Minbari War-Cruiser Scale: Babylon 5 Tech-Manual.

There are two popular and very annoying myths when it comes to the size of the Minbari War-Cruiser. The first comes from the series it self, when in the season one episode "Legacies" Commander Sinclair and Mister Garibaldi are looking over a console as a War-Cruiser approaches the Babylon 5 station.

On the monitor we see figures related to the Minbari War-Cruiser, where in which the Sharlin is stated as being 300 meters in length, which would make it approximately the same size as a modern Naval Aircraft-Carrier. For your convenience, a screen capture is listed below, along with a copy of the same screen as seen in the Babylon 5 CD-ROM screensaver.

As you can read, many figures here are wrong. The number of weapons does not correspond with the number of gun ports, the weight (which should be marked mass) of the vessel is not clearly specified as being metric or million, just "200 M Tons" and the size does NOT correspond with the size figures seen in this same episode as seen in the screen capture below.

	Now as you can see the Minbari War-Cruiser from the episode "Legacies" is on approach to Babylon 5. In the first two images pictured to the left, we see the War-Cruiser moving towards the station. It would be nice if we could judge the size of the War-Cruiser from this scene, but the angle is too steep from the point-of-view of the camera. Another important factor which some people have conveniently forgotten, is the fact that the War-Cruiser is "moving" so, even in the final scene of the approach, we can not use the image to judge size as the War-Cruiser has NOT come to a stop and is still approaching the station. Fortunately, later in the same episode we see the Minbari War-Cruiser sitting directly in front of the Babylon 5 station. Using this scene we can get a more reasonable estimate with regards to size. As you can see in the images above, the Sharlin is directly in front of Babylon 5, her fins extending far in excess above and below the forward docking ring of the Babylon 5 station, and this while being at least a ship length away from the station.


Images taken from "Legacies"

If the Sharlin was indeed 300 meters in length, then there is no way she could be in front of the station as seen in the image above (taken from the same episode where the screen shot stated the War-Cruiser Ingatta was 300 meters in length), and be the stated size of 300 meters. Now, maybe if you took the first image that shows the War-Cruiser still on approach you might be able to convince yourself that it could fit, but unfortunately the ship is moving, so using the approach of the Ingatta is a useless gesture.

Thus we can assert with some measure of assurance that the Sharlin is NOT 300 meters in length. All visual reference matterial for the episode "Legacies" disproves the information shown on the monitor. So, why was the Ingatta listed as being only 300 meters in length?

Well, first let us deal with the "reality" of the matter. This error, is only an error due to the fact that the Babylon 5 station was given the official size of "five miles", in season two. Before then, no size figure was given.. that is unless you were fortunate to have in your posession the "Babylon 5: Season One Writer's Bible."

Original Babylon 5 Bible stated that the Babylon 5 station was ONLY 2,000 meters in length.. not the official size of approximately five miles, as stated in the show's second season. Now, if we SHRINK the Babylon 5 station back down to 2,000 meters and toss in a Minbari War-Cruiser at 300 meters in lenght, does the image fit?

Well.. will yeah look at that. When we shrink the Babylon 5 station down to her original size of 2,000 meters, the War-Cruiser comes very close to fitting the screen shots from the episode "Legacies." Following this same logic, if we boost the War-Cruiser up by the same factor the production staff boosted B5, the War-Cruiser would be some 1,288.8 meters in length.

If anyone doubts this, the "Babylon 5: Season One Writer's Bible" is available for purchase right now at the official "Babylon 5 Fan Club" web site, located at:

Okay, that's the real reason, but how are fans supposed to rationalize this away in the show? Well, we know that the Minbari have a form of stealth that the Earth Alliance has never been able to beat. Stealth works along the principle of reflecting sensor beams away from the ship and refracting them in a way in which the information does not bounce back towards the instillation sending out the sensor beam.

The United State's F-117A Nighthawk, stealth fighter measures 20 meters in length and her structural design and the matterials she is comprised of make this vessel nearly invisible to radar. nearly. Not all the radar beams are absorbed and some do get reflected back to the transmitter, but the amount that gets reflected back is so small that the 20 meter long Nighthawk only echoes back a radar cross-section 1/100th of a square meter - about the same as that of a seagull.

Minbari stealth technology may work in much the same way. Although the Minbari use their Gravitic drive to mask their vessels, making them almost completely invisible, when not running under full stealth mode they are partially detectable to sensors. Thus, when it was reported that the War-Cruiser Ingatta was 300 meters in length, the computer was most likely talking about the vessel having a sensor cross-section of only 300 meters.

This assurtion is supported by events both in the season two episode "Points of Departure" and the TV movie "In the Beginning." In POD, Sheridan comments that the sensors being used by the Starfuries and Babylon 5 station are the same as those used during the Earth/Minbari war. During first contact with the Minbari, the Prometheus was able to partially detect the Minbari ships suggesting that, when not under full stealth, Minbari ships are at least partially vissible.

Other figures such as the number of weapon may have only been those weapon which were active, as we do know the Ingatta was running with gun-ports open. Stated speed could have actually be the ship's velocity as it exited the Jump Gate. So one can assert that the figures shown on the monitor were NOT historical tactical figures on the Minbari War-Cruiser, rather they were the sensor reading the Babylon 5 station was getting right that second. This is the most logical conclusion one can take from this episode and this infamous screen shot, as it is the only rational explanation that fits the facts. unless one wants to shrink Babylon 5 back down to 2000 meters or hold fast to the beleif that the War-Cruiser actually is only 300 meters long despite all other evidence to the contrary.

Another annoying myth about the size of the Minbari War-Cruiser is even more heinous than the "Legacies" debacle. I speak of course of the often-toted number, used by the often misguided, from AOG and the miniatures game "Babylon 5 - Wars." In the rule book for "Babylon 5 - Wars" the Minbari War-Cruiser is given a size figure of 150 meters. This was in error, the staff of AGO having taken their size figures from a web site. Why? Because they could not get an answer from Babylonian Productions as JMS & Co. had NEVER set down the size of ANY of the ships.

Thus, AOG went out on a limb and the limb broke. In the second addition of "Babylon 5 - Wars" sizes were not mentioned and the company admitted that they were in error, yet there are those out there who still vehemently proclaim that AOG's figures are right, simply because some low-level bureaucrat at Warner Bros. okayed the size figures. A mistake made quite obvious in the silhouette below, showing the ships of Babylon 5 - using AOG's figures - next to the Babylon 5 station.

Well. will yea take a look at that! I don't think I EVER saw the Minbari War-Cruiser shown THAT small on the B5 series. Any of you? As you can clearly see the AOG numbers are in error. The Minbari War-Cruiser is NOT 150 meters long as it would be unable to hold any fighters, let alone hundreds of crewman.

Not too long ago, the Babylon 5 on-line store released a copy of the ship recognition poster seen in the background of the season four episode "No Surrender, No Retreat", which showed various ships of the Babylon 5 universe compared to Earthforce vessels.

In this poster, we get the most acceptable size figure for the Sharlin, offered by Babylon 5 staff to date. In the Recognition Chart poster the Sharlin is given a length of 1,055 meters. This is a vast improvement on the horrible 150 and 300 meter myths noted above, but unfortunately there are also several mistakes, namely the Explorer class ship is a good 2,000 meters short, as clearly noted by the Starfury size comparison as well as compared to the Babylon 5 station. In addition, sizes for the Flyer and Drazi Sun-Hawk are simply reprints of the Nial's size and not truly representative of the true size of these vessels, as seen in the Babylon 5 series. Of course, this poster was originally little more than a prop, so precise size figures weren't really a priority. As such I freely recognize that the "Recognition Chart" is a noble effort, but is still inherently flawed and does not really correspond well with cannon.