ROCINANTE V PELLA | A desperate fight as the Roci is ambushed by the free navy | The Expanse

[@YourArmsGone]

One more awesome detail was the damage and effectiveness of the Roci PDCs. Because this was a High G chase with the Roci running, the Rocis' PDCs had more time to intercept incoming torpedoes. The chasing ships had a harder time intercepting the Roci torpedoes because they were accelerating toward the torps they had to shoot down. This high G chase also meant that when the Pela ran into the Rocis' PDC rounds the penetration was much higher than what we would normally see because of the relative velocities.

[@LeLaidbackLauncher]

Very good point

[@LeeCarlson]

Marco's decision to attack the Rocinante had nothing to do with propaganda or morale. His son, Fillip, said it best when he told Marco that the entire attack was about his pride and his narcissistic hubris.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

Yeah but that little shit did not make himself very believable though. Shoots his best friend in the heart because he got apunch he deserved. From that moment on he was just another Marco Inaros.

[@LeeCarlson]

@@paulmichaelfreedman8334, Fillip had a very bad role model growing up. It is not until he learns his mother's side of the story that he starts to grow up. I recommend reading Sins of the Father.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

@@LeeCarlson Does he have a redemption arc?

[@animo9050]

​@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 pretty much no, he just deserts

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

There is one other nuance to the barrage Bobby fired at the Pella: Velocity of projectiles. Given the distances involved, and the velocities at which the various projectiles are traveling, she essentially attempted an MRSI-shot (Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact), which is terrifying at the best of times. In a nutshell this means these various projectiles are supposed to arrive at the target at roughly the same time, rendering a defense essentially impossible - AND Badass Bobby accounted for the likely evasive maneuver while doing it. And since some of the weapons were beyond effective range, she essentially had do do that stunt manually and on the fly. So missing some of them, can easily be forgiven and do nothing to the scary display of badassery of a Martian Marine.

[@4thObserver]

180 no scope Roci arguably no other Sci-fi Ship attack maneuver is as good. It looks ridiculous and flashy at first but very consistent on how The Expanse treats 3D space combat.

[@shayminthedoctor9663]

Honestly putting an innert torpedo through someone's hull is probably the biggest fuck you that can be made in this universe

[@az_3kgt714]

not to mention the psychological shock right after.."They couldve easily killed every one of us." And from then on Everyone including marcos questioning his jusdgement. Because then all the survivors know what went down. Marco's narcissism and pride cost them people and valuable assets. Probably the bigger power play to let marco's live and not kill him and turn him into a martyr.

[@blackc1479]

A thoughtful person would get that. Marco was way too thick. (And yeah. Totally punchable face lol)

[@626sarBKBruerrE]

when people claim plot armor for this battle they always fail to realize that the reason it’s a toe to toe fight is because the free navy doesn’t have people who have flown warships before. equivalent of someone who owns a prius hoping in an 18 wheeler for the first time and then trying to battle.

[@Debbiebabe69]

tbh Holden is a pretty rookie pilot as well.....

[@PSC4.1]

​@@Debbiebabe69 Yes, but it's easier to run in space than it is to chase, chasing leaves a lot less time to react to projectiles, running leaves plenty of time to react, if they had gone into a broadside battle, holden would have definitely lost, due to there being more weapons pointed at him at the same time, while in a chase situation, that more weapons advantage is nullified, also something to keep in mind, they were moving at a speed of 3+gs so to put that into math, one g is 9.8m/s three gs is 29.4m/s so to math this they are moving faster than 29.4m/s and cutting thrusters maintains momentum since there is no atmosphere is space, as such you keep your direction of movement if you dont have stability thrusters or have them shut off. The 360° trickshot with the railgun was stupid but hey, if it works it works we cant really argue with that, and that was a lucky shot that he smacked the ship dead center on the belter ship, something that was reflected when the Pella continued to dodge the Roci's railgun rounds. Plus, disarming the safety feature on the PDCs just to spray the Pella was a smart move on Bobbys part, forced the Pella into a trap and the Pella walked right into it.

[@ryanhampson673]

True but in the books Alex is still around and he’s flying.

[@johnsmithfakename8422]

Holden is THE good guy of The Expanse. He sometimes does things that are morally the high ground when he should not. On a side note, him sparing Marko did 2 things, it SERIOUSLY hurt his ego, and it saved Fillip's life. Deactivating the torpedo pretty much was the biggest "Fuck You" in in the entire run of the series. The Roci could have killed Marco then and there, but that would have turned Marco into a martyr. That would have made Marco more powerful in death than he was in life. Yes, in the moment that was a tactical bad decision but at the same time it was the best decision considering the fight they were in. They were not fighting the "Free Navy" they were fighting Marko.

[@CharliMorganMusic]

He is a paragon. Excruciatingly Lawful Good.

[@stealthcone]

@@CharliMorganMusicthat’s why he isn’t a good soldier, if he was like Bobby the Free navy would have died there and at least tens of thousands would have been saved but he couldn’t kill like a soldier can so he didn’t and Marco and his navy survived to fight another day.

[@TheKingTywinLannister]

Millions died because of his stupidity

[@johnsmithfakename8422]

@@TheKingTywinLannister I personally think Holden's good guy nature did more long term good than harm. Marco was a fanatic, with a lot of weapons. In the long run Marco's free navy would have imploded because of Marco. Surprisingly I think this fight did more to harm Marco than it did to help him. It accelerated Marco's instability.

[@kend6232]

@@johnsmithfakename8422 interesting take. Historically, there's a good example - Hitler overriding Rommel after D-Day, etc, Hitler committing German troops to take Stalingrad because... Stalin... rather than surrounding it and just letting them wither. Fanatics aren't often good military leaders (who said the rocks weren't the Martian Admirals idea :) j/k - haven't read the book to know who came up with it). Regardless, point well taken, Marco sucked at war, good at terrorism and speeches. Although his move on Ceres Station was an interesting call.

[@rwp248]

good break down. do more like this, the expanse offers so many well written battles that its just a shame we didn't get to see Laconia's rise and fall. P.s. I see what you did there with the intro style :cough: spacedock

[@samjovii]

The manner in which battles in the Expanse takes crew competence into consideration differentiates it from other shows. The level of realism written into SciFi is wild!

[@gilmadreth680]

Some say that Isacc Newton is the most dangerous son of a bitch in space but I think we all know that title is really held by Bobby "You Just Fucked All the Way Up" Draper.

[@Talon1124]

Bobby had help from good old Sir Newton. Because an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. That means that when you fire this weapon, it will continue to travel until it hits something. Be that the ship you fired on, a planet or asteroid behind thay ship, or hurtle off into the aether and hit someone else somehwere, and somewhen. That means that when you pull the trigger, you are ruining someone's day.

[@blackc1479]

Ask the manhole cover. But yeah, Bobbie is and shall always be a God tier badass. Ask the iirc Tempest. (Don't look that up if you don't want major spoilers. Youve been warned)

[@gilmadreth680]

@@blackc1479 "Anything you can do, I can do better..."

[@michaelmichaelagnew8503]

I still say Isacc Newton since he's an actual real person, not a fictitious character that someone wrote in a book.

[@unbrokn001]

Like a fuckin' Valkyrie

[@greykellogg]

Bobies MK1 eyeball sniped the PELLA from over a 1000K away. thank you sir she is that badaass

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

She actually did more than that, which he completely missed. The ordnance and projectiles Bobby fired all traveled at different velocities - and due to distance she had to eyeball it, rather than get a firing solution, yes. BUT due to the difference in velocities, what she did amounts to a manual MRSI-shot - which is badass-cubed.

[@PavewayJDAM]

Every marine a rifleman.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

CGI has that magic that it always hits its target.

[@robgraham5697]

I watched Season 6 simply to watch Marco die a hideous death. I was not disappointed.

[@LeeCarlson]

The ships in Marco Inaros' flotilla were also Martian warships that had been provided by Admiral Duarte to the Free Navy.

[@carloshenriquezimmer7543]

Not all of them, most were belter pirate and crime bosses' ships, upgunned with Martian "reprossesed" weapons. He gave the better mars' gunboats for his most loyal followers and some of his most usefull allies.

[@stealthcone]

@@carloshenriquezimmer7543I think that he is talking about the book because they were all Martian ships in the book and that is actually why the Roci won, when one ship was hit the ship registered the hit fast enough to prevent a reactor detonation leaving it’s crew to be rescued

[@brauliob]

This was also won because of the difference between professionals and trained amateurs. Sure, the Belters have been pirating a long time, but they never received formal military training like Bobby and Holden. Belters have skilled fighters, but the Roci crew has training from generations of military knowledge and some experience.

[@dbsm666]

Also, Roci’s crew is more seasoned in the ships operations, and that is always a plus

[@tkul_]

Marco is a case study in why you never trust a someone wearing Guyliner

[@silgen]

Like JD Vance? How about someone who paints himself orange?

[@thosewhocando]

Just a note that others may have made: the Rocinante was not supposed to have a rail gun. No one knew about it until "Wham!" Followed by an 'oh shit' moment and they now to knew to look for that 'flip' and expectant rail gun shot. See the flip, dodge even before the rail gun fires.

[@irfansyahril8511]

Would it not be common knowledge after Ilus? Roci was on newsfeeds system-wide, and I assumed the railgun would be visible

[@thosewhocando]

@@irfansyahril8511 sure. But lots of that would be file footage. If I’m doing a story on the USS Nimitz, unless she’s right there, I’m using old photos. I imagine some within the UN or MCRN navies knew about but I doubt that info would be widely known.

[@Debbiebabe69]

The Belter engineer who did all the Roci repairs at the start of Season 5 (and put the BOMB on the ship's reactor) was on Inaros's paybook. He will have known.

[@Garagantua]

@@Debbiebabe69 From what we see of Marco, just because he had access to information does neither mean he really knows it, nor that he tells anyone about it.

[@Debbiebabe69]

@@Garagantua just looks at the crews reaction when the little girl says out 'they have a railgun'. If it was not common knowledge, someone letting everyone on the bridge know the little frigate they are chasing has a weapon only seen before in heavy cruisers several times the size of the Pella, I would imagine most of the bridge crew would be shocked or astonished.......

[@cypherdk85]

The writers were consistent with the effectiveness of the PDCs on the corvette class. In the final episode all of drummer's ships go up against one and fire on it, not a single torpedo hitting it, and they had a lot more than 3 ships.

[@Debbiebabe69]

slight difference though, high quality Martian torpedoes are FAR superior to cheap Belter torpedoes. Pella had enough Martian torpedoes for about 2 rings, after that he was firing rings of cheap Belter torpedoes. It was that second ring of Martian torpedoes that nearly hit Roci and knocked a couple of her PDCs offline. Roci could easily deal with the rings of cheap Belter torpedoes, the only problem was her mags were almost dry and she would run out of bullets before the Pella ran out of fish. Roci herself only fired rings of high quality Martian torpedoes which required effort from the Pella to take out. In that final episode battle, ALL of Drummers ships were firing rings of cheap Belter torpedoes. These torpedoes were so poor even the ones that didnt get taken out by the frigates PDCs were *missing* the ship completely, probably jammed. If you need proof as to how poor cheap Belter torpedoes are, just look at these 3 firings: Zmeya firing a HUGE ring of cheap Belter torpedoes at Roci, Roci dealt with them easily. Tynan firing a ring of cheap Belter torpedoes at Koto, Koto dealt with them easily even with only 2 PDCs. DeWalt firing a ring of cheap Belter torpedoes at Serrio Mal, Serrio Mal dealt with them easily. In fact, throughout the whole series, you NEVER see a cheap Belter torpedo do its main job - ie hit an enemy ship and explode. You only see 2 actually hitting ships - Tynan hits DeWalt in the cone with one that dosnt explode (deliberately), and Mowtang hits a pirate ship in the cone with one that dosnt explode, again deliberately as the person ordering the attack in both cases - Drummer - was wanting to disable not kill.

[@leotavira7854]

In the book Holden gives his reason for disarming the torpedo as: “He showed me her kid,” Holden said. “Marco? He showed me Naomi’s son. Showed me that he was on the ship right then. Right there. And… I don’t know. He looks like her. Not like her like her, but family resemblance. In the moment, I couldn’t take that away from her. I couldn’t kill him.” So he let a genocidal maniac keep running around in charge of a fleet of military hardware because he didn't want to kill his girlfriend's kid.

[@legionofthedamned157]

Holden is one soft ass when He feel something about it

[@blackc1479]

That's what makes him holden. You need some cold gangster stuff done, you call down to the machine room.

[@CinceTheDay]

not only is this relatable but to me this "show don't tell" (via torpedo to face) delivery of making it abundantly clear "who's the inferior human being in this game" realized by every single soul on the Pella - on their own account. Well, that's destroying your enemy on a level that surpasses death as the ultimate defeat.

[@JerryBear712]

Roci basically 360 no scope on the pella

[@shieldsyx]

If you think show Bobby is Badass you should check out Book Bobby. She makes show Drummer look like a kitten. It is my one critique of the crossover from book is they didn’t quite capture the true badassry and tactical gunnies of book Bobby in the show but I suppose that’s because you get a lot more of Bobby in the books and in my opinion this battle in particular was brought down by it and I consider this to be probably one of the best Sci-fi battles brought to screen. Also in the books you still have 2 beloved characters alive and onboard for this battle in the books

[@bones10145]

that was an amazing part of the game. One of the things I wish I could relive.

[@Dies1r4e]

wow, barren comments, this is probably my favorite space battle in all of sci fi, just love it. so first?

[@1s3ngr1m]

Actually it comes down to simple space maneuver battle. Running away from a ship gives you (or your PDCs) time to react, while the pursuing ships are at a serieous time-disadvantage. And the pursuing ships have to keep your vector, to close in, making them an easy target for anything you throw at them (like railgun or PDC rounds) And PDCs, being practically giant autofiring shotguns create big, bad clouds of deadly bricks travelling at their speed into the chasing Pella. Inaros being the narcist megalomaniac was already out of his league as he completely ignored the prior battles of the Rocinante and its crews against far more skilled commanders. Still...i would have vacuumed that guy when there was the chance far prior in the storyline. He was a jerk at this time...only to become an even jerkier jerk

[@PostprandialTorpor]

This was amazing. More please

[@wolfpreist]

In the books, IIRC Bobby both recognized the pattern in how they dodged and also created a situation where they had to dodge that way.

[@admiralcasperr]

4:30 More like a Prius with a Vulcan.

[@josipbroztito6763]

OYE BOSSMANG, GO FEED STEVE. THE MO YOU SHARE, THE MO YOUR BOWL WILL BE PLENTIFUL!

[@d3ltaohniner261]

"You are" bowl will be plentiful? It's "your".

[@travisbishop782]

What you expect? He's innerwalla.

[@Chronostra]

.......no mention on how the railgun and pdc rounds also effective and devastating from the distance, compared to the usual long range battle, due to basically a head on collision between the bullets and sabots and the free navy fleet ships?

[@bogatyr2473]

I love the Pella, such a great warship. With a competent crew the Roci would have been in major trouble

[@tednelson9707]

12:33 - There are agents on the way, you're not allowed to know this.

[@davidnemoseck9007]

Nice break down. Can't wait to see more.

[@vandarkholme4745]

I didn't like how lazily annoying and evil Marco is. A somewhat nuanced, likable villain would make the expanse perfect.

[@Blueberry-6115]

I see Marco as a Metatron type, started out having a point and theoretically fighting for good reasons, but power (as it does with everyone, there are no benevolent dictators) corrupts. Marco is the inevitable result of a broken system, but he is still an all-powerful dictator, a Belter supremacist, and is, at the end of the day, an egotist, and a hardened terrorist

[@smatthewson2613]

Thanks for this. Best battle in the Expanse, well narrated. Would say I prefer the books and that our Bobbie was in charge of all the tactical shiz in those.

[@martinjrgensen8234]

Book Bobbie is just far superior. Also absolutely huge.

[@wilemelliott]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that appreciates Bobbi!

[@grimm516]

So I do enjoy your videos, all I want yo point out is that the way things played out in this fight are actually a bit different in the book, and I don't want to spoil anything but for this specific situation iRL git in the way (refusing to cas). Anyway long story short in the book the roci did not take out the first ship it got distracted and only fired the railgun at the request of bobbie. After that it basically played out the same. Point is I still appreciate the attempt at keeping it grounded enough like the books and the last thing I want to point out not all the belters in the free navy know about the rocis railgun so it's not that far-fetched to believe human error & hubris helped the roci hit that first shot, it's basically the theme of the the fight in both versions 😊

[@axl1002]

When Pella fell in blackout they could had disabled her drives permanently with the railgun, but Bobby went nuclear and saved the rest episodes.

[@logicplague]

Oyedang Beltalowda!

[@Nomisdoowtsae]

You're playing Mechabellum? Very promising game, enjoying the hell out of it. Even the losses are an entertaining spectacle that I'm learning the game from, something that can't be said for World of Subs.

[@PavewayJDAM]

Who knew Don Draper's (from Mad Me) great great great great grand daughter would be a bad ass Martian Marine.

[@derekburge5294]

Excuse you! Bobbie Drapper self-identifies as a *gundam,* not a woman, and she'll thank you to remember that!

[@jlokison]

Bobby Draper doesn't wear powered armor, she just occasionally takes her skin off to be polite.

[@martinjrgensen8234]

Bobby Draper is the Goat. Even more so in the books

[@Dcarp7]

Mechabellum stream when?

[@KaJuHD]

We wOo BiG sPaCe sHiP gO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[@doglookingatcamera7954]

Can someone explain why he left Raging Canadian channel and Wows? And why delete the videos there

[@Nomisdoowtsae]

In short, he's done with WoWs. Imo just in time to not have to deal with 3 subs on a team BS.

[@elvisibra]

Yeah fighting the main characters is stupid. What was Marco thinking?? Filip, end this now. Fires only 4 missiles again. (magazines minimum 4-6 and marked as a, and with 40 missiles each). Additionally, book Pella (light frigate) is a cruiser on TV with designed areas for railguns, but for all the wrong reasons (railgun is not wunderwaffe, it's actually a dumb gun taking a lot of energy to fire unguided shells only for some reason) stripped of them. Oh yes, and spinning a Light Frigate 360 in less than 2 sec while getting accelerated via railgun recoil half the spin kills the crew, while 10km/s slug (velocity on Roci's screen) will take quite a few minutes to reach Free Navy that engaged from (outer edge of) missile range distance..

[@YourArmsGone]

It's been a while since I watched this scene but how much would their acceleration reduce the railgun intercept time? I assume the free navy is acceleration toward the projectile at 6-12Gs, which should reduce their time to impact.

[@kronos661]

13:50 I will. Among the crew Bobby was my most hated (and the only hated) character. Not intensly, but still. How in the everloving fuck did martian manage to defeat terranborn natural killer in hand to hand combat? She was a marine, i get it, but he has a pretty much supernatural grasp on violence, is a terran which means that he has an inherent advantage and finally a male. There is no ammount of kung bullshit she could throw to beat him. Before that books she was okay I guess.

[@kriysixvector4552]

Earth must come first

[@fbi805]

I'm not sure where you get your information on railguns in space, but considering that in the atmosphere, railguns have a 2k kilometers range space railguns don't have that limitation because their is no atmosphere in space. So, a steel round being shot out of a railgun at an average speed of about 6k kph would literally have no range limit.

[@Debbiebabe69]

It is what is known as 'hammer lock', or 'hamma lok' in belter lingo - the range at which there is not enough time for the ship to see the incoming railgun round and simply move out of the way of it. Inside hammer lock, the railgun slug hits before the target ships computer even knows it is being fired at - this is what is described as the 'range' of a railgun. As an example, if your shot is flying at 6k k/s (I presume you mean k/s and not k/h), then at a range of 6000km the target has 1 second to fire a thruster and dodge the shot. At 60,000km, it has 10 seconds, which is an almost guaranteed miss. For comparison, the distance from the earth to the moon is 384,000km.

[@catgath9718]

For the algorithm.

[@Sir_Loin_Of_Beef]

lots of simping for Bobbie. I agree

[@sohrabroozbahani4700]

The way I love expanse is the way you love galactica... and no, the lovers of star wars and star trek will never know love they way we do 😉

[@foodlaw5778]

Bla bla bla….state it’s a review in the title and don’t seek viewers that don’t care about ranting analysis of a series.

[@coreystockdale6287]

Free navy best navy

[@travisbishop782]

Best at being scrap metal.

[@coreystockdale6287]

@travisbishop782 your not wrong but i still stand by my statement

[@travisbishop782]

@@coreystockdale6287 Sorry, was just trying to make a bad joke. The belters had a great cause, just horrible leadership.

[@elvisibra]

​​@@travisbishop782Better "scrap metal" than Plot Armor to extent that ANYONE SERIOUS laughs at "Roci victories", and talks about other stuff, when wanna talk about "realism of the Expanse".. Writers and Showrunners went too far with Plot Defense Canons..

[@travisbishop782]

@@elvisibra okay, i don't know who kicked your dog, but it wasn't me. If you honestly can write a better "Roci Victory", without plot armor, then do it. Otherwise, stop taking a sci-fi show that seriously.