A note on the Drazi: The reasons there are multiple measurements on Drazi ships is because the Sunhawk and Warbird are 2 different ships that get confused for each other in the series. They both look almost identical except for slight differences, especially in the engine nacelles and the aft section. The Sunhawk is the larger and has the distinct red-orange pulsating 'fusion bulb' at the aft. This is a gravitic engine. The Drazi learned the basics of gravitics from their wars with the Centauri but still lack the ability to apply the tech practically. Tech wise they are more advanced than the Narn but less than the Brakiri or Abbai. This ship as described is only seen in Deathwalker. In seasons 2-5, all Sunhawks that appear on the show were rendered as having an armored rear section with 8 smaller orange-yellow ports visible on each side (they did keep the glowing engine nacelles but they're hard to spot). This change is noted in the AoG books as the Jumphawk command cruiser variant, which is described as a retrofitted Sunhawk with more armor, upgraded weapons, and a jump engine. The Warbird is smaller, maybe 2/3s the size of a Sunhawk, and has a rear section with 6 visible yellow-white panels on each side. Warbirds are seen doing most of the fighting from seasons 3-5. The Warbird variant that carries a Sky Serpent fighter on its back is called a Strikehawk. Seen in Matters of Honor. If you see a Drazi ship that looks big and chunky; bigger than it should be, with wings not swept as far forward as a Sunhawk or a Warbird; that's a Storm Falcon heavy cruiser. One of these is seen in Shadow Dancing. It's the lead Drazi ship after Sheridan says "Carrier groups, come about and engage!" and in this scene you can see Warbirds following it. A second later a Sunhawk/Jumphawk fires a beam that stuns a Shadowship and it is immediately destroyed by another
@@tuscan9617 Thanks! I just have all of the Agents of Gaming B5Wars books. While what you see on the show was animators trying to change things a little at a time to add variety to the show (and the species) we never saw a ship list or tech books about the show. Well AoG were in communications with the B5 writers and animators back then and they took what they were given and put them into their tabletop game - then had the animators render out the variants they made into the fact books and let the writers give them some history.
Oh, and there is also a variant of the Warbird that the Gaim fly in the show. You only see it in Season 4, when the Drakh are harassing Gaim shipping, but if you see a Warbird that has 4 rear facing ion engines, that's the old "export" version of the Warbird the Drazi sell to the other League Races
@@brianwhedon8442 Isnt there a command version of the Sunhawk which is slightly larger to account for more communication equipment? I don't remember seeing it in the show but I thought I recall reading something like that.
I'm glad Babylon 5 is still remembered and such high quality content about it is being produced Edit: I am surprised that Victory class isn't on the list. You know, the oversized White Star with a Vorlon laser. Does it not count because there's too much Vorlon in it, or because when the first ones left we stopped being the younger races?
The Warlock is up there. It's a shame we never really saw much of it in the show. As much as I love the Omega, it can't compete against its replacement.
I was under the impression that the Omega’s weapons were a little weaker than those of the Nova. The Nova’s primary weakness is its slow speed and short range. At close range, a Nova can deliver a lot of punishment, but it was useless during the Minbari War because the Minbari outranged humans by a large margin even without their stealth tech
in a sense you answered your own question. Novas had a lot of cannons but had shitty range. this is great in all, but an omega has far more range. weapon to weapon the omega has them beat. those particle laser cannons aren't a joke by any stretch. so, essentially the nova was kind of obsolete shortly after it was made because it doesn't matter how powerful her cannons were if she has to get point blank to use them. Novas were old i guess. even older than the hyperion class according to some sources. either way, the ship was more of a carrier because its fighter payload was the same omega.
@@chrisd6348 I think the B5 board game also has a dedicated carrier also based on the Nova design. The Poseidon-class super carrier. It had twice the fighter complement of an Omega. I think the board game is considered canon
@@artembentsionov I haven't played the board game but it would make sense that earth would have a supercarrier type ship. omegas and warlocks only have 36 and 42 fighters when they are as big as they are and a aircraft carrier holds 90+ planes. warlocks are something like 2 KM long. i dont see why they couldn't house 200+ fighters.
@@chrisd6348 according to the description, it carried 96 Starfuries of various models (Badgers, Thunderbolts, Muskrats, Stealth). Only a few weapons but a better hyperdrive to allow it to run if confronted. Apparently they were also designed to function as flagships with advanced command and control gear
There is another flaw of the Nova that was corrected by the Omega - artificial gravity. The Nova was limited to shorter duration missions due to the crew being completely weightless. They were great weapons platforms of their day (especially in the Dilgar War) and could hold their own against all other Younger Races ships. It's just the pulse technology it was covered with was no match to the vast ranges Minbari weapons could cover. Novas were deadly to Sharlins IF they got close enough. And like what's seen in In the Beginning, if a Nova survived long enough to cause significant damage to the weapons systems of a Sharlin, it wasn't uncommon for captains to ram their crippled ships right thru them. All the other EA ships of the war didn't have enough mass to utterly destroy a Sharlin by ramming
The Vorlon defense was the organic hull. it learned and adapted to the weapons used against it. Think organic Borg, the older the ship, the more experienced it was and the more developed its countermeasures against weapons were. That is why they could absorb some much damage from the weapons of the younger races.
ok but when you do another remake, I`d like to see Warlock and Victory! also it`s funny that you say humans overpower their ships while listing Sharlin`s weapons next haha
You forgot to mention that the primus had paper thin armour due to the centari using the platform to test particle shields. Other then that i love this list
I never knew this. So what happened to the shields, does it still have them or did the experiment fail and they went ahead with the platform as a standard ship?
@@troyskeete8372 the ships are unshielded in universe at the time of b5. The technology failed almost completely. Its largely why the cenrari began to adopt faster more maneuverable warships as the younger race began to build ships thats were equal to or greater than the primus. Its considered to be an antiquated glass cannon by the centari. Suitable only for bombardment or supplying large volumes of fire.
Being honest, if you use the EU. The Drazi Sunhawk and the Vree Xill are definitely outclassed by ships such as the Dilgar Mishakur Dreadnought or the Abbai Lakara Cruiser.
I w9uod put the Minbari Cruiser as number one. In a head to head match with a whitestar, the cruiser wins. Now if you have several whitestars, working together, they can do a lot of damage.
I've always wondered how the Omega-class ships (and the Leonov from 2001, which also has a large rotating section) don't have the zero G sections rotating the other direction. Assuming that there is a motor of some sort and a gear set to drive the rotation, the torque from the motor would end up driving the zero G sections the opposite direction. I noticed that Babylon 4 had two counter-rotating sections that would cancel out this issue. Still, cool ships, and the ShadOmegas were even more bonkers. Fun video!
Original concept was the Omega would launch it's fighters like Babylon 5 did, on the ends of the rotating sections, an Omega could 'drop' 24 starfuries before 'reloading' the launch bays. Budget issues is why this feature was never shown.
From a purely visual standpoint, I LOVE the Narn G'Quan class cruiser. The problem I have with the B5 universe is they tend to mix up ship classes. For instance, they call the Omega class ship a Destroyer; a Destroyer is a small, fast, maneuverable, lightly armored, and lightly armed gunship, who's primary purpose is to provide a defensive screen for capital ships, against fighters, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and submarines (of course this is as of WW2) and was never intended to go "toe to toe" against cruisers or battleships. The Omega class is at the very least a medium cruiser, and that is how it is used; it takes on solo scouting and force projection missions. Destroyers are usually part of a larger battle group and very rarely seen alone. A classic battle group would normally be made up of (from smallest to largest) possibly a submarine or two, several destroyers, a couple of light to medium cruisers, and either a battleship, or aircraft carrier, or both. Something I forgot to mention was that, the only time we would normally see destroyers routinely working solo was in a costal defense role.
Generally, true. Of course, modern navies already don't follow the original "destroyer" formula and like to call their rather large guided missiles cruisers "destroyers" for political and other reasons. Improvements in guided missile technology are now allowing some frigates and corvettes to go "toe to toe" with the largest surface combatants, especially with the up-and-coming hypersonic cruise missiles. The closest modern day equivalent to the Omega gotta be the Soviet/Russian concept of a "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser", which is a carrier armed with few dozen aircraft and a healthy compliment of heavy anti-ship and AA missiles. Only realized in one ship; the troubled "proof-of-concept" Admiral Kuznetsov. They were building the more impressive nuclear-powered carrier cruisers when the USSR collapsed, which ended up scrapped.
Classically, yes. However even in the real world what a given class name means is not set in stone and can change. For example if I were to ask what a frigate is most likely you'd say a smaller warship then a destroyer meant for anti submarine work but that's only correct for the US navy after 1975. Before then a frigate was larger then a destroyer but smaller then a cruiser. After the 1975 reclassification ships that were frigates became cruisers and what used to be cursive were no longer made and the term got switched to mean ships bigger then a corvette but smaller then a destroyer. So maybe by this time destroyers got "promoted" to mean what we would now call a cruiser. Of course another possibility is the fact that cruisers on the whole are largely being phased out as the US (the last NATO country to field this class of ship) canceled its CGX project and the Ticonderoga (really a reclassify frigate) is getting really old nearing 40 years of service. Do to this destroyers are becoming the main form of heavy warship and getting larger, the Zumwalt class, for example, despite being classed as a destroyer is actually larger then the Ticonderoga class! So it actually makes sense that by the time of Babylon 5 that the term destroyer could just what your main warship class is called. Hell here's one ore possible in universe reason, it could of been reclassified as a destroyer for political reasons. "Oh no Mr. Mimbari ambassador, I assure you that this new warship is not being built as a Shalin killing dreadnought... no... it's just a medium sized ship... just a basic destroyer... no need to worry."
A note on the Vree, the Xill is actually a more recent design that didn't exist during the Dilgar War. The Xorr War Saucer was effective against other ships in wolf packs but weak against fighters. Many of the League were weak against well armed fighters, a fact that the Dilgar often exploited.
Im not sure but it sounds like the narn have a vessel called a dreadnaut like a small version of the main cruiser. An escort i think the mimbari have a similar ship for their fleet
Maybe, I know there is allot of non cannon ships such as BIN'TAK CLASS DREADNOUGHT. It would have been interesting to see another ship from Minbari. In the show we only got see the Sharlin cruiser and the TINASHI which was the ship used by the Minbari in the first shadow war. It would have been nice to have seen more.
The Drakh are always missing from these lists. I always considered them the Shadows version of the Minbari though maybe not quite as powerful and old? Where would you rank them/their ships among the other races?
Most likely younger than the Minbari but they do have more older race technology than the Minbari so most likely between the sharlin and white star. They had allot of shadow technology and their ships were big/advance. I will have to do a video about them. Didnt know poeple were interested in them
The other benefit of the White Star is, the are small and easy to build, and the build huge Fleets of that baby, operating in Packs for multi-vector attacks on much larger Ships or whole Battlegroups of Capital Class Warships. Like the Centauri Vorcha Class Warship. One single Vorcha is not a problem, but a Pack of those Ships, well even the White Star Ships found there Master.
Surprised you went with the Omega over the Warlock. Yes I know she has shadow tech for her sensors and targeting array, but I believe that's as far as it goes. Warlocks twin Mega Particle cannons the same beam weapons used in the defense satellites for earths defense grid are only eclipsed by the Victory's lightning gun among the younger races. Ship very much was a beast.
You've overstated the armament of a Sharlin-class war cruiser as a readout on the show itself shows that it's armament is 1 antimatter cannon, 2 fusion missile launchers, 6 neutron cannons and 12 fusion beam cannons.
My information comes from Babylon 5 wars, b5tech, babylon 5 encyclopedia, and of course the show. There are different version of the sharlin. I chose the Sharlin c. 🤷♂️
I would like to see a list of top 5 ISA ships at the time of the Drakh War. I would imagine that two would be Earth ships, a 3rd would be partly maned by humans and a 4th full maned by humans
Wait, The Sunhawk is 300 meters long but can only have a crew of 12? That's the length of two Arleigh Burke class destroyers combined and each of them have a crew of 300.
I heard that the drazi gain hyperspace technology during the shadow war , a minority of the fleet had them by the shows end but we see themin season 5 . With the narn fleet
Some errors: G'Quan write-up has a spelling error, its "laser" not "leaser". Primus is pronounced "pr-I-mus", as in "primary" not "premise". Omega destroyer also has 2 heavy plasma mortars on the prow/hammer under the docking bay, they are never used on screen but as canonical, as are the 72 missile silos along each side of its hull, ie. the red hatches running the length of the ship.
what about the shadow enhanced Human Omega?? also its weird that the Omega is a destroyer and the Hyperion is a heavy cruiser, destroyers are traditionally smaller and faster and get in close.
I suspect a Sharlin is more than a match for a White Star. White Stars are fast but Sharlins pick off fighters with their neutron lasers and a Sharlin is a lot bigger and tougher than a White Star.
I'm going to have to check a wiki for this, but is there any relation between the 'Freezil' (according to your spelling) and the 'Streib' that once kidnapped Sheridan? I mean, they both look like the classic 'Grey Aliens' of UFO lore, but the Streib (named after Whitley Streiber, who started the whole 'meme' of Alien Butt Probes 😂) have been shown to actually abduct people, although from memory I think one of the Freezil was on trial for abducting someone's great great grandfather 😄
What about two ships not mentioned, the Victory Class, which is made by the ISA instead of assisted by the Vorlons like the White Stars, making it a pure Younger Races vessel even if only two were made? The second is the Earth Alliance replacement to the Omega Class Destroyer, the Warlock Class Destroyer, which was implemented twenty to twenty-nine years before Babylon 5 destruction?
The Vree ships have been one of the biggest questions that I have had (heck the entire Vree race and their lore) in B5. On paper the basic specs sound amazing. Assuming that utilising anti-matter is a significant step for a civilisation to make, the Vree a significant lead on many other races. Of course for weapon strength I have assumed that anti-matter weaponry is more destructive than fusion missiles, particle beam weapons, etc. Though I am asusming that that the ship isn't running on anti-matter power, but fusion power. The Sharlin appears to have fusion reactors, and assuming that the B5 Tech Manual is canon, only the Old Races will likely have anything better than fusion power for ships (Hyperspace Tap? Is that really canon?)
I don't think the Omega is designed to take out a G'Quan or a Primus. I think an Omega is designed to die while taking out a Sharlin. An Omega goes right down the middle, enough armor to hold together until it blasts a Sharlin to pieces or its wreckage shatters the damaged Sharlin. The Battle of the Line was NEVER to be repeated.
Everyone always forgets the 2 FUCK YOU cannons on the bow of the Omega (big ass ovals under the recovery bay) The side mounted lasers are only to get your attention until the Omega gets those big guns lined up to fire.
One thing I always found odd in the Babylon 5 universe of quasi mythical powers and ancient super powered, almost godlike, races was the lack of system destroyers. Not on ship or weapon capable of destroying a star. Like the Vorlons and Shadows were both races that ascended past mortal forms and yet had to resort to fairly slow methods of destroying individual planets one by one. Not even destroying them like a single Death Star blast into an asteroid field just obliterating the surface and rendering the planet lifeless. Why couldn't we see one of them launch a Nova Bomb or something and wipe out an entire species worth of contaminated planets at one go?
I personaly think this comes down to the aesthetics in the Vorlon and Shadow thinking. 1: For the Vorlon, it would be a clean surgical strike to cut out the corruption of the Shadows, and for the others to learn and obey. 2: As for destroying the star. It would be move of chaos that they would avoid at by nature, and would even harm themselves as the destruction of the star would have an effect felt in hyperspace. The Vorlon planet killer did destroy the planet in one shot, very effective statment. 3: For the Shadow its about chaos and terror. that disobedience would be punished for all to see (over a larger time frame a slower death of the planet and all there) 4: It removes resources that they could use, like places to hide there ships. And like the Vorlon the affect it would have on themselves. You see this effect of terror in the episodes after both planet killers have been used, the Shadow planet killer was the more terrifying. And for both if you kill everything you don't get what you are looking for, obedience and conflict, and one upping the other of course. So on that note, I wish all who read this safe journeys. And on a successful reboot of B5 But please in Valen's name don't let it be woke. 😈
The Whitestar class ships were not capital ships by far. Thats why they built the Excalibur and her sister ship. They needed something above destroyer class ships. Sheridan specifically calls the Whitestars destroyers
As a B5 FAN NEED I SAY MORE ABO THE WHITE STAR HANDS DOWN I FOR ONE WOULD PUT THIS SHIP UP AGENTED THE BORG SPECS 8472 AND MABY THE DOMINION ?. But like I said I was hocked after the first season of B5 .
@@TheCalantyr I thought it already had that tech but it did not work 100%. That ment the ship had less than 1g of gravity. Been a long time in memory so worth double checking.
@@GodKitty677 The warlock prototype had a rotating section for a crew compartment between the engine and the main hull. The ship was redesigned post civil war due to the Mimbari giving earth artificial gravity tech. Was in the Flight of the Warlock short story and for the record she had the same mega particle cannons that the earth defense satellites had and the successor ships would use as their main guns along with twin arrays and missile launchers.
@@kathilmechworks4895 I remember the warlock uses shadow tech and was designed during the earth civil war. It came off the production line after the earth civil war. Earth grav tech was just not fully 1g yet.
@@GodKitty677 Prototype slipped its moorings literally at the end of the war. Like I said she is a different ship than the production model still used spin gravity in a crew section for endurance. Right from the get go she was a hunted ship, eventually she was chased down and destroyed by an earth squadron. production on the rest of them got paused when the mimbari offered earth artificial gravity. You are right she did use shadow tech in her sensors targeting arrays and armor.
SEVERED DREAMS - IVANOVA! EJECT! there are massive rows of missile bays on the side of the omega class destroyer. You can also see these missile launchers at the back of the ship. These are likely going to be the primary weapon system of the Omega, tactics wise. There are 36 on each side, so it looks like the target is to be overwhelmed. You do this kind of thing as a first strike and then go to guns after the missiles are all fired. The idea is the enemy has to defend against the nuke missiles and the ship that fired them. The 36 bays you can see in the shows cgi on one side and the other are too big to be anything other than for large long range missiles. IVANOVA Her Starfury damaged, Ivanova was forced to eject. We can see here that Ivanova's Starfury was nearly as wide as the missile Launchers, one of which was directly bellow her Starfury. If we measure the scene, we find that Invanova's Starfury was 106 pixels wide. Her Starfury, an SA-23E Aurora, is 17.87 meters wide. Our angle is a little skewed however, so we will round this down to 17 meters, which means that each pixel is equal to 0.16 meters. The Missile Launcher with base is 114 pixels wide, or 18.3 meters. So likely these missiles are the true primary weapons of the Omega, all 72 with nuke warhead. You can see them on the Talos image , the red bays in the middle of the section between the front and the middle of the ship. There are a lot more o them in the rear section of the ship. These missiles were not likely in the show because of the cgi budget. Think about it, two Omega's could launch 144 missiles at B5 and the stations defence system could do nothing to stop them all. The Omega was designed to take on a Sharlin class warcruiser yet has twice the weapons on the rear than the front. It makes no sense until you understand that the missiles are the primary weapon. Two Omega's can launch 144 missiles against a single Sharlin and there is no way that ship can shoot them all down or jam them. Given they are nukes, only one has to get through. Yet the two front weapons are never going to kill a Sharlin class warcruiser. At Nova for example can take a Sharlin class warcruiser on one vs one. Its rip and tear if they can lock-on to the Sharlin. Win or lose they will damage the Sharlin. Warlocks on the other hand have gun's that are the definitive answer to any capitial ship. Warlocks still have the missiles in racks, just like the Omega's.
Andromeda wins, hands down, no question. the Andromeda Ascendant was able to completely depopulate a planet in a few minutes. It had bombs that could destroy stars. It could accelerate from not moving to 40% the speed of light in seconds. It could travel between galaxies in minutes It had missiles capable of flying at 90% the speed of light and still be highly accurate it would slip into the system, engage from far outside the B5 ships range, wreck them and slip out of the galaxy before they knew what was happening. if Andromeda attacked a White Star, a Warlock, a Victory or a Shar'Lin it would be destroyed before it realized it was under attack Honestly, I think only the post-SG1 Earth ships, Ancient ships, and Asguard ships from Stargate would stand a chance against the Andromeda, and that is the Glorious Heritage class ships, not the much more powerful siege perilous class bombardment ships reckoned to be as powerful as a fleet of Glorious Heritage class ships like the Andromeda.
@@terryforsdyke306 actually, Glorious Heritage cruisers were the front liners. The Siege Perilous were artillery ships. They weren’t designed for direct engagements. They had a lot more offensive weaponry but few defenses. Their purpose was to jump in, unleash missiles, and jump out before the enemy had a chance to close in. If the Andromeda can get close to a Siege Perilous, she’d win
@@artembentsionov If I am working off incorrect information I am sorry, I was basing this on a quote from Dillan Hunt, he was talking about one of the Siege Perilous class ships, I think Wrath of Achilles but I'm not certain, it has probably been about a decade, he said she was a fleet in herself, as in as powerful as a fleet of regular high guard cruisers, I was basing my conclusion on that statement, it's quite possible there is something in lore that contradicts that, but I am unaware of it.
@@terryforsdyke306 you’re right, he did say something like that, but the lore calls the class: Deep Stand-off Attack Ship II. It’s a replacement for an older artillery class, although only 3 were built before the rebellion (and 1 after the restoration). So one might be able to hurt a fleet, but it couldn’t take much punishment in return. Not a exactly a battleship
WOW That's your rating and ok that's personal but i need to comment! First of all, Minbari is not really an old race nor a young... And to put a ship as "light" as the white star at the top bothers me a lot! Sure that's an awesome ship for patrol and escort due to his size but as you can see in the tv show they need a lot of them to face Earth capital ships.... No centauri ships? i do love the design as a point as i have done a 1:1 Vorchan model in minecraft lol. So i respect your opinion but still i have many critics ;)
all these are unbelievably, staggeringly, overwhelmingly WEAK for their sizes... A ship 1000 metres long with 6 fighters, less than a 1000 crew/troop capacity and can go only for 12 months at a time? Film/TV producers don't seem to understand the maths of 3d scaling when they do the specs Something the same shape that is twice as long will have 8 times the volume. So that 1000 metre ship literally has close to the volume of 30 modern day super aircraft carriers. Which today hold nearly 100 craft and crew of more than 1000 when required. So what is all the space for??? not supplies either it would seem if it can only go for 12 months. Just literally unbelievable...
The G'Quan cruiser is just perfection. I love that design.
A note on the Drazi: The reasons there are multiple measurements on Drazi ships is because the Sunhawk and Warbird are 2 different ships that get confused for each other in the series. They both look almost identical except for slight differences, especially in the engine nacelles and the aft section.
The Sunhawk is the larger and has the distinct red-orange pulsating 'fusion bulb' at the aft. This is a gravitic engine. The Drazi learned the basics of gravitics from their wars with the Centauri but still lack the ability to apply the tech practically. Tech wise they are more advanced than the Narn but less than the Brakiri or Abbai. This ship as described is only seen in Deathwalker. In seasons 2-5, all Sunhawks that appear on the show were rendered as having an armored rear section with 8 smaller orange-yellow ports visible on each side (they did keep the glowing engine nacelles but they're hard to spot). This change is noted in the AoG books as the Jumphawk command cruiser variant, which is described as a retrofitted Sunhawk with more armor, upgraded weapons, and a jump engine.
The Warbird is smaller, maybe 2/3s the size of a Sunhawk, and has a rear section with 6 visible yellow-white panels on each side. Warbirds are seen doing most of the fighting from seasons 3-5.
The Warbird variant that carries a Sky Serpent fighter on its back is called a Strikehawk. Seen in Matters of Honor.
If you see a Drazi ship that looks big and chunky; bigger than it should be, with wings not swept as far forward as a Sunhawk or a Warbird; that's a Storm Falcon heavy cruiser. One of these is seen in Shadow Dancing. It's the lead Drazi ship after Sheridan says "Carrier groups, come about and engage!" and in this scene you can see Warbirds following it. A second later a Sunhawk/Jumphawk fires a beam that stuns a Shadowship and it is immediately destroyed by another
This man is a true fan of Babylon 5 , thanks for the Lore! I'll be sure to add that to my mental map of canon.
@@tuscan9617 Thanks! I just have all of the Agents of Gaming B5Wars books. While what you see on the show was animators trying to change things a little at a time to add variety to the show (and the species) we never saw a ship list or tech books about the show. Well AoG were in communications with the B5 writers and animators back then and they took what they were given and put them into their tabletop game - then had the animators render out the variants they made into the fact books and let the writers give them some history.
Oh, and there is also a variant of the Warbird that the Gaim fly in the show. You only see it in Season 4, when the Drakh are harassing Gaim shipping, but if you see a Warbird that has 4 rear facing ion engines, that's the old "export" version of the Warbird the Drazi sell to the other League Races
@@brianwhedon8442 Isnt there a command version of the Sunhawk which is slightly larger to account for more communication equipment? I don't remember seeing it in the show but I thought I recall reading something like that.
@@tuscan9617 there is, its the Sunhawk v.2 aka Jumphawk I described above
Thanks for the update. 🙂 Keep up the great work!
I'm glad Babylon 5 is still remembered and such high quality content about it is being produced
Edit: I am surprised that Victory class isn't on the list. You know, the oversized White Star with a Vorlon laser. Does it not count because there's too much Vorlon in it, or because when the first ones left we stopped being the younger races?
9:14 - love the Irony of LCARS (Star Trek) Interface :P in B5 Context.
They mentioned that the White Star's armour learns and adapts from previous battles making it more impressive.
Great subject thanks
I watched 4 of your show in a row of babylon 5. Great information . 👍. Merry Christmas 🎅🌲😇
Could you please talk about the warlock class. Thanks
The Whitestar, also known as the Pimphand Mark 1...
The Warlock is up there. It's a shame we never really saw much of it in the show. As much as I love the Omega, it can't compete against its replacement.
The Omega-X is not there as well.
Omega x is considered shadow an yeah i agree the worlock is one of if not the most dangerous vessels in cannon
I was under the impression that the Omega’s weapons were a little weaker than those of the Nova. The Nova’s primary weakness is its slow speed and short range. At close range, a Nova can deliver a lot of punishment, but it was useless during the Minbari War because the Minbari outranged humans by a large margin even without their stealth tech
in a sense you answered your own question. Novas had a lot of cannons but had shitty range. this is great in all, but an omega has far more range. weapon to weapon the omega has them beat. those particle laser cannons aren't a joke by any stretch. so, essentially the nova was kind of obsolete shortly after it was made because it doesn't matter how powerful her cannons were if she has to get point blank to use them. Novas were old i guess. even older than the hyperion class according to some sources. either way, the ship was more of a carrier because its fighter payload was the same omega.
@@chrisd6348 I think the B5 board game also has a dedicated carrier also based on the Nova design. The Poseidon-class super carrier. It had twice the fighter complement of an Omega. I think the board game is considered canon
@@artembentsionov I haven't played the board game but it would make sense that earth would have a supercarrier type ship. omegas and warlocks only have 36 and 42 fighters when they are as big as they are and a aircraft carrier holds 90+ planes. warlocks are something like 2 KM long. i dont see why they couldn't house 200+ fighters.
@@chrisd6348 according to the description, it carried 96 Starfuries of various models (Badgers, Thunderbolts, Muskrats, Stealth). Only a few weapons but a better hyperdrive to allow it to run if confronted. Apparently they were also designed to function as flagships with advanced command and control gear
There is another flaw of the Nova that was corrected by the Omega - artificial gravity. The Nova was limited to shorter duration missions due to the crew being completely weightless. They were great weapons platforms of their day (especially in the Dilgar War) and could hold their own against all other Younger Races ships. It's just the pulse technology it was covered with was no match to the vast ranges Minbari weapons could cover. Novas were deadly to Sharlins IF they got close enough. And like what's seen in In the Beginning, if a Nova survived long enough to cause significant damage to the weapons systems of a Sharlin, it wasn't uncommon for captains to ram their crippled ships right thru them. All the other EA ships of the war didn't have enough mass to utterly destroy a Sharlin by ramming
The Vorlon defense was the organic hull. it learned and adapted to the weapons used against it. Think organic Borg, the older the ship, the more experienced it was and the more developed its countermeasures against weapons were. That is why they could absorb some much damage from the weapons of the younger races.
Honestly I do love the Vree Xorr... the small saucers with the 3 sets of big guns we see in the same episode as a sunhawk.
Vorlons also had some sort of a shield as shown in their first engagement with the Shadows.
ok but when you do another remake, I`d like to see Warlock and Victory!
also it`s funny that you say humans overpower their ships while listing Sharlin`s weapons next haha
😂😂 true
You forgot to mention that the primus had paper thin armour due to the centari using the platform to test particle shields. Other then that i love this list
I never knew this. So what happened to the shields, does it still have them or did the experiment fail and they went ahead with the platform as a standard ship?
@@troyskeete8372 the ships are unshielded in universe at the time of b5. The technology failed almost completely. Its largely why the cenrari began to adopt faster more maneuverable warships as the younger race began to build ships thats were equal to or greater than the primus. Its considered to be an antiquated glass cannon by the centari. Suitable only for bombardment or supplying large volumes of fire.
Being honest, if you use the EU. The Drazi Sunhawk and the Vree Xill are definitely outclassed by ships such as the Dilgar Mishakur Dreadnought or the Abbai Lakara Cruiser.
@brianwhedon8442 … the Pak’ma,Ra also use Drazi hulls as per the season 4 episode where Delenn encounters the Drakh
Id include mimbari with the vorlon. Well the oldest of the younger races.
And they got given babylon 4 1000 years ago
that alone gave them Earths top tech 450 years before Watt patented the steam engine
@@farmerned6 exactly
I w9uod put the Minbari Cruiser as number one. In a head to head match with a whitestar, the cruiser wins. Now if you have several whitestars, working together, they can do a lot of damage.
I've always wondered how the Omega-class ships (and the Leonov from 2001, which also has a large rotating section) don't have the zero G sections rotating the other direction. Assuming that there is a motor of some sort and a gear set to drive the rotation, the torque from the motor would end up driving the zero G sections the opposite direction. I noticed that Babylon 4 had two counter-rotating sections that would cancel out this issue. Still, cool ships, and the ShadOmegas were even more bonkers. Fun video!
Original concept was the Omega would launch it's fighters like Babylon 5 did, on the ends of the rotating sections, an Omega could 'drop' 24 starfuries before 'reloading' the launch bays. Budget issues is why this feature was never shown.
From a purely visual standpoint, I LOVE the Narn G'Quan class cruiser.
The problem I have with the B5 universe is they tend to mix up ship classes. For instance, they call the Omega class ship a Destroyer; a Destroyer is a small, fast, maneuverable, lightly armored, and lightly armed gunship, who's primary purpose is to provide a defensive screen for capital ships, against fighters, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and submarines (of course this is as of WW2) and was never intended to go "toe to toe" against cruisers or battleships. The Omega class is at the very least a medium cruiser, and that is how it is used; it takes on solo scouting and force projection missions. Destroyers are usually part of a larger battle group and very rarely seen alone. A classic battle group would normally be made up of (from smallest to largest) possibly a submarine or two, several destroyers, a couple of light to medium cruisers, and either a battleship, or aircraft carrier, or both.
Something I forgot to mention was that, the only time we would normally see destroyers routinely working solo was in a costal defense role.
Generally, true. Of course, modern navies already don't follow the original "destroyer" formula and like to call their rather large guided missiles cruisers "destroyers" for political and other reasons. Improvements in guided missile technology are now allowing some frigates and corvettes to go "toe to toe" with the largest surface combatants, especially with the up-and-coming hypersonic cruise missiles. The closest modern day equivalent to the Omega gotta be the Soviet/Russian concept of a "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser", which is a carrier armed with few dozen aircraft and a healthy compliment of heavy anti-ship and AA missiles. Only realized in one ship; the troubled "proof-of-concept" Admiral Kuznetsov. They were building the more impressive nuclear-powered carrier cruisers when the USSR collapsed, which ended up scrapped.
Classically, yes. However even in the real world what a given class name means is not set in stone and can change. For example if I were to ask what a frigate is most likely you'd say a smaller warship then a destroyer meant for anti submarine work but that's only correct for the US navy after 1975. Before then a frigate was larger then a destroyer but smaller then a cruiser. After the 1975 reclassification ships that were frigates became cruisers and what used to be cursive were no longer made and the term got switched to mean ships bigger then a corvette but smaller then a destroyer. So maybe by this time destroyers got "promoted" to mean what we would now call a cruiser.
Of course another possibility is the fact that cruisers on the whole are largely being phased out as the US (the last NATO country to field this class of ship) canceled its CGX project and the Ticonderoga (really a reclassify frigate) is getting really old nearing 40 years of service. Do to this destroyers are becoming the main form of heavy warship and getting larger, the Zumwalt class, for example, despite being classed as a destroyer is actually larger then the Ticonderoga class! So it actually makes sense that by the time of Babylon 5 that the term destroyer could just what your main warship class is called.
Hell here's one ore possible in universe reason, it could of been reclassified as a destroyer for political reasons. "Oh no Mr. Mimbari ambassador, I assure you that this new warship is not being built as a Shalin killing dreadnought... no... it's just a medium sized ship... just a basic destroyer... no need to worry."
A note on the Vree, the Xill is actually a more recent design that didn't exist during the Dilgar War. The Xorr War Saucer was effective against other ships in wolf packs but weak against fighters. Many of the League were weak against well armed fighters, a fact that the Dilgar often exploited.
Im not sure but it sounds like the narn have a vessel called a dreadnaut like a small version of the main cruiser. An escort i think the mimbari have a similar ship for their fleet
Maybe, I know there is allot of non cannon ships such as BIN'TAK CLASS DREADNOUGHT. It would have been interesting to see another ship from Minbari. In the show we only got see the Sharlin cruiser and the TINASHI which was the ship used by the Minbari in the first shadow war. It would have been nice to have seen more.
@@UtopianBroadcast1 yes i remember the scene with first contact it appears there were smaller mimbari ships escoting dukats ship
The Drakh are always missing from these lists. I always considered them the Shadows version of the Minbari though maybe not quite as powerful and old? Where would you rank them/their ships among the other races?
Most likely younger than the Minbari but they do have more older race technology than the Minbari so most likely between the sharlin and white star. They had allot of shadow technology and their ships were big/advance. I will have to do a video about them. Didnt know poeple were interested in them
@@UtopianBroadcast1 I’m really curious where you would rank them empire/strength wise compared with to the other races. Love your content!
The other benefit of the White Star is, the are small and easy to build, and the build huge Fleets of that baby, operating in Packs for multi-vector attacks on much larger Ships or whole Battlegroups of Capital Class Warships.
Like the Centauri Vorcha Class Warship. One single Vorcha is not a problem, but a Pack of those Ships, well even the White Star Ships found there Master.
One thing i love is becuase the design are alien but still a odd human touch to them
Surprised you went with the Omega over the Warlock. Yes I know she has shadow tech for her sensors and targeting array, but I believe that's as far as it goes. Warlocks twin Mega Particle cannons the same beam weapons used in the defense satellites for earths defense grid are only eclipsed by the Victory's lightning gun among the younger races. Ship very much was a beast.
I like the white star
You've overstated the armament of a Sharlin-class war cruiser as a readout on the show itself shows that it's armament is 1 antimatter cannon, 2 fusion missile launchers, 6 neutron cannons and 12 fusion beam cannons.
My information comes from Babylon 5 wars, b5tech, babylon 5 encyclopedia, and of course the show. There are different version of the sharlin. I chose the Sharlin c. 🤷♂️
I would like to see a list of top 5 ISA ships at the time of the Drakh War. I would imagine that two would be Earth ships, a 3rd would be partly maned by humans and a 4th full maned by humans
Coming next week
@@UtopianBroadcast1 cool. The EA Marathon class cruiser has to be 5th
In fairness in the battle with the primus had to fight Babylon 5 as well dividing its fire .
Wait, The Sunhawk is 300 meters long but can only have a crew of 12? That's the length of two Arleigh Burke class destroyers combined and each of them have a crew of 300.
Some of the information is wrong. The Sunhawk has a crew of 237, 17 of them officers.
I heard that the drazi gain hyperspace technology during the shadow war , a minority of the fleet had them by the shows end but we see themin season 5 . With the narn fleet
Some errors: G'Quan write-up has a spelling error, its "laser" not "leaser". Primus is pronounced "pr-I-mus", as in "primary" not "premise". Omega destroyer also has 2 heavy plasma mortars on the prow/hammer under the docking bay, they are never used on screen but as canonical, as are the 72 missile silos along each side of its hull, ie. the red hatches running the length of the ship.
what about the shadow enhanced Human Omega?? also its weird that the Omega is a destroyer and the Hyperion is a heavy cruiser, destroyers are traditionally smaller and faster and get in close.
I suspect a Sharlin is more than a match for a White Star. White Stars are fast but Sharlins pick off fighters with their neutron lasers and a Sharlin is a lot bigger and tougher than a White Star.
I'm going to have to check a wiki for this, but is there any relation between the 'Freezil' (according to your spelling) and the 'Streib' that once kidnapped Sheridan?
I mean, they both look like the classic 'Grey Aliens' of UFO lore, but the Streib (named after Whitley Streiber, who started the whole 'meme' of Alien Butt Probes 😂) have been shown to actually abduct people, although from memory I think one of the Freezil was on trial for abducting someone's great great grandfather 😄
was wondering were do the ship from Crusade spin of will be classified :)
What about two ships not mentioned, the Victory Class, which is made by the ISA instead of assisted by the Vorlons like the White Stars, making it a pure Younger Races vessel even if only two were made? The second is the Earth Alliance replacement to the Omega Class Destroyer, the Warlock Class Destroyer, which was implemented twenty to twenty-nine years before Babylon 5 destruction?
The Vree ships have been one of the biggest questions that I have had (heck the entire Vree race and their lore) in B5. On paper the basic specs sound amazing.
Assuming that utilising anti-matter is a significant step for a civilisation to make, the Vree a significant lead on many other races. Of course for weapon strength I have assumed that anti-matter weaponry is more destructive than fusion missiles, particle beam weapons, etc.
Though I am asusming that that the ship isn't running on anti-matter power, but fusion power. The Sharlin appears to have fusion reactors, and assuming that the B5 Tech Manual is canon, only the Old Races will likely have anything better than fusion power for ships (Hyperspace Tap? Is that really canon?)
Who would win . Star Trek vs Babylon 5 ?
Why is the white star there? Its not a ship solely of the younger races as the vorlons helped design and build.
The Vorlon Defense System is probably the White Star’s ability to heal.
White star organic Armor is directly taken from the Vorlons
Why b5 ship's so big with little room for allot crew?
So wish they would make an rts game of this universe
I don't think the Omega is designed to take out a G'Quan or a Primus. I think an Omega is designed to die while taking out a Sharlin. An Omega goes right down the middle, enough armor to hold together until it blasts a Sharlin to pieces or its wreckage shatters the damaged Sharlin. The Battle of the Line was NEVER to be repeated.
Everyone always forgets the 2 FUCK YOU cannons on the bow of the Omega (big ass ovals under the recovery bay) The side mounted lasers are only to get your attention until the Omega gets those big guns lined up to fire.
A Sunhawk is roughly the same size as a Constitution Class starship yet it has a crew of 12?
One thing I always found odd in the Babylon 5 universe of quasi mythical powers and ancient super powered, almost godlike, races was the lack of system destroyers. Not on ship or weapon capable of destroying a star. Like the Vorlons and Shadows were both races that ascended past mortal forms and yet had to resort to fairly slow methods of destroying individual planets one by one. Not even destroying them like a single Death Star blast into an asteroid field just obliterating the surface and rendering the planet lifeless. Why couldn't we see one of them launch a Nova Bomb or something and wipe out an entire species worth of contaminated planets at one go?
I personaly think this comes down to the aesthetics in the Vorlon and Shadow thinking.
1: For the Vorlon, it would be a clean surgical strike to cut out the corruption of the Shadows, and for the others to learn and obey.
2: As for destroying the star. It would be move of chaos that they would avoid at by nature, and would even harm themselves as the destruction of the star would have an effect felt in hyperspace.
The Vorlon planet killer did destroy the planet in one shot, very effective statment.
3: For the Shadow its about chaos and terror. that disobedience would be punished for all to see (over a larger time frame a slower death of the planet and all there)
4: It removes resources that they could use, like places to hide there ships. And like the Vorlon the affect it would have on themselves.
You see this effect of terror in the episodes after both planet killers have been used, the Shadow planet killer was the more terrifying.
And for both if you kill everything you don't get what you are looking for, obedience and conflict, and one upping the other of course.
So on that note, I wish all who read this safe journeys.
And on a successful reboot of B5
But please in Valen's name don't let it be woke.
😈
The Whitestar class ships were not capital ships by far. Thats why they built the Excalibur and her sister ship. They needed something above destroyer class ships. Sheridan specifically calls the Whitestars destroyers
The EA-Warlock & the Victory class would have been nice ...
What are your source for these things? I suspect it is not something canon as say B5WARs?
I like it.
As a B5 FAN NEED I SAY MORE ABO THE WHITE STAR HANDS DOWN I FOR ONE WOULD PUT THIS SHIP UP AGENTED THE BORG SPECS 8472 AND MABY THE DOMINION ?. But like I said I was hocked after the first season of B5 .
All Battleships are warships, but not ALL warships are battle ships...
Where's the Warlock? The Warlock makes the Omega look like a war conoe!!
The Warlock never seems to get love from B5 fans that it deserves
Because the Warlock only became OMGSOGOOD after it got upgraded with gravitytech after the Shadow war ended.
@@TheCalantyr I thought it already had that tech but it did not work 100%. That ment the ship had less than 1g of gravity. Been a long time in memory so worth double checking.
@@GodKitty677 The warlock prototype had a rotating section for a crew compartment between the engine and the main hull. The ship was redesigned post civil war due to the Mimbari giving earth artificial gravity tech. Was in the Flight of the Warlock short story and for the record she had the same mega particle cannons that the earth defense satellites had and the successor ships would use as their main guns along with twin arrays and missile launchers.
@@kathilmechworks4895 I remember the warlock uses shadow tech and was designed during the earth civil war. It came off the production line after the earth civil war. Earth grav tech was just not fully 1g yet.
@@GodKitty677 Prototype slipped its moorings literally at the end of the war. Like I said she is a different ship than the production model still used spin gravity in a crew section for endurance. Right from the get go she was a hunted ship, eventually she was chased down and destroyed by an earth squadron. production on the rest of them got paused when the mimbari offered earth artificial gravity. You are right she did use shadow tech in her sensors targeting arrays and armor.
What about the warlock?
I'm curious where you get your information from?
B5tech, Babylon5 wars (book) and Fandom. Those are the main sources for this video.
Omega class was designed to fight the Minbari but realistically the technology difference is too great and they dont stand much of a chance
I forgot where but it was said 3 Omegas with fighters can take out 1 Sharlin.
Are there any figures on how many of these ships were fielded by the races?
Most are just simple targets, being heavy and slow moving.
SEVERED DREAMS - IVANOVA! EJECT! there are massive rows of missile bays on the side of the omega class destroyer. You can also see these missile launchers at the back of the ship. These are likely going to be the primary weapon system of the Omega, tactics wise. There are 36 on each side, so it looks like the target is to be overwhelmed. You do this kind of thing as a first strike and then go to guns after the missiles are all fired. The idea is the enemy has to defend against the nuke missiles and the ship that fired them. The 36 bays you can see in the shows cgi on one side and the other are too big to be anything other than for large long range missiles.
IVANOVA Her Starfury damaged, Ivanova was forced to eject. We can see here that Ivanova's Starfury was nearly as wide as the missile Launchers, one of which was directly bellow her Starfury. If we measure the scene, we find that Invanova's Starfury was 106 pixels wide. Her Starfury, an SA-23E Aurora, is 17.87 meters wide. Our angle is a little skewed however, so we will round this down to 17 meters, which means that each pixel is equal to 0.16 meters. The Missile Launcher with base is 114 pixels wide, or 18.3 meters.
So likely these missiles are the true primary weapons of the Omega, all 72 with nuke warhead. You can see them on the Talos image , the red bays in the middle of the section between the front and the middle of the ship. There are a lot more o them in the rear section of the ship. These missiles were not likely in the show because of the cgi budget.
Think about it, two Omega's could launch 144 missiles at B5 and the stations defence system could do nothing to stop them all.
The Omega was designed to take on a Sharlin class warcruiser yet has twice the weapons on the rear than the front. It makes no sense until you understand that the missiles are the primary weapon.
Two Omega's can launch 144 missiles against a single Sharlin and there is no way that ship can shoot them all down or jam them. Given they are nukes, only one has to get through. Yet the two front weapons are never going to kill a Sharlin class warcruiser. At Nova for example can take a Sharlin class warcruiser on one vs one. Its rip and tear if they can lock-on to the Sharlin. Win or lose they will damage the Sharlin.
Warlocks on the other hand have gun's that are the definitive answer to any capitial ship. Warlocks still have the missiles in racks, just like the Omega's.
i think they got confused between feet and meters. 300m is massive especially for 16 people. The USS Nimitz class aircraft carrier is 330m!
Sadly, I didnt. If you look it up theres multiple lengths but their all 200 to 300 meters. Babylon 5 ships are usually bigger than other scifi shows.
@@UtopianBroadcast1 another franchise that got feet/metres wrong is wing commander. Some of the fighters are larger that the space shuttle.
@@UtopianBroadcast1
Yes. I was shocked when I saw a graph with the Omega Class next to an Imperial Star Destroyer. It’s actually bigger.
It would be interesting to see a comparison between B5 ships and Andromeda ships
Andromeda wins, hands down, no question.
the Andromeda Ascendant was able to completely depopulate a planet in a few minutes.
It had bombs that could destroy stars.
It could accelerate from not moving to 40% the speed of light in seconds.
It could travel between galaxies in minutes
It had missiles capable of flying at 90% the speed of light and still be highly accurate
it would slip into the system, engage from far outside the B5 ships range, wreck them and slip out of the galaxy before they knew what was happening.
if Andromeda attacked a White Star, a Warlock, a Victory or a Shar'Lin it would be destroyed before it realized it was under attack
Honestly, I think only the post-SG1 Earth ships, Ancient ships, and Asguard ships from Stargate would stand a chance against the Andromeda, and that is the Glorious Heritage class ships, not the much more powerful siege perilous class bombardment ships reckoned to be as powerful as a fleet of Glorious Heritage class ships like the Andromeda.
@@terryforsdyke306 actually, Glorious Heritage cruisers were the front liners. The Siege Perilous were artillery ships. They weren’t designed for direct engagements. They had a lot more offensive weaponry but few defenses. Their purpose was to jump in, unleash missiles, and jump out before the enemy had a chance to close in. If the Andromeda can get close to a Siege Perilous, she’d win
@@artembentsionov
If I am working off incorrect information I am sorry, I was basing this on a quote from Dillan Hunt, he was talking about one of the Siege Perilous class ships, I think Wrath of Achilles but I'm not certain, it has probably been about a decade, he said she was a fleet in herself, as in as powerful as a fleet of regular high guard cruisers, I was basing my conclusion on that statement, it's quite possible there is something in lore that contradicts that, but I am unaware of it.
@@terryforsdyke306 you’re right, he did say something like that, but the lore calls the class: Deep Stand-off Attack Ship II. It’s a replacement for an older artillery class, although only 3 were built before the rebellion (and 1 after the restoration). So one might be able to hurt a fleet, but it couldn’t take much punishment in return. Not a exactly a battleship
I don't even need to watch, Sharlin should be the most powerful :D
👍
WOW That's your rating and ok that's personal but i need to comment! First of all, Minbari is not really an old race nor a young... And to put a ship as "light" as the white star at the top bothers me a lot! Sure that's an awesome ship for patrol and escort due to his size but as you can see in the tv show they need a lot of them to face Earth capital ships.... No centauri ships? i do love the design as a point as i have done a 1:1 Vorchan model in minecraft lol. So i respect your opinion but still i have many critics ;)
Personal peeve: The plural of craft (as in spacecraft, aircraft, watercraft) is craft, not crafts.
Omega ia the Best!
Favorite? - Warlock!
👍👍👍❤❤❤
You forgot the warlock class and the victory class both far more powerful than those listed
What about the Excalibur?
'Prime-us'. Not 'Primm-isss'
**Prime** us.
Warlock.
Narn couldnt build a proper capital ship if you gave them all the time and resources in the galaxy.
G’Kar wouldn't be pleased with that comment. Lol
Settle down Londo
AHAHAHA
The display when he explains the weapons and armor is from star trek
all these are unbelievably, staggeringly, overwhelmingly WEAK for their sizes...
A ship 1000 metres long with 6 fighters, less than a 1000 crew/troop capacity and can go only for 12 months at a time?
Film/TV producers don't seem to understand the maths of 3d scaling when they do the specs Something the same shape that is twice as long will have 8 times the volume.
So that 1000 metre ship literally has close to the volume of 30 modern day super aircraft carriers. Which today hold nearly 100 craft and crew of more than 1000 when required.
So what is all the space for??? not supplies either it would seem if it can only go for 12 months.
Just literally unbelievable...