Earth Alliance vs. Twelve Colonies

[Nealithi]

Same concept as Ancients vs. Federation. B5's Earth Alliance versus the new BSG colonies and their intact fleets.
I lean toward Earth Alliance if only because B5 had impressive interceptor cannons.

[Al-1701]

The EA also has laser cannons and pulse cannons which are better than anything we saw the the battlestars deploy. And I have to imagine Earth's defense grid would tear the Colonial fleet apart. Remember they were firing only missiles because the particle beams were being redirected towards Earth by Clark. Even the Starfury is a more impressive fighter than the Viper in terms of weapons and manueverability.

The only advantage I see the Colonials having is their FTL drive allows instant travel (though they need to know where they're going and have a good idea it's open space they're jumping to). Also, their fighters and shuttles are capable of independent FTL travel. While this might allow them to get the jump on the EA, they just don't bring the kind of firepower to take advantage.

[Nealithi]

The EA also has laser cannons and pulse cannons which are better than anything we saw the the battlestars deploy. And I have to imagine Earth's defense grid would tear the Colonial fleet apart. Remember they were firing only missiles because the particle beams were being redirected towards Earth by Clark. Even the Starfury is a more impressive fighter than the Viper in terms of weapons and manueverability.

The only advantage I see the Colonials having is their FTL drive allows instant travel (though they need to know where they're going and have a good idea it's open space they're jumping to). Also, their fighters and shuttles are capable of independent FTL travel. While this might allow them to get the jump on the EA, they just don't bring the kind of firepower to take advantage.

The Vipers showed similar flight maneuvers to a Starfury, IE the turn around in flight to shoot behind them etc. And the ships all had nukes.

[Al-1701]

The EA also has laser cannons and pulse cannons which are better than anything we saw the the battlestars deploy. And I have to imagine Earth's defense grid would tear the Colonial fleet apart. Remember they were firing only missiles because the particle beams were being redirected towards Earth by Clark. Even the Starfury is a more impressive fighter than the Viper in terms of weapons and manueverability.

The only advantage I see the Colonials having is their FTL drive allows instant travel (though they need to know where they're going and have a good idea it's open space they're jumping to). Also, their fighters and shuttles are capable of independent FTL travel. While this might allow them to get the jump on the EA, they just don't bring the kind of firepower to take advantage.

The Vipers showed similar flight maneuvers to a Starfury, IE the turn around in flight to shoot behind them etc. And the ships all had nukes.

But nukes don't do much good if they can't reach the target. EA interceptors could easily shoot down the missiles (or the fighters could). And it's not like the Earth Alliance didn't arm their ships with nuclear warheads.

[McAvoy]

Interesting. The main advantage of EA is the energy weapons. The main advantage of the 12 Colonies is their FTL. Though you can say artificial gravity would be a not so distant second.

Both have ships comparable in size, has no shields, use fighters for defense and attack.

I think the Furys may have an advantage in that they are designed to take energy based weapon hits but their rate of fire is nowhere near as that of the Viper. But they won't have ammo issues.

I'd imagine the Battlestars would have pretty thick armor too.

Industrial base too seems to be about the same with perhaps an edge to the 12 Colonies.