and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources,
Jets routinely do training exercises, drills, training flights, etc... Responding to suspicious aerial threats is literally their job. Why would they not do their job?
and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources,
Jets routinely do training exercises, drills, training flights, etc... Responding to suspicious aerial threats is literally their job. Why would they not do their job?
Because there’s a difference between doings drills and trainings compared to moving all over the place in areas that aren’t as good for exercise while maybe bombing a threat that isn’t even granted to be in the air? The most effective jets against dragons would be those that are slower and capable of better accuracy with their explosives, if you realise how high up a jet is, being a few angles off could be the difference between hitting right on the mark and bombing an orphanage.
and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources,
Jets routinely do training exercises, drills, training flights, etc... Responding to suspicious aerial threats is literally their job. Why would they not do their job?
Because there’s a difference between doings drills and trainings compared to moving all over the place in areas that aren’t as good for exercise while maybe bombing a threat that isn’t even granted to be in the air? The most effective jets against dragons would be those that are slower and capable of better accuracy with their explosives, if you realise how high up a jet is, being a few angles off could be the difference between hitting right on the mark and bombing an orphanage.
What are you talking about? Fighter jets don't carry bombs, they carry heat-seeking ultra-fast ultra-accurate missiles designed for shooting ICMs out of the sky.
Also PS, I just ran the calculations, an average pick up truck driving at 60 mph, has more kinetic energy than a Giant swinging a tree at the speed of a professional MLB player.
and wasting jets on a potential sighting is a waste of resources,
Jets routinely do training exercises, drills, training flights, etc... Responding to suspicious aerial threats is literally their job. Why would they not do their job?
Because there’s a difference between doings drills and trainings compared to moving all over the place in areas that aren’t as good for exercise while maybe bombing a threat that isn’t even granted to be in the air? The most effective jets against dragons would be those that are slower and capable of better accuracy with their explosives, if you realise how high up a jet is, being a few angles off could be the difference between hitting right on the mark and bombing an orphanage.
What are you talking about? Fighter jets don't carry bombs, they carry heat-seeking ultra-fast ultra-accurate missiles designed for shooting ICMs out of the sky.
Yea I feel like fighter jets aren’t suited for slower targets like these, honestly any other plane or helicopter would probably just do it better and with less collateral damage, seeing helicopters could manoeuvre closer to the ground and be loaded with machine guns and missiles like the Eurocoptor Tiger, which was designed to be an anti tank and is crash resistant.
Also PS, I just ran the calculations, an average pick up truck driving at 60 mph, has more kinetic energy than a Giant swinging a tree at the speed of a professional MBL player.
Wait can you send me the calculations, genuinely curious, also when I was talking about a giant flattening a truck, it implied the truck was still.
1. A certain Muslim man was hiding in a random house, and you can’t say he wasn’t planning anything. Also you don’t need to kill all humans, just make sure they can’t respond effectively against you by disabling their ability to actually end your live via military.
2. So you’re telling me if a random big animal just happened to look vaguely like a dragon, they instantly explode? How does the missile figure that out, magic? How would you even identify that without mistaking a semi truck, moose or something of similar size at a far away range, I’d like to see whatever tech allows you to instantly identify a target the moment it exists for half a second without further identification that WON'T cause a random incident.
3. They can miss, I dunno what to tell you, the dragon isn’t made out of butter and can somehow tank swords the size of an entire human being, I don’t think it’s just gonna have handgun bullets phase through it, is the gun gonna be good enough to punch through it and hurt, absolutely, but your also talking about it killing a magical being that goes toe to toe with giants and often times win. Your telling me a volley of handguns are somehow deadlier to a dragon than a 17 foot tall giant (that’s on the small end) pulling an entire tree from its roots and bashing the dragon's face in, or a storn giant just straight up smiting a dragon and the dragon acting like it just got knock out punched instead of dying instantly.
1: Is this the scale of thing were talking? I thought the goal of the dragons here was to defeat Europe in it's entirety. Also, is this unknown muslim man in your example currently alive?
2: Jumbojet sized flyers will be instantly visible on radar. This is an existential war between man and dragon. We're not talking about a lone american condor - this is a dragon. I think everyone will be able to tell the difference. Now, what I'm assuming is that the dragon has turned dragonshaped because it needs to fly. This would also be it's best option if in dragonform - even if it dies instantly - because on the ground it's situation is even worse.
3: No they can't. If you've ever shot a pistol at anything the size of a jumbo jet, you'll know that's nonsense. They cannot actually miss - every shot lands. A dragon can demonstrably be killed by swords and arrows. Bullets will punch through it remarkably like butter. And please note that I'm using 1911's to clarify - not because they're a likely or reasonable example. It's MUCH more reasonable to expect at least a platoon sized squad of modern infantry with a variety of far deadlier ordnance. 6 guys with guns could kill it. Much more likely, it will face something on the order of 10 AR-15 style automatic rifles, one squad marksman with a more powerful - but slower firing - weapon, one squard automatic weapon (sadly, I don't know what they're using these days), and some of those riflemen will also be carrying the squad anti-tank weapon (again, the tiny tube launcher of my day will have been replaced with something substantially more powerful, but since I was in the military in the 90's, precisely what they're using now I can't say).
Bottom line is simply this: When - not if - the dragon is found or spotted or whatever .... it comes to a sad and sudden end. It does not have abilities that do much of anything against modern weaponry. Oh, it's utterly devastating with what attacks it has. If it acts first, it can take out a few guys - but unless they're unlucky enough to all be under a breath weapon sized and shaped template, it then dies.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Yea I feel like fighter jets aren’t suited for slower targets like these, honestly any other plane or helicopter would probably just do it better and with less collateral damage, seeing helicopters could manoeuvre closer to the ground and be loaded with machine guns and missiles like the Eurocoptor Tiger, which was designed to be an anti tank and is crash resistant.
The weapons platform really isn't important. It's the weapon itself - it needs target acquisition from any source, and is then launchable from any platform in range. Within reason, it needs line of sight (although some don't). When I speak of fighter jets, it's mostly an example: A single fighter jet would be able to take out a number of dragons, and they'd never even know it happened. But for a dragon deciding to stop hiding and be a dragon for awhile, the most likely weapons platform is propably a loitering surveillance/killer drone circling above any major settlement day and night.
This is a war. Patrols are common in peace time. They will be constant in this war for survival.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Dang it! I forgot about the winged elephants and giant land eels.
Yes, a few dozen bullets from a gun will do more damage to a dragon than a really big person hitting it with a stick
Did you forget about the moose strong enough to tip cars sideways and large enough to make bulls look chumps, cause I don’t remember missiles having taught to see the difference between one massive animal with antlers turning cars upside down and the big scaly lizard doing the same thing, cause that means your gonna need someone close by to give the coordinates of the dragon, and that means that they either have a scope to see said dragon, knowledge of coordinates and the ability to access the military, and that just happens their walking by and see a dragon, i mean, it could work, but that’s really unlikely for agents to just go nowhere and wait for a dragon to pop up.
The "average” weight of a tree is one ton, and that’s not considering those that are 3 to 4 tons heavy, you have to be a different kind of mad to think an object that weights a literal ton falling on you won’t hurt you as much as getting turned to Swiss cheese. Cause you would get splattered by it casually falling on you, it would destroy the roof and ceiling of a brick house and flatten a car. Now take the tree and have it be used as a club by a giant, that amount of weight along with the strength of a monster of that size could obliterate trucks, turn houses into flats and a human into meaty shrapnel. Big trees have killed elephants before, and dragons just eat those attacks from a giant using it as an actual weapon.
You know, there's this crazy super secret ability humans have called "sight". In fact, using a plane, a human can come from a large distance away, look at the dragon, and aim at and shoot it within minutes!
Remember that we're talking about a dragon here, not a human. A dragon will weigh significantly more than the tree, so imagine getting hit with a baseball bat versus being turned into Swiss Cheese. "Oh, but dragons are bigger and less affected by bullets," I hear you say. The thing is, they can just keep shooting until there are a proportional amount of holes compared with a human. Remember, internal organs + bullets = dead.
1: Is this the scale of thing were talking? I thought the goal of the dragons here was to defeat Europe in its entirety. Also, is this unknown muslim man in your example currently alive?
2: Jumbojet sized flyers will be instantly visible on radar. This is an existential war between man and dragon. We're not talking about a lone american condor - this is a dragon. I think everyone will be able to tell the difference. Now, what I'm assuming is that the dragon has turned dragonshaped because it needs to fly. This would also be it's best option if in dragonform - even if it dies instantly - because on the ground it's situation is even worse.
3: No they can't. If you've ever shot a pistol at anything the size of a jumbo jet, you'll know that's nonsense. They cannot actually miss - every shot lands. A dragon can demonstrably be killed by swords and arrows. Bullets will punch through it remarkably like butter. And please note that I'm using 1911's to clarify - not because they're a likely or reasonable example. It's MUCH more reasonable to expect at least a platoon sized squad of modern infantry with a variety of far deadlier ordnance. 6 guys with guns could kill it. Much more likely, it will face something on the order of 10 AR-15 style automatic rifles, one squad marksman with a more powerful - but slower firing - weapon, one squard automatic weapon (sadly, I don't know what they're using these days), and some of those riflemen will also be carrying the squad anti-tank weapon (again, the tiny tube launcher of my day will have been replaced with something substantially more powerful, but since I was in the military in the 90's, precisely what they're using now I can't say).
Bottom line is simply this: When - not if - the dragon is found or spotted or whatever .... it comes to a sad and sudden end. It does not have abilities that do much of anything against modern weaponry. Oh, it's utterly devastating with what attacks it has. If it acts first, it can take out a few guys - but unless they're unlucky enough to all be under a breath weapon sized and shaped template, it then dies.
1. If this was your assumption the entire time, you’ve been wrong, it’s only ensuring the military cannot fight back, not the total destruction of man kind, meaning if the military was disabled by any way, the dragons would win. Killing every human in Europe would be like crushing every ant in a forest, you’re not gonna change a thing.
2.Don’t radars have problems detecting low altitude and slow flying objects? Considering a dragon is no where near as fast as a plane, it would be harder to detect unless you tuned radar to detect something like that, which would place a few other things you don’t want to blow up in range for detection.
3. Please, you’re telling me that either a giant can’t hit a dragon because its scales are hard enough to eat boulders flying into its face or because it’s good enough to dodge said boulder. You can’t just say the bullet hits and penetrates no matter what, cause you don’t see hand guns punching through tank armor and muskets doing automatic damage because it’s a gun that kills everyone. Said idiots with swords and arrows are also fighting on the level of killing angels, squadrons of giants and dangerous enough to get thrown through castle walls and get somewhat hurt, fighters and barbarians that can kill an adult dragon with their party can kill a land shark by punching through its armour with their bare hands, which as as tough as stone.
1: Is this the scale of thing were talking? I thought the goal of the dragons here was to defeat Europe in its entirety. Also, is this unknown muslim man in your example currently alive?
2: Jumbojet sized flyers will be instantly visible on radar. This is an existential war between man and dragon. We're not talking about a lone american condor - this is a dragon. I think everyone will be able to tell the difference. Now, what I'm assuming is that the dragon has turned dragonshaped because it needs to fly. This would also be it's best option if in dragonform - even if it dies instantly - because on the ground it's situation is even worse.
3: No they can't. If you've ever shot a pistol at anything the size of a jumbo jet, you'll know that's nonsense. They cannot actually miss - every shot lands. A dragon can demonstrably be killed by swords and arrows. Bullets will punch through it remarkably like butter. And please note that I'm using 1911's to clarify - not because they're a likely or reasonable example. It's MUCH more reasonable to expect at least a platoon sized squad of modern infantry with a variety of far deadlier ordnance. 6 guys with guns could kill it. Much more likely, it will face something on the order of 10 AR-15 style automatic rifles, one squad marksman with a more powerful - but slower firing - weapon, one squard automatic weapon (sadly, I don't know what they're using these days), and some of those riflemen will also be carrying the squad anti-tank weapon (again, the tiny tube launcher of my day will have been replaced with something substantially more powerful, but since I was in the military in the 90's, precisely what they're using now I can't say).
Bottom line is simply this: When - not if - the dragon is found or spotted or whatever .... it comes to a sad and sudden end. It does not have abilities that do much of anything against modern weaponry. Oh, it's utterly devastating with what attacks it has. If it acts first, it can take out a few guys - but unless they're unlucky enough to all be under a breath weapon sized and shaped template, it then dies.
1. If this was your assumption the entire time, you’ve been wrong, it’s only ensuring the military cannot fight back, not the total destruction of man kind, meaning if the military was disabled by any way, the dragons would win. Killing every human in Europe would be like crushing every ant in a forest, you’re not gonna change a thing.
2.Don’t radars have problems detecting low altitude and slow flying objects? Considering a dragon is no where near as fast as a plane, it would be harder to detect unless you tuned radar to detect something like that, which would place a few other things you don’t want to blow up in range for detection.
3. Please, you’re telling me that either a giant can’t hit a dragon because its scales are hard enough to eat boulders flying into its face or because it’s good enough to dodge said boulder. You can’t just say the bullet hits and penetrates no matter what, cause you don’t see hand guns punching through tank armor and muskets doing automatic damage because it’s a gun that kills everyone. Said idiots with swords and arrows are also fighting on the level of killing angels, squadrons of giants and dangerous enough to get thrown through castle walls and get somewhat hurt, fighters and barbarians that can kill an adult dragon with their party can kill a land shark by punching through its armour with their bare hands, which as as tough as stone.
Are you actually saying dragon scales are equivalent to over a foot of solid steel? Also, bullets are a significantly smaller cross section than boulders. According to my calculation, a one ton boulder moving at 60 mph (aka, insanely fast) will have roughly 200 times the kinetic energy of a single bullet. Over a way bigger area. A bullet would pierce right through the scales, especially higher caliber ones.
Are you actually saying dragon scales are equivalent to over a foot of solid steel? Also, bullets are a significantly smaller cross section than boulders. According to my calculation, a one ton boulder moving at 60 mph (aka, insanely fast) will have roughly 200 times the kinetic energy of a single bullet. Over a way bigger area. A bullet would pierce right through the scales, especially higher caliber ones.
Let’s just use the modern pistol as a VERY rough estimate, it deals 2d6 damage, if it had the burst fire feature, it does the same thing over an area. That’s already fantastic damage for a handgun, I’d say being the same damage as a greatsword swinging at a man would give the same results (a very dead man). We can consider the greatsword's damage being due to its ability to slash through a wide amount of area while concentrating all that momentum and force onto a small part of that area, which would be a small similarity to the way a bullet penetrates a person (not saying that a bullet and a greatsword has the same force).
From that we could possibly conclude that due to how their scales might be formed and how strong their muscles are, that while bullets could damage them, it’s not absolute, as dragons are still highly mobile tanks after all, having better dexterity than a human, being much faster and being capable of flying, we could possibly extrapolate that their AC against bullets would be due to a combination of their movement preventing bullets from hitting vital spots, the possibility that their body could survive extreme amounts of damage regardless for a long period of time and the stress of fighting something that big constantly swinging and moving. Meaning that the average man with a pistol would have a lot more factors to account for rather than the instant reaction hits you would expect.
Also PS, I just ran the calculations, an average pick up truck driving at 60 mph, has more kinetic energy than a Giant swinging a tree at the speed of a professional MBL player.
Wait can you send me the calculations, genuinely curious, also when I was talking about a giant flattening a truck, it implied the truck was still.
Pickup Truck: speed: 60mph = 27 m/s mass: 2000 kg E = 1/2*m*v^2 = 729 kJ
Tree: speed (MLB player) = 72 mph = 32 m/s mass: 1 ton = 900 kg E = 1/2*m*v^2 = 461 kJ
Are you actually saying dragon scales are equivalent to over a foot of solid steel? Also, bullets are a significantly smaller cross section than boulders. According to my calculation, a one ton boulder moving at 60 mph (aka, insanely fast) will have roughly 200 times the kinetic energy of a single bullet. Over a way bigger area. A bullet would pierce right through the scales, especially higher caliber ones.
Let’s just use the modern pistol as a VERY rough estimate, it deals 2d6 damage, if it had the burst fire feature, it does the same thing over an area. That’s already fantastic damage for a handgun, I’d say being the same damage as a greatsword swinging at a man would give the same results (a very dead man). We can consider the greatsword's damage being due to its ability to slash through a wide amount of area while concentrating all that momentum and force onto a small part of that area, which would be a small similarity to the way a bullet penetrates a person (not saying that a bullet and a greatsword has the same force).
From that we could possibly conclude that due to how their scales might be formed and how strong their muscles are, that while bullets could damage them, it’s not absolute, as dragons are still highly mobile tanks after all, having better dexterity than a human, being much faster and being capable of flying, we could possibly extrapolate that their AC against bullets would be due to a combination of their movement preventing bullets from hitting vital spots, the possibility that their body could survive extreme amounts of damage regardless for a long period of time and the stress of fighting something that big constantly swinging and moving. Meaning that the average man with a pistol would have a lot more factors to account for rather than the instant reaction hits you would expect.
How fast do you think a dragon can accelerate??? According to the forgotten realms wiki, a young red dragon can weigh 5,000 pounds. That means a very low acceleration speed and lack of ability to dodge. That also translates to the ability to shoot and hit a dragon many times from a distance before being reached.
1: Is this the scale of thing were talking? I thought the goal of the dragons here was to defeat Europe in its entirety. Also, is this unknown muslim man in your example currently alive?
2: Jumbojet sized flyers will be instantly visible on radar. This is an existential war between man and dragon. We're not talking about a lone american condor - this is a dragon. I think everyone will be able to tell the difference. Now, what I'm assuming is that the dragon has turned dragonshaped because it needs to fly. This would also be it's best option if in dragonform - even if it dies instantly - because on the ground it's situation is even worse.
3: No they can't. If you've ever shot a pistol at anything the size of a jumbo jet, you'll know that's nonsense. They cannot actually miss - every shot lands. A dragon can demonstrably be killed by swords and arrows. Bullets will punch through it remarkably like butter. And please note that I'm using 1911's to clarify - not because they're a likely or reasonable example. It's MUCH more reasonable to expect at least a platoon sized squad of modern infantry with a variety of far deadlier ordnance. 6 guys with guns could kill it. Much more likely, it will face something on the order of 10 AR-15 style automatic rifles, one squad marksman with a more powerful - but slower firing - weapon, one squard automatic weapon (sadly, I don't know what they're using these days), and some of those riflemen will also be carrying the squad anti-tank weapon (again, the tiny tube launcher of my day will have been replaced with something substantially more powerful, but since I was in the military in the 90's, precisely what they're using now I can't say).
Bottom line is simply this: When - not if - the dragon is found or spotted or whatever .... it comes to a sad and sudden end. It does not have abilities that do much of anything against modern weaponry. Oh, it's utterly devastating with what attacks it has. If it acts first, it can take out a few guys - but unless they're unlucky enough to all be under a breath weapon sized and shaped template, it then dies.
1. If this was your assumption the entire time, you’ve been wrong, it’s only ensuring the military cannot fight back, not the total destruction of man kind, meaning if the military was disabled by any way, the dragons would win. Killing every human in Europe would be like crushing every ant in a forest, you’re not gonna change a thing.
2.Don’t radars have problems detecting low altitude and slow flying objects? Considering a dragon is no where near as fast as a plane, it would be harder to detect unless you tuned radar to detect something like that, which would place a few other things you don’t want to blow up in range for detection.
3. Please, you’re telling me that either a giant can’t hit a dragon because its scales are hard enough to eat boulders flying into its face or because it’s good enough to dodge said boulder. You can’t just say the bullet hits and penetrates no matter what, cause you don’t see hand guns punching through tank armor and muskets doing automatic damage because it’s a gun that kills everyone. Said idiots with swords and arrows are also fighting on the level of killing angels, squadrons of giants and dangerous enough to get thrown through castle walls and get somewhat hurt, fighters and barbarians that can kill an adult dragon with their party can kill a land shark by punching through its armour with their bare hands, which as as tough as stone.
1: Humans will fight to the very end. But it hardly matters: In a stand up fight the military will win so fast it's not even funny. We're talking about another scenario - which by the way is already stretching the scenario very thin - where the dragons don't actually fight, but infiltrate. And even in that case, if they're discovered they die so fast it's not even funny. And they will be discovered because humans are pesky, obsessive little bastards who just won't leave things alone.
2: No. That's nonsense. Radars have problems with line of sight. End of list. Hide on one side of a hill, and a radar on the other side of the hill can't see you. You may not know this .... but we have radars in space. You need to hide on the other side of the Earth.
3: I'm not getting into a fight over D&D abstractions. Anything that can be hurt with bow and arrow can be hurt by gunfire. Gunfire is an order of magnitude more effective - and we're still talking about a gun 100+ years old. There's no AC. There's just material science and kinetic energy. You drop a dragon into the real world - well it get's to fight by real world rules. Otherwise, what are we even talking about? You're basically saying the dragon can't be beaten because of D&D.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
You remember that one scene in Friday the 13th Part VIII where New Yorkers saw Jason pursuing his victims on a train and they didn’t give two shits about him? Even so, I’m pretty sure some other movie had to pay New Yorkers to actually react to a large, practical VFX spectacle they were filming.
If there’s a New York of Europe, dragons have a pretty cozy spot.
I’ve heard Luton in Britain is such a terrible place to live that getting stalked by drunk people is the norm, so a dragon acting like a numbskull local would fit right in.
On the other hand, dragons migrating to the Mediterranean as tourists would fit in as well due to the sheer amount of tourists that visit in certain times of the year, it would probably be pretty homely for bronze and a fun time for coppers. This would probably allow them to get by easily without being tracked, as the chances of ruining a bunch of tourists time is massive, seeing that at a all time high, it was nearly more than half of Europes population.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
America lost to Vietnam, and war isn’t just obliterating the other side, it’s forcing the other side to listen to and follow your demands. Which Vietnam managed to make America do, having them pull their troops away and leave them alone.
War can be a lot more subtle than attacking everyone like a wild animal, there’s sabotage and subterfuge, which is vital in any war (possibly even more important than actual combat in certain scenarios). One way a weaker nation could beat a stronger one is blending in with the civilian population and causing problems, be it stopping supplies from getting in time, confusing the soldiers or acting as reconnaissance.
Do you feel like that's the question here, though? Like 'who could force the other to a negotiated settlement'? Because I don't. I think this is 'who would defeat the other in a direct confrontation'. And if so, there is only one possible answer. Another possible answer is that dragons might hide among tourists on Crete for a while, trying to create a pro-dragon political movement.
If I try to lean into your line of thinking, I guess it could be 'what if some fictional leader of the free world was really a dragon in disguise?'
Then it becomes a conspiracy theory scenario, and you might be surprised to hear (no, not really) that I don't think that would work. The dragon would still need to sleep at night, in dragon form, in some government facility. Too many people would know, someone would tell, the cat's out of the bag, and we're back to an open confrontation.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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Jets routinely do training exercises, drills, training flights, etc... Responding to suspicious aerial threats is literally their job. Why would they not do their job?
Because there’s a difference between doings drills and trainings compared to moving all over the place in areas that aren’t as good for exercise while maybe bombing a threat that isn’t even granted to be in the air? The most effective jets against dragons would be those that are slower and capable of better accuracy with their explosives, if you realise how high up a jet is, being a few angles off could be the difference between hitting right on the mark and bombing an orphanage.
What are you talking about? Fighter jets don't carry bombs, they carry heat-seeking ultra-fast ultra-accurate missiles designed for shooting ICMs out of the sky.
Also PS, I just ran the calculations, an average pick up truck driving at 60 mph, has more kinetic energy than a Giant swinging a tree at the speed of a professional MLB player.
Yea I feel like fighter jets aren’t suited for slower targets like these, honestly any other plane or helicopter would probably just do it better and with less collateral damage, seeing helicopters could manoeuvre closer to the ground and be loaded with machine guns and missiles like the Eurocoptor Tiger, which was designed to be an anti tank and is crash resistant.
Wait can you send me the calculations, genuinely curious, also when I was talking about a giant flattening a truck, it implied the truck was still.
1: Is this the scale of thing were talking? I thought the goal of the dragons here was to defeat Europe in it's entirety. Also, is this unknown muslim man in your example currently alive?
2: Jumbojet sized flyers will be instantly visible on radar. This is an existential war between man and dragon. We're not talking about a lone american condor - this is a dragon. I think everyone will be able to tell the difference. Now, what I'm assuming is that the dragon has turned dragonshaped because it needs to fly. This would also be it's best option if in dragonform - even if it dies instantly - because on the ground it's situation is even worse.
3: No they can't. If you've ever shot a pistol at anything the size of a jumbo jet, you'll know that's nonsense. They cannot actually miss - every shot lands. A dragon can demonstrably be killed by swords and arrows. Bullets will punch through it remarkably like butter. And please note that I'm using 1911's to clarify - not because they're a likely or reasonable example. It's MUCH more reasonable to expect at least a platoon sized squad of modern infantry with a variety of far deadlier ordnance. 6 guys with guns could kill it. Much more likely, it will face something on the order of 10 AR-15 style automatic rifles, one squad marksman with a more powerful - but slower firing - weapon, one squard automatic weapon (sadly, I don't know what they're using these days), and some of those riflemen will also be carrying the squad anti-tank weapon (again, the tiny tube launcher of my day will have been replaced with something substantially more powerful, but since I was in the military in the 90's, precisely what they're using now I can't say).
Bottom line is simply this: When - not if - the dragon is found or spotted or whatever .... it comes to a sad and sudden end. It does not have abilities that do much of anything against modern weaponry. Oh, it's utterly devastating with what attacks it has. If it acts first, it can take out a few guys - but unless they're unlucky enough to all be under a breath weapon sized and shaped template, it then dies.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
The weapons platform really isn't important. It's the weapon itself - it needs target acquisition from any source, and is then launchable from any platform in range. Within reason, it needs line of sight (although some don't). When I speak of fighter jets, it's mostly an example: A single fighter jet would be able to take out a number of dragons, and they'd never even know it happened. But for a dragon deciding to stop hiding and be a dragon for awhile, the most likely weapons platform is propably a loitering surveillance/killer drone circling above any major settlement day and night.
This is a war. Patrols are common in peace time. They will be constant in this war for survival.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
You know, there's this crazy super secret ability humans have called "sight". In fact, using a plane, a human can come from a large distance away, look at the dragon, and aim at and shoot it within minutes!
Remember that we're talking about a dragon here, not a human. A dragon will weigh significantly more than the tree, so imagine getting hit with a baseball bat versus being turned into Swiss Cheese. "Oh, but dragons are bigger and less affected by bullets," I hear you say. The thing is, they can just keep shooting until there are a proportional amount of holes compared with a human. Remember, internal organs + bullets = dead.
1. If this was your assumption the entire time, you’ve been wrong, it’s only ensuring the military cannot fight back, not the total destruction of man kind, meaning if the military was disabled by any way, the dragons would win. Killing every human in Europe would be like crushing every ant in a forest, you’re not gonna change a thing.
2.Don’t radars have problems detecting low altitude and slow flying objects? Considering a dragon is no where near as fast as a plane, it would be harder to detect unless you tuned radar to detect something like that, which would place a few other things you don’t want to blow up in range for detection.
3. Please, you’re telling me that either a giant can’t hit a dragon because its scales are hard enough to eat boulders flying into its face or because it’s good enough to dodge said boulder. You can’t just say the bullet hits and penetrates no matter what, cause you don’t see hand guns punching through tank armor and muskets doing automatic damage because it’s a gun that kills everyone. Said idiots with swords and arrows are also fighting on the level of killing angels, squadrons of giants and dangerous enough to get thrown through castle walls and get somewhat hurt, fighters and barbarians that can kill an adult dragon with their party can kill a land shark by punching through its armour with their bare hands, which as as tough as stone.
Are you actually saying dragon scales are equivalent to over a foot of solid steel? Also, bullets are a significantly smaller cross section than boulders. According to my calculation, a one ton boulder moving at 60 mph (aka, insanely fast) will have roughly 200 times the kinetic energy of a single bullet. Over a way bigger area. A bullet would pierce right through the scales, especially higher caliber ones.
Let’s just use the modern pistol as a VERY rough estimate, it deals 2d6 damage, if it had the burst fire feature, it does the same thing over an area. That’s already fantastic damage for a handgun, I’d say being the same damage as a greatsword swinging at a man would give the same results (a very dead man). We can consider the greatsword's damage being due to its ability to slash through a wide amount of area while concentrating all that momentum and force onto a small part of that area, which would be a small similarity to the way a bullet penetrates a person (not saying that a bullet and a greatsword has the same force).
From that we could possibly conclude that due to how their scales might be formed and how strong their muscles are, that while bullets could damage them, it’s not absolute, as dragons are still highly mobile tanks after all, having better dexterity than a human, being much faster and being capable of flying, we could possibly extrapolate that their AC against bullets would be due to a combination of their movement preventing bullets from hitting vital spots, the possibility that their body could survive extreme amounts of damage regardless for a long period of time and the stress of fighting something that big constantly swinging and moving. Meaning that the average man with a pistol would have a lot more factors to account for rather than the instant reaction hits you would expect.
Pickup Truck:
speed: 60mph = 27 m/s
mass: 2000 kg
E = 1/2*m*v^2 = 729 kJ
Tree:
speed (MLB player) = 72 mph = 32 m/s
mass: 1 ton = 900 kg
E = 1/2*m*v^2 = 461 kJ
How fast do you think a dragon can accelerate??? According to the forgotten realms wiki, a young red dragon can weigh 5,000 pounds. That means a very low acceleration speed and lack of ability to dodge. That also translates to the ability to shoot and hit a dragon many times from a distance before being reached.
1: Humans will fight to the very end. But it hardly matters: In a stand up fight the military will win so fast it's not even funny. We're talking about another scenario - which by the way is already stretching the scenario very thin - where the dragons don't actually fight, but infiltrate. And even in that case, if they're discovered they die so fast it's not even funny. And they will be discovered because humans are pesky, obsessive little bastards who just won't leave things alone.
2: No. That's nonsense. Radars have problems with line of sight. End of list. Hide on one side of a hill, and a radar on the other side of the hill can't see you. You may not know this .... but we have radars in space. You need to hide on the other side of the Earth.
3: I'm not getting into a fight over D&D abstractions. Anything that can be hurt with bow and arrow can be hurt by gunfire. Gunfire is an order of magnitude more effective - and we're still talking about a gun 100+ years old. There's no AC. There's just material science and kinetic energy. You drop a dragon into the real world - well it get's to fight by real world rules. Otherwise, what are we even talking about? You're basically saying the dragon can't be beaten because of D&D.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
If there’s a New York of Europe, dragons have a pretty cozy spot.
I’ve heard Luton in Britain is such a terrible place to live that getting stalked by drunk people is the norm, so a dragon acting like a numbskull local would fit right in.
On the other hand, dragons migrating to the Mediterranean as tourists would fit in as well due to the sheer amount of tourists that visit in certain times of the year, it would probably be pretty homely for bronze and a fun time for coppers. This would probably allow them to get by easily without being tracked, as the chances of ruining a bunch of tourists time is massive, seeing that at a all time high, it was nearly more than half of Europes population.
Hiding among tourists isn't victory, though.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
America lost to Vietnam, and war isn’t just obliterating the other side, it’s forcing the other side to listen to and follow your demands. Which Vietnam managed to make America do, having them pull their troops away and leave them alone.
War can be a lot more subtle than attacking everyone like a wild animal, there’s sabotage and subterfuge, which is vital in any war (possibly even more important than actual combat in certain scenarios). One way a weaker nation could beat a stronger one is blending in with the civilian population and causing problems, be it stopping supplies from getting in time, confusing the soldiers or acting as reconnaissance.
Do you feel like that's the question here, though? Like 'who could force the other to a negotiated settlement'? Because I don't. I think this is 'who would defeat the other in a direct confrontation'. And if so, there is only one possible answer. Another possible answer is that dragons might hide among tourists on Crete for a while, trying to create a pro-dragon political movement.
If I try to lean into your line of thinking, I guess it could be 'what if some fictional leader of the free world was really a dragon in disguise?'
Then it becomes a conspiracy theory scenario, and you might be surprised to hear (no, not really) that I don't think that would work. The dragon would still need to sleep at night, in dragon form, in some government facility. Too many people would know, someone would tell, the cat's out of the bag, and we're back to an open confrontation.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.