The original BSG was also a generational ship, meaning that the ship was upgraded as technology was upgraded. In a couple of episodes, Apollo went to an old star navigational cockpit, which was obsolete. And as others pointed out, the ship had to carry all its armaments, supplies, etc. The original Galactica also had a shield which was projected out of the front, that could cover a planet. A heavy laser able to damage a Base Ship, also fired out of the front. Nukes that would launch out of the side pillions. And antiaircraft minor lasers for close in defense. The ship had faster than light speed and a cruising speed.
actually surprised it is not bigger .. Battlestars are basically space based Aircraft Carriers... they need all that space to store provisions, fuel, extra parts and the like.
Nope. it was on the order of 2000ft, so a similar scale to Enterprise D. It was referred to as such both in print from one of the annuals (1980 I think) and also by John Dykstra from a TV documentary. I think people are deluded and don't fully comprehend how massive a structure of that size would actually be!!
@@JEDAI501ST I don't recall any mention of crew sizes on screen, at least not in the original series. I tried watching Galactica 1980, but I couldn't finish it. It was awful.
I was a fan of the original BSG and the scale of the ship was stated. In feet it was just over 2000 feet long. The landing bays were supposed to be aprox. the same size as a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier. The big white engines were the sublight/battle engines and the center red engine was the FTL Powerplant. The Vipers could also exceed lightspeed, they were the fastest known ships until they encountered the Crystal Starship Entities. They were supposed to be A.K.A. Angels. The Galactica had anti-fighter double gun turrets and they are not visible on the model because of their small size. It also had a fwd. heavy laser cannon, the round bit on the tip of the nose. It was powerful enough to destroy every ICBM of a planet with one shot or to destroy a Cylon baseship in close battle engagements. It also had H-Bomb missles that could destroy capital ships but were only used close in cause of jamming of their guidance systems by the Cylons. Plus they had shields.
There was (and as you can see, still is) a lot of back and forth about the actual size, because there was no sense (or perceived need for) continuity back then. Artists, designers, and producers could say anything they wanted, and since they hadn't agreed on anything beforehand, could and often did have different takes...which from OUR perspective, are all equally authentic and all mutually exclusive! The emphasis in science fiction (at least for the mass media offerings) was the FICTION part, there was little concern for How Things Worked, it was all Pure Frickin' Magic. Especially with Star Wars and their space wizards. If you wanted more realism, you read books ("the way a true fan should!"), the "hard" science fiction like E.E. "Doc" Smith. I'm sure this brings back memories. This was a real divide between the "media fans" and the established "First Fandom", and on the media-fan side, schisms between single-IP devotees and broad spectrum multifans. The schism on the reader's side was convention-goers (smaller, less commercial affairs, nothing like today's Comic Cons) versus non-convention-goers. It was a mess, but a glorious mess.
@@erikaromanibarra4094 I've been using 1852 meters (one nautical mile/6076ft) as a length. It fits when you use a 30 foot length for the Vipers and the size of the launch tubes. I've based it off of the shooting model and screenshots of the Viper launching from the launch bays.
You have to remember something about both Galactica's, they're really really old. I'm not sure about the new show, but in the original, they said Galactica was 500 years (yarns) old. In that time, both ships would have been retro fitted and modified extensively. For instance, they don't show it in any of the models here, but the original had an observation dome over the engines that was once used for navigational readings. As for the size of Galactica. The size comparisons make sense. Again, Galactica and the BSG universe was not as advanced as Star Trek. There were no structural integrity fields or advanced materials. Everything had to be reenforced to hold up against direct weapons fire or even having ships crash into them. So the hull was probably several feet thick, as well as all the bulkheads. This would dramatically increase it's overall size.
i would say you should watch the pilot, but i hate the destruction of the colonies, its sofreaking awful, still its sorta worth watching etc, trying to watch caprica first might be easier for you etc
Seeing her go toe to toe with a Cylon Basestar one on one was epic in the very last episode of the 1978 series. I own the entire Battlestar Galactica TOS series on DVD.
I was 23 when the show came out, and I remember reading a magazine article at the time interviewing Glen Larson about the movie and upcoming TV show. At the time, Larson said the Galactica was "two miles long" - - - that would be 10,560' or 3,218 meters. Also, the Galactica does have some sort of shields - during a Cylon attack, Adama orders "Positive Shields!" The Cylon Baseships were of similar size (not as long, but much wider - being saucers); they carried 300 Cylon Raiders (fighters) - twice as many as a battlestar's 150 Vipers (although Wikipedia says battlestars only carried 75 Vipers - maybe they meant per hanger deck? - I can't imagine how a battlestar could face 300 Raiders with just 75 Vipers!). Just FYI.
Throughout the series, Adama orders 'Positive Shield' to engage Armored Plating over the CIC's view port. However, in one episode they show the Galactica Fighting multiple Basestars and firing a 'Broadside' of missile (which miraculously transform into lasers) and just before the order to fire the missiles the order to "Drop Electronic Screens" is given.
Battlestars were on the order of 2000ft, so a similar scale to Enterprise D. It was referred to as such both in print from one of the annuals (1980 I think) and also by John Dykstra from a TV documentary. I think people are deluded and don't fully comprehend how massive a structure of that size would actually be!! For it to be even a MILE long is utterly ridiculous given how it's visually depicted in the TV shows. A similar scale to a Galaxy class ship is much more realistic.
Yes, they did show missiles turning into "laser" blasts (it was the 70's, and SFX were still pricey in spite of their infancy). This happened during "The Living Legend" episode (later converted into the "Mission: Galactica" movie which included bits and pieces from the "Fire in Space" epsisode), and it was the PEGASUS that initially fired the missiles. This was also shown in the "Hand of God" episode where GALACTICA went head to head with one Cylon basestar. Ironic, that episode put the fleet so close to Earth after receiving a transmission from the APOLLO-11 mission and its iconic statement, "Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed". Then again, I could be wrong.
Some of the computer displays indicated electronic "screens" as well. Nobody knows exactly what they were... some people think they were protection against kinetic damage (which would be why all the weapons were "laser" based).
Todd P. "Positive shields" closes armored plates over the bridge windows, while "negative shields" retracted them. I taped the show when Sci-fi Channel aired it decades ago, & confirmed my earlier memory.
Many thanks guys love these videos! I remember a warning before this film started in the ABC cinema back in 1978 here in the UK about the film being in 'sensoround' thanks again!!
You really get a sense of the hugeness in the fire episode. The engineering powerplants are massive. Probably 2/3 of the ship is powerplants and support systems.
I seem to recall that the size of the TOS Galactica was 2 miles in length. This from the novelization of the pilot by Glen Larson. Homework: Find the book and find the reference. That would pass as 'cannon' for me.
IN the novels the battlestars weren't all the same design or size. The Galactica was described as a sleek, multi-level craft while others were more bulky. And after the destruction of the Pacifica the Galactica was the largest ship in the Fleet
To give you all an idea of where the overall shape of the Galactica, you must remember that there is a heavy influence from Egyptian lore. The basic design is a form of Scarab in nature.
The original Battlestar Galactica was on loan to the Vancouver Expo 86 for the duration of the event. It was on display in the big silver ball science building.
It did go light speed in one of the episodes. I remember Ty telling Adama "it's been a while since the old girl has been brought up to light speed"... they left the fleet behind to fight, I believe in living legend.
thanks for your time in doing TOS BSG, it doesn't get much love and its a shame.. the original Vipers, the helmets, the uniforms, the Galactica, Cylons, all of it! (including BSG 1980)
Remember that you essentially have two crews onboard, much like a CVN. You have the ship’s crew who run the ship and the air wing: pilots, A&P personnel, avionics techs, deck crew: ordnance, plane handlers, fueling, catapult (launch tube), some version of an LSO. Easily 5000 people especially if the ship is configured for 150 fighters plus support craft
I like the mythical side of the BG. Supercarrier, ancient pyramid, Noah's Ark in space, humanity's castle keep so I am ok with the "actual" size and specs being a bit of a mystery 😎.
I thought the new Galactica looks "ribbed" because it was being decommissioned and was missing a lot of its armour plating. When the Pegasus was introduced it looked a lot smoother than the Galactica did.
In the "Razor" episode, they show a fully armored Battlestar fighting two base stars so, yeah. I'm guessing the outer armor was depleted Uranium/Tungsten and they were removing it in places for reuse during De-com. I'm pretty sure they build those things out in a dessert then engage the jump drive. That sort of construction technique would be more efficient, and almost demand, to make these ships solid, massive, heavily armored fortresses. This would mean that if a Battlestars armor was damaged, it would cost a small fortune to ship it into space, so it was probably a lot cheaper to rip off plates from one that is being decommissioned than to bring it a new one. So, yeah. I agree.
Okay. I was a big fan of the show. I wrote my own stories, & illustrated them with my own endless pix of Cylons, Colonial Warriors, Vipers, Raiders, the Galactica bridge & the Galactica itself. I could do so because I subscribed to Starlog Magazine, so had all of their pix; I got the packet of Official Blueprints, the Making-Of book, the Photo Novel, & the Storybook (aimed at kids). So, I had LOADS of picture reference to work from, and-- after we got a VCR-- I bought all the episodes available on VHS. Years later, when Sci-Fi Channel aired all old TV series, I taped the whole thing. So, I've seen a LOT of reference! And, here's what I worked out from the reference I had: Both ends of the hangar bay are open to space. The narrow slit at the front is maybe one-&-a-half stories high, to facilitate the launch of shuttles, which were themselves fairly large, boxy craft with steps up to the passenger compartment, & a cargo bay in back large enough to accommodate a pair of Landram or Snowram armored vehicles. The aft opening is more likely two stories tall. Galactica was a purpose-built warship, so presupposed hasty combat landings. Vipers & shuttles both landed at back. There was never anything to suggest an open tube, so I never drew my deck plans that way. Viper launch had their own compartment along the length of the launch & landing bays. It stands to reason that the horizontal connector to the central body is how the crew move ships, fuel, firefighting equipment, & other gear to and from the bays. Galactica did have elevators (ascention tubes) & shuttle cars used primarily to speed Viper pilots to the lifts down to their waiting ships. Some history from my various Official story sources: the Colonies fought the Cylon Empire for a thousand years (yahren), but the Galactica, the Caprican flagship, was only 500 years old. It was still active-duty, though obviously had been updated over time. In the last episode aired, we were introduced to Captain Apollo's favorite meditation spot, a decommissioned "stardome". It was explained that it used to be used as an aid in navigation. It was a transparent dome w/ chair & console, whose armored shield could be retracted. He used it now to listen to deep-space chatter. I have a quibble about the reboot Galactica shown. I know for a fact-- from interviews with the conceptual artist & model "builder" in Starlog Magazine-- that the erratically ribbed hull was meant to convey STRIPPED OFF ARMOR, since it was, after all, a decommissioned ship, & in the process of being converted into a museum. Large parts of the spearhead bow & the hangar bays are supposed to be plated. Again, I have lots of picture reference from Starlog & the Official Battlestar Galactica Magazine.
The original Galactica seemed to have shields, though an effect was never shown. Adama, at the start of a battle, usually orders "Shield" or "Positive Shield". This is usually accompanied by heavy blast doors closing around the main viewport. In addition, in a MUCH later episode, the Galactica is shown projecting a visible energy shield around an entire planet, to protect it from a missile bombardment. If they had the ability to do that, it only makes sense that they were using similar tech, to protect the ship, itself.
If I remember correctly, there were rail cars in the Galctica, The ship according to the original lore, the ship was 500 yaren (year) old. I think the big indent in the side to me seems to be what used to be a landing dock. years of remits over the centuries with technical changes and so forth
BSG propulsion: Mass Concentrated Drive with Polarized Variometry where the engines themselves are the drivers both sub light and greater than light speed available upon command with no thrust vector required...
The TOS Galactica was HUGE. In fact, there were whole areas of the ship that many people hardly ever went into. Case in point, was one episode in which Starbuck and Apollo took two women up to one of the old astrometric pods for some privacy. People even forgot they were even there. Anyway, the machinery of this ship is HUGE and largely automated to such a degree that it doesn't really need that many people to maintain it relative to its size. So, the turrets that we 'do' see scattered around the hull are also freakishly huge. These babies were built to be nearly indestructible. They had to be as the close distance when engaging Cylon capital ships was so that they could use the few "mega weapons" they had at near point blank range so jamming wouldn't be an issue. Anyway, good episode, guys! :)
The Galactica went Lightspeed (maybe Faster Than Light) as needed but I don't recall any of the civilian, or non-military, ships being able to go that fast. I only watched the first season so I can't speak for Galactica 1980
@@TheAchilles26 That's logic speaking, as opposed to what the show actually did. Writers weren't concerned with stellar cartography (that was a dry, nerdy profession), they just wrote stories in whatever settings would make them work.
The Captains wrong. The little slots running lateral to the landing bay is where they would launch Vipers from, remember the long tunnels they would launch from? So the size of the Galactica would be huge.
No way... the 1000+ meter estimates are much more accurate. Galactica was huge, so big that you couldn't even tell where fighters were in relation to her unless they were flying near a major feature such as the flight decks or bridge. The launch tubes were so long it took the Vipers nearly 3 seconds to clear at turbo boost speed. That "Nazi" frigate was able to land in one of the bays and didn't even look all that big sitting there in comparison with the scope of her.
I have meet a guy/guys at halcon who has been building a studio scale model and have been try to hunt down all of the off the shelf model kits they used to build the original model back in the day. Most of those kits are no longer available so its very difficult to get many of them. There is a lot of casting of parts that where re used like a tank model kit that is use along the top side of the engine sections. I take pictures of it ever year and they have been working on it for over 7 years now I believe. Its a beautiful peace of work and will likely be complete this time next year.
BSG TOS pilot came out at the movie theaters first and it was in "Sensurround" which was very cool. The theaters had huge booming speakers and the seats had motors in them that made them shake. it was very cool. I saw Midway in sensurround, when one of the aircraft carriers got hit with a bomb you could feel it to the bone.
Yes she does have FTL capabilities and in the Pilot movie she did go to FTL when she left the fleet to go to Caprica ,and even mentions going to FTL in the series.Also the ship ran on fuel,needed a huge water supply,and also carried over 2000 people after they fled their system.They also had to have a huge space for energy Generation...They had 2 huge energy cells that literally ran and powered the ship,and that takes up over 1/3 of the middle section(they also supplied energy to all the generators for the laser turrets.)Most of the hanger decks were involved with the fighter's and shuttle craft maintenance and and also rebuilding fighter's.You are correct that for the most part the front was for the command deck and living quarters,but their was also quarters all over depending on where people worked at.....Also remember there was also horizontal and vertical elevators to get people around the ship because of it's size.1 thing to keep in mind,the shape of the ship means nothing in space,don't need a smooth shape of a ship since 98% of the time your in zero gravity.The 2 main opening's are the sublight drives.....the 4 underneath are thrusters...the Red section is what allows for FTL flight. You should see some schematics here to get a better understanding here-images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVxbTbFFau0oAl51XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyOXA2Mm50BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjQ0ODFfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=battle+star.......it gives some better perspectives on just how big it was and what were the engines on it and where they were located....i hope this helps
Thanks for the size comparison. The problem with ship models back in the day is that no one gave a thought to actual weapon on the ship. In Star Wars, the Falcon has a couple of turrets, but you never see them on the Star Destroyers. Likewise, the Battlestar and Base Star never showed the big gun emplacements on the ship. We just saw the closeups of anti-fighter guns, but no clue where they were on the actual ship.
The new Galactica actually has armor over a good portion of the ribbing, which is in itself a form of armor. The Regular armor plating goes over the ribbing so keeping most damage away from the actual hull.
During this show Galactica was already over thousand years old, and in one episode they explored a sectioned off part of the ship not opened for a few centuries. From various episodes you get the impression this ship was gigantic, and under manned.
The ribbing on the new Galactica would normally not be seen. It is a sub frame the armour plates are attached too. You could see the ribs on Galactica in the show because she was part way through being decommissioned at the time of the Cylon attack.
I have a few headcanon thoughts from when I watched the show: The main sublight engines are the big blue glowing parts on the back, and are more or less big rockets of some kind similar to what are visible in Star Wars ships. The red part in the middle, was an additional sublight system, likely an auxiliary engine for emergency use and as a boost of sorts. Basically, it was like the middle propeller on the Titanic, extra power, slightly different power source/method, etc. For the FTL drive, I always envisioned it as something similar to Star Wars, and it was an internal component within the ship. (Though, it's apparently never seen, so, hard to tell) The round bits on top forward of amidships, I figure are extra bits of armor plating over reactors, similar to the reactor bulge/dome on the bottom of Imperial star destroyers. I also figure that the missiles were side mounted, based on the original Pegasus's fight with a pair of Cylon Base Stars, maybe in the side of forward portion. I also seem to remember the bridge being more inset to the bow, rather than raised as seen in the fan model. Anyways, those are my thoughts on the matter. Good content as always!
You have an interesting take on things. If the claims of the scale of Galactica are as true as they appear in the video starting at 6:38 and the standard crew compliment was less than 800 people then I'd have to guess that the reason the ship is so big may be that the FTL drive takes up a lot of space. The FTL drive is never seen and I don't think Main Engineering was ever seen on the show so I think this is a good enough reason for what took up all that extra space.
I was a kid when the show first aired, and I remember reading a number of articles about the design of the ship. From what I recall, at the time of the events of the show, the battlestars were about 1,000 years (yarens?) old. I also remember that the Galactica and her sister battlestars could carry up to 10,000 people. The Galactica was actually inspired by the shape of a crocodile. I don't have the tech manual, so I don't know how this info correlates to what is in the book. Can you also do an episode on some of the other ships shown in BSG TOS, such as the shuttle (I really liked that little ship), some of the more well-shown ships in the 200-ship ragtag fleet, and that Morton-Thiokol-built vehicle from the episode The Gun on Ice Planet Zero. Thanks.
I remember once they did a jump. Think a second time but not 100 percent sure. In the very first episode, they jumped from where they were back to try and defend the homeworld. Starbuck went off about being left behind. That is how they were able to rescue so many who would have died otherwise.
22:00 Samuel, she's missing her armor!!! that's the unarmored space frame. you look at Blood & Chrome where she's fully armored she looks completely different.
No no no. Not that it matters as it's all fiction and as always there's contradictions, but Battlestars were on the order of 2000ft - so about twice the length of a Constitution starship. I remember clearly reading in one of the show's annuals a sentence describing it "... this 2000 foot behemoth of a ship had..." Surely this must be obvious from watching the TV show where you get many opportunities to see the scale compared to Vipers, window placements etc. To show it here as more than twice the length of a Galaxy class is ludicrous!
My old book of the series states the same scale, it's tucked away somewhere. it was mentioned that the Battlestar was scrounged from different model kits (kit bash) I believe for the engineering section toward the stern of the ship, were the wheel sections of sherman tanks?..(or maybe panzers). It is a beautiful design and I enjoyed the original movie pilot and tv series, couldn't quite get into 1980. I picked up an TOS Cylon Basestar model (about 30cm diameter) at a garage sale for $1, I was a happy BSG fan haha.
actually as this video has auto rolled into auto play. The annual that this information comes from says it is a perfect 2000 ft in length or 609 m, so what source can ya trust ;)
The original BSG did jump to light speed. It left the battle to go to Caprica in the first episode, and the viper pilots were pissed. then Adama was dismayed that all other Battlestars had been destroyed at the first battle. Except Pegasus of course that was explained to be some where else at the time and not at the original battle.
As for Samuel's question about landing and launching, Vipers launched from the front at high speed via accelerators. Otherwise, the stern of the pods are the only landing and launch areas.
Something to point out about the "TNG" version of the Galactica is that it was ribbed because the armor was in the process of removal. In Blood and Crome it fully armored.
Hi guys! To answer some of your questions about the original Galactica: I never figured out until YEARS later when watching the DVDs that the huge rectangular "holes" in the primary hull were laser cannon turret bays--there were turrets on the bottom and hanging from the top. We never saw turbo elevators as in Star Trek (although as big as it was it HAD to have had a similar system), but we DID see an elevator in the launch/recovery area that was similar to the elevator in the Enterprise-D's Engineering room. When an alert was called, the fighter pilots had a sort of mini-monorail that could hold about ten pilots which rushed them from their billets to the launch bays. The Vipers were launched from the launch tubes on the sides of the giant landing pods--but shuttles and other craft were launched out of and recovered in the back of the landing bays, just as in Star Trek's Enterprise. There were only 3 episodes in which a Battlestar went to lightspeed: The Pegasus in "The Living Legend" and the Galactica in "Saga Of A Star World" (The pilot episode) and "Experiment In Terra". The Galactica used a fuel called Tylium which was highly combustible! (In the pilot episode, a few hand laser shots in a gigantic Tylium mine set fire to the deposits--which eventually blew up the planet! One of the LEAST believable things EVER in TV sci-fi! LOL) The Tylium was stored in liquid form, so that could account for all the giant pipes, etc. we see on the bottom of the secondary hull (which is probably devoted mostly to Tylium storage) that feed those huge engines in the Engineering section! All in all, a very interesting episode in which I learned a few things and I hoped I cleared up some things for you. :) Please do the Space:1999 Eagle soon! It's my favorite spaceship after the TOS Enterprise! Another suggestion for a future episode would be my very first TV starship--Gerry Anderson's FIREBALL XL5! I first saw it when I was about 6 years old in 1965! Notice how much it looks like the NX-prototype in ST Enterprise's "First Flight"! The method of launching is even the same! PS: I had a HUGE crush on Cassiopea (Laurette Spang), too! ;)
The battlestars did have electronic shields mentioned in several episodes. Armaments, I believe were 48 turbo laser turrets, two mega pulsars to engage other capital ship's and missiles. The original ship could only travel at light speed but had to limit itself to the speed of the slowest ship's in the fleet yet over the course of the series managed to travel through two galaxies so it must have been able to somehow manipulate time and space. The filming model was built on a 80 foot for every inch scale making it 6080 feet lo g
On the TRS model, there is suppose to be a lot more hull plating over the ribbing from the series. In Blood and Chrome, the Entire ship had hull platting and a lot more gun turents along the spine.
I have always seen the Galactica as being this large. The middle area between the landing bays house the maintenance hangers, storage for the vipers, shuttles, ordinance, fuel, and perhaps the barracks for the pilots. The engines are huge. Remember we have a heavily armored vehicle with a very large mass so we would need a lot of power to push the ship. There must be maneuvering thrusters all over the hull. The front top is the bridge. The front area also has crew quarters, the council of12 meeting room, security officers, and other offices like duty offices. The ship has multiple decks as well. I served on a Nimitz class aircraft carrier back in the 80s. Much of the ship was the hanger bays, the flight deck, propulsion systems, armament storage, fuel, water storage and facilities that turned saltwater into freshwater. I can see the Galactica being as large as the scale suggests. How thick is the armor on the ship?
The reimagined Galactica model is not right. The ship is not fully ribbed. She is quite generously covered in armor plating and some of her sister ships are even fully covered. Galactica: s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/bf/61/42/bf6142aa8853b15109982f4b722283f9.jpg Columbia: media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/27/26776/Columbia.png
thunberbolt two I'm talking about this specific comparison. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fUHksT2HpLw.htmlm52s They complain the new Galactica is all ribbed, but she is really not in the new series.
This is the second time I have watched this video and only just thought of a possible reason why the Galactica could be as big as some people say, if you look at the landing bays and see them as being the length of an aircraft carrier take off and landing deck then the size speculated would make more sense especially taking into account that the Vipers are rocket powered. I have been a fan of Battlestar Galactica since I saw it in it's original run, I have the full series in the Cylon head collector tin. I like your videos a lot and sometimes I re watch an episode to see if there is anything I missed, which I sort of did with this one. Cheers.
You guys ! The Galactica was huge. It had multiple launch tubes from the sides of the launch bays. The shuttles alone were 40 or 50 foot long. They could land 2 or 3 across in the landing bays. As for the turbo lasers, many were nested in between the launch tubes in the trenches. Some were scattered over the top and bottom as well. The studio model of the Big G didn't have lasers, but they had a larger model to represent the lasers. In the fight scenes you see where the laser blasts come from. Then they cut to a larger model of the laser guns. This was one big mamma jamma ! It was supposed to be a space aircraft carrier. The studio model is over 7 foot long. That of course doesn't help with the actually scale size. I just say BIG !
Coming up on on the final episodes, Apollo drags Starbuck and their girlfriends to the top of the ship to communications domes that had not been used since before the attack on the colonies, those domes pointed out in your video could be one of the domes Apollo went to.
the new Battlestar Galactica was in the process of being decommission so the armor was being removed, so the imagine here isn't full armor, plus Battlestar ships are built to take beaten, throwing nukes and Fusion missiles are the same power level if not more then photons or quantum torpedoes,
Actually in BSG Razor she is shown with the reduced armor (it has been surmised this is actually a stronger design as it limits the radius of the explosion damaging only the section between the ribs that is hit). Three other Battlestars are shown with the same gun layout, but full armor in the same battle however. In Blood and Chrome it is also shown in two different gun layouts (one with guns long intire dorsal side, the other with most of these guns removed, but more added to the "head" section of the ship)and full armor. B&C takes place earlier than Razor's battle however so various modernizations of the ship design is likely. Another Gal type Battlestar is seen in the Miniseries with the same reduced armor configuration as Gal post 1st war.
The series bible mentions the ribbing as being extra protection from incoming fire. My theory is that the first Battlestars were designed to stand off with fighters and missiles and guns last, but as the Cylons had the ability to hijack missiles, they had to rely more in fighters and guns. That's when they added extra "whipple" armour to protect against nukes and prevent "shot traps" when hit by them. Because the Galactica didn't have enough guns they added extra turrets that were simply bolted on to the exterior. All that extra mass made the Galactica class ships slow and strained their frames (as seen near the end of the series) and they were removed as Galactica was phased out in favour of newer, better ships near the end of the war.
If nukes and fusion weapons were as powerful,or more,then photon and quantum torpedoes then the star trek universe would use them instead because they would be a lot less expensive to make,to create anti-matter alone,in the real world,takes a huge amount of energy conversion/processing as it takes an alternative power source,likely fusion for star trek fission for us,to create anti-matter in the first place,it's a very inefficient way to get larger amounts of power. So the fact they don't use such weapons suggests they are not powerful enough to defeat the shields or armor of the star trek universe.
folks Dykstra who supervised filming the Galactica special effects said the Battle Star Galactica is 1 mile long (5280 feet long) the launch bays in the Studio model however should be smaller. the battle star galactica is 8 standard city blocks long
The original did have FTL.....Adama used it to race back to Caprica. Col Tigh even said that it had been a long time since the Galactica had been pushed to that speed.
We also have to remember this was made like a sub -- the outer decks mostly thick armor and cavities so when it was hit they didn't all die. There are no shields. That takes up a lot of space.
On this version of Galactica the Vipers would launch from the front of the landing bays, and land at the rear. Shuttle craft would take off and land from the rear. On the 2003 Galactica Vipers would launch from the side, and use the length of the bay as a landing strip.
Hah, I was around 12 and in junior high when BSG TOS came out. It was both brilliant and cheesy, and they spent a huge amount on their bridge with real computers of the time. But the show had a great family crew feel and had some very good stuff. -- I miss my old Cylon Raider toy, haha. I don't recall who did the original BSG ship model, but I think it may have been ILM; I think Doug Dykstra was involved in the effects. Both Ralph McQuarrie and Andrew Probert were involved in early production design. Really cool video, guys, thanks! (LOL, as a kid, I really wanted one of those Colonial Warrior jackets, but they were too pricey and I was a pre-teen. -- I know there were old Starlog Magazine articles on the show, with publicity stills, and there was a Battlestar Galactica book on the making of the show, an encyclopedia or compendium. Unfortunately, I think my copy got ruined from water damage in a move. But the book gave lots of background on the show, great stuff.
I still remember when 'Glenn Larson' decided to hold the shows series premier in a theater in Utah, and my family was invited to attend watch the premier when I was barely like 5 years old, and my pop got to meet & hang out with one of his favorite actors, since 'John Colicos' was also there attending the premier aswell... That was a great night, especially when we got to see its full pilot (in theater) rather then on mono speaker television, as was the norm for everyone back then.. It was a mind blowing experience to a little kid, one that actually rivaled seeing Starwars in theater when it first came out aswell... lol! As for the gauging of ships size... I think it'd be better for you not to base it off of the Viper's & their launch bays only, but also to try and gauge the size of it, from the series scenes when the large Colonial shuttle craft were also shown to be landing on it and coming inside the landing bays aswell (I think that if you just based it soley off of the vipers & their launch bay scales, it would probably come up short by atleast a few feet (height wise), for the needed landing bays "interior landing bay ceiling heights & size", when it came to trying to successfully land & fit a colonial shuttle craft in the Galactica's bays)
Love the look of this ship. Never had FTL drive. The flight pods didn't retract. But you gotta like the wedged front and bulbus back. The Vipers were launched from the tubs in the lower decks of the flight pods, and always land from the rear of the BS. Larger shuttles launch from the front of the flight pods. FTL drives as used in the latter BSG are not thrusters, they are more like transporters.
The main Stickler on the BSG (series-1) ship size, was usually based on the debate on the Viper Landing Bay's ceiling height's and how large they needed to be to land (not really the vipers (though they were a part of the reasonings) but primarily the colonial shuttles, which were the main sizing culprits (which were much taller in height then the vipers were (do to some of their design usages as not only personel transports, but also as (transport: lander & deployer craft ~ for the colonial ground assault vehicles ~ Which we got to see periodically driving around the ground on occasion, through the old movie & series) that was what usually caused the ship to be so much larger on the fanbase interpretation charts, then what the makers original technical spec sizes detailed...
Ah, the original Galactica. The only spacecraft that looks as though it still runs on diesel. And my favorite of them all by some distance. And like the captain, I must've built this out of Lego about a zillion times.
About to showy age. One Battlestar Galactica actually was a feature film, it and Star Wars were in production at the same time. Star Wars made it into theatres first, by about six months. The BSG pilot is actually the theatrical release broken into two parts. As for the FTL, the sunlight's and FTL used the same thrusters, when in FTL they were noticeably brighter. Most weapon mounts were pop-up style and flush with hull unless in use. as for scale, use the viper launch tubes, they were tewenty by twenty feet in size. the front of the bays is actually the missile launch tubes.
Same team that designed, built and filmed the original Star Wars models did Galactica too. They made the greebles more chunky on purpose so they would give it visible texture on standard-definition TV's of the late 1970's. Galactica was ALWAYS supposed to be at LEAST 1200m long, and if you scale the size of the Viper launch tubes to the size of the Viper fighter you get something around 1200m - 1600m - I've done the measurements myself and it works out.
Another thing to remember about Galactica is that they did not have replicators. Therefore, the Galactica would need even more space to store necessities. Also, Captain Foley, you're wrong about the new Galactica being ugly. No.
To further your comment about storage..... In addition to food storage for prolonged deployments, Battlestars had to carry both its own fuel and Viper fuel internally in large quantities, unlike ST universe where ships could replenish themselves and collect stellar gases. In the new BSG, the ammo magazine to store all the shells for Galactica's main turrets and perimeter defense weapons would be absolutely enormous to sustain the rate of fire we saw in episodes with battle scenes.
Kevin Horstmann. does the new bsg have laser torpedoes? it would be odd for them to have conventional nukes, cased projectile ammo for their fighters but something as nonsensical as laser torpedoes.
i love the way you compare everything to a ship the creators said they made smaller then the shown internal space and they realized the mistake too many years late to fix it
The crew complement probably doesn't include air crew, just the people needed to run the ship herself. And she did go to light speed once in the show during The Ice planet episode i believe.
In the episodes "THE LIVING LEGEND",commander Cain tells Adama that he'll see if he can bring the PEGASUS "up to light speed.",so the PEGASUS did reach the speed of light in the episodes "THE LIVING LEGEND,PARTS 1 and 2.
It's funny Foley mentions the top round things looking like they unscrew. Now I haven't watched all of original BSG(the camp was just too much), but on the new Galactica I think I recall the one with the cross shape is the FTL drive that "spools up" and the open with the red circle is where the nukes are.
The galactica was so big that the pilots had to take little tram cars to get to the hangar decks. I missed that in the reimagined series. A ship this big needs a transit system
There were a few occasions where they said about accelerating up to light speed, once on the Pegasus (in Living Legend part 2) and once on Galactica very similar to Motion Picture or accelerating up to a speed not FTL jumping like the new show. At least one of the domes was shown on the show to be a form of ancient navigation system as Galactica was suppose to be a very old ship according to Commander Adama when he mentioned the dome was on old navigation dome. Shuttles and ships like the Alliance destroyer launched from the front. The ribbing on the new Galactica is probably where they took a lot of the armor off during decommissioning, Pegasus was still a ship of the line so didn't have that as she was a newer ship.
Correction: The Cylons were originally envisioned by the great Ralph McQuarrie of Star Wars fame (as well as the battlestar design) but Andrew Probert did the most of the design afterwards. McQuarrie came up with the silver body, raised crest on top of the head, the triangular mouth piece and the scanning eye light even though his was blue. (I’d love to see how the Cylons came about in their in universe history-maybe when Count Iblis gained control that’s when the scanners turned red.) Also, the “dashboard” of the Cylon Raider in the show is exactly as McQuarrie’s painting of the inside of the craft.
