Pacific Rim- how to do it more efficiently?

[Sea Skimmer]

Instead of trying to aim nuclear torpedoes that deep, why not use nuclear depth charges instead? Isn't that what those were built for? Ok I doubt any were built to reach 17,000 feet in depth but it seems like a better idea that trying to use torpedoes for it.

Or, hell, build something like the Trieste and stick a bigass nuke in it.

It would sink too slowly, you could be talking about an hour to reach the bottom even with a very heavy streamlined design. Even against a dumb monster and with a megaton range yield nuclear bomb that would not be very effective if said monster did 20 knots and made just one turn after a half an hour. In contrast a torpedo with 30 knot average speed is going to reach 17,000ft in about 5.7 minutes.

Real life nuclear depth charges were effective because the target would be in these terms, shallow. Slow sinking speed is why all navies deemphasized or completely abandon conventional depth charge like weapons in the first place. They would only work in shallow water, and almost not at all against fast nuclear submarines.

[Adam Reynolds]

Real life nuclear depth charges were effective because the target would be in these terms, shallow. Slow sinking speed is why all navies deemphasized or completely abandon conventional depth charge like weapons in the first place. They would only work in shallow water, and almost not at all against fast nuclear submarines.

Weren't depth charges also discontinued because of the fact that they interfered with sonar? Even by the end of WW2 they were starting to use things like hedgehog(which I believe the Swedes still use).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Instead of trying to aim nuclear torpedoes that deep, why not use nuclear depth charges instead? Isn't that what those were built for? Ok I doubt any were built to reach 17,000 feet in depth but it seems like a better idea that trying to use torpedoes for it.

Or, hell, build something like the Trieste and stick a bigass nuke in it.

It would sink too slowly, you could be talking about an hour to reach the bottom even with a very heavy streamlined design. Even against a dumb monster and with a megaton range yield nuclear bomb that would not be very effective if said monster did 20 knots and made just one turn after a half an hour. In contrast a torpedo with 30 knot average speed is going to reach 17,000ft in about 5.7 minutes.

Real life nuclear depth charges were effective because the target would be in these terms, shallow. Slow sinking speed is why all navies deemphasized or completely abandon conventional depth charge like weapons in the first place. They would only work in shallow water, and almost not at all against fast nuclear submarines.

I was thinking more of using them against the Rift itself, but you make good points. Having never seen Pacific Rim, I'm just speculating wildly.

[Q99]

Aside from time, there's drift as well. Something that sinks in deep water can end up over a mile in horizontal distance from it's sinking point. So yea, just letting stuff fall is a no-go.

I was thinking more of using them against the Rift itself, but you make good points. Having never seen Pacific Rim, I'm just speculating wildly.

The Breach also has a defense mechanism. It'll only let stuff through that has Kaiju DNA the Precursors use as a key. This can be something with the key carried by something without, but the key must be present or it just bounces off.

Plus, it's actually not-there most of the time until it stabilizes. At first, it's there for a brief period just enough for a Kaiju to get through, gone for months, appears again, etc.. With, on average, the time between openings decreasing and mass limit increasing each time (though not in an entirely predictable formula, they only figured out the precise numbers in the film). It only stays open for any significant time about 12-13 years after the first event, at which time it's stable enough to send multiple Kaiju (or whatever) through at a time, and conversely, more opening to counterattack. Eventually it just stays open constantly and the canon Precursor plan was to send through thousands of kaiju in an extermination wave.

So to hit it, one needs the key, one needs it to be stable enough for there to be a real opportunity, and one probably has to fight whatever the Precursors send through that go-around.

Why care or bother? A supercavitating torpedo has no guidance. It is by definition blind to sonar and in any functional sense its also going to be blind with LIDAR which are the only two plausible guidance modes for a high speed torpedo. Since the only plausible use for the speed in this role would be a tail chase, and tail chases with no guidance don't work, what is the point? Even if the target is faster then the torpedo it's a monster, not an intelligent enemy or one with air support. Active sonar will track it easily and it will have little ability to comprehend how it is under attack vs trillions of dollars worth of earth weapons. Drop torpedoes on all sides.

Kaiju are beastial acting, but they're linked to intelligences on the other side of the breach- who, I'll note, is what the scenario is about, figuring out alternative tactics for them ^^

Each Kaiju was programmed with different behavior patterns, to make then more unpredictable. Onibaba used hit-and-run tactics in a city, resulting in a grueling multi-hour battle. Knifehead played dead when it got a major hit, so it could attack from behind. Leatherback waited to reveal itself until it could take out a Jaeger with surprise. Slattern directed other Kaiju. Yadda yadda. Anyway, the kaiju were *designed* with these behaviors and tactics, so the Precusors can and did update them as they got feedback. They were designed with knowledge of what they'd be facing.

Didn't the jipsy danger guy say the nukes just bounced off the portal mouth? Why not just pour concrete over it? It might take a special formula and huge sums of it but hey next time a kiju tries to go through, splat! The sismo's should pic that up for a nice gigle amongst the humans.

Even if that worked and the electric zappiness of the Breach didn't break it, nothing would go splat, it's just a tunnel between dimensions, not a catapult or Stargate with it's dematerialization thing. Either they would dig through, or be trapped on it's side til next attempt. And hey, the Precursors can build a digger.

Yes, but if the question is how to do things better you can ignore the failure of the PacRim forces and assume properly built and designed hardware.

One, that's just ignoring canon 'cause you don't like it. Just like in Legendary Godzilla, where the Muto EMP also worked against military stuff. Hm, come to think of it, it may not exactly have been EMP- the systems recovered faster than real life EMP would, and it was more visual. Maybe it's some technobabble electronic suppression thing...? Anyway, long story short, we know what it works on and what it doesn't, so no room for extrapolation one direction or another.

Two, the question is how for the Precursors to do things better. What the PRDC would do is a tangent.

[Jub]

One, that's just ignoring canon 'cause you don't like it. Just like in Legendary Godzilla, where the Muto EMP also worked against military stuff. Hm, come to think of it, it may not exactly have been EMP- the systems recovered faster than real life EMP would, and it was more visual. Maybe it's some technobabble electronic suppression thing...? Anyway, long story short, we know what it works on and what it doesn't, so no room for extrapolation one direction or another.

Two, the question is how for the Precursors to do things better. What the PRDC would do is a tangent.

Occam's Razor would suggest that the PacRim verse military simply chose not to EMP harden their equipment. The same goes for Godzilla, this is a far simpler solution than speculating on a new mechanism to defeat EMP hardened equipment. Thus, in the absence of evidence to the contrary one must pick the simplest solution.

[Q99]

Occam's Razor would be to take what's shown and not assume stuff just to benefit our points. We've got known-real world military equipment affected.

[Jub]

Occam's Razor would be to take what's shown and not assume stuff just to benefit our points. We've got known-real world military equipment affected.

EMP. Doesn't. Work. That. Way!

So please explain the mechanism by which EMP hardened military equipment would be damaged by what is explicitly called EMP on screen.

[Metahive]

Eh, EMP in PacRim is already not working like in the real world, since it only affects "digital" machines but not *cough* "analog" ones like Gypsy Danger.

Which might mean that Gypsy Danger was actually spring-powered and utilized cogs and gears exclusively in its machinery.

[JI_Joe84]

Didn't the jipsy danger guy say the nukes just bounced off the portal mouth? Why not just pour concrete over it? It might take a special formula and huge sums of it but hey next time a kiju tries to go through, splat! The sismo's should pic that up for a nice gigle amongst the humans.

The portal appeared to be actively expelling material or some kind of 'energy' and certainly changes size so it seems unlikely that concrete simply poured on top would stay in place. Absurdly enough concrete might simply entomb that effect, and certainly be nothing like what the Pacific Wall would take to build, but it'd take so long to emplace the work might simply keep being smashed each time a monster pops out. Given that it was only a few hundred meters across building a supertanker sized caisson out of metal and concrete, sinking it into place, and then filling the voids would be the way to go. It'd just be the sinking and emplacing part that would be really annoying. Once one caisson was down others could be progressively sunk on top and around it.

By the time that's done hopefully we'd have perfected deep sea underwater dredge technology, some of which already exists for mining on a small scale, and use that to just begin burying the entire site under enormous masses of seabed material.

But the aliens might just be able to move the rift location, so I'd discount this as a general defense. On the other hand the aliens probably do have some kind of limitation on where they can open the rifts, otherwise if they wanted to be more effective per the thread they'd totally have wanted to open it in the middle of central Europe or China, for maximum early economic damage. Or move it for every single monster, that would be ideal by far.

I like this tactical drop capability with the rift like kaiju are some alien 82 airborne paratrooper. But if they can't do that and it did need to be in a fixed location the why not locate it at the north pole. Sure its colder around there but the deep sea is already really cold if I understood the deep sea nature programs correctly.
Then your almost equidistant from most of the Continent's for confident relatively quick counter follow-up attacks.

[Sea Skimmer]

Military tech tends to be reasonably well hardened against EMP...

Actually military tech tends to only have moderate protection against radar and radio emissions, while not even all nuclear weapon systems have any serious hardening against high levels of nuclear HEMP or other nuclear weapons EM effects. The B-52 bomber for example is considered soft, though because of how old it is it can also simply keep flying with all computers wiped out. As a rule stuff intended for conventional warfare effects will not be hardened. It is too expensive and more importantly too hard to maintain the protection in service to be worthwhile. However since the phrase EMP is used for a diverse range of effects which often have very little to do with each other discussion is almost pointless.

Weren't depth charges also discontinued because of the fact that they interfered with sonar? Even by the end of WW2 they were starting to use things like hedgehog(which I believe the Swedes still use).

Sweden still uses conventional depth charges too.

Depth charge explosions do blind sonar, but the real reason to use Hedgehog and RBU style weapons is they could fire ahead of the ship. All ships sonar except towed arrays are blind aft, because of the screw noise. So you always lost contact using depth charges. That could be mitigated by using multi ship team tactics, but ahead firing weapons were simply better.

However due to low sinking rates Hedgehog style weapons are only effective at shallow depths and unlike depth charges they won't inflict cumulative shock damage to the target because they don't explode unless they hit (which is a reason why people keep some depth charges around). The British Squid/Limbo weapon meanwhile was ahead firing, but had a large timed explosive charges, the best of both worlds. However it was a rather large weapon system, and realistically a ship wasn't going to have Limbo AND a helicopter. The helicopter won, and could drop depth charges anyway.

The biggest problem with typical WW2 depth charges was simply that they were too small to be really effective as submarine hulls got stronger and stronger, the British found their 2000lb warhead depth charge (actually 3000lb total weight, and fired from a torpedo tube) was more effective against a deep submarine then a 14 can pattern of standard 300lb charges. This was because the point blast was simply far more intensive, and the sinking rate much higher.

Homing torpedoes though would simply be more effective against a deep submarine then any plausible unguided weapon, so even for ships which retained heavyweight torpedo tubes depth charges simply made no sense. You can still find them on small coastal escorts, and certain ASW aircraft. A major part of the reason to keep them is not even that they are likely to ever sink an enemy sub, but because they are cheap and submarines don't like them exploding nearby. Thus they can be freely dropped on merely suspected contacts, which is particularly relevant in shallow water against diesel submarines which might hide on the bottom. Such a sub is very hard to find with active sonar, while MAD runs will turn up many sporous contacts such as old shipwrecks and rock full of iron ore. Such contacts however can be depth charged. If they move after the explosions, its probably a sub! Then you fire better weapons. Hedgehog style weapons can also be used in this role, and will detonate when they hit the seabed, but because the warheads are so small a diesel sub would be more likely to choose to 'keep still'. Indeed the warheads are so small on many of them even a direct contact hit may not sink the sub, though modern ones typically use a shaped charge to improve the chance of actually penetrating the casing and ballast tanks to puncture the pressure hull.

Of course none of this will matter if we use conventional charges with the yield of small atomic bombs. The concussion would be so intensive if the target were a submarine and not a giant monster we'd kill the crew by splattering them against the bulkheads even were the pressure hull invulnerable to breach.

[Q99]

I'm learning a lot about depth charges here

[JI_Joe84]

So what if the precursor's sent multiple small kiju instead of one huge wrecking ball? As in the very definition of a modern militarys covert " sneak and peak" mission?
They would not engage, they would be ordered to stay unseen but would run around and take notes.

[Q99]

So what if the precursor's sent multiple small kiju instead of one huge wrecking ball? As in the very definition of a modern militarys covert " sneak and peak" mission?
They would not engage, they would be ordered to stay unseen but would run around and take notes.

It's definitely an interesting idea. They'd, of course, get less actual combat data, but more information on where we are, what the terrain is like, and so on.

And, even non-hostile *acting*, the world powers would try and watch them as much as possible.

[JI_Joe84]

Still to go in with out any idea what's on the other side is extremely Irresponsible for any of our pressent day general's why would it be a good idea for them? They would have to scout and being alien's no one (short of your average crazy) think its alien's, maybe a sharp rise in big foot sightings that's it.
If found out I have this feeling that modern china/USA wouldn't know what to think. I mean if they came as giant bird's all of a sudden we have giant real bird's flying around. I mean we have giant birds (small plane sized) in the fossil record but there is a lot of good reasons to discount that critter as the culprit. Which leaves nations with big foot/alien as likely as any thing. Hhmmm this could actually work pretty good.

Actually thinking of a shot gun toting red neck poking his head out to see what's bothering his stuff thinking maybe a chicken hawk but blam real as life kiju bird thing! That could actually hhhhmmm..........

[Q99]

Still to go in with out any idea what's on the other side is extremely Irresponsible for any of our pressent day general's why would it be a good idea for them? They would have to scout and being alien's no one (short of your average crazy) think its alien's, maybe a sharp rise in big foot sightings that's it.

Keep in mind, you do have a really small number of breach events in total before things stabilize- at which point if the humans have learned a good deal about you, you could be in trouble as the breach is attackable then- and you gotta go through a miles-deep ocean trench up to the surface, so even at minimum you need fairly robust.

You do definitely want intel, but what could a big foot or large bird tell about the defenses that can be brought to bear? They can scout locations and confirm a high tech civilization, but what's step 2?


The canon Precursors went with the brute force, 'we'll send something that'll survive for a good while even if it runs into defenses. If there's no defenses, great! If not, we'll get some info, refine, and try again.' Somewhat interestingly, the next several decreased in size, possibly indicating they were going for, 'hm, wonder what's the smallest Kaiju we can get them to nuke themselves over...'.

[JI_Joe84]

They actually decreased size!? Wow hhmmm well at least they had humanity going on the kiju are just animals wandering through the breach like its a natural phenomenon.

[Q99]

They actually decreased size!? Wow hhmmm well at least they had humanity going on the kiju are just animals wandering through the breach like its a natural phenomenon.

It might've been due to how the breach worked (it only *tended* towards bigger, and the first opening may not fit the standard pattern), but yea. Trespasser, who is officially cat unknown (as it was dead before they got enough info to properly rate it) was only a bit smaller than known cat 3s, while the fourth one, Karloff, the first killed by a Jaeger (the prototype jaeger no less), was not only one of the shortest kaiju, but a spindly looking thing at that.

[JI_Joe84]

Where did you find all this out at?

[biostem]

Wasn't the last Kaiju we see emerge - the Cat 5 w/ the tentacles, much larger than the others? There may have been some variation in size within a category, but I thought there was still a steady increase from cats 1 - 5...

[JI_Joe84]

Yup and it was accompanied by 2 cat 4's to for apparently no other reason than to guard the breach.

[JI_Joe84]

Also the breach "stabilizing" theory was just a theory by that mathematician guy scientist. They never showed any evidence other than a trend he was following. Neut about doubled over when he explained it on screen too.
I think the breach is fine and they can send in waves of what ever they can conjure up any time they wish but for some reason they do not. If you don't believe that then look at the breach as gipsy falls. It's all metal and covered in tubes and stuff. They built that and when you see the umm precursor "base" u see a strange port/window where a star looks like it's right on top of them. I wouldn't doubt they built a "breach" to a star maybe for power or raw materials. Our star puts out huge ungodly amounts of electricity. Just plain electrons sent off into space.
But the PAC rim verse doesn't make a lot of really good sense some times. Its no wonder people were rioting all the time.

[Q99]

This stuff comes from places like the Pacific Rim artbook, the prequel comics, direct word of Travis Beacham, and some documents released from the official website.

There was a steady increase, but it wasn't completely linear.

Trespasser was 90 meters tall, Onibaba about 60. Leatherback was shorter than Mutavore (the Australian one Striker beat up in the news clip).

Also the breach "stabilizing" theory was just a theory by that mathematician guy scientist. They never showed any evidence other than a trend he was following. Neut about doubled over when he explained it on screen too.

He came up with a formula for the pattern, used that formula to predict what would happen next, and was right on multiple occasions, predicting both the first multi-event, and that there'd be a third coming the second time. It was a successfully tested hypothesis with notable predictive ability- that's science.

Also he had enough understanding of the Breach to understand how to close it, and that it's increased open-ness would leave it vulnerable in a way it wasn't before, so the physics of the breach had been studied that much as well.

And they got a direct mental link with the Kaiju at one point and it also fit the pattern...

If someone in a movie makes a scientific hypothesis, tests it, and turns out to be able to accurately model several aspects of a thing, then if one wishes to say it's not true, one really needs a reason for saying it!

[biostem]

From my understanding, the original plan was to have Gipsy, Cherno, and Crimson escort Striker, carrying its nuke, to the breach, then detonate it on the breach when it opened. It was a last minute ploy by Gipsy to grab the Kaiju and use it to allow them to open the breach and travel back through to the other side, then detonate Gipsy there. Was there any intent, had the original plan worked out, to actually use a captured Kaiju to travel back through to the other side?

[JI_Joe84]

The original plan by stacker was lacking the information neut gained by "drifting" with the kiju brain of the baby kiju. Kiju brains are linked some how to their base so the others can learn from the ones that go through the breach. That means all the years of study and research and school and time with the military went right to the alien's home base, thanks neut you jack ass!!!
As if this wasn't bad enough neut decided to do it at the exact time stacker decides to send all his units to the breach. Probably THE most dangerous thing they could be doing at that time.
As if that wasn't bad enough the attack that destroyed or disabled all the yeagers except gipsy happened just AFTER neut drifted with a fragment kiju brain he had laying around his lab. Also after stacker put his finger in neuts face and told him specifically not to.
Also the gipsy driver guy (can't remember his name for the life of me) said that they had tried to hit the breach before. He said "but we've hit the breach before! Nothing goes through! What's changed?" Stacker said he had a plan then he walked off, not that a base comander needed to explain any thing the a lowly pilot.
Any ways the continue the tour and stacker points at the Russians and says, "see the Russian's over there? They can get us any thing." Then when he gets to the Australian's he points to the giant metal box they are bolting to (I think) stryker eureka's back is a huge nuke. I forget how big they say it is. Maybe some one with a fresher memory can expound on that.
So it sound's like stackers plan was to gather up every Jaeger he could find, then assault the breach with his big ass nuke. Like the had done before save for the size of the bomb.
I am forced to wonder what he thought would go differently this time.

[Q99]

The Newt drift was definitely a double-edged sword, yes, but a necessary one to learn how to close the breach.

Otachi was sent in part to seek out Newt, likely on the idea that they didn't want him to have any intel on them, and, yea, they almost certainly knew to send their best Jaeger-killers straight to Hong Kong to kill the toughest Jaegers because of it.

Hmmmm....

You know, one great Precursor tactic would be to somehow get someone to drift with a kaiju much sooner (and then preferably kill the person).

So it sound's like stackers plan was to gather up every Jaeger he could find, then assault the breach with his big ass nuke. Like the had done before save for the size of the bomb.
I am forced to wonder what he thought would go differently this time.

It's not the size of the bomb (1.2 megatons) that was different, but the stabilization of the breach. Herman outlined that the reason previous attempts had failed is it didn't stay open long enough and even something thrown in would bounce out, but once the multi-events happened, it made a stable passage.

So basically there's two problems- One, the Breach isn't really hittable until it stabilizes, and two, once it does, you gotta know how to bypass the security measure.

From the Precursor perspective, you're safe from any counterattack during the single event period, but are limited in how much you send through. Once it stabilizes, you can send in a lot more, but it's possible that retaliation could happen and close the connection.