the Colonials before the Cylons could get the necessary defense put together.

And so, if the Colonials insisted on deploying such a weapons system, might not the more intelligent course of action be to find some way of getting at them, before they got at you??

1. How small is the wormhole inflation device or FTL propulsion system can you build? That gives you your minimum bomber size.

2. How far must the bomber go? That greatly determines the actual size based on the amount of fuel you use.

3. How big a bomb is it going to carry? I recommend a starkiller, as it makes no sense to leave ANYTHING in a star system for robots to harvest post-attack. That is one BIG bomb.

4. How many Cylon starsystems do you need to kill? That will set the minimum size of your bomber fleet.

5. Does the bomber need to come back? You can reduce the bomber's size by approximately 40%, if it is a one way Cylon Birthday Present.

6. Will you be able to sell it to the Quorum?

To answer these questions from canon, I can give you some shorthand answers as to what you need.

1. The smallest wormhole inflation device you can realistically build is a gravitational lens that inflates a hole four kilometers in radius. This is about the size of aircraft carrier and of exteme mass density. You will need a Jovian mass minimum of virtual matter per square meter inflated to build it.

2. The minimum unrefueled range of a bomber one way must be the functional equivalent of 1/10th the diameter of our galaxy.

3. To kill a star (Make it go nova.) you need to toss a Mercury-sized lump of iron into it, or its virtual matter equivalent.

4. The Cylons and the Colonials seemed to be Trojan War stalemated technologically and militarily in their thousand year war. Taking twelve star systems as the maximum Colonial footprint (as opposed to the usual conjectured Twelve Colonies in the single starsystem, which seems to be the consensus) and taking the force equilibrium ratio of six attackers to one defender-you need at least sixty and possibly as many as a hundred bombers to kill sixty to seventy-five Cylon starsystems.

5. I have no idea if you can compress virtual matter to battlestar size, but I suggest you better get used to that MINIMUM size as your one-way kamikaze.

6. No.

As always;

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

<SNIP>

6. Will you be able to sell it to the Quorum?

<SNIP>

6. No.

As always;

Gotta agree, here. Small manned scout ships are one thing, but a long-range bomber force is asking to be used for target practice.

Just ask SAC, or the 8th Air Force from WW2.

[cobrastrikelead]

In The Living Legend, knocking out the central control system, seemed to paralyze the Cylon defenses at least temporarily.

[cobrastrikelead]

let's say a long-range heavy bomber, the size of a Eastern star-destroyer, and packing the BFL-punch the Galactica used to deliver the coupde grace to the base star in the hand of God, and even if the bombers could reach the key points at Cylon (didn't Baltaar have a hare-brained scheme to bring the Galactica as a trophy of war and return in triumph and unleash it point blank on Cylon itself? Or get so much glory from the Cylons masses that he would be made Imperious Leader by acclimation?) and then youd still probly have to follow up with a battlestar/viper strikes. and for that youd still have to round up the battlestars, vipers, warriors and suppl;ies and risk tipping your hand.

But even that could play in a prequel sequence.
The bomber gets designed. Maybe even to the prototype stage. The Colonial Command evaluate the design and reach conclusions simalar to what you guys produced earlier. And decide to at least shelve the project for a while. But then some hot-shot politician who is extreme to the other side of the equation starts really pushing for the project , proclaiming, "This is the Weapon that shall bring the Cylons Empire asking us for uncondikltional surrender..."
And then our good friend, Count Baltaar will be sending sweet little messages to the Cylons, "See what kind of beings the Humans are? They are Fanatical!!! They shall not rest until they see the Cylon Empire reduced to rubbish! Your Empire is most fortunate to have me as a Friend. It shall require all my skill, experience, and cunning to prevent this catastrophe from coming to your civilization. But perhaps, there is still time, maybe I can yet rescue your empire from the coming the Human Menace, if you will only Trust Me, just a little bit longer..."