Talk:Battery/Archive 1

Rails

David Templar writes:

"If the rails mount on the guns serve any real functional purpose, it is probably heat dissipation; due to the lack of any medium to draw heat away from objects in space, disgarding waste heat would be a serious issue for the show's apparently chemical-propelled projectile weapons."

This seems like making up excuses for a production error, to me. If the intent of those rails really is heat dissipation, they would be much wider to provide a larger surface to radiate heat on. --April Arcus 18:15, 31 March 2006 (CST)

I concur. They just like the word "railgun" because it sounds cool. Distinctions between various slightly different kinds of hypothetical weaponry probably never occured to them. --CalculatinAvatar 20:26, 31 March 2006 (CST)

I never said it wasn't an excuse for production error, though I doubt it was so much error as "it looked cool". However, since the show's full of production errors to explain away (I'd love for someone to explain to me why they bothered dressing up guns in the miniseries but stopped in the TV series as anything other than laziness) and we have been explaining them away all over this wiki, I don't understand why this one should be any different. =P --David Templar 21:28, 31 March 2006 (CST)

It might be widespread, but I don't have to be happy about it. --April Arcus 22:21, 31 March 2006 (CST)

Haha, fair enough. Believe me when I say I prefer tight scripts over fanwanking any day, despite my ability to fanwank with the best of them. That unfortunate skill came from the nightmarishly long 7 years of Voyager and not nearly short enough 4 years of Enterprise... And with RDM's aversion to technobabble and reluctance to keep military/tech advisors on hand, BSG is a series destined to go down the path of fanwankery. Hell, even trying to stay consistent between episodes would cut down on the fanwank, they don't need a tech advisor for *that*. --David Templar 22:37, 31 March 2006 (CST)

What makes this case especially egregious is that the cannons have never even been referred to as "railguns" in any canon source. I don't think you can get much worse than fanon fanwank. --April Arcus 22:50, 31 March 2006 (CST)

I shamefully admit my own involvement in that unfortunate incident. I didn't start it, but had a part in continuing it for a time. --David Templar 23:14, 31 March 2006 (CST)

You know, if we were talking about a land-assault vehicle instead of a space ship, that would make this whole thing a case of fanon cannon battletank fanwank. --April Arcus 23:34, 31 March 2006 (CST)

How's this for re-stirring up some muddy water ... image stills submitted for Emmy consideration refer to "railguns" -- Fredmdbud 18:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Gah. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 19:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

Thoughts on what cleanup should be done to this article? JubalHarshaw 07:32, 9 January 2007 (CST)

The first thing, based on the earlier comments here, is to rename this article to something like "Point defense cannons," with the original name redirecting here. Probably, the article's information is otherwise correct in describing their function. I'll take a looksee on the article and then move it--it's had enough time in committee. --Spencerian 10:47, 9 January 2007 (CST)

OK, I looked. This is full of fanwanking and technobabble based on the incorrect name. I will make a major rewrite of this article based on what we have seen these cannons do since the miniseries. --Spencerian 10:49, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Point defence cannons? They appear to be primarily offensive rather then defensive. MatthewFenton 11:17, 9 January 2007 (CST)

The article has been rewritten with extreme fanwanking prejudice, removing all unsourced information. "Railgun" will redirect to this article. The weapons are both offensive as ship-to-ship broadside cannons (as used in "Resurrection Ship, Part II" as well as defensive anti-aircraft batteries (Miniseries, 33, et al). Battlestars appear to rely more on their fighters in most engagements than taking the ship fully into a battle, thus the name. --Spencerian 11:21, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I still wouldn't call them Point defence cannons, the smaller gun turrets I would call point defence however, but still even destroying Raiders seems an offensive move, I suggest moving to Main gun batteries or Kinetinc energy weapons MatthewFenton 11:50, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Agreed. They aren't point defense weapons. Those are the small turrets along the pods. These are called "main batteries" numerous times on the show. Technically, a battery is a group of cannons. They are used for offense and not just defense. One single turret or gun could be called "main gun" maybe. But that's something I'd rather set up as redirect. --Serenity 12:03, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Looks great, thanks! JubalHarshaw 11:27, 9 January 2007 (CST)

These are definitely cannons in that they fire slower than the side guns, but they are multi-use, and I agree on the use of the smaller guns, although they don't seem to aim (what is that article or their naming?). Other name suggestions? "Flak cannons?" (that's definitely what they deliver). A generic "Central batteries" or something? Anything but "railgun" or "gun" is fine with me; I'm not married to this new term. --Spencerian 12:12, 9 January 2007 (CST)

What about the Battery article? -Madbrood 12:20, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Good catch. Totally forgot about that one. I think they should be combined. The battery article is pretty good --Serenity 12:30, 9 January 2007 (CST)

(/me bows) That was one of my "christ-I'm-bored" efforts, with some excellent edits by some of the "big guns" (forgive the pun) on the wiki -Madbrood 12:33, 9 January 2007 (CST)

That's fine with me, too. It has more specific information and combines both types of weapons. Merging would be a good plan. --Spencerian 12:58, 9 January 2007 (CST)

It always appeared to me there were two types of guns on galactica - rapid firing large "machine gun" types for destruction of missiles and flak cannons for destruction of raiders and ships. I think there should two distinct articles for them, any thoughts? --lordmutt 13:24, 9 January 2007 (CST)

General weapons articles organization

This is sort of a reply to LordMutt. The small guns are dealt with here: KEW

But to make it even more confusing, that one also deals with the main guns. So maybe more re-structuring is needed to have less duplication. How about this:
1.) A general weapons "disambiguation" which links to all gun articles. Maybe that one can be called KEW
2.) Seperate subpages for the main battiers, point defense guns (the ones on the pods) and small arms
3.) Possibly one of those category things for guns like recently done with medicine
4.) The only thing I'm not sure about is, where to put are the small craft weapons, as that's about Viper and Raider weapons both

OR: Keep the KEW articles as it is, but delete the part about the main guns and just put a "See main article: Batteries" there instead. --Serenity 13:35, 9 January 2007 (CST)

First 4 points sound good - another point is, should we have seperate Colonial and Cylon gun categories, or should we just mix them together (this is my view, considering the only Cylon guns are AA batteries on the refinery base and Raider cannons) --lordmutt 14:09, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Since the weapons are basically the same - in a sense they are using Colonial weapons technology - seperating them would be kinda pointless IMO --Serenity 14:12, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I think Battery is sufficient (in content at least) for both point-defense guns and flak cannon data. I don't think separating them is a good idea. How about this: We create a new article: "Weapons in the Re-imagined Series" (making it a child article of Science in the Re-imagined Series). This new child details the weaponry for both Cylons and Colonials, summarizing information for topics that need their own separate article just as we do in the Cylon Spacecraft article. This child article can combine KEW and Battery, then also note Cylon weaponry, such as their anti-aircraft batteries, basestar missiles, and Cylon KEW (if we know anything about it). --Spencerian 14:48, 9 January 2007 (CST)

That's probably the best idea. Links it more to already existing tech articles, pulls all weapons related stuff together, while also reducing the duplication present now. It's basically what I had in mind, but I forgot about the "Science..." series. Though I think "Small Arms" could be an own article, thus seperating it a bit from spacecraft weaponry. --Serenity 15:07, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I agree on Small Arms. I may work on this merge a little later if no one beats me to it. --Spencerian 15:34, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Limitations

I took out the Limitations section because all the things it suggest is contrary to onscreen evidence. It went something like this.

"Since its turrets are relatively slow to traverse, a battlestar's main guns would be a poor choice for engaging enemy fighters which are small, fast and extremely maneuverable. They would also be impractical for defending against enemy missile attacks, which would be more suceptible to attack from point defense weapons or Vipers.

The turrets' slow rate of fire also means that a single turret, if left to operate alone - either due to damage, power failure or any other events - may not be a very effective method of attack. It is for this very reason that the turrets are grouped in batteries."

Basically, the above suggests three things. 1. Poor choice for engaging Raiders 2. Impractical for defending against enemy missile attacks 3. Lone turret ineffective

Contrary to the above, we have first of all flak shells for engaging Raiders at the distance, and in fact represent one of the first munitions we ever see Galactica's gun fire. They provide a practical standoff ability to engage distant Raiders, hardly a poor choice.

Secondly, we see Galactica's main guns engage missiles ALL THE TIME. Again, her main batteries are seen as a standoff means of deflecting missiles from basestars. Indeed, her main batteries would be far better at providing anti-missile defence for the fleet than her flak guns due to disbersion issues.

Finally, basestars can't stop a shell. Only reason two batteries is more effective than one is there are two of them.--David Templar 19:51, 14 April 2007 (CDT)

Note of interest, two second firing delay between shots i've noticed, quiet fast for such high calibre guns? --CHr0n0sPh3r3 14:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Galactica and Auto Fire

I think Galactica can use auto fire as well, there's some evidence to suggest this, such as "Valley of Darkness" was one of them (although... now I think of it, I think Cylon Centurions where specifically heading for weapon control...), but there was another episode, "Flight of the Phoenix", where Sharon Agathon (I think that's the episode) suggests that the Cylon virus will eventually take control of the weapons and turn it onto the fleet. Now, if I am wrong with my two pieces of evidence, then I guess I am just wrong, but I am certain there were references somewhere about Galactica<nowiki'</nowiki>s batteries being used in auto-fire. -- Typhoeus 19:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Re-imagined Series definition: Battlestar Group ^{(TRS: "Water")}. It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.

Original Series definition: a Cylon outpost ^{(TOS: "Lost Planet of the Gods, Part I")}