The bridge seems small but its for a different practical reason than you mentioned, the CIC is inside an armoured bunker suspended within a large open space to isolate it from the hull. This keeps the mass of the very thick armour low by enclosing a smaller volume. There are also other bridges, manned for redundancy during combat. These are also bunkers, they are all suspended in the same place on a shock damping structure.

The MCRN Donnager was a fine ship. She was heavily compartmentalize, brissled with firepower, and members of her class would often outfight more modern ships in hopeless odds. Yet she suffered from the same tainted flaw as all her compatriots. Martian hubris.

Alex Kamal: "She's not some rock-hopper. She's the flagship of the MCRN's Jupiter Fleet. Battleship. Quarter-million tons of bad news."

"I didn't think we would lose" I'd love to follow a leader who could admit her own mistake no matter how big it is.

Correction: The bridge was more of a bridge unit really, of which there were many on the ship. The idea was that if a control room was destroyed, the crew could relocate to a new unit, and if needed, appoint new officers. They were well insulated and iirc they're also suspended from shock. Source: I've seen the show like 7-8 times now. Also Spacedock.

The reason the Donnager was lost was because they never deployed the escort fleet in her hanger. In the books there were other ships in her hanger, they only took the Tachi because it was already prepped as the standby ship. They saw the other ships weeks in advance and never prepped the escorts to intercept them as they should. It was really dumb to risk a capital ship like that. Also there's 2k crew on the Donnager, don't know how they lost the ship to the boarding crew too. Yeah Protogen had some advance tech but it wasn't OP, they were getting killed by Martian tech too.

It looks like a lucky missle got through and hit the Donnager in the aft between the drives, I believe it is implied this damaged the reactor in some way, possibly the cooling system, which caused the power issues.

The main reason the stealth ships had even a chance of boarding the Donnager was that the attack happened during peacetime. During peacetime they only had enough solders on board to board small pirate ships, the wartime contingent would have been much bigger with additional special units like the marsian marines. They also thought that the would never get into CQB so that the solders weren't prepaired to repell an attack and many crewmembers weren't even wearing space suits and died after the first few railgun hits. Additionaly they fired only one torpedo salvo expecting that to be enought and the torpedo hit near the engines could have damaged the reactor/cooling systems.

no internal damage? You remember that Railgun round that blew right through it and took somebodys head midway with it? Also one torpedo hit the main reactor housing, so its likely that the cooling system got damaged and so the reactor was overheating and had to be shut down/lower the output, same for the power divertion to the railguns.

I love this ship so much, i bought a custom made MTG playmat with the donnager as art on it. In retrospective, Yao should have ordered the preperation of the corvettes. At that time, she would have achieved strenght in numbers. But her hubris tho.

Perfect time for this video, just finished the series. Long way to go until S5 though

I feel like the only real tactical error the Protogen ships made was staying close to the Donnager when their boarding teams had gotten aboard and her guns had fallen silent. I would have assumed scuttling would have been a potential outcome b/c that's something I would have done in Yao's circumstances. So why not back off to a safe distance, match course with the Donnie, go dark and then make minor course alterations to mask your true location? If the ship blows up, you still have 2 stealth ships. If it doesn't, you move to the next stage of your plan, which honestly would have probably been to ransack their data stores, THEN destroy the ship. Add to that, if any ships had made good an escape from the Donnager, those two ships ghosting her would have been optimally positioned to intercept.

When the book described it as a building on its side I immediately imagined it as Chicago's Sears Tower. Tall, dark and boxy.

After going back and reading the Donnager battle in Leviathan Wakes, it made me wish that we got to see more badassery by the Martian marines during that part of the show

Quite a shame we saw two vessels of this class get scrapped in Season 4. :(

Jules Pierre Mao's company Protogen we are told built these stealth ships and we know he was working with Mars too. It's very possible he had engineers design this power issue into the Donnager thus giving his stealth ships a back door to attack it. Or maybe he had scooped up this classified design flaw along the way since he was well connected with the Mars elites and made sure his stealth fleet knew of this flaw. Otherwise, we must assume it was just a coincidence that the stealth ships came across this flaw in the middle of a battle against a much heavier armed ship and that's an even weaker proposition.

I legit thought this was just space dock re doing his Donnager video

Yes, kudos to Captain Yao for preventing the capture of her ship. People who read Persepolis Rising and Tiamat's Wrath know what I'm talking about.

The designers never played Elite Dangerous, all the great parts in the world won't help if you don't have a strong enough power supply to wield them.

Wahahaha, I'm so glad you're as addicted to the Expanse as I am. Glad you're having too much fun!

SpaceDock has the Donnager Crew compliment at 2086. They state in the battle they had splash on 4/6 of the enemies smaller corvettes. We see how small they are inside in the pilot episode. How did just two of these carry enough boarding troops to force the Donnager to scuttle the ship?

Hubris killed the Donnie

7:48 the image shows that there was a torpedo hit on main reactor housing.(in the episode this was at 10min 56 sec) so likely the power issues were made far worse

I love this beauty of a ship

I FUCKING LOVE THE EXPANSE as you can tell ..

Power overload happened because they hit reactor. U see this big hole between engines. 7:15 Behemoth is totally different pair of scissors. They tap extra devices to existing power network. Network that is not designed to support this devices and u have power failure.

Love your content my guy, been re-washing the expanse lately and your content on the lore and stuff is so good! keep it up American Ben! Also love the bros over at Gen Tech too!

*stealth ships are watching this*

the Donnager can hold 6 corvette class vessels or 12 Morrigan class patrol destroyers, which were designed to fit nose to nose in the docking bay

Thanks for the informative content! The Expanse is one of those 'right time - right place' shows that people have turned to amidst all the 'get woke, go broke' insanity. Like the Orville, people turned to these shows and were surprised at their fantastic quality. I've watched it end to end three, some places 5 or 6 times. It is damn fine.

Actually, I believe, the drives overloaded not really because of the power consuption, but probably the damage it received on the main reactor housing, which likely damaged reactor systems causing power issues.

I love it. Best sci-fi show to date.

Another great Expanse video, Ben. Was it me or was the Donnie’s bridge inside it own bunker. It appeared to be in an open space without corridors.

Another excellent breakdown video. i'm hoping that you will make some about stations like Ceres and Tycho though.

Great Vídeo about a great ship. I want to deploy things the way the bridge officers do on the screens...it's awesome!!

I agree with the protocol of asset denial. They wouldn't have boarded the ship unless they wanted to capture it. This would send a message that capturing the ship will be a lot harder then they first thought.

The ship had several coms-decks (bridges) not just one (atleast 3) and as seen in the show she was often called away to deal with issues on each different one. Each of these can also be vented off separately to the ship. I also belive that the engines were overload not just because of power but also because they took damage from the torpedoes that hit the rear of the ship (as shown again in the show). As stated by another member in the comments, he/she finds it stupid how the ship was over run, the donnerger was a massive ship and therefore held alot of personnel. Also only one of the stealth ships managed to get off its breaching pods - so how many men really could have boarded she ship... not many. So how were they overrun? A likely reason is that they breached at strategic location (engineering and the command decks), this is backed up as you can see them cutting through the door to coms-decks one moments before the ship self-destructed, so they were quick and likely formed chokepoints so it was near impossible for the Martian Marines to take them out. But the Martian Marines should have overwhelmed them yes. My theory to this is that they left most of the Martian Marine stationed on the ship on Phoebe station as they were sent to investigate the station and found it abandoned, therefore the ship was probably operating on a skeleton crew of Martian Marines. Other points: Why didn't she ship deploy the Tacchi to assist the donnager in the battle? The Captain was probably too confident, plus the stealth ships were superior so she probably didn't want to risk damaging the Tacchi. Also it was never stated that it was the donnager that the captain used to cleanse the belt of pirates, not saying it wasn't, just saying it wasn't stated, so maybe the ship wasn't used for anti piracy, but maybe it was. Please feel free to add your thought or challenge what I have stated here.

Power consumption of the rail guns would be an interesting topic to cover later on. I think this, partly because in the 4th season, the Rocinante had a rail gun fitted, but it had its own batteries that would charge slowly off of the reactor, and then it would not affect the rest of the ship's electrical system to fire it.

The donager was the flagship of the martian fleet. The main drive had to be shutdown due to damage, not power consumption, the drive took two torpedoes and unknown number of railgun hits,

Great Video! Thank You!

Have you done the UNN Agatha King? It might be interesting talking about an older ship that had lots of problems. That's my favorite part of the Expanse; it feels lived in.

Thumbnail made me thing this was a spacedock video.

Main drive overloaded not from running the rail guns but because that torpedo hit astern damaged the reactor control systems, more than likely.

"Martian engineering is top notch" Yes, yes it is...

The power issues make sense, engineering wise. the sustainable power output of a military space craft would be limited by its capacity to shed or retain waste heat. use of radiators would be limited by the need to protect vulnerable structures. With the existing hard limit on power consumption, it makes sense to fit a military vessel with as much firepower as it can possible get away with, and then some for redundancy. So "all guns blazing"-mode would push the limits of either power supply or heat capacity very quickly, the armament would be designed to fire in turns, letting some cool off while others continue. So you could use 4 railguns for a one-off decisive volley, if you had no other energy sinks running and enough time to let them cool and recharge after, or you could fire them one by one in a rolling pattern, to maximise barrell life,, and continue superior fire volume even if some get taken out. I could imagine even Nelson-time ships of the line of the sailing age would have been hard pressed to fire absolutely everything at once. So it was more a fault of Jiao´s commando than of the Donnager´s design. She lost focus and her reckless fire command brought her ship into a vulnerable position.

WAY COOL , MAN ! REALLY GOOD !

One small thing, I think the only reason the Donnager's drive overloaded because they had one torpedo do a direct hit on the main reactor housing. If they didnt get that one hit in, they might not have had to shut down the drive.

Note a torpedo hit the reactor at the back of the ship and is why they had to shut the reactor down (not because of the rail guns but the damaged reactor plus the rail guns power draw did accelerate the overload)

The ship reminds me of the Taiha Heavy Carrier that the japanese had during ww2, the crew was fairly new and when a single torp hit it they weren't able to properly fix it and sunk.

The drives overloaded more due to damage than to any issues with the power grid, we even see one of the torpedoes strike the main reactor housing and given the ship was probably raked by the PDCs of the Protogen ships to disarm it prior to boarding it would make sense that a few rounds were likely thrown at the drives to stop her from running. As is said in the Spacedock video on the Donnager (which is canon btw) the extra railguns weren’t mounted outside of fleet exercises because of the increased risk of problems with heat dispersal and issues stemming from the stress on the spaceframe from firing 4 superheavy railguns. As for diverting power, with the reactor having been hit they were probably cautious about actually increasing its output plus it makes sense regardless to divert power from non-essential system to allow the railguns to charge faster. The Nauvoo was similar only the Donnie didn’t suffer power surges from firing a torpedo and her railguns weren’t likely to either rip themselves free of their mounts or cause massive structural damage when firing.

The bridge crew were asking a Lieutenant what to do. That's an O-3 in the Navy, but you'd think the flagship wouldn't have a bunch of jr officers in charge

Maybe someday Alcon will release blueprints for all these awesome ships. I would love qmx to do a set like they did for a certain firefly class Mid bulk transport

Please make a video about Starblazers (Space Battleship Yamato). Thank you.

Still can't figure out how a missile, which would theoretically be a self contained unit that just needs a simple ignition command and tracking data, could overload anything.

Weird but SpaceX Crew Dragon has multifunction displays, a step forward to this.

Actually, that was not the bridge but the CIC. Most probably, the bridge was a separate room... but then, it looks like they were built with redundancy in mind as you can see several “bunkers” like the one housing the CIC.

Protogen mercs were nihilistic fanatics. It's hard to fight a boarding party that doesn't care if they die and truly believe they are fighting for the greater good of the human race. The Martians, while the best standing military in the system, are not on the same wavelength of fanaticism as the Protogen goons. All things considered, Donnager did a pretty good job. As you pointed out Yao had a bit of hubris, if she was playing by the book she would have deployed the Tachi already as escort and initial contact to the incoming unknown. Furthermore, she was down one escort, Donnager holds 2 Tachi class escorts but I think the other one was off doing something at the time.

The ship's greatest weakness was her inexperienced crew led by a minimally experienced captain.

Good clip :)

'I didn't think we could lose.'

Looks like a UNSC frigate mix with a Tantive IV

I think the reason they didn’t go to lethal action immediately was due to them not knowing who it was. It could have been UN ships, OPA ships, pirate ships or even a civilian ship. Since there was no official conflict but tensions were at a maximum, it would be risky to immediately explode it as if it was a civilian ship or a UN ship war would likely start, so they waited until they confidently knew it was a threat.

Its a shame we didnt see any of the Donnager class in action in the war. I have a really strong feeling all the UN-MCR war was practically avoided in the show except a few mentions and even fewer small skirmishes. I think it gets a lot more attention in the book but hey its not the first story arc they skipped for whatever reason (Havelocks story on board Edward Israel in 4th season for example) and i am affraid its not the last either.

The rail guns were not fixed, which is somewhat of an improvement. In the books, it being fixed becomes a problem on the Roci, as to take out pursuers, as they are forced to flip around to fire under heavy thrust.

Do the Agatha King

The Donager Vs the Amun-Ra ships, the Rocinanté Vs the Amun-Ra ship, Rocinanté Vs the UNN ship, the Rocinanté Vs the Zmeya, the Rocinanté Vs the Koto and the Serio Mal...the Rocinanté is the most badass ship ever put to screen, that rail gun is so sweet

How about a piece on the Y’Que? Small but informative vessel

Would you be able to talk about the funny gravity on The astroid. It made their drinks do funny things. Would you be able to explain the funny gravitational field inside these astroid colonies?

I myself more of a Truman-class fan, old and reliable designs are my favorite

I'll give them props when they start going warhammer 40k and do voidcraft arming as a standered practice

I thought the Donny was an incredible design and engineering!!!!

I want more info on the protogen soldiers

Niceeeeeee

Don't short the Donager's power systems. I think that a lot of the power issues were due to a lucky shot with a Protogen torpedo that cracked the reactor housing.

American Ben can you do Expanse Earth Ships as well?

Considering the Donnager was a flagship, I agree that the crew should not have been green. They would have been the cream of the crop.

Donnager can actual fit 4 rail guns if Stretch its reactor to the limit, I think Donnager’s main technical flaw is it’s reactor, it’s slightly underpowered despite all its Martian ingenuity

I still cant reconcile the number of designs having multiple engines, but all of them pointed in one direction, especially a monster like the Navuu! Absolute insanity that it wasnt able to maneuver itself, yeah I know it was supposed to just cruise in a straight line for decades, but come on, some ability to maneuver after hundreds of years in space had to have been a minimal requirement. If I was building a ship with more than one, I would start with two facing opposite each other and build around that so I could preserve the most momentum and RCS fuel by not having to swing the whole thing around for braking maneuvers. Thats just me. I myself would prefer that, I would also have the entire command deck able to mount on various points over the entire ship, so it could be present for precision maneuvers for docking or loading or stowed aft or even internally for battle or high speed maneuvers. My ship would be covered in arms all up and down its length, preferably one that I can move as needed like the command deck.

The stealth ships tactics looks strange. With their stealth they could get in range of their railguns and fire one salvo at the same time with the missles so Donnager would have no time to react. Instead they go into battle like ordinary ships.

Though the show is great I have to say I prefer Recon Marines from the books over the movie versions. The hanger bay fight and the full on platoon fight on Ganymede later on are way better in the books. I get it's for budget reasons that they weren't expanded but yeah

Interesting intro

The only thing that kicks me is somehow the protogen commandos from 2 amun-ra's, cant have been more than 100-150 guys can somehow beat a ship with 2000 MCRN sailors aboard? did the flagship not carry Recon units? I get the plot needs to go forwards but that always sorta annoyed me....

Could we make one before 2050 to 2100 ?

Im working through the first season, why wouldn't a capital ship have fighter or corvette escort.

Personally I think the ship bridge was limited because of budget and the scene and backdrop crews because you look at bridges from later ships in later seasons and they are far more "advanced" or at least designed with more experience from the set crews it seemed.

5:48 There's no down in space beratna

And ladies and gentlemen, even with such an advanced high tech in the MCRN, Captain Yao still hold a war water bottle. Guess that's some irresistible old Chinese essences from the ancestors even we travel in space hahaha. But I do think MCRN has great leaders, like the Captain on the Hammurabi. And take another look at Admiral Nyuguen from the UN Navy, who seemed eagerly to start a war for his own personal revenge. He is not the only one who lost families during the previous war. And that's why I admired Southern and Avasrala for their competence at their position and the responsibility of the humanity.

5:37 The servicemen on the bridge would have been bridge officers not crewmen.

“Ep. drives” 😳

Plz make a video on Chrisjen Avasarala

Top 10 Friendly Aliens/Alien Allies of humanity when?

The name of the ship is cool, Donnager means thunderer in German. Donnar being the German name for Thor. In other words the drives on this ship are the lightning that brings the thunder. Got that phrase on r/ the expanse so i'm not taking credit, just thought it was awesome enough to be repeated. Also i'd like to point out that the books actually took the time to mention how impractical and rare holographic technology would be. Its the medium change of course, the Knights AR binoculars and the original face concealing helmets of the Martian soldiers are the practical technologies that would be actually used. Holograms and open helmets just look more impressive on TV. Those AR binoculars though. My dad has been saying for years how useful something like this would be for modern day sailors. Being able to see all your radar and satellite info displayed in three dimensions around you as opposed to trying to synchronize the real world to a 2-d screen.

Captain James Holden or Avasarala

Had the captain unleashed every single torpedo she could while still at range, yeah they probably would've been evicerated I would've liked a line from the bridge crew during the power failure noting that the attacks hadn't concentrated on the power core, other vital systems, or the structure, have a pause and then show them understanding that triggering the power failure was the objective When I watched it, it wasn't immediately clear that they had anticipated the captain's behavior would overload the donnager's power core or at least reeeeally hoping that it would ( in her defense she had no choice and probably never imagined a scenario where that was even possible, the video even mentions the martians did not forget to keep in mind power supply issues)

"I didn't think we could lose..."

isn't it mostly Lidar?

December is so far 😩😩😩😩

Wouldn't the captain need a chair for high G maneuvers? Also there's the big space with people walking around on catwalks that seems a bit incongruous for a warship.

The mcrn should have been able to repel the borders it was suppose to be carrying platoons of marines

can you do a collab with brit bennie?