X-RAY PARTICLE LASER

E.A.S. Alexander Fires on the Roanoke
in "Severed Dreams."

In the season three episode "Severed Dreams", we saw Earth warships battling one another for control of Babylon 5, giving us the most accurate video information regarding the strengths and weaknesses of Humanity's weapons and defensive capabilities.  In one scene, the Omega class Destroyer Alexander opens fire on the Destroyer Roanoke, ( which the CGI team mistakenly labeled Agrippa, in one of the most embarrassing and infamous cock-ups of the B5 series ).

Now Alexander used her Particle lasers, giving us a very good idea of how powerful Earth weapons are and the damage done by their weapons, as we were able to see clearly what happened.  Now, we will begin with some specifications.  First of all, the gun ports on the Omega are between 15 and 16 meters in diameter, as proven in the image below.

Image taken from B5 Security Manual	Image taken from B5 Security Manual

In the first image we see an image of the actual Omega mesh used on the TV series, taken from the "B5 Security Manual." While this image does not show us the front of the Omega strait on, it does give us an excellent means of estimating the barrel diameter.

In the image we see the front of the Omega. Based on the ship's length of some 1,717 meters and the profile diagram shown in this document, we know that the center section of the Omega's armored cowl is approximately 126 meters in height. In image two we see that this area is 140 pixels in height. Divide 140 into 126 and we find that each pixel is 0.9 meters.

The gun barrel seen on the hull is set back and away from the forward section of the hull, skewing our perspective but not by very much. Disregarding this however, the barrel comes out to be approximately 17 pixels in height. 17 multiplied by 0.9 and our figure comes out to be 15.3. Thus, depending on perspective, it is safe to say that the gun barrel of the Omega's forward particle laser is, as stated, between 15 and 16 meters in diameter. In all honesty it is probably closer to 16 meters, but for the sake of being conservative we will be using the lower figure of 15 meters.

Hull and armor is believed to be 8 meters thick from the surface, to the inner wall of the Destroyer. Hull and armor thickness is based on two factors - the relative armor to hull thickness seen on modern Battleships, and the armor thickness we've seen on the Omega.  Armor thickness is based on the cowl that covers the Omega's hangar sections surrounding the fighter launch tubes, sensors domes, missile launchers, hyperspace antenna array, forward jump engines, ram scoop, etc., etc., etc.

The armored cowl is between three and five meters thick based on photo reference and comparison to the fighters.  We'll use three and, assuming that the armor is at least as thick along the hull, this gives us a fair idea as to armor/hull thickness.

Alexander opened fire with a raking blast that crossed some 320 meters of the hull's surface.  Some dispute this, but as seen in the screen captures below, we can clearly see that the Alexander's beam first began cutting on the rotating Habitation section, NOT the Hangar section.

Image taken from "Severed Dreams" Image taken from "Severed Dreams" Image taken from "Severed Dreams" Image taken from "Severed Dreams"

As seen in the images above, the Alexander's beam appears to strike somewhere aft of the rotating section, not the hub. Please take note of the running light just in front of where the beam makes initial contact. This clearly suggests that the beam struck aft of the rotational drivers, between the two running lights on the Omega's habitation area.

The beam starts to cut into the Habitation section (notice there is now glow or reflection across the forward face of the rotating section upon initial impact ) , then rakes all the way across more than 3/4 of the Hangar section (note that a reflection from the glow now CAN be seen on the forward face of the rotating section, as it IS now in front of it and not under it) .

Given these figures and the schematic image seen above, it is clear that the Alexander's beam cut at least 320 meters across the Roanoke's hull. If the beam penetrated no deeper than the Omega's outer armor, some three meters thick, we now have enough information to safely estimate the volume brought to boil.

Again we'll use the lower figure of 320.  The beam cut into the hull of the Roanoke, leaving a white hot trail with peaks and valleys along the Destroyer's hull.  The scene lasted only one second, where in which we saw the Roanoke's hull spark and glow white hot.

There have been three theories regarding the effect of this blast.  One states that the blast simply scorched the surface.  Second states that it striped off some if not all the armor.  Third states that it punched the hull and burned a gash across the whole of the Roanoke's hull, in and out.

We will go with theory number two.  This theory is supported by the fact that the beam clipped the hub where the gears are located for the Omega's rotating section.  The beam cut into the hub, but rotation was neither lost nor visibly hindered, as clearly seen a few moments later when Sheridan open fire on the Roanoke and her rotating section was still turning.

Also, since the hull was white hot, we can see that the weapon did more than just scorch the surface.  We also saw no evidence of the beam punching all the way through the hull, which would have resulted in some form of explosive decompression, so we will assume that the beam merely boiled off the outer armor.

Why boil and not vaporize?  Because the beam left a white hot scar across the hull, and the sparking effects suggests that the beam did in fact do more damage than simply melting, but had it vaporized the armor then it would have also punched the hull causing explosive decompressions, which we did not see happen.  Thus we can assert the following:

CONCLUSION - The total low-end output of what we assume to be a standard discharge from an Omega's primary forward particle laser cannon, comes to 1.79*10¹⁴ watts ( 179,842,016,448,000 watts - 179 Terawatts ), or equal to a 43 kiloton bomb.

As we know that the Omega's armor is NOT comprised of iron, and the general consensus is that the Earthforce armor is at least 20X stronger than our base material, the X-Ray/Particle laser on the Omega class Destroyer must have an average output of at least 3.59*10 ¹⁵ watt ( 3,596,840,328,960,000 watt - 3,596 Terawatt ), or equal to an 860 kiloton bomb.

Also, this is a standard discharge, not a maximum burst.  Assuming that a standard discharge is 30% of critical power, the maximum output of the Omega's X-ray/Particle lasers would be 1.19*10¹⁶ watt ( 11,989,467,763,200,000 watt - 11,989 Terawatt ), or equal to a 2.8 megaton bomb.

Math figures checked by Michael Wong .
Please Note:  This means that the Omega is capable of generating a weapons discharge, even at the LOWEST figures, far excess of what struck the Black Star by the stated fusion bomb seen in "In the Beginning."

Pulse Cannons &
Plasma Weapons

Babylon 5 Heavy Plasma Cannon, firing super charged green
plasma bolts at Clark's forces in "Severed Dreams."

Probably the most common, yet most misunderstood weapon seen used in the Babylon 5 universe was the plasma based weapons affectionately known as "Plasma Cannons" and "Pulse Cannons."  These plasma based weapons were seen in use on everything from one-man fighters to large scale capital ships, and of course the Babylon 5 station which was armed with the most recent incarnations of these plasma weapons Earth Alliance had to offer following her weapons refit and upgrade in 2259 ( season 2 - "Gropos" ).

In "Severed Dreams" we saw just how powerful this weapon was, leading some to debate whether or not the green heavy plasma weapons on the Babylon 5 station were more powerful than the Particle/Lasers.  There are even those who lay claim that, due to Ivanova making comment that the anti-starfighter guns above the docking bay of Babylon 5 supposedly has an output of 200 megawatts, that no heavy capital ship weapon seen in the Babylon 5 universe can be more powerful that this.  Time to separate the fact from the fiction.

In the images below, we can see the results of multiple impacts from the Babylon 5 station's heavy plasma cannons.  In image one we see a single green plasma bolt streak towards the Roanoke ( incorrectly labeled Agrippa by the CGI team ).  In image two we see the impact damage, the plasma bolt exploding and burning through the heavy armored cowl of the Omega class Destroyer.  ( Please take note that the second blast mark seen on the rotating section was from a second bolt, not the first which struck the cowl. )

In images three and four seen above, we can see a close-up of the damage inflicted by the heavy plasma weapon.  Marking out the affected area and enlarging the Roanoke to scale, we can see that the affected blast area covers at least 3,436 square meters.  Using screen shots and photo reference from the TV show and the books, we've established that the armored cowl is between three and five meters thick.  For the sake of being conservative we will use the lower figure of three meters, which means that Babylon 5's heavy plasma cannons were able to disintegrate/vaporize a total volume of 10,308 cubic meters.

Due to the bright flash and the explosion, it is very difficult to determine just how much damage the plasma bold inflicted upon initial impact, but the end results are clear - the area struck was vaporized by the impact, or at the very least disintegrated.  For the sake of argument however, we will use the vapor figures.

Why vapor and not boil, or disintegrate?  Well, due to the flash impact, we can not determine the exact effect of initial impact, save that there was indeed and explosion and the area glowed white hot.  Glow subsided in about a second and the affected area was gone.  This suggests vaporization, which is what were left to use as the result of impact damage is not as foretelling as the incident with the Particle/Laser ( see X-Ray Particle/Laser analysis ).  Thus we can assert the following:

1. Babylon 5's heavy plasma cannon brought 10,308 cubic meters to vapor in under one second.
2. Assuming the armor along the hull of the Omega was comprised of iron, with a density of 7,870 kg/m³, a total mass of 81,123,960 kg was brought to vapor.
3. It requires some 7,845,085.6 J/kg to bring iron to it's vapor point.  Why?

As we know that the Omega's armor is NOT comprised of iron, and the general consensus is that the Earthforce armor is at least 20X stronger than our base material, the heavy plasma cannon  must have an average output of at least 1.27*10 ¹⁶ joules ( 12,728 Terajoules - 12,728,488,208,219,520 joules ), or equal to a 3 megaton bomb.

Also, this is a standard discharge, not a maximum burst.  Assuming that a standard discharge is 30% of critical power, the maximum output of the Earthforce heavy plasma cannon would be no less than 4.24*10¹⁶ joule ( 42,428 Terajoules - 42,428,294,027,398,400 joules ), or equal to a 10 megaton bomb.

Please Note:  This means that the heavy plasma weapons on Earthforce vessels are capable of generating a weapons discharge, even at the LOWEST figures, far in excess of the stated fusion bomb used to destroy the Black Star in the movie "In the Beginning."