Armageddon for the Dilgar

[H]

Y
But why did EA manage to beat a battle lvl fleet and then managed to get wiped out itself by a war lvl fleet........

There can be many, many reasons. . .

Tactics.

Supply lines.

Fresh forces vs. war weary troops.

Bigger fleets.

and don't forget... because the plot said so. . . .

how fast is a starfury? as fast as it needs to be. remember, at the end of the day, it's all fiction, THATS why things are as they are

[Voronesh]

Y
But why did EA manage to beat a battle lvl fleet and then managed to get wiped out itself by a war lvl fleet........

There can be many, many reasons. . .

Tactics.

Supply lines.

Fresh forces vs. war weary troops.

Bigger fleets.

\

Tactics?
Not having fought a major war for 1000 years doesnt breed the best tactics.

Supply lines?
Same problem as above, but part of strategy rather than tactics. Fighting a raid war across half the LONAW while keeping many races contained, aka short visits just to scare em a little, makes better supply lines on the Dilgar side.

Fresh forces vs war weary troops?
At a start of a war, both sides can expect to have fresh forces, the EA have extremely confident soldiers, they did just kick Dilgar ass didnt they? And Minbari are saddled by a bad emotional state. Good for Close combat fighting, bad at the battleboard.

Bigger Fleets?
Thats the toughest nut, but comparing Dilgar "We want to kill every single race out there." to Minbari "We only hate shadows and peeps that make mistakes by attacking us." I guess on a percentage basis the Dilgar have the bigger fleet. Now about imperium size? hrm thats the catch not truly known. But the advantage cant be good enough that Minbari would not lose a single ship.....

Because the plot said so?
The big guy said B5Wars is canon. ACTA isnt.

It still doesnt make sense.

[meglos]

the minbari lost two ships in the earth minbari war dont you see what looks like a nova ram a sharlin

[Voronesh]

Ahhh yes. But that were desperate lucky actions. Not actions of military importance. They were as important as Garibaldi and Sinclair taking poop during season 1 and a woman was actually entering said toilet....

Now i totally forgot to mention, that both Shadow Wars were decided by human generals/admiarls/leaders.

The plot says Minbari were only able to invent stealth tech in 1000 years and maybe the precise part of their Neutron lasers.....
That interpretation of the plot would pin down Minbari as one of the most stupid races in the galaxy.

[H]

Wow, Anoraks ahoy.

Fiction, all made up...

[captainsmirk]

Well I think having a third of your population dedicated to fighting would result in having quite a large fleet. Especially as all three of the Minbari castes operate warships.

Plus Minbari warships can be hundreds of years old so if they continued building them (although they may in fact not have built many for years, I don't have anyway of knowing) they could end up with quite a large fleet.

Plus its the same things as with the Japanese and Germans in WW2, they bothhad lots more combat experience than the Americans, but didn't help much against massively superior firepower. It just isn't possible to represent that difference in capability in a wargame, otherwise the Minbari would always win against the EA...

Plus certain episodes of the series make me think that it was the Minbari stealth which was the truely decisive factor. And that in subsequent years enhanced EA sensors made it less effective. In the episode "Points of Departure" Sheridan is surprised that they can detect the Minbari ships with B5's Earth-Minbari war vintage sensors (the Minbari have deliberately turned their stealth off), his statements suggest that more modern EA sensors can penetrate the Minbari stealth to some extent.

This is however difficult to replicate within ATCA rules and so is easily ignored by making the stealth less effective overall.

Sorry of the long post...

Nick

[Voronesh]

Still makes for a good discussion.

Prolly the oldest games of all. Both sides make up arguments and expound them. The other side then proves them wrong, or gives over and agrees.

Very good for passing time ^^.

[captainsmirk]

Well actually having read some of JMS's comments of the episode I mentioned he states that the EA haven't broken Minbari stealth. Not how I remember it...

Then again being able to see through it more easily doesn't nesessarily mean you've broken it I suppose. If you've broken it then it should have no effect at all (that's my story and I'm sticking to it... ).

IMHO having a reduced effect of Minbari stealth in the face of EA advancements would also help explain how the younger races have even a remote chance against the Shadows and Vorlons. If the Minbari who are a thousand years ahead technologically can beat us with the loss of just two ships, then how can we do anything against races millions of years more advanced?

Anyway debate is always good!!!

Nick

*edited to make more sense...

[Voronesh]

Yes Minbari have a third of their population dedicated for war.

Only it doesnt work like that. Never. You need support troops from cooks to ammo production. 1/3 dedicated to war maybe, but of those 1/3 maybe 10% are actual soldiers. Very even less.

The worker and religious operate warships as well. That increases the number of ships, theoretically, but it removes said number of soldiers from the warrior caste. People need to grow crops somewhere, run basic shops and stuff like that.

Yes Minbari warships are old, but stuff tends to break down, until its more prudent to scrap something and rebuild it. And even at some point maintenace is gonna eat a huge part of your budget so that new ships are a big no go.

Yes the Axis lost WW2 but that was because Allies had simply more troops, germans had the best tech around. ust not the numbers. But ground combat is different than space combat. You can pack alot more ships into a small firesector. But that actually only helps the bigger fleet.

Yes i am with you, tech that 'breaks' stealth would do so by 90% at least. Making Minbari ships very vulnerable. Plus i think stealth is more of a long range issue. Once you get close it is less and less effective. Making missles actually a perfect weapon against Minbari, they negate stealth by their mechanic of having to close with a target anyway.

And the MInbari arent thousand of years more advanced. Send the US army against.....uhm Knights or Roman legions your choice really.....the outcome isnt even funny, Its only an ammo problem the rest is decided. Unless the old guys get something like a 100 to one factor going.
Actually even a hundred years of difference turn a battle into slaughter.

Plus i love your long posts. Actually givs one more ability to debate.

But in the end stealth is a problematic issue.

Ahh now i remmeber thsi started out as Dilgar being too high in lvl. Anyway thats not important anymore ^^.

[WickedE]

I thought it was about the Dilgar not getting any new ships for Armageddon.

[Voronesh]

Yer but then we could have whined about Shadows, Vorlons, early EA, 3rd age EA and Abbai not getting anything either.

Thats why i prefer the Dilgar war vs Earth Minbari war debate by far.

[H]

Yer but then we could have whined about Shadows, Vorlons, early EA, 3rd age EA and Abbai not getting anything either.

Thats why i prefer the Dilgar war vs Earth Minbari war debate by far.

well, the Abbai did get an armegeddon ship

[Voronesh]

No the Brakiri got one.

That thing doesnt really have any Abbai element. And if you witsh, then both Abbai and Brakiri could complain for only getting half a ship both.......

Id rather have a balanced ship than half a working one. Aka I prefer the Dilgar changes of the Dartfighter alot to the boombox that is supposed to be half Abbai.

[H]

No the Brakiri got one.

That thing doesnt really have any Abbai element. And if you witsh, then both Abbai and Brakiri could complain for only getting half a ship both.......

Id rather have a balanced ship than half a working one. Aka I prefer the Dilgar changes of the Dartfighter alot to the boombox that is supposed to be half Abbai.

If you look at the stats, you will see it has both Abbai and Brakiri beam tech, and Abbai secondary weapons. It's also listed as a combined fleet ship, yes, it might look crap, but It still actually makes you wrong for once.

[WickedE]

Brakiri: "So we've finalized the plans. Now, the question is, who gets the paint scheme for this flying Sub-woofer from Hell?"
Abbai: "...Let's flip a coin."
Brakiri: "Righty. ::Flip.:: Call it."
Abbai: "Tails."
Brakiri: "It's heads. Green and Yellow it is."
Abbai: "So ugly for that ship..."
Brakiri: "Yeah and Orange and Blue would be so much better?"
Abbai: "Duly noted. Gets to paintin'."

[captainsmirk]

And the MInbari arent thousand of years more advanced. Send the US army against.....uhm Knights or Roman legions your choice really.....the outcome isnt even funny, Its only an ammo problem the rest is decided. Unless the old guys get something like a 100 to one factor going.

Well I based that comment on the fact that the Minbari were flying around in space and fighting wars against the Shadows whilst we were still knights in armour.

Of course most things indicate that Minbari technology hasn't actually improved in quite a long time. But then again until recently our technology didn't advance on a yearly basis either. So saying some one is however many years more advanced is actually fairly arbitrary, since we have no idea of the relative rates of advancement.

Nick

[captainsmirk]

Yes Minbari have a third of their population dedicated for war.

Only it doesnt work like that. Never. You need support troops from cooks to ammo production. 1/3 dedicated to war maybe, but of those 1/3 maybe 10% are actual soldiers. Very even less.

The worker and religious operate warships as well. That increases the number of ships, theoretically, but it removes said number of soldiers from the warrior caste. People need to grow crops somewhere, run basic shops and stuff like that.

Well here we have no idea the relative Human/Minbari populations. Given that the Minbari have had at least 1000 years to spread their population over numerous worlds so they don't strain a single planets resources (unlike humanity who even in the B5 time period the vast majority of the Human population is still on earth) may mean that they actually have a much larger population than humanity.
Such an spreading out of population is actaully quite likely due to the realitive inhospitality of Minbar, they would likely seek worlds capable of supporting more people.

As for support facilities I get the impression that they are mostly supplied by the Worker caste (or Religious in the case of medical stuff) leaving the Warriors to dedicate most of their resources to actually fighting. And thinking about I also get the impression that the Workers are actually the most numerous so its probably less than a third of their population in the Warrior caste. Plus if present day countries are anything to go by, especially as Earthforce doesn't seem to use conscription, the EA probably has far less than a third of its total population in the military including all the support services.

Yes Minbari warships are old, but stuff tends to break down, until its more prudent to scrap something and rebuild it. And even at some point maintenace is gonna eat a huge part of your budget so that new ships are a big no go.

Yes the Axis lost WW2 but that was because Allies had simply more troops, germans had the best tech around. ust not the numbers. But ground combat is different than space combat. You can pack alot more ships into a small firesector. But that actually only helps the bigger fleet.

Well shadow ships seem to work well enough after having buried for 1000 years with no maintainance at all...

Nick

[katadder]

think of it like amazonian tribes. if they encountered a world war 2 tank even tho its 60 years old they still wouldnt have a chance.

[Slightly Norse John]

Factoid time;
drawing parallels from Earth history, a modern nation 'totally committed' to war can sustain about twenty percent of it's population under arms. The Confederate States of America and Nazi Germany managed about that. The support industries absorb a very high proportion of the population, the tail functions - dockyards, transports, admin and communications, security- absorb an ever- increasing (with technology) proportion of those actually in the services. Combine that with trying to run a civilian economy at the same time- the Minbari Warrior Caste make as much socioeconomic sense as the technobabble from ST; Voyager did physical.
Basically, it's the old medieval caste division- those who fight, those who pray, and those who work. Which were about five, three and ninety-two percent, in the medieval model the whole Minbari caste system appears to have been based on.
The higher technology the force gets, the more critical quality becomes over numbers. I don't think there are many 23rd century military problems you can solve by throwing human waves at them. The EA- let's face it, from what we know of Minbari breeding rituals, Humans reproduce a lot faster. The Minbari's larger pool of talent to draw from doesn't necessarily mean they will be able to man more ships; they have to build them and pay for them and we know, via Londo, the Minbari economic growth rate is very near zero. It does mean they will ahve higher quality personnel for the ones they do have.

[Voronesh]

Ok on the Brivoki.

I know its called a semi thing. But in my mind its Brakiri with weaponry bought from Abbai.

Cause the design has more influence from Brakiri than Abbai (Abbai nearly 0 even though its blocky and neither LONAW state is......

So yes both races got half a ship.....not really something. If you put that thing into a Brakiri fleet, you might get away with it lookwise. In an Abbai fleet little chance.

Yes technology didnt advance that fast 200 years ago. But then technolgy only speeds up.....apparently Minbari have hit a roadblock thats called biotech, cause they didnt develop that one.....makes their scientists rather stupid i guess. (Sry but 1000 years is alot of time for teching, and they only managed minibeams and stealth...)

Shadow ship maintenance is uhhh still existing. Biotech is really a helper there.

SNJ you are right on. But it gets hard with a post thats in the middle ground when most people have been arguing against me ^^.

Actually there is little 'larger pool of talent' for the Minbari. Plot dictates that the Minbari have becoming less and less with every generation.

Yes but even assuming that the whole warrior caste is dedicated to war, still means that maybe 20% of the warrior caste actually fight. The number among the worker and religious will be decidedly smaller. (Yes i know i am pulling at straws, but i want to salvage the plot warrior caste instead of throwing it onto the midden heap of useless technobabble drivel) Economic growth being zero means that the actual size of the Minbari population is very likely not that big.

They will probably work like battletech clans, few people to go around, but those that are are better trained. I even suspect a form of 'communistic' economic system behind all this. There seems to be a certain 'everything is supplied' feeling behind the Minbari instead of the industrious capitalistic feel of EA or Centauri....Which is also in line with the medieval system of the Minbari. Which in turn puts the conimic outcome of the Minbari even lower.

Overall id put the Minbari at a total military lvl close to the Centauri Republic. WIth a higher tech standard ofc, but thats why cruisers are battle with Cents and war with Minnies.

Yes high tech means that you are able to get away with alot more. But Novae are bound to reach Minbari lines at some point, and then all hell WILL break lose. At some point having established that EA had probably about 5-6 Novae for every Mishakur and 2 Novae for every Tikrit, otherwise EA cant win the Dilgar war, yes theres other ships, but Dilgar have more ships too. EA will probably have about 3 ships for every Minbari one, factoring in extra tech from the Dilgar and youw ill get alot more carnage on Minbari side than 2 lucky kills. High tech doesnt make you perfectly immune though. High-yield thermonuclear bombs make sure of that. Or simply having 3-4 ships for every one of theirs. (Now i really dont know why they didnt nuke the Minnis to death. Stealth doesnt work against missles, espeically when they switch to optical for approach, oh well, yeryer i know borken ruleset and plot rules)