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It would be idiotically stupid to put (probably) several million cubic feet of dead space between the hull and the armor itself. Not to mention the fact that all of the access points, airlocks, launch tubes, gigantic thruster jets (I assume that's on the bow, both sides). Something that big you don't leave up to "we'll pack the foam insullation in later, let's call it a day here" type of construction.

No... The folks saying that are grasping at straws. You rip part of the hull off a modern warship today, you won't see a few ribs and then a perfect hull underneath. It's integral. It's also hiding plumbing, and has stuff packed into every square inch. To suggest the armor was stripped off Big-G implies they had the entire surface of the ship to put stuff in (old tech, remember? Big, bulky, not small) yet left it blank. Silly thought!

Although... Sometimes I do wonder about the logic of just tiny strips along the ribs... They felt "this room" needed protection, but the ones above and below did not? I'd have thought more of the armor would stretch down by design. I don't believe the "armor removed" arguments tho, so this is a bit of a mystery.

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Although... Sometimes I do wonder about the logic of just tiny strips along the ribs... They felt "this room" needed protection, but the ones above and below did not? I'd have thought more of the armor would stretch down by design. I don't believe the "armor removed" arguments tho, so this is a bit of a mystery.

Like any warship, it's a compromise. In this case it may be done to save mass: provide the heaviest protection only where you need it the most. One thought I have read concerning the ribbing is that it protects equipment in between the ribs from nuclear detonations, providing a barrier from radiation and other effects.

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I think it's just there to look cool and make the hull look busy, and that it does well. There wasn't a whole lot of techno babble on Galactica to build an entire technology from like Star Trek. I think the show was more about the interpersonal drama and the clawing their way across space with death at every turn aspect rather than the technology. What's the quickest way to get away from the Star Trek look? Add a lot of texture and make it un-streemlined.

My two cents.

Curt

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I think it's just there to look cool and make the hull look busy, and that it does well. There wasn't a whole lot of techno babble on Galactica to build an entire technology from like Star Trek.

That doesn't mean that others aren't free to speculate on the functions of what they see. Sure, there's the "cool" factor, but fun can be had in trying to explain why things are the way they are in a certain design. Conversely, the lack of technobabble in BSG as broadcast doesn't necessarily mean there isn't technical discussion behind the scenes.

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That doesn't mean that others aren't free to speculate on the functions of what they see. Sure, there's the "cool" factor, but fun can be had in trying to explain why things are the way they are in a certain design. Conversely, the lack of technobabble in BSG as broadcast doesn't necessarily mean there isn't technical discussion behind the scenes.

True, true...

I wasn't trying to stop the discussion...lol I have often wondered how the jump thing works. The engine looks interesting.

Curt

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It would be idiotically stupid to put (probably) several million cubic feet of dead space between the hull and the armor itself. Not to mention the fact that all of the access points, airlocks, launch tubes, gigantic thruster jets (I assume that's on the bow, both sides). Something that big you don't leave up to "we'll pack the foam insullation in later, let's call it a day here" type of construction.

Actually I think the "dead space" possibility makes pretty good sense. Kind of the same concept they started using on the armor in Iraq like the Stryker's cage armor. A laser blast hits the outside armor and because it's not a pressurized enclosed area behind it and therefore no oxigen to burn so it deflects a potentially huge explosion and takes the impact away from the sealed area. While it's true that is a LOT of empty space, it's a relatively small area when looking at the size of the ship as a whole. I don't know if I'd go with the removed armor theory though. I feel it's more of added armor plates in key areas, weapons storage, life support systems, etc...

That's just my theory of course. I'll have to consider getting this kit, looks pretty cool.

Bill

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I think we actually do see void areas between the outer hull and the inner pressure hull, particularly towards the end of season four, when they are making repairs to the ship. Whether or not these are always pressurized, or were pressurized only to permit a shirtsleeve environment while working, I don't know.

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I wonder how much of an absolute pain-in-the-butt it would be to try and carve off the armor, hollow out the ribs, rebuild the missing ribs, and then put plastic card panels on top of it (meaning, give it the empty space under the armor back)?

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Tanks have had that type of armor plating going back to WW2 with the "bedspring" armor. The bedspring stuff just looked like hollow open cages stuck to the outside of the tank hull with nothing inbetween and their purpose was to detonate an anti-tank round far enough away from the armor to keep it from penetrating. For BSG, it is more of a matter of "it looks cool, so lets do it" but I do see a method to the madness. Granted it probably isn't very effective with nukes, but it could do the job with conventional rounds. The panels I suppose could also be something more like a reactive armor, where a shaped charge blows back some of the force to deaden the blow. Tanks have had that since the 1980s. But I don't think it would be a good idea to put something like that on a massive ship.

As for the jump drive, it seems to me to look like more of a form of "space fold" drive where space is folded like a piece of paper so the ship almost instantaneously jumps from one point to the next. That conceptual form of faster then light travel has been around in SF circles for years. Dune I think was the first one to popularize it. It is a little different from Trek's concept of warping space (i.e. travelling through a form of subspace to go faster then light, yet still being partly in real-space) or Babylon 5's jump gates to get ships into and out of hyperspace.

Edited by Jay Chladek
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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, about the armor, this has been discussed to death at places like Starshipmodeler. Here's the general consensus, and its what the CGI designers said was the intent...

The ribbing is the way the ship was from the very beginning. The armor wasn't stripped off. It acts like a "shot trap," as it was described, containing the effects of a nuclear blast within a very small area on the hull's exterior. Its supposed to be there.

Now, the issue with that idea is that parts of the ship are clearly covered in armor, so what is it for if the protection system is based on the ribbing?

Then, there's the Columbia problem.

Col1.jpg

The battlestar Columbia, as seen in the movie Razor, carried more armor than Galactica. Whether this was done for fun by the CGI crew or to imply a subtly different design, I don't know, but that fact is what also makes some people believe that Galactica originally carried more armor plate all over. You can clearly see the extra armor around the side of the ship, the "head," and the landing bay. She's got a lot more armor! Perhaps, then, that armor was an extra safety feature designed to protect vital areas of the ship, or extra external reinforcements to beef up the ship's structure. Of course, she could have been built in a different yard that did things a bit differently.

Personally, I like the idea of a ship originally covered in armor, using both protective systems, the armor as the primary and the ribbing as the secondary method, and then having that armor removed as it became damaged over time, or to refit and repair newer and more valuable ships, even if that wasn't what Galactica's CGI designers intended. The weight removal might make such a ship slightly faster to accelerate, as its mass is reduced. There has been some talk, unconfirmed, that some photoetch extra armor plates might be produced at some point in the future to really up-armor the model. We'll see. until then, make what you want of the armor question! Its all fiction, so everyone's opinion is as good as everyone else's!

Robert

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You have made some excellent points. I forgot Columbia was up-armored a bit. And you are correct about SF as well. Greg Jein once said when it came to researching studio model details that one man's BS is just as good as anyone else's. In a sense, the same could be applied to hypothetical discussions about ships. As long as we have fun doing it though. :)

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I've always liked the idea that since each colony originally had a battlestar representing it, that the sponsor-colony had some carte blanche to name and outfit its ship as it saw fit. There was a basic battlestar design, and perhaps each colony paid for its single battlestar representative, and modified it, painted it, etc., to suit its own tastes. Maybe Galactica was supposed to have the armor but Caprica either didn't want it, couldn't afford it, or the ship was needed in combat so fast that it was never applied. Columbia may have had enough yard time to get it done. Columbia was painted up in blue trim instead of Galactica's red trim, so its a decent enough idea. It also means that when painting the Moebius Galactica model the builder will have some latitude to do things differently, and still not be totally out in left field.

Just my two cents, adjusted for inflation. In the end, as you said, its all about having fun. The nice thing about sci-fi modeling is that since its fiction, who is to say that you're wrong? Build it your way and have fun doing it.

Robert

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  • 2 weeks later...

This guy's almost done with his:

http://www.therpf.com/f11/lighted-moebius-galactica-100726/

Awesome!!! ;)

My one major turn-off, however, is the way they did a single-direction molding for most of the armor plates. They mush/blend/fuse down into the ribs over a very noticable distance. Why couldn't they have broken that up into "top + sides"? Mold them all separately? Doesn't seem as bad on the rest, but it's annoyingly apparent all along the watchtow-- uh, the "upper surfaces"...

:deadhorse1:

I'd love to get my hands on one to see how bad the angle really is on this armor down-slope. I'm wondering if you can chip/chisel it off the nose section just to "square off" the undersides a bit?

Might make a subtle improvement.

Ooooh, I'm jonesin' for this kit. I'm worried it will sell out (and have read a couple of folks claim it's sold out by them) but can't afford to get one until probably next year after the holidays.

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  • 1 month later...

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