Re: combat spoilers for "Movements of Fire and Shadow" (was: EFSB: newinfo from recent eps)

Oerjan plows through the spoiler space to write:
>
>> first, some spoiler space in case you really don't want to know about
>some
>> of the combat scenes ahead of time:
>> 
>> 
>>		   GGG	    OOO      OOO    DDDDD
>>		  G   G    O   O    O	O   D	 D
>>		 G     G  O	O  O	 O  D	  D
>>		 G	  O	O  O	 O  D	  D
>>		 G  GGGG  O	O  O	 O  D	  D
>>		  G   G    O   O    O	O   D	 D
>>		   GGG	    OOO      OOO    DDDDD
>> 
>> 
>>   M	     M	  OOO	 RRRR	  N	N  IIIIII  N	 N    GGG    !! 
>!!
>>   MM     MM	 O   O	 R   R	  NN	N    II    NN	 N   G	 G   !! 
>!!
>>   M M   M M	O     O  R   R	  N N	N    II    N N	 N  G	  G  !! 
>!!
>>   M	M M  M	O     O  RRRR	  N  N	N    II    N  N  N  G	     !! 
>!!
>>   M	 M   M	O     O  R   R	  N   N N    II    N   N N  G  GGGG  !! 
>!!
>>   M	     M	 O   O	 R    R   N    NN    II    N	NN   G	 G
>>   M	     M	  OOO	 R    R   N	N  IIIIII  N	 N    GGG    ** 
>**
>> 
>> 
>> And if you kept reading but are tired, THAT ought to have woken you
>some!
>
>[snip]
> 
>> Well, here's my take on it. For starters I've always thought the
>Vorchan
>> cruiser as being seriously undergunned in the game. At least I would
>like
>> to boost it's main battery to be a Class-3 batt.
>
>Uh... What? I thought the Vorchan was the Centauri battlecruiser, which
>is armed with Class 4 and Class 3 batteries in the EFSB... but even the
>light cruiser has Class 3 batteries. One in each fire arc.
>
>Or are you talking B5Wars?

I don't have my EFSB with me, but I seem to remember the Centauri
cruiser
(the winged guy) as having Class-2 batteries. B5Wars called this the
Vorchan.
The Primus is the battlecruiser.

>> The missiles used by both the Centauri and Drazi in the opening
scenes
>> I interpret to be variants on the same theme: salvo-missiles! The
Drazi
>> appear to fire these guys from their wings, so I would be inclined to
>call
>> them external racked SMs. The Centauri, on the other hand, fire 'em
>from
>> inside their ship, and these appear to be almost omni-directional
(yuk;
>> I *hate* that! ;) and I would classify them as being Salvo Missiles,
>also,
>> just a different breed (and multiple arcs of fire). With some small
>amount
>> of on-board guidance, perhaps?? They seemed to possess some limited
>intel
>> by the way they tracked in on the Drazi ships (I don't think more
than
>any
>> two Centauri SMs hit any given Drazi cruiser).
>
>That sounds more like the MT missiles to me...

Mmmmmm...naw, too many of them popped out from individual ships at once.
At least 5 were fired (er, more technically, 'launched', as the bottom
of
the ship's 'head' opened up like a shuttle bay) from one Vorchan in one
moment.

Now, one thing I forgot to touch on that someone else did was the fact
that
the Centauri MAIN GUNS on the Vorchans targetted the inbound Drazi
missiles
and wiped them down to nothing. Eg, they were able to revert their heavy
guns
to a PDS mode, take out the inbound SMs, then revert back to anti-ship
mode
and engage the Drazi.

The Drazi, on the other hand, never once fired on the inbound steel
balls the
Vorchans launched at them. They tried in vain to evade (and their
attempts were
lame-ish; simulatable as if the missiles were using Kra'Vak movement,
moving at
speed 16, and got to move last, while the Drazi were using Vectored
movement,
and travelling at a speed of no more than, oh, 8). What does this say
for the
Drazi? (although it *is* later stated that of all the races embroiled in
conflict with the Centauri, only the Drazi were holding their own, and I
think,
in fact, pushing the Centauri forces back)

>> As for the final scenes, well, the Narns havent' changed: they still
>have their
>> HBWs mounted on their massive cruisers (which look like they way
>out-mass the
>> Drazi ships! call 'em dreadnoughts? superdreads?). 
>
>Huge, yes. When the Army of Light struck its first real blow against
the
>Shadows (Shadow Dancing? Don't have the tapes here :-( ), the Narn war
>cruiser was the biggest ship they had after the Minbari gigants. The
>Sunhawks were bunched together with Vree saucers etc as "light units"
and
>were, IIRC, ordered to concentrate on the Shadow fighters and scouts.
>I've gotten an impression of Sunhawks being smaller than White Stars,
but
>I'm not sure about it.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that, either. Does anyone know if the Sunhawks
can
open their own jump point?????? This is telling, as Sheridan did say
back in
early season 3 "most ships [re: the White Star] this size can't form
their
own jump point". If the Sunhawks can do this, then they are likely about
the
same size, if not a bit larger, than the WS'.

But that doesn't matter 'cause White Stars kick *ass*.	:-)

Mk
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Only the bravest try where eagles and angels dare to fly
<*>