Paris vs Donnager

The Paris class heavy frigate goes toe to toe with the Donnager class battleship, which will win, Halo or the Expanse?
PATREON: / first_pass
DISCORD: / discord
REDDIT: / first_pass
FACEBOOK: / officialfirstpass
First-Pass does not hold ownership of the copyrighted material (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[@AnythingMachine]

A softish hard sci fi ship Vs a hardish soft sci fi ship

[@AnythingMachine]

From the Paris' POV: Someone took a frigate, removed all the armour and the MAC, stole some shiva nukes and covenant plasma warheads and crammed them into some ridiculously powerful long range missile housings, included a few light coilguns and some weak low-caliber point defence guns with mysteriously brilliant targeting software From the Donnager's POV: Someone took a battleship, mysteriously upped the drive thrust to insane levels, covered it in dense armour, added a planetary defence grade railgun more powerful than any known to exist along the central axis, and then mysteriously filled it with crappy barely functional belter pirate torpedoes in enormous quantities, worthless spaceplanes and terrible inaccurate PDCs with decades-old software

[@ravenknight4876]

And from both points of view, it barely makes any sense why anyone would do somethibg like this.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

I have to agree with most of what you just said there, but I’m more inclined to stick with mysteriously brilliant targeting software for the MCRN rather than terribly inaccurate PDCs or Decades old software for the AI controlled point defense guns of the UNSC. The difference here is that these two forces were built for extremely different battlefields. The MCRN is built to engage a peer opponent..the UNN Although slightly behind them in fielding the latest generation of technology, is essentially armed with exactly the same stuff as they are and the MCRN needs to be able to defend against a full-blown first rate military power. The UNSC on the other hand, stands alone as the sole superpower in the known universe...right up until they encountered aliens. Before the war the UNSC was an anti-piracy force, Tasked with defending shipping within human occupied space. The greatest threat that they faced was going to be insurrectionists with light frigates. As such their point defense systems were multi-purpose coil gun platforms based around defending the ship from a limited number of enemy missiles and primarily small to midrange pirate vessels. The Rampart system did its job quite well and even after contact with the Covenant proved more than capable of dealing with enemy fighters and boarding craft. The nature of Covenant weaponry made intercepting plasma and lasers next to impossible and it was only in the later stages of the war, after the UNSC developed magnetic disruption rounds to counter Plasma Torpedos that point defense played a significant role in ship to ship combat in the conflict. Mysteriously brilliant sums up the expanse PDCs rather well. At the ranges and speeds that we are discussing here, if the individual missiles varied their acceleration or speed or trajectories even slightly.....The guns would need to be damn near clairvoyant to anticipate the missiles, And as we have seen that most sensor technology in the expanse is apparently entirely blinded by Martian stealth paint, the Marians could literally win any battle with the UNN by simply painting the front of their missiles And rendering earths PDCs entirely useless....Were it not for the surprisingly brilliant targeting software that magically avoids that plot hole and the apparent lack of equally impressive Avoidance software on the missiles. Given that modern Air to Air missiles are already proximity fused and intended to detonate in a cloud of shrapnel to kill their target rather than attempting a hard kill……it’s not hard to imagine this concept being carried through to space combat in the expanse where we’ve already seen that starships are armored to an extent slightly greater than that of the 1960’s Apollo program. The expanse equivalent of an AIM-9 would be extremely difficult to intercept……but they avoid the concept of a blast fragmentation warhead for obvious narrative reasons. HALO on the other hand embraced the idea of micrometeorites as a thing and as such even their light their vessels are armored to withstand and shrug off impacts that would otherwise cripple any vessel in the Expanse.

[@kevinjheath]

@@Matt-yg8ub You explain away a basic assumption of modern point-defense technologies - which is to read a potential threat and its target (if it is within the CIWS or Iron Dome area of protection) and to fill the air in-between with lead - typically utilizing rapid-fire fuse-detonated air-burst munitions ... no clairvoyance required, at least not from the Raytheon point of view.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@kevinjheath The UNSC is rather conventional, relying on AI controlled guns that automatically switch between armor piercing, HE and exploding shrapnel rounds depending on the target. This approach is not dissimilar from Raytheon and their air-bursting munitions. The MCRN guns on the other hand relied exclusively on solid 40mm penetrators and as such must actually connect for a hard kill. In an era where many navies are switching to missile based point defense to counter the rise of hypersonic missile technology, the MCRN approach is actually a step in the wrong direction. (NOTE Imagine how much more effective the spall would be in CQB engagements if the PDCs were firing shrapnel rounds as opposed to solid penetrators that simply poked a tiny hole and passed clean through.) Modern Gun based CIWS systems are already being left behind by modern missile technology….a couple hundred years in the future, the only prayer you’d have to hit an incoming missile would be to blanket it’s path with fragmentation munitions…..and that’s what the MCRN actually moved away from.

[@alexisbaz8746]

Uh, Archer missiles are preety accurate able to target Covenant Seraphs, and those Whortles Spaceplabes are hypersonic Spacefighter with 120mm Rapid Firing Gauss canon able to atleast shoot bullets at 13km/s, or even more considering they are able to punch trough Seraph Enegy shield and Nanolaminate armor

[@johnnyb7628]

Who would be crazy enough to take on the Donanger in CQB?! Masterchief: Hold my beer.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Basically anyone who spent more than a single semester at the Academy. CQB is not the Donnager’s strength at all. She has better rail guns than the Leonitis class battleship, but both herself and the UNN equivalent are missile platforms with rail guns as secondaries. In CQB it’s not her railguns you have to worry about, it’s her PDC network. Protogen had an excellent strategy, they would easily have defeated her if they were actually trying to destroy the Donnager outright rather than disable and board her. As it was, they destroyed the pride of the Martian Navy using a fraction of its tonnage.

[@Duke_of_Petchington]

the M910 Rampart 50mm Point defence Coilguns are the secondary armament of Most UNSC vessels and would most likely turn expanse ship in to swiss cheese, it has quick changability of ammo type from sabot ammo for ship to ship or HE burst ammo for anti fighter and anti missile defence. the game does not show the actual velocity of these projectiles.

[@floseatyard8063]

ok but the expanse ships literally never fight with pdcs, the only 2 times cqb combat happened was insane circumstances. Those cannons won't do anything

[@thermalvision203]

You forgot the Paris Class' compliment of 3 Shiva Nuclear Missile silos and 12 Harpoon Nuclear Missile silos (both of which are guided) which gives it an autistic amount of firepower at very long range, easily making it outclass the Donnager.

[@floseatyard8063]

The donnager has pdc coverage

[@22steve5150]

Wait, why would the Donnager's 40mm point defense guns be highly effective but the Paris class's 50mm point defense gun turrets NOT be effective?

[@MAL1GNANT]

They're .50, not 50mm

[@22steve5150]

@@MAL1GNANT no, they are 50mm guns. They are huge and they shoot at starships, starfighters, and boarding craft. Infinity's point defense guns are 70mm.

[@Boopity7739]

@@22steve5150In the first Expanse novel Alex notes that “a half dozen ships flyin’ kamikaze missions with nukes to their hulls might make a dent in a battlewagon like the Donnie, but not much else would.” Also when they escape the Donnager the 40mm PDCs arent noted to be doing any damage to the ships interior. So it can be assumed ships in the book are actually somewhat armoured

[@maxtruong187]

The lack of artificial gravity in the expanse is a huge disadvantage. While the drive in the Expanse is wonderful, it have to limited to around 1-3 G at most because the crew won't be able to take that gravity force. The ship engine in Halo can easily do dozen of G maneuvering because artificial gravity prevent them from turning into cheese. WARNING VERY LONG READ AHEAD: Halo sources are confusing, so I will simply get the source from the book: In the Fall of Reach, a naval crewman says this about a Covenant Plasma torpedo: "Distance three hundred thousand kilometers,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Collision in two seconds.” (And yet, for some reason in visual and game plasma torpedo can do like a few G at most -_-). The book is more realistic and the Expanse is a realistic sci-fi show so they fit. Ships in Halo can dodge plasma torpedoes traveling 1/2 speed of lights. With AI and incredible maneuvering, dodging railgun rounds at dozen thousands kms is nothing. For the UNSC, fighting close range with the covenant plasma is simply suicide, they have to choose an engagement distance fits for their weapons as well as able to dodge incoming plasma torpedoes, a bit below 100k km is generally the good distance according to various sources. Based on the battle from 1X4 from the Expanse. The missiles and torpedoes can easily travel dozens of km in 1 or 2 minutes. In a scene from the Donnager fight, the stealth ships missiles clearly barely misses the front of the Donnager, because the ship shut the drive down at the last second, make the missiles unable to change course in time. The armor of the Paris is no joke, only nuclear warhead will be able to effectively damage it. The UNSC armor have high radiation defense as well as high boiling temp to fight against covenant plasma torpedo that thousands of degree hot, assuming that the plasma torpedoes from the Expanse is below that by not much. The Paris will do well against Donnager's plasma, regular torpedoes and railgun at distance beyond 20k km. While the Paris can fire at it with projectiles smaller and weight less than several hundred tons (based on a source from the Halo's books) which go way faster than the Donnager railguns. Effective range of projectile weapon in space depends on the speed of the round, travel fast that the enemy do not response in time to dodge. If we do a simple calculation, a MAC round that weight a few dozen tons can travel very fast compare to hundred of tons. We know that the donnager railgun's effective range is a few thousands km. Halo MAC effective range is some what beyond 50k kms. Simply put, the Paris will see Donnager as a slow moving target with barely any maneuvering. The Paris with AI assist MAC shot will rip apart the Donnager. A well hit, few dozen tons round will destroy it. The railgun from the Expanse fire projectiles similar to something like mass accelerators from Mass Effect, weight a few dozens kg as most as all shots from the show all pass through the target unless hitting heavy sub-systems, fast but no stopping power. In all, the Paris will always choose long range (dozen thousands of Km), unless it is not simply possible. The Donnager starts that battle first firing torpedoes at the Paris, short time later, the Paris then shots the donnager with a very fast MAC round, destroying it. The Donnager torpedoes may heavily damage the Paris if it manage to hit a few plasma or a single nuclear warhead at it (the nuclear weapons from the Expanse is insanely powerful). However, the Paris will enter slip space before the torpedoes arrive. Medium range, let say around the range of the Donnager battle we see in 1X4 (10k to 30k), the Paris will shots MAC as well as deloying hundred of missiles with a difficult pattern to hit. The Covenant point defense is GOOD but NOT GOOD against UNSC pattern. The Donnager is destroyed and the Paris barely make it to slip space in time, literally the Paris just need to appear, shoot, fire missiles and pop into another dimension. Close range, (Donnager's railgun effective range) Donnager is destroyed with the Paris potentially destroyed or with heavy damage assuming the Donnager use nuclear missiles and plasma. However, if the Paris change course and oing 90 degree compare to the incoming missiles, a sudden stop of near a hundred G at the last seconds can quite easily make the missiles miss. So basically at range over 50 thousands of KM, way out of Donnager railgun range, the Paris is very safe, torpedoes take minutes to reach, the Paris can simply make most of the torpedoes miss simply by stopping extremely fast. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKKnlKGtp9ikbLc

[@Inquisitor-Yog-Sothoth]

This battle comes down to who can land the killing blow first

[@Matt-yg8ub]

That’s generally how most battles go. Given that we’ve seen two Donnagers in combat and both died spectacularly….being killed by much smaller ships, my money is not on the Donnager.

[@eliasrobinson3915]

@@Matt-yg8ub well, thats the thing, the Amun Ra's had many advantages over the donnager -Numbers (6 stealth ships) -Stealth -Superior missile tracking -Railguns (the first on a ship of its size) -Captain Mao's experience (there is the idea that Mao was more used to fighting pirates, not an advanced fighting force) and in the end, despite the Donnager's destruction, all 6 stealth ships were killed.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@eliasrobinson3915 Keep in mind, ProteGen wasn’t trying to destroy her out right…They wanted to board her. They disabled the Donnager, at which point they stoped firing and deployed boarding craft. If they had simply put a round through her reactor, it would have been game over.

[@eliasrobinson3915]

@@Matt-yg8ub Fair enough, but examples of Donnagers holding their own is seen in the ring battle. Before the battle, the Sagarmatha and the other ships guarding the ring gate were struck with stealth-coated rocks During the battle, the Sagarmatha appeared to be doing a good job of deterring the FN fleet, shooting down torpedoes. The Sagarmatha was only destroyed when Medina station betrayed them and fired torpedoes into their back. Granted, this WAS with 2 Trumans to help, but this was also against a much better fleet, with cruisers and other ships of differing size, even with a small fleet of reinforcements. Even more, their fleet consisted of stolen Martian ships, with their superior technology. the ships there were also fighting with damage from the stealth-coated rocks. Finally, the fleet was not expecting to be betrayed by Medina.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@eliasrobinson3915 I disagree. That scene shows incredibly poor tactics on the part of the allied vessel, parking a trio of ships in tight formation in a predictable location with their backs exposed to ambush. Even if we discount the idea that MEDINA station betrayed them, they still took three ships that rely on thrust to simulate gravity and PARKED THEM. Even if we ignore that they were there because Marco was throwing stealth coated rocks and should have known better. Even if we forgive that the Sagarmatha failed to deploy any of her screening vessels or that none of the allied vessels felt the need to send probes through the ring to keep an eye on anything…. The mighty Donnager class fared little better than the antiquated Truman class. Given her far far greater PDC compliment compared to her size… the Sagarmatha’s point defense didn’t perform better than the Roci’s. In fact her K-19 system targeted all her PDCs forward and left her aft quarter exposed …..a design flaw that Duarte was obviously aware of and exploited to great effect. All that aside, Parking your ships in a predictable stationary location…..is a really good way to get shot with a rail gun. They should have known better.

[@spartanx9293]

There's one thing you forget about the longswords their primary is either a 50 mm or a 110 mm autocannon not counting their missiles while that wouldn't be useful against the donnager it might help against the Corvettes and Morrigans

[@Matt-yg8ub]

You’re assuming that UNSC point defenses are off the shelf .50 BMG….. Despite there not being a single UNSC point defense mount that even vaguely resembles a modern 50 BMG.

[@alexisbaz8746]

The dude didn't investigate that, Rampant are 50mm, Coilguns, those thing by themself could tear apart that Glorified Space Shuthle, I hate when they underestimate Halo like that.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@alexisbaz8746 The UNSC has point defense guns more powerful than the rail guns on the PROTOGEN AmunRa class. I’ve said it a hundred times, if Protogen had been interested in destroying the Donnager rather than boarding her, they would have just punched a hole in her reactor and been done with it instead of expending all the effort to disable her so they could send boarding teams.

[@pablogr6960]

The paris' point defense shots are not slow, you see them at a small fraction of its actual velocity

[@electrohalo8798]

He lives! and a interesting VS? sweet mother of tachi YES!

[@cplhotpockets]

If you wanna see more updates and discussions about this stuff, check out his discord server, it a whole lot of fun and the only downside is that there aren't many of us

[@jadeevetz9426]

@@cplhotpockets Gib link pls

[@FirstPassOfficial]

discord.gg/zHJCFQp

[@cplhotpockets]

I hope when you said 50 cal you ment 50 mm, because thats whats been listed, plus, the shells are far too big to be 50 cal in visual medias

[@cplhotpockets]

@@mrevp noice

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@mrevp The M910 Rampart is a duel/quad barrel (depends on the mount) AI controlled coil gun battery which automatically shifts between a multitude of ammunition types based on target assessment.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@mrevp True, but high explosive rounds are only one option the Rampart has. That’s part of what makes it such a versatile platform. It should be noted though that the UNSC Almost never uses the point difference guidance to engage other vessels in direct combat....Because 50mm coil guns are ineffective against anything larger than a fighter craft in the Halo universe. The Donnager’s PDC’S like.y Wouldn’t do much damage to the Paris’s heavy armor

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@mrevp Cortana and the POA were shown to make use of the M910 to destroy shielded Covenant Fighters, but your right that it would be next to useless against shielded capitol ships.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@mrevp There are lots of books ....some saying conflicting things. It’s hard to keep track of some of it.

[@bluebonic3497]

It kind of felt like you were leaning towards a decisive victor based on starting range. Long range: Donnager Victory Medium range: Mutual Annihilation Close range: Paris Victory ( but with significant damage)

[@FirstPassOfficial]

Precisely

[@kinkade6710]

The Rampart defense batteries are AI controlled And can switch between ammunition depending upon the target profile, in this case at Long Range they would deploy flack To essentially create a micrometeorite storm for the missiles to run into. At long range the Donnager’s missiles Are going to build up tremendous speed, HONNE in on the Paris...And slam into the wall of flack....Essentially killing themselves.

[@kevinjheath]

@@kinkade6710 and sending their hypervelocity debris into the Paris...

[@yomiyama]

@@FirstPassOfficial , hello! Can you, please, tell the name of the music you used around 5:13, or give a list of the names of the tracks used in this video. Thank you.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@kevinjheath At the distances we are talking about, shrapnel would be minimal. Remember, the UNSC actually armors their warships. If shrapnel from destroyed missiles was actually an issue, the tinfoil that the expanse calls armor wouldn’t hack it.

[@eogannspencer1684]

Great work very in depth analysis of the two ships capability and shows the power scaling difference between the expanse and halo

[@Matt-yg8ub]

It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between the Expanse and Halo.

[@jonharper4478]

Dude, the short speed/velocity of the MAC guns has long been retconned...They are significantly faster now.

[@alexisbaz8746]

Significantly?, more like a monstruous diference considerng how fast Halo ships move.

[@tunir3010]

Such a pleasant surprise to find a video crossover between my two favourite Sci fi franchises!

[@AnythingMachine]

Archers are probably comparable to the chemical torpedoes we see Belter pirates use against the Roci - which are also chemically propelled, conventionally armed and launched in bunches of 20+. We see that they can saturate the point defences of a morrigan and expose it to a railgun hit in the battle. So enough Archers could theoretically overwhelm a Donnager but it would probably be 10x as many as for a morrigan, so 200+

[@Matt-yg8ub]

A more realistic engagement, Assuming that the Paris is aware of the missile range, Would be to launch missile spam, then step on the gas and close distance to MAC range and surprise the Donnager while it’s dealing with the missiles. The Paris comes from a non-Newtonian universe where they have inertial dampening and artificial gravity...the UNSC Commonwealth was capable of accelerating at approx 1200 G (Crossing 80,000,000 km in an hour). They can basically step on the gas, charge the Donnager And fire a MAC round that carries the vessel’s momentum...Meaning they can fire from well outside the Donnager’s own rail gun range at velocities Expanse ships can’t hope to dodge.

[@AnythingMachine]

@@Matt-yg8ub weren't artificial gravity and intertial dampeners reverse engineered covenant technology? I was under the impression that UNSC ships had adopted artificial gravity on a wide scale (which included light acceleration compensation) but that inertial dampeners good enough to enable 1000+ gee accelerations were a covenant technology and late war/post-war upgrades for some ships only

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@AnythingMachine How then do you explain pre-war vessels like the Paris that weren’t designed to operate zero G, but are capable of crossing 80,000,000 kilometers an hour? The Halcyon is a 40 year old design without handholds or thrust gravity....that you can drive a warthog around in. It was designed from the deck plates up to operate as a 1g environment. The Longsword fighter can accelerate at rates that would crush the human body without artificial compensation. The UNSC had artificial gravity tech before the covenant war.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@archerbascha8757 Actually, it took closer to 30 years. Late stage R&D does not change the fact that the UNSC Commonwealth, a PRE WAR Paris class frigate had artificial gravity and the acceleration capabilities to cross 80,000,000 kilometer in an hour. They definitely did receive upgrades to their technology late in the war, but even the prewar designs had these technologies. The Pillar of Autumn Received an extensive overhaul to her reactor systems, her MAC and Had an entire fighter bay converted into missiles storage....(if Sammy thinks 200+ missiles would overwhelm a Donnager...boy are the MCRN in for a surprise ) But there were no upgrades to her propulsion systems mentioned. It is however mention multiple times that the human ships were outclassed because they lacked shields, not because they lacked speed or maneuverability. It was the covenants ability to tank the first MAC rounds and keep fighting that allowed their vessels to be so devastating against the human forces which couldn’t stand up to plasma Torpedos.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@archerbascha8757 80,000,000 km in an hour comes from a direct quote from the captain of the Commonwealth. When the covenant vessel appears on their sensors at a range of 80,000,000 km the captain remarks to Halsey that There’s no cause for alarm yet because it would take the ship an hour to intercept the target at that range. I have been very careful to say “acceleration allowing them to cross 80,000,000 km an hour” because we honestly don’t know how fast the Commonwealth was already traveling or whether or not they were intercepting a vessel that was also closing with them. Now we’ll never know because in that particular scene, the covenant vessel jumps to point blank range Before we ever find out. You might think that this is an outlier, but remember that the covenant vessels are faster at FTL, butthe UNSC vessels are dramatically faster at Sublight because they have to be. The covenant slice a hole into subspace and their vessels can travel through slipspace much faster because of the precision of their technology....The far more brute force UNSC tech forces a hole into slipspace where the speed of travel is based on their entry speed. This is why you see UNSC vessels head out system to build up speed Before entering slipspace.

[@AnythingMachine]

Great matchup! Also - thanks for pointing out that the Phoebe destruction is an extreme outlier - it doesn't make sense given what we know of fusion physics (more energy than anything massing a few tonnes could carry) and isn't consistent with anything else (multi TT warheads would be lethal to expanse ships even at 1000km+ ranges due to the sheer radiation output which would render PDCs pointless)

[@Matt-yg8ub]

It’s also a creation of the show itself, not the book series. In the book they were able to push Phoebe into Saturn’s gravity, unlike in the show where the sirocco relatively effortlessly managed to destroy a moon with only four missiles. I’m just going to take a moment to point out how ridiculous that scene was, in large part because they fired on a UNN ship… Which for some reason did not engage their missiles with its PDC’s. The visuals there are all over the place

[@chronus4421]

I can't believe you did a video on this! That's awesome! I was making my own fleet (ya know, in excel) and i just searched: Donnager vs Paris and didn't really expect anything, but thank you. I'm going to subscribe solely on the fact that I found what I wanted and it was you granting my wish. Edit after watching: A Tie!? Are you fcking kidding me!?

[@FirstPassOfficial]

It leans toward the Donnager at longer ranges, but the Paris gets a solid fighting chance up close.

[@bennuredjedi]

This was a little bias because the Weapons on the Paris would rip up the lightly armed donnager.

[@reentrysfs6317]

If they could get close enough lol

[@assassinred426]

Honestly I couldn't say which ship would win because of the fact that just both sides fight battles differently but there would be one thing you kind of missed the Paris would most likely have a shipboard AI a smart AI that controlling the Point defense system as well as the missiles giving them a far more advantage against the Donnager PVCs as well as the ability to hack the system of the donnager and I'm not using Cortana specific most smartly AI could do the same thing she did. But still enjoy the video

[@FirstNameLastName-tg3rc]

Disclaimer, I've seen a lot more Expanse Content than HALO content, so I may lacking in knowledge. But Anyway: *Without the Donnager's Compliment:* *- Long Range:* Donnager. With the potential exception of the range of the MAC, the torpedos on the Donnager give it the win - especially the plasma and nuclear torpedoes. *- Mid-Range:* Depends. If the Paris class can overwhelm the PDCs, then it wins. But if it can shoot down/take hits from the torpedoes, then I think the Donnager gets it. *- Short Range:* If the Donnager can get more railgun hits in, then it wins. But unless that, the lack of armour means the Paris wins but it would be a pyric victory or no-one wins (as unless the Donnager gets completely destroyed, the captain would likely self-destruct if it was damaged beyond repair. *With the Donnager's Compliment:* *- Long Range:* Same but there are more missiles going at the Donnager as well as extra PDCs. *- Mid-Range:* Depends. If the Paris class can overwhelm the PDCs, then it wins. But if it can shoot down/take hits from the torpedoes, then I think the Donnager gets it. If torpedoes can be used, the extra ships will be of use in this one. If not, they aren't. *- Short Range:* Slight Donnager victory - simply because there is more missiles and PDC fire on the Paris Class (and also that it'd be shot at from all sides). So it comes down to this. Can the Paris class take out the Donnager and then deal with the other ships? I think that it has a greater chance of not doing so - although the Donnager would be damaged so it'd be a pyric Donnager victory. Any feedback is welcome.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Well first and foremost, are we comparing two ships, or are we comparing one UNSC frigate to an entire fleet of MCRN ships? We never see a Donnager class ever deploy a single support craft in battle, ever. I feel that it’s a bit unfair to give it an entire fleet of support vessels in a one on one engagement. Second, fighting a Paris would essentially be much the same as fighting a fleet of Amun Ra frigates… the Paris has a complement of rapid fire coilgun batteries That would chew up a Donnager much like the Protogen rail guns… And unlike Protogen, the UNSC wouldn’t be aiming to disable the ship and board it, they would be shooting to destroy it. A single hit to the reactor and its dead in the water.

[@FirstNameLastName-tg3rc]

@@Matt-yg8ub I was seeing this as a one-on-one fight (one Donnager vs one Paris Class, as that was the scenario). On the one hand yes, but on the other hand that was one time, and that was likely a peacetime compliment - if this was a full on war, there'd likely be more ships. Further, as a ship like the Donnager is like a US aircraft carrier in terms of power and importance, it should have it's own fleet. From my understanding, the Parris has a single MAC. And as it's at long range, it'd be less accurate than Protogen railguns at close range. As was pointed out at 7:15, the Paris class has 1-2 shots at long range with the MAC, while the Donnie can fire a lot more torpedoes faster (there's also that the Donnager could both move and fire, making aiming of an unguided MAC round harder) - so yes, one hit from the Paris class would be incredibly devastating, but that relies on the Donnie being hit in circumstances much better for it than Protogen's attack.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@FirstNameLastName-tg3rc The parts you are not accounting for is that in addition to the MAC, the Paris class is armed with multiple AI controlled deck guns that are the rough equivalent to a protogen railgun .The Paris class itself is significantly faster than a Donnager and can accelerate at many times what the Donnager is capable of doing without killing it’s Crew. Furthermore, we have seen a Donnager in combat three times… Once in relative peacetime, and twice in war. The Donnager herself deployed no support craft. The Sagarmatha, in time of war, deployed no support craft. The unnamed Donnager class in season six was already destroyed before we got there so we have no idea if they deployed anything, but chances are they did not. I still maintain that it is unfair to compare a single vessel devoid of its supporting vessels…To a Battleship with an entire MCRN battle group worth of assets we’ve never seen it fight with.

[@45580677]

A part of me says Paris class as launch more Archers and AI control weapons plus MCRN keep Railguns for close range why MAC for long range why Single Ships as Longswords count as Corvettes would have greater flexabilty and no need to attack head on overall UNSC MAC out ranges as the Fall of Reach never showed the MAC properly as used in the Novels plus pin point jump plus Archer missiles used on mass as they are later on overall I believe Paris as design for this plus intercept torpedoes before impact

[@AnythingMachine]

one point - at close range the visual inference systems used by the PDCs (relatively smart AI) might be able to identify sensor clusters, exposed bridges and similar exposed hardpoints and fire on those

[@demonbot6617]

the paris has blast door shutters on the bridge, and a backup bridge further in. Plus the turrets are tough as hell

[@AnythingMachine]

@@demonbot6617 Expanse PDCs are no slouch - 40mm rounds accelerated to 5-10 km/s give them more kick than a modern day APFDS round

[@demonbot6617]

@@AnythingMachine yeah but 60cm titanium 3 is enough material to stop almost anything, and Paris has her own naval coilguns that are nothing to scoff at. As we repeatedly see in the halo franchise, UNSC craft are incredibly reliable, being able to operate even with extreme damage. To me, this battle is for the paris most of the time unless the paris has an AI, then it's all hers

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@AnythingMachine Neither are the Rampart guns. There’s a fundamental disconnect between what the 40 mm PDCs are supposed to be, what they’re supposed to be able to do and the rail guns mounted on battleships and dreadnoughts. The foe-hammer ultra heavy railguns mounted on a Donnager....Are supposed to fire a 1 kg round and be the heaviest weapon mounted on any mobile platform in the expanse. The ship is only capable of powering two of them, Yet somehow has nearly 60 PDC’s of only marginally smaller caliber. Something doesn’t add up there.

[@AnythingMachine]

@@Matt-yg8ub It's going to depend on the muzzle velocity - the donnager's railguns fire at above 1000 km/s and the PDCs fire at below 10 km/s, so require at least 10,000x more energy to accelerate the same mass

[@FirstNameLastName-tg3rc]

Yes, more ship versus videos would be good.

[@eyesofstatic9641]

Nice video! Good stuff. Here's a like. Thanks for the scale reference! Best part.

[@omegaerwin5417]

Ok first off, not 50 caliber but 50 mm guns on the paris also the paris likely had an AI to help control the guns. Hitting the torpedoes would have been easy

[@paulbobenhausen8031]

Glad to see another one of these videos! Will we get that big versus at some point?

[@fritzbuild3r]

I would like to point out Expanse ships are actually sligtly armored, they just primarily use a more realisitc form of armor for a space craft, whipple sheilds. MCRN ships have an outer most metal plating that is realitivly thin compared to the UNSC frankly insane titiaium plates. However, the metal plating would handle just fine against .50, as it is seen in the show to actually be around 4 ish cm thick, likely made of some titianium alloy due to its strenght to weight ratio, with about annother 15 cm of whipple sheilding behind it, which would while not as effective against actual projectiles cm for cm as titaium, it is designed to disrupt ectremly high velocity projectiles, mainly fragments from conventional missiles, and space debre.

[@themc.kennyshow6585]

The problem is , my good man, the UNSC ships guns ain't 50 cal lol. It's 50mm minimum. I CBA to explain all, but look at other comments to explain why a ship from the 26th century where FTL is a thing, would thrash the Donnager. I love both sci-fis, especially the hard sci-fi of The Expanse. But this isn't that fair of an comparison

[@floseatyard8063]

​@themc.kennyshow6585 yeah but this whole thing fails to take into account the shitty point defence unsc ships have, they're designed for slower starfighters not for nukes going kilometres per seconds that are programmed to dodge bullets. The fight would literally just be the two ships idling at distance until the donnager launches some nukes and its game over. And no you're not going to tell me that some titanium sheets will stop nukes that are more powerful than the nukes that ripped a 1km fully loaded freighter apart

[@stubbornspaceman7201]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@floseatyard8063slower fighters that having been shown to be able to accelerate at *THOUSANDS OF G’s.* And also UNSC point defense guns are AI controlled so no they are *anything* but shitty. Also UNSC titanium-A armor is molecularly strengthened and has survived some pretty outrageous stuff. And if you think a nuke is impressive because it destroyed an unarmored *freighter* then you should just stop before you embarrass yourself.

[@floseatyard8063]

@stubbornspaceman7201 if fighters were that outrageously fast at accelerating then why are they depicted as like p 51 speed lmao, they are already seemingly a threat at those speeds so lore wise if they can accelerate that fast they would just make capital ships obsolete. Also considering in a scene where the infinity shot down some covenant fighters the missiles were going as slow as real life atmospheric missiles I really doubt they'd be able to shoot down missiles accelerating at hundreds of g's or likely more. +if point defence can't shoot down fighters going relatively slow relative to the target like a plane, I'd say its pretty shitty. Also unsc ships are torn apart by plasma beams, and in the expanse even light frigate (for halo) sized battleships can take on plasma warheads hitting them and spraying plasma everywhere around the hull. Also keep in mind the nukes that destroyed that freighter were made to fit in a small 60m ship, nowhere near the firepower of larger capital ships

[@stubbornspaceman7201]

@@floseatyard8063 Ah I see you’re cherry picking all the lowest end feats for halo. Typical of a fanboy.

[@cplhotpockets]

1:35 "and im the one making the video" One day first pass, ill be making videos too

[@FirstPassOfficial]

Indeed you will!

[@doncamargo1885]

What about the Paris’s secondary coilgun batteries

[@Adamwofford]

You forgot if the Paris class has a A.I. on board and the crew is vets of the human Covenant war, but if I was in command of the Paris, I would use slipspace drive and come out just on donnager's Fike and give her some of my archer missiles and then swing the MAC cannon and fire, also you forgot that Macs can fire ever 5 seconds

[@FirstPassOfficial]

The Paris was pretty low on the food-chain for a full fledged smart AI to be on all of them, though it would definitely tilt it in its favor if it did. MAC’s can fire rapidly only if the capacitors are fully charged and its firing on a lower yield, lower the yield, the more shots can be fired. But even then its limited to how much a frigate’s reactor can output into the capacitor should it try to maintain a high rate of fire.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@FirstPassOfficial The primary figure we have for the velocity of a UNSC frigate MAC canon...30 km/s, comes from the Paris class frigate UNSC Commonwealth.....Which was a pre-war design, was heavily damaged, and incidentally was traveling at full burn, in reverse when she fired. That is extremely significant since the Commonwealth herself in the preceding paragraph was showing to be capable of crossing 80,000,000 km in the span of an hour, a feat that requires roughly 1200 G of acceleration, Making 30 km a second little more than a rounding error on the actual velocity they had to fire that round at to overcome that the ship was traveling away from the target.

[@Tuzszo]

Only ODP MACs can fire every 5 seconds, ship mounted MACs typically took half a minute or more between shots. Also pre-war and wartime UNSC ships didn't have the precision to make pinpoint slipspace jumps, only Covenant ships were capable of that, and even if they could the MAC would have to charge after exiting slipspace before it could fire.

[@Connor.SG-1Ring]

UNSC Infinity (Halo) vs USAF Odessey (Stargate)

[@N1lav]

Spelling: Donnager Pronunciation: Da-ne-jur not Da-ne-gur Donnager class cannot carry 12 Morrigan class. It has 4 internal stacked bays. the possible combinations are 2 Corvette class or 4 Morrigan class, or 1 Corvette and 2 Morrigan class. Only two corvette class can be carried since they are slightly longer than Morrigan class and there wouldn't be enough clearance to stack 3 corvettes.

[@TheJawsProductions]

I find it interesting that you did not mention the use of Jamming/E-war by the Paris class (as a function of the ship and not integral to having an AI do it) be used to disrupt the incoming missiles or the use of the nuclear missiles as an option.

[@zbiggun7594]

Dude you need to check out Installation00's videos on Halo ships and tech. The Paris class is actually over a kilometer long. It also has a grid of Rampart 50mm CWIS mounts (very similar to what the Donnager has). The secondary turrets you called point defenses are much larger anti-fighter/anti-ship mounts. Those mounts are nearly on par with an Iowa-class Battleship's main turrets for size. You also missed the 3 Shiva nukes and 10-ish Fury nukes that a Paris normally carries. The hangars on either side of the bow carry multiple Longswords each. And the Longswords carry anti-ship missiles that are roughly on par with an Archer. You also don't need powered missiles against the Donnie since she can't really dodge. As long as the missiles are on collision course, they will hit. Unpowered missiles are a bitch to track in space.

[@reentrysfs6317]

535 meters At 535 meters in length, the Paris-class is the largest class of UNSC frigate fielded during the war. The rampant guns are nowhere near the capability of the Martian pdcs The Paris often does not carry shiva nukes Though there are a few special occasions where I’d does

[@reentrysfs6317]

@@howlofwinter8264 it’s easy to say they don’t have the same tracking

[@melikwalker296]

I think he's confusing the Paris with another ship of Halo

[@zbiggun7594]

@@melikwalker296 Did you go watch the video I mentioned? The lore scale of all unsc ships is incorrect. The game scale is correct. The Paris class is actually over a kilometer long.

[@zbiggun7594]

@@reentrysfs6317 The Rampart is the descendant of 500 years of point defense gun design. The Martian PDC is the descendant of 100-200 ish years of design. You tell me which would be more capable. Also, the Paris class does carry nukes as standard equipment. All UNSC major combatants do. Any of the Halo books could tell you as much. The Fall of Reach movie even shows a Paris class in one on one combat using a nuke.

[@steamworks3823]

hmm, but what about something like the infinity? a considerably more advanced unsc ship. though i do question the choice to add in the escorts for the donnager. adding the escorts isn't really ship vs ship comparison. it is a squadron of ships vs 1

[@FirstPassOfficial]

The Infinity would curbstomp basically the entirety of the Expanse short of maxed out power scaling of their biggest nukes. And regarding escorts, the Donnager has a hangar bay to hold smaller ships like the Morrigan class, no just following them in a fleet. In versus battles I tend to include maxed out fighter and ship complements so long as the main ship is actually bringing them into battle instead of just being escorted by them in. The idea is to provide the most firepower available to each combatant.

[@eliasrobinson3915]

@@FirstPassOfficial There are some ships that would kill the Infinity. (Spoilers for the last 3 books) A good number of the Laconian ships could do it, especialy the ones with USMs. The Laconian ships use ring builder tech, which we know to be very powerful, and use the USM field projector. It works by firing off a magnetic field so powerful it spaghettifies hydrogen atoms, effectively removing the ship from existence.

[@chaoticwj1772]

What if the Martian or UNSC Marines try to board one another? Who would win between the Marines?

[@reentrysfs6317]

Now that’s a more interesting question

[@floseatyard8063]

Unsc marines are nowhere as armoured and resistant to small arms fire, winner is clear

[@stubbornspaceman7201]

@@floseatyard8063Says the expanse wank. UNSC marine armor is incredibly resilient but given how you’re light more than a blind expanse fanboy I’m not surprised you would say this.

[@globalelitemanagementllc7686]

Thanks for this vs battle...

[@cplhotpockets]

FINALLY!!!

[@panchopistolas5157]

The 30km/s thing is an outlier of TFoR, the rest of the novels and guides (Evolutions, Shadows of Reach, Warfleet, Encyclopedia, etc.) declare that the firing speed of the MACs are relativistic. The wiki is full of inconsistencies and is made by fans with personal biases, so I do not recommend that you use them as sources of information, for example, combat ranges in Halo are measured between 12,000, 30,000 and 150,000 km, it is obvious that a projectile at 30 km/s could not even in its wildest dreams reach those distances in reasonable times.

[@sallyh1480]

The Paris also has nukes

[@chastermief3501]

those point defense weapons are not 50cal they range from 30mm to 70mm

[@cplhotpockets]

I know that this match isnt purely about numbers, but the 30 km/s figure for the frigate doesnt make much sense. While yes, it is canon, current figures are so inconsistent to feats that the difference in power between the frigate mac and super mac is 800,000 times, despite the fact that they are both ment be the top tier anti capital ship weapons. The energy is 52 GT of TNT for the super mac, and 65 KT of TNT for the frigate. I think both numbers are too extreme and should be brought closer to a medium, and be only one or two orders of magnitude difference. So, in conclusion, i think the frigate mac velocity should be more close to around 600-800 km/s, with the super m as c being nerfed massively as well

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Keep in mind that the 30 km figure, it’s for a damaged pre-war frigate that was traveling in reverse when it fired. At the time the UNSC Commonwealth was at full burn racing away from the covenant when they flipped Over and fired a round back at the pursuing Covenant vessel, meaning the round had to overcome the velocity of the firing platform moving away from it. The chapter previous the captain Commented that it would take the Commonwealth approximately an hour to intercept the covenant vessel 80,000,000 km away.... if the Commonwealth did that from a dead stop she would be capable of 1200g of acceleration. 30 km/s is a rounding error on the velocity that round would have needed to be fired to overcome the motion of the ship itself. The Reverse is also true, if the UNSC vessel charges at the enemy their forward velocity is imparted to the round. This Places shipboard MAC systems much more in line with the SMAC cannons. In fact, we have scenes that have clocked a UNSC frigate at 16000km/s Meaning that even though it fires a much lighter round, The frigate could actually achieve a greater velocity than the SMAC cannon. The advantage of the fixed orbital defense gun however is that being supplied by the reactors on the planet...It can fire a super heavy round every five seconds Whereas their ships are limited by heat buildup in the reactor. That’s the trade-off in physics here, Halo is a non-Newtonian universe where they have artificial gravity and inertia dampening....But they have to deal with heat buildup in their ships, whereas the expanse is a Newtonian universe that doesn’t have artificial gravity but doesn’t seem to care about heat buildup at all.

[@Duke_of_Petchington]

well the difference being one fires a 600t DU round at 30km/s and the other fire a 3000t Ferric-tungsten round at 12000km/s.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@Duke_of_Petchington Correction, a damaged ship fired a 600 ton round while traveling in reverse and the resulting velocity of the round was 30km/s greater than the momentum of the ship….. which even though the ship was damaged could have been well in excess of 10,000 km/s.

[@alexisbaz8746]

@@Matt-yg8ub if you take the Books in account that is bullshit, the Wiki is Wrong, Ships in Halo travel constantly at that speed, the range of MAC's is 15.000km and the speed of a Frigate Round is 3600km/s, the 30km/s is pure nonsense

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@alexisbaz8746 An entire multi decade saga/cross platform universe….and we’re still getting people making calcs based on a single bad line of throw away dialogue in a hastily written novel that makes no sense.

[@anno-fw7xn]

Great video!!!! Cant wait for more! But i tough the donger can only cary 2 frigate or 4 of the smaler ships.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@pepe_marroquin I don’t think all it’s hangars are that size. That basically wouldn’t leave room for anything else in the bulk of the ship.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@pepe_marroquin No worries, we’re all human :-) I would question the MCRN designers who came up with that though. What’s the point? The only real advantage this would give them is to hide their numbers, but as you just demonstrated...anybody can look up how many ships you could birth onboard. Because the MCRN is essentially a defensive force, humanity lacks FTL Travel....and the solar system is only so big, the need to internally carry a bunch of ships just isn’t there. If there was some plot contrivance where larger vessels were more efficient in their drives and therefore consumed less fuel I could see internal carriers...But as we have seen with the class, all the support vessels in the system are useless if you don’t deploy them. It makes sense to carry a Corvette, Or in this case a Corvette class light frigate (confusing much?) ...But 12 picket destroyers won’t do you any good unless you have them deployed, They are just dead weight sitting in the hanger. I don’t know how big a HALO fan you are, But even the ridiculously large UNSC Infinity had a better excuse for carrying 10 internal frigates. As humanity’s last hope to basically pack up and run away from the covenant, infinity was intended to carry an entire fleet with her internally....this odd design choice makes some sense in a universe where the carrier is heavily armored and can provide some protection for its support craft. Not so in the Expanse.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@pepe_marroquin I think giant open spaces are a structural weakness. I don’t doubt you could double stack the destroyers....but I doubt they have 4 hangars the size of the one the Tachi was birthed in.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@pepe_marroquin Pretty much, but shuttles like the knight also take up a birth. I feel it’s a bit of a mute point though since we’ve never seen a Donnager actually deploy support craft in battle.

[@stalwartteakettlepotato9879]

Why do people always give a full fleet to the donnager? Just because it can carry a fleet with it doesn't mean it does. Its far more likely that it doesn't carry anything more than a ship or two if even that during its normal operations

[@kevinjheath]

We tend to almost always use full or near to full compliments on aircraft carriers and other sub-craft launching vessels. So it would be comparable to assume the same unless extreme conditions intervene.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@kevinjheath in the history of the Expanse….there isn’t a single instance of a Donnager EVER deploying a support vessel in a combat role. Both times we watched one be destroyed in battle….it never deployed support craft to assist in the fight. Sargarmatha would have been well served to do so…but didn’t. Donnager herself deployed none for combat (were not even sure she had crews available) but Holden and crew did escape the destruction of the ship by commandeering a corvette class light frigate and blasting their way out of the hanger.

[@kevinjheath]

@@Matt-yg8ub "Originally commissioned as the MCRN (Martian Congressional Republic Navy) Tachi (ECF 270), the ship was stationed aboard the MCRN flagship, the Donnager. It was renamed by James Holden after he and his crew used it to escape from the Donnager." So, yes, The Donnager carried combat capable support craft. As for the launching thereof, that was a tactical decision, not a capability one.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@kevinjheath We all know where he got it. I was simply pointing out that the captain of the Donnager was caught off guard and unaware by the multiple contacts specifically because she didn’t deploy any of her support craft in a screening or intercept role…. As people keep just blindly assuming a Donnager would alway do by default. We’ve NEVER seen them do this… so it shouldn’t be assumed as a default action

[@kevinjheath]

@@Matt-yg8ub And based on two encounters you assume they never would... ok. whatever.

[@lenkautsugi5747]

Make a video of the ori mothership vs aurora battleship

[@tombblades]

The MAC is just overpowered though

[@jwil193]

Longswords would never fit the hanger pelicans can't even fit in them coz the scalling is off

[@FullMetalFox2]

Kinda funny how a 30km/s Railgun (Halo) is supposed to compete with the torpedos on range, while the expanse Railguns appear to fire slugs around 250km/s based on the time it took a round from the Roci to hit a 101215km away asteroid. Like just as an example, if they would fight at 1000km a 30km/s MAC round would need 33,3* seconds to cross the distance, just with a 1g change a ship could change its vector by a whole 326,34ms in that time. Now put into perspective how little distance 1000km is in space and how Expanse ships have been slugging it out with Torpedos at much greater distances in the books, yeah i really don't see the arcade like Halo stuff being able to even remotely compete with the more realistic stuff from the Expanse without adding some zeros to the Halo stuff.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

The often quoted 30 km/s, was for a damaged frigate moving in full reverse. There’s no way for us to know exactly what speed the Commonwealth was traveling away from her target when she fired, but in the previous chapter she was quoted as being able to cross 80,000,000 km in an hour. She was at full burn when she flipped over and fired at the pursuing covenant vessel...Meaning that 30 km/s is the speed that the round left the barrel in excess of whatever energy was required to overcome the inertia of firing against the direction of travel at what was likely tens of thousands of kilometers per second.

[@FullMetalFox2]

@@Matt-yg8ub Speed in space is relative. Since you said the target was pursuing the firing vessel you could pretty much count them as stationary in relation to each other, or if the pursuing vessel was still accelerating towards them it would actually increase the impact vector. Speed being relative also means there is no "overcoming the inertia" bs, a projectile fired from a moving vessel just inherits its vector. And crossing 80Gm in 1 hour, meh, possible, the question is how much time it took to accelerate to that speed. If we take the "it accelerated from 0 to that in 1 hour" figure I've seen in the comments, then I can only call it inconsistent lazy writing. Sorry that would be 1259g, if you got the technology to accelerate a ship at that speed, then you really wouldn't have to worry about anything.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@FullMetalFox2 I disagree, you CAN NOT “pretty much count them as stationary”, there is almost always a disparity in speed between vessels in Halo, they rarely remain stationary in combat....unlike the Donnager’s we’ve seen in combat in the expanse. I also disagree with you (as does myth busters) on projectiles not needing to overcome the motion of the ship. At the moment TAO hit the firing switch, that 600 ton MAC round was traveling towards the Damascus testing facility at (X kilometers/s). Now that round may have been traveling relative to the electromagnetic rails, but when they fired, they had to throw that round out the ‘back’ of the ship With enough force to overcome the backward momentum in the direction of travel of the vessel, without the benefit of the vessel firing its engines to counteract the firing of the gun. What you are asking us to believe is that if i stand on the back of a train moving at 100 m/s and fire a 1911(muzzle velocity roughly 250 m/s ) And the bullet leaves the train at 150 m/s....ALL FIREARMS EVERYWHERE are only capable of firing at 150 m/s 30k/s is a pin prick compared to a SMAC, it’s a low end outlier that doesn’t fit with anything else in the books, doesn’t make sense for any of the combat scenes, and would put the UNSC at a massive disadvantage compared to Covenant plasma Torpedoes. We’ve seen UNSC fighters exceed 100k/s in the games on multiple occasions, There’s no way the fighters are three times as fast as their primary weapon. The scene only makes sense if you acknowledge that the ship was damaged and firing in reverse.

[@FullMetalFox2]

@@Matt-yg8ub I think you fully don't understand relative speeds, a speed measurement always depends on the reference point, and even if you would pick the center of the Milkyway galaxy as the reference point everything would already be moving at 2.1 million km/h. And those fighters, well if they are moving at 100km/s forward and fire 30km/s muzzle velocity weapons, their projectiles would actually travel at 130km/s as the muzzle velocity is relative to the firing ship. For example, lets say we just pick a Sun as the reference point, and say the UMSC ship would travel at 1000km/s, the Covenant ship would pursuit at 1100km/s and the UMCS ship would launch a projectile at 30 km/s muzzle velocity, 1100-(1000-30) = the covenant ship would actually run into the projectile at 130km/s, or set the reference point between the two ships relative speeds and you could say it flys at 50km/s into an at 80km/s incoming projectile, set the covenant ship as the reference point and it gets hit by a 130km/s projectile. It's all relative.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@FullMetalFox2 I don’t care about your reference point for measuring velocity relative to whatever you want to argue, I care about the physics and the energy required to achieve impact velocity on the target. The rest is just obfuscation. Your example of fighters firing and the velocity of the ship being added to the forward motion of the round illustrates that you understand the physics, but won’t acknowledge that the vessel was firing while moving in reverse thus subtracting from the round. Now, Thank you for bringing that up, if the Paris simply charged at the Donnager and pulled the trigger on the MAC....BOOM, The Donnager explodes in a spectacular fashion and the battle is over. Both times we have seen a Donnager use it rail guns....It was at a relative standstill. With it having an effective range here of roughly 1,000 km, even if you want to hold to the ridiculous 30k/s, the Paris class has been seen to travel in excess of 16,000 km a second and a MAC round fired at that speed would come as a unwelcome surprise from far outside the Donnager’s own rail gun range.

[@spartanx9293]

2:09 nope 12 twin 50 mm autocannons

[@maxtruong187]

30 km/s in space is stupidly slow. In the books, I think there is a source said that if at long ranges. The MAC(which is coilgun, the rounds don't make contact with the rail) can fire smaller and lighter projectiles at much faster speed. This is also a problem in it own because the round will just simply pass through the ship without causing much destruction unless hitting sub-systems. The round have no stopping power so to speak. If you play Mass effect, the gun fire tiny sand-size rounds very fast but doesn't have that knock back force. 30 km/s is just simply dumb in space warfare if we talking about a more realistic approach.

[@chastermief3501]

also its a soft g in donnager

[@demonbot6617]

3:19 what game is that?

[@FirstPassOfficial]

“Sins of the Prophets” mod for the game “Sins of a Solar Empire”

[@demonbot6617]

@@FirstPassOfficial that's odd, I played SOTP and don't recall those ships at all

[@FirstPassOfficial]

Weird, might be a screenshot from a much earlier version?

[@demonbot6617]

that seems feasible but I don't recognize those ships at all, do you have a link or video for source?

[@oryx4595]

Okay I was gonna say that I would recognize the ship models when I looked at them but when I looked at them I thought of Star Wars and thought "What the fuck are those ships?"

[@blacktuesday7427]

Considering thereʻs a 200-300 year time difference in between the two ships, the Donnager seems fairly well matched considering the circumstances.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Only because the Author is downplaying the hell out of the UNSC and it’s speed advantage. He outright dismisses the Longsword fighters as irrelevant…. Even though they’re larger, more maneuverable and more heavily armed than the Donnager’s destroyers.

[@reentrysfs6317]

@@Matt-yg8ub it seems that the Paris can’t acepare faster than a human could handle and we don’t see it accelerating at ridiculous speeds it would be easy picking for torpedoes in the expanse witch accelerate at hundreds of gs

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@reentrysfs6317 Negative Ghost Rider. The Paris class heavy frigate exists in a non-Newtonian universe where the UNSC has both artificial gravity and inertia dampening technology. Captain Wallace of the pre-covenant war, Paris class frigate ‘Commonwealth’, indicated to Dr. Halsey that it would take the ship an hour to cross 80,000,000 km to engage a covenant target. To be perfectly honest, nobody knows how fast the commonwealth was traveling at the time he gave that report… But from a dead stop that’s 1,200G of acceleration. Later in that same chapter, Halsey and the Spartans reach the rendezvous coordinates, the Commonwealth is several million kilometers off station Engaging the covenant, but is enroute to pick them up. Chief goes to the Troop Bay And orders the Spartans to arm up. In the time it takes them to Don thruster packs, the Commonwealth arrives on station to retrieve them. If you want this battle to be in any way realistic, let the Paris maneuver freely and engage the target with her MAC and coil gun batteries.

[@reentrysfs6317]

@@Matt-yg8ub ok you win

[@yomiyama]

@@Matt-yg8ub , does anyone here knows what is the name of the music track used at around 5:13?

[@spartanx9293]

8:39 Halo point defenses guided by smart AI hardly basic

[@spacemichael1177]

paris would wipe the floor with donnager ez

[@Ryan-rq6dx]

I have to ask, how would the mac guns prove useful beyond the range of the railguns? Arent they also unguided projectiles limited by relativity? The expanse makes a point that beyond 1000km any ship with decent scopes and a fast computer can reliably dodge railgun shot.

[@josesanchezrodriguez1783]

Leviathan Wakes states that: "But here they were, firing the ship's big cannons, which meant that the range was sufficiently short that a nonguided weapon was viable. Hundreds or even dozens of kilometers, not thousands." MACs in the Halo verse are shown to have ranges of around 3,000 km/s against ships with comparable if not superior maneuverability than the Expanse's

[@floseatyard8063]

​@@josesanchezrodriguez1783still means effective range is below the usual fighting range for expanse ships (in lore, I'm not accounting for the rare cqb fights because they didn't have conventional circumstances)so any expanse ship would be able to dodge

[@adyne7887]

Nice video, but I have to disagree on a few arguments: *long inhale* You said that on the tens to hundreds of kilometres, the MAC would be the Paris-Classes weapon of choice, but with a muzzle velocity of ~30 km/s, it would take between 5.5 minutes and 9.25 hours for the projectile to reach the Donnager. More than enough time for the Donnie to evade. Let's estimate generously and say that anything below 5 seconds is insufficient time to evade a MAC round. The Paris-Class would have to get within 150 km, which is well within the Donnies torpedo and railgun range. The Paris doesn't have the manoeuvrability or defences to avoid or counter those weapons, and with the Donnagers far superior range (1000 km railgun range and >1 million km for torpedoes), the Frigate is a cloud of dust and vapor long before it gets into range to fire it's MAC. The Paris has missiles and due to their guided nature, they stand the best chance at hitting the Donnager at a distance, however the gap in missile capabilities between Halo and The Expanse is astronomical, with the Frigates missiles speed and guidance being far worse than even the shittiest belter pirate torpedoes. I doubt that the almost 60 PDCs and the 'Banisher' targeting software defending the Donnager will have much trouble. Missile performance won't get much better at close ranges either. If anything, it will get worse since the missiles have less time to gain speed and are thus longer exposed to the 'Banisher'. The only way I can see the Paris winning is by going out on slipspace right next to the Donnager (but not too close) and firing a MAC round right through the aft, where the Epstein Drives are located. If against all odds the Donnies reactors did not went critical, the Paris can close in and engage in a PDC slugging match. With no reactor, the Donnager can't flee or fire it's railguns, making it and easy target. In conclusion: While your analysis correctly shows that the starting distance is the deciding factor, you failed to mention that the possible starting distances are largely in the Donnagers favour (99,9985 %, to be precise). >1 000 000 km - 150km: Donnager victory < 150 km: Paris-Class victory Due to this obvious advantage, I'd declare the Donnager victorious. If anyone want's to challenge this assessment, I am more that willing to discuss this.

[@alexisbaz8746]

That MAC canon calc is wrong, Ships in Halo travel at those speeds constantly in Battle, a Destroyer pushing himself can exced 100km/s, UNSC Ships fire 0.8% Speed of light (3600km/s) in Frigates. We See the Spirit Of Fire reaching stupidly high speeds in the Ending of Halo wars, again pushing the ship to the limit but still. The MAC would be completely useless, seriously, you think a Covenant Ship wouldn't be able to dodge a round in 5minutes when they can accelerate 500m/s in atmosphere...? kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJCuhKavrbyVoK8

[@adyne7887]

@@alexisbaz8746 I'm not sure I understood you sentences entirely. I'm not very familiar with the Halo universe, so I assumed the 30km/s muzzel velocity I grabbed from this video was true. A muzzel velocity of 0.8% the speed of light would be quite devastating, but this does not look like 0.8% of lightspeed: kzbin.info/www/bejne/imXVdpmwfZamjqM Also, please remember that speed is relative. I don't know what level of realism Halo has in terms of physics. If it doesn't have at least semi-newtonian physics, then all our math is pointless. In that case, space battles would be a narrative background rather than actual battles that follow and obey and internal set of rules, making any predictions impossible, and to be honest, quite unfair to put it up against a ship that does. In any case, we mostly see MAC round fired at distances where we can see the enemy ship. If the MACs have far greater muzzel velocity than we see, they chose not to use it at the longest possible range, likely because they needed a cool cutscene more than a sensible space battle.

[@alexisbaz8746]

@@adyne7887 Sometimes the Cutscenes doesn't represent all correctly, the combat is a lot of times outside visual range but have in Mind the Covenant is not stupid, they have in system FTL jumps so they can get closer where their ships are even more devastating and UNSC ships struggle.

[@adyne7887]

@@alexisbaz8746 That is not very convincing. To say that Halo ship combat has an internal ruleset that's just not followed very strictly is a ruleset worth nothing. This type of space battle would be more akin to Star Trek rather than The Expanse. Again, with a lack of consistency, making any predictions pointless and impossible.

[@alexisbaz8746]

@@adyne7887 the books are used to get those calcs, in general that is the capability of Halo ships, but is not like they fly at 4% speed of light, their Anti Gravity cannot protect them that much and the engines can overload if they push themselfs that hard. Halo is not HARD Sci-Fi like the Expanse so is a lot more crazy with their ships.

[@unity151]

I have one question. How many ships in halos universe have AI? If the frigate has a AI it could mess with the donnager like the donnager would try to effect the Paris with with jamming?

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Virtually all of them, It’s extremely rare for a military vessel to operate Without a smart AI, It’s virtually unheard of for a military vessel to operate without AI at all Since it’s built into almost everything, and their point defense systems are built around it.

[@alexisbaz8746]

And those IA are absurd, still maybe their computers are not compatible but if they are..., a Smart-IA could play Polka in the Donager and..., drive the ship to the Sun remotely, or maybe shoot the ship itself with his own missiles just for the Gigles

[@archerbascha8757]

I did a little bit of math. If we say that the heavy railguns of the Donnager is as, if not more powerfull than the planetary railguns of the UNN, the power output of them would be around 1074,12 KT of TNT. Thats assuming that the Donnager fires slugs as heavy as the planetary railguns ( maybe heavier, I used as slug with a mass of 1 ton ) and fired with around 0.33% of lightspeed ( 0.33 because if the slug reaches its target within 1000km in almost an instant like it is descriped). If we say that the slugs wight just around one pound, we don't even come close to one Kt of TNT, which seems reasonable lore wise. All of this is just speculation.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

The M910 Is a considerably more capable point defense system then you give it credit for. The Donnager class Proved itself to be a glass cannon. Both times we see it in battle it dies rather quickly. The Sagarmatha took 4 missiles to the engines and exploded spectacularly...the Donnager herself faired little better. She engaged in CQB, started firing her Ultra heavy rail guns, And in one of the most realistic battle scenes in all of the expanse....Quickly overheats and is forced to shut down her drives which exposes a critical design flaw that the expanse regularly ignores i.e. the build up of heat simply does not exist in the expanse universe. The expanse, has no armor to speak of....making larger ships giant magnets for missile attacks that can cripple them just as easily as the lighter, more maneuverable vessels. The fate of the Sagarmatha exposes a critical flaw in Expanse sensor technology. They can track and engage highly energetic targets like active missiles…. But they appear to be all but blind to meteorites and other inert objects. Three Capitol vessels…. And none of them detected the meteor shower. Now I realize that Marco supposedly coated all of the astroids in the ruinously expensive, incredibly rare Martian stealth paint, but even then, This just goes back to some thing I pointed out earlier, just paint your missiles with the same stealth paint and the enemy will never see the nukes coming. Ultimately the question of which one of these vessels would win in a fight is answered by the fact that the author chose to give the Donnager an entire flotilla worth of support craft, While offhandedly dismissing the existence of actual fighters (larger than a MCRN light frigate) and all the support craft onboard the Paris.

[@AnythingMachine]

Come to think of it is there any mention of heat management in UNSC ships? They’re a bit softer sci-fi, so is there some kind of slipspace heat radiator?

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@AnythingMachine Yes! It was an intrinsic limitation of their reactors that they solved almost 30 years into the war. Heat management was a BIG issue in combat and UNSC armor technology was designed around radiating heat away from the ship.

[@leonardolf6974]

In season 5 we see a Donnager fighting after it already have thousands of holes, it only died when its reactor exploded, but it was fighting more than 30 other ships, after been strike, by a meteorite strike.... so... not exactly a glass cannon

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@leonardolf6974 The Truman class dreadnoughts were hit by just as many meteorites. The armor scheme of the Donnager class sacrifices most of the ship, with internal bunkers for command and engineering. She was dead the moment the meteorites opened her up…it just took a few seconds for the rest of her to get the message. Notice how her PDCs were on automatic and didn’t engage the missiles that exited the ring. As for your claim that she was fighting 30 ships…. She was standing still with her back to the ring…. An insanely bad tactical position to be in….especially for a ship that relies on thrust gravity. It’s irrelevant how many ships Marco had because none of the defenders lived long enough to engage more than one or two of them. Sargarmatha didn’t deploy any support craft…. Which seeing as how this is the second Donnager we’ve seen die in combat without deploying support craft (100% of all Donnager’s seen on screen ) I’d argue that it’s not standard procedure to deploy them.

[@samackerman691]

@@Matt-yg8ub The frigate paris would not even withstand an attack from thousands of meteorites. the donnager withstood the missiles and meteorites at the same time. a great test of his strength

[@stargatetitanx]

these are so awesome please make more . the Aurora form stargate Atlantis with a zpm Vs Imperial-class Star Destroyer from starwars , or , Resurgent-class Star Destroyer .

[@mattkirby7154]

sorry but you have forgotten to include AI in this, the paris would have a dumb AI, making all weapon systems 100% effective, where as the donnie is relient on its human crewing with no known AI systems

[@adamjensen5160]

actually, in the expanse the PDCs are controlled by AI, that is why the PDCs are very efficient to intercept even up to 20 torpedoes and to defend against other ships. as far as i know, in the fall of reach animation, the commonwealth was not able to intercept only 8 plasma torpedoes

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@UCy57TnxWgg0ZiVzKIqKGnPw Because as of TFOR (the book) It was impossible to intercept a plasma torpedo with 50mm point defense fire. That had nothing to do with the accuracy of the guns and everything to do with the fact that the fifth state of matter was capable of instantly melting through the rounds, which had absolutely no effect on a magnetically contained bottle of super heated plasma. For comparison, The banister targeting system on the Sagarmatha failed to even register the existence of the belter torpedoes coming out of the gate before they tore into the back of the ship. We are dealing with science fiction here, fiction that is dictated By the whims of the author and the plot, not necessarily by scientific principle or consistency.

[@Apollo-tj1vm]

MCRN got better ships than 2 UNN navy lul

[@demonbot6617]

I haven't watched yet, but I have absolutely no doubt that the paris is gonna implode the donnager with 1 MAC round

[@chaucermcdoogle6011]

Yeah Halo has like 250 years in weapons development ahead of the Expanse. It would be more fair to have a match-up between the ships later in the expanse books, versus UNSC or covenant ships. *edit after watching interesting choices, but goes to show how far the battle distances are in the Expanse compared to most other scifi. Ships from an equivalent period in like the 2600's would outclass anything else in scifi if proto-molecule tech is unlocked.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@chaucermcdoogle6011 Something almost no one takes into consideration, the Paris class was capable of crossing 80,000,000 km in one hour. When the Commonwealth fired giving us the 30 km a second calculation, it was moving at full speed away from the enemy, and fired at a target behind it, meaning that 30 km a second was in excess of The energy needed to overcome the fact that the ship was moving in reverse at whatever insane speed allowed them to cover 80,000,000 km in an hour (Sorry, I’m not an astrophysicist so I’m not going to do the calculations for acceleration here). The reverse is also true, if the Paris charges at the Donnager.....It imparts it’s own substantial forward momentum to the MAC round when it fires.

[@kinkade6710]

@@Matt-yg8ub Since the UNSC has artificial gravity technology, their acceleration is not limited by human endurance. Throughout the lore of Halo there are many instances of extreme acceleration feats that would kill the crew of a vessel from the Expanse.

[@kevinjheath]

Wouldn't the Eppstein drive give the Donnager a speed advantage over the Paris?

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Nope, the Paris is from a Non Newtonian universe with inertial dampening technology…. She’s dramatically faster than the Donnager could ever hope to be without killing her crew. The Epstein drive makes Expanse missiles magic…. But physics makes the UNSC ships faster.

[@alexisbaz8746]

@@Matt-yg8ub Exactly, UNSC ships can go 100km/s if the crew wants that, and MAC's can hit ships that can move at those speed with ease. Actually even faster than that if you count the SoF fleeing a Supernova.

[@Dewydidit]

Donnager would take it every time. It sends out it's complement of Corvettes and Destroyers and the Paris never gets in range.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

The Longswords on the Paris are larger and more heavily armed than the destroyers on the Donnager.

[@reentrysfs6317]

@@Matt-yg8ub a missile from the expanse is comparable in size to the fighters in halo

[@alexisbaz8746]

Once the Donager get's in 15.000km he is going to to eat 600 tons of tungsten traveling at 3600km/s, the 30km/s is bullshit, Halo ships move at those speeds, and the Longswords have 8 50mm Coil gun rapid fire canon, the bigger one has one 110mm Rapid Firing Coilgun Canon and a turreted 120mm, the thing shoots tank sheels that are imbued in plasma when shooted in atmosphere because they travel that fast. It can carry a 30 Megaton Nuke in his Bay and miniature Archers with less range but same power and any of those will pop the Donager, and the Thing can casually move 4 times faster than the bullets of those PD. And you forget that the Paris has secondary coilguns that can tear apart the Donager, heck, the Paris could just ram the Donager and maybe even survive

[@Claygalvin]

Paris would be dead long before it got in to competitive range I think. Those MCRN torpedoes are brutal and the 3 gunships could act as a secondary defense screen handling the archer missiles fairly easily.

[@melikwalker296]

The Paris class heavy frigate is built around a Mac gun it has the range over 15 km and the donager only has at least a 1 km with both of its hammerlock guns for effective range the Paris class frigate will literally cour out the donager and you're also forgetting the time Gap between the two ships in the expanse universe they cannot accelerate under one g and they do not have artificial gravity and even without the Mac of Paris class heavy frigate is a whole lot armored and armed then a a Dodger class battleship