Avatar Force Sub: UNSC (Halo)

[Darth Wong]

A few points:

1) The magnetic fields and radiation in the flux area could not have been that bad. If it was that bad, then humans would have been affected too, as would electronics of all kinds, such as radio equipment.

2) The UNSC sniper rifle mentioned earlier sounds like super-wank. A 15 km/s sniper rifle? The bullet would vapourize in transit, for fuck's sake. Unless they plan to defeat the Na'Vi with the power of ignorant pimply-faced geek wank, that's not an option. Besides, sniper rifles in general are a stupid idea in this case anyway. You don't want a highly accurate weapon with low ROF in that situation. You want a high ROF weapon like a heavy machine gun.

3) If we replace the RDA forces with a small contingent of UNSC Marines and a couple of Warthogs packing a few thousand rounds of ammo each, their rear-mounted AA guns can probably kill incoming super-creatures. The problem is that the dense terrain means you can't see or fire on them until they're almost on top of you, at which point the ability to take out a number of them (even a large number) won't keep them from overrunning your position.

4) Having said all of that, the ground battle is irrelevant to the overall outcome anyway. If the objective is to take out the Tree of Souls, the biggest single factor is speed. The only reason Jake was able to stop the big flying U-Haul in the movie was the fact that it was so damned slow, which made it possible to launch repeated attacks on it, and to physically leap onto its dorsal surface. Replace it with a much faster-moving Pelican and they don't have time to do any of that. They might not even be able to keep up with it, never mind jumping onto its dorsal surface. That means it's bye-bye, Tree of Souls. Game over.

5) No doubt some will argue that they couldn't go faster because of the limited navigation in the flux area. However, the Na'Vi were flying faster on their dragon creatures, so it's pretty obvious that simple visual navigation is adequate to go much faster than the flying U-Haul.

[Darth Wong]

By the way, regarding the brief tangent about how SW stormtroopers would fare, I think it's worth pointing out that we did see a showdown between durable megafauna and SW blasters in AOTC, when Jango Fett took a shot at a charging red beast in the Geonosian arena. One good hit from his pistol put the beast down permanently. It seems pretty clear that if you dial up one of those SW blaster weapons to high power, you can easily kill those creatures. Not that it would matter against the Empire anyway, because that whole attack was not their style. They would probably send in an AT-AT which casually crushes and blasts everything in its path until it can take a shot at the Tree of Souls with its main guns.

[CBG]

1. How can the Valkyrie (the Venture Star) maneuver inside the Flux Vortex? Wouldn't it have to decelerate as it traveled in between the floating mountains in the sky, and the crapload of flying monsters, while the Flux Vortex screwed up its sensors?

Answer:Flying high enough means flying way above the flying mountains, and way above the altitude a flying monster or chopper can fly on. Make it even suborbital if necessary.

2. How can it drop a guided bomb when the Flux Vortex also interfered with the missile systems of the gunships?

3. How can the RDA make a guidance system for a bomb? Everyone keeps on going about it, about how they can jerry-rig some sort of guidance system for an air-dropped weapon or for some orbital weapon, but do they even have the resources to do this? It's not something trivially easy to MacGuyver, and it's not something they can whip up without a period of testing and trial and error.

If they do don't need pinpoint precision (which they rather do not) all they need is a ballistic computer. Even modern computers with modern "dumb" bombs can get a CEP as low as 100-200m. If not enough, just use WW2 old method called dive bombing.
Resources? Well, they have technical resources to maintain a pretty big ground base and many various aircraft, so i would say they aren't bad. Not even mentioning a bunch of scientists and scientific equipment.

4. A B-1B would have to maneuver inside the Flux Vortex, where its sensors would've been blinded, forcing it to fly by sight and fly slowly unless it wants to kiss a mountain or fly into a pterodactyl. The Vortex, which screwed up missile guidance systems, might also screw up with the B-1's bombs. And, again, the RDA did not have the time and may not have had the resources to jerry-rig guidance systems for their makeshift bomb.

Sensors? Which ones? Radar? Even modern aircraft often operate with radars off.
At least we know that these flux fields do not mess with light, so at least laser guidance should work. Also, if there was any sort of communication working in the area, remote guidance would work aswell.
Mountains? These mountains are not small nor moving nor hard to see. And if it is flying high enough, the crew has nothing to care less about than these.

5. Flying high would not solve the flying mountain problem. The flying mountains were all over the area and would have obscured the target. The Flux Vortex jammed sensors, forcing people to rely on their Mk. 1 Eyeballs to target the Tree of Souls that's under those floating islands, that's also inside the jungle and surrounded by those weirdo ribcage structures. Unless the RDA or the B-1B has some WW2-era optical bomb sights, they cannot target the Tree of Souls without going down low or without carpet bombing the area.

Add every computer assisted optical device RDA has to those Mk. 1 Eyeballs. If these works, all optical sensors have to.
Islands? Don't they have computers there? Just calculate a proper trajectory, if the tree is not fully covered by these from above, it is all that is needed.
Actually, B-1B have much better than WW2 "dumb" bomb dropping accuracy.
Considering the timeframe, i would doubt that RDA has nothing at least as good.

Simply put, flying high and fast at supersonic speeds while dropping an unguided bomb at a target that's surrounded by jamming, and by physical barriers in the form of floating mountains, is going to be very imprecise and inaccurate. If you want to destroy the Tree of Souls in a single bomb run, you are going to have to get up close and personal to do it.

Jamming has it's limits.
And again, missing, and ending mission with no losses, and then trying again, would still be better than making such crazily expansive asset like a space shuttle vunerable to attack by flying infantry, espacialy for a profit oriented organization RDA is. These shuttles, and even choppers, are not cheap, are they? And they need to be transported from Earth, what makes them even more expansive to replace.

Except that what we saw of the Valkyrie suggests that it is not very agile or fast when manuevering in an atmosphere, it was very large, and the bomb was not guided. Which is not surprising, as the Valkyrie is space shuttle, not a bomber. They
were shoving improvised bombs made from pallets of mining explosives out of back. Their approach probably could have been better, but a slow, low approach was required at some point.

Somehow, I don't think suborbital dive-bombing attacks are in the Valkyrie's mission profile.

Bombers do not need to be agile and manuverable, at least not when they are flying so high that no enemy weapon can reach them.
Flying high alone is enough of defense, so, for accuracy, as Valkyrie has VTOL capabilities, it could even come to full mid air stop, let's say 50 km above the tree, and drop the explosives.
As for not being fast, if it is not fast in atmopshpehe, then how does it leave/enter the atmosphere? Even today's space shuttles would be fast enough to easily outrun some pterodactyls.
Valkyrie is a 22th century shuttle, so i would say is should do at least a bit better, not worse.
Damn, it is a VTOL shuttle, so it's thrust has to be pretty impressive.

[Darth Wong]

High-altitude flight would be OK for the initial approach, but not for the final run. There is thick fog in that area so they won't be able to see anything.

[CBG]

A Tree of Souls is a fairly big and stationary target, so if they knew it's position (which i think they knew, as they could plot a straight course on it), the shuttle's inertial navigation systems could easily position it directly above the tree.

[Xon]

High-altitude flight would be OK for the initial approach, but not for the final run. There is thick fog in that area so they won't be able to see anything.

Not above the Tree of Souls itself. There is a huge open area around it with no flying mountains, jungle or mist.

For anything with a vertical takeoff/landing profile, it would be painfully easy to get in and out.

[Sheridan]

<snip>
3. How can the RDA make a guidance system for a bomb? Everyone keeps on going about it, about how they can jerry-rig some sort of guidance system for an air-dropped weapon or for some orbital weapon, but do they even have the resources to do this? It's not something trivially easy to MacGuyver, and it's not something they can whip up without a period of testing and trial and error.
<snip>

While I don't disagree with the rest of your statements, shouldn't the RDA have access to some really good ballistic computers, what with the whole travelling from Terra to Pandora thing? It shouldn't be easy to make a bomb sight with those, but it also shouldn't be out of the realm of possibility within a relatively short time.

Mind you, I know next-to-nothing about ballistics and the effects of atmosphere on munitions guided by them, but it seems like these tools would be applicable to the situation at hand.

[Xon]

The RDA appears to take weekly stupid pills, it is almost the only way to explain the frankly unbelievable amounts of plot railroading you see in the film.

And this honestly is not a suprise, James Cameron has a tendancy to use plot railroading with unbelivable stupid authority figures.

[Connor MacLeod]

2) The UNSC sniper rifle mentioned earlier sounds like super-wank. A 15 km/s sniper rifle? The bullet would vapourize in transit, for fuck's sake.

Magic materials I'm guessing. Someone may have pointed this out already I think, but the Stanchion ISN'T a standard military weapon. Its more a spec ops assassin's weapon (at least that's how it has been used) and it may even be designed to be vehicle mounted (there's implications of that in IIRC contact harvest) - but it requires a separate power source and a laptop like computer hookup to function - hardly something you would set up in a combat zone.

Besides, as you said, you dont want snipers you want HMGs. Frankly if they were going for any long range support I'd think mortars would be a better choice anyhow.

3) If we replace the RDA forces with a small contingent of UNSC Marines and a couple of Warthogs packing a few thousand rounds of ammo each, their rear-mounted AA guns can probably kill incoming super-creatures. The problem is that the dense terrain means you can't see or fire on them until they're almost on top of you, at which point the ability to take out a number of them (even a large number) won't keep them from overrunning your position.

True, although I wonder if the Warthogs could outrun or outmanuver the super-creatures. I gathered alot of their nastiness up close came from the sheer momentum of a charge (at least initially) but if they miss they'd be left exposed.

4) Having said all of that, the ground battle is irrelevant to the overall outcome anyway. If the objective is to take out the Tree of Souls, the biggest single factor is speed. The only reason Jake was able to stop the big flying U-Haul in the movie was the fact that it was so damned slow, which made it possible to launch repeated attacks on it, and to physically leap onto its dorsal surface. Replace it with a much faster-moving Pelican and they don't have time to do any of that. They might not even be able to keep up with it, never mind jumping onto its dorsal surface. That means it's bye-bye, Tree of Souls. Game over.

Pelicans are also armed, as I recall. The RDA shuttle only had open gunnery pits on it, which would not work at high speed anyhow.

By the way, regarding the brief tangent about how SW stormtroopers would fare, I think it's worth pointing out that we did see a showdown between durable megafauna and SW blasters in AOTC, when Jango Fett took a shot at a charging red beast in the Geonosian arena. One good hit from his pistol put the beast down permanently. It seems pretty clear that if you dial up one of those SW blaster weapons to high power, you can easily kill those creatures. Not that it would matter against the Empire anyway, because that whole attack was not their style.

Not that I'm doubting your word on the matter, but someone is invariably bound to bring up the "naturally occuring carbon fiber" crap that got mentioned with the Na'vi in the movie - I'm wondering if that would affect anything with the super creature, since some have claimed they are 'better than normal organics.' (and I will admit despite the fact we saw RDA firearms taking the natives down fairly easily.)

The other point I recall is that Jango basically shot it in the brain - so if they can find the brain on those creatures and hit it, I have no doubt it would be as you say.

I agree WRT to the point about the AT-AT though, since if we substituted any other universe for the RDA the tactics and deployment would arguably change as well (most are combined arms forces so we'd see ground vehicles and not just troops.)

[CBG]

2) The UNSC sniper rifle mentioned earlier sounds like super-wank. A 15 km/s sniper rifle? The bullet would vapourize in transit, for fuck's sake.

Depanding on materials used, vapourize or heat up and slow down before. In the dense atmosphere of Pandora the smart thing to do would be just to use heaviest available, slower bullets.

Mind you, I know next-to-nothing about ballistics and the effects of atmosphere on munitions guided by them, but it seems like these tools would be applicable to the situation at hand.

Using such ones for something like bomb drop is an overkill. 80's era aircraft mounted computers could do this pretty well, and your early XXI century mobile phone (not even mentioning your computer) literally crushes them in terms of performance.

The main error of RDA is complete lack of anything that would reassemble an air superiority fighter at all. Choppers like Scorpions are painfully slow (especially in denser atmosphere), and that lets Banshees to outspeed them in dive (but they can't even get them in level flight).
No sane person would use helicopters for large scale air to air combat with numerically superior opponent.
If RDA would use anything significantly faster (even WW2 era prop driven fighter!), Banshees would be nothing more than target practice.
And they already had a huge runway in Hell's Gate.

[Kingmaker]

Why would they need air superiority fighters? Prior to the attack on the tree of souls, there was absolutely no need for them. A scorpion can handle an individual banshee, and they had no prior experience with the zerg rush of banshees we saw at the end of the movie. RDA did indeed hit the stupid pills pretty hard, but this isn't really an example of it.

[Guardsman Bass]

the "naturally occuring carbon fiber" crap that got mentioned with the Na'vi in the movie - I'm wondering if that would affect anything with the super creature, since some have claimed they are 'better than normal organics.'

I thought that was referring to their skeletal structure, which is why when it came up, I was slightly mystified as to how it makes them that much harder to kill. Sure, it probably makes them stronger, but a stronger skeleton won't save you from a hole blown in your chest unless your rib-cage is a solid piece of bone or something.

[Connor MacLeod]

I thought that was referring to their skeletal structure, which is why when it came up, I was slightly mystified as to how it makes them that much harder to kill. Sure, it probably makes them stronger, but a stronger skeleton won't save you from a hole blown in your chest unless your rib-cage is a solid piece of bone or something.

It might have been just the skeletal structure, but I'm not sure if that alone would matter - for one thing the Na'vi are incredbily strong (far moreso than a person) yet not terribly bulky - so it may say something about thier muscle tissue (or not - one of the other factors like their height might influence those things also.) This is why I am asking Mike if it makes a difference or not - he's an engineer and I'm not and his knowledge of materials science is far better than mine - hell for all I know he already is factoring that in and I just asked a silly question - its been known to happen before. Or maybe the super creature in AOTC ought to be as "durable" (also possible). I'm just curious about the exact reason why or if it does matter.

It also doesn't hurt to ask Mike for clarification because in my experience you'd run into some idiot fanboy who claims that using "carbon fibre" or something in their makeup would naturally make them tougher or suggest that other parts of their body might (you know, a leap in logic).

Edit: I've also learned that its better to ask and be told I asked a stupid question than just assume my intuitive guess may be correct. Like you my intuition says that if gunfire can kill Na'Vi they probably aren't super resilient, but intuition isn't a replacement for knowledge - blasters aren't bullets, and carbon IIRC has some rather good thermal properties and such, so a direct comparison of the two could be flawed. Mike could very well be referring to the fact blasters put fucking huge holes in walls on higher settings too.

[Sky Captain]

Regarding the bombing approach it might make more sense for shuttle to fly above the mountains then come to a stop and descend vertically to drop the bomb. But regardless of chosen approach the shuttle would have to come to a low altitude to drop the bomb with any chance of success. That bomb was nothing more than a cube pack of explosives, it`s aerodynamics would be so crappy even with computer assist a drop from high altitude most likely would miss.

If they had built an aerodynamic shell for explosives (WWII bomb) then computer assisted drop from high altitude could work with reasonable chance of success. With their 3d printers making an aerodynamic shell should be easy.

[Shroom Man 777]

While I don't disagree with the rest of your statements, shouldn't the RDA have access to some really good ballistic computers, what with the whole travelling from Terra to Pandora thing? It shouldn't be easy to make a bomb sight with those, but it also shouldn't be out of the realm of possibility within a relatively short time.

Mind you, I know next-to-nothing about ballistics and the effects of atmosphere on munitions guided by them, but it seems like these tools would be applicable to the situation at hand.

How does a computer that guides the flight path of an aerodynamic piloted vehicle equate to a system designed to steer a dumb bomb that is composed of a bunch of mining explosives that have been rigged together by webbing? Not to mention, if you want something that's actually precise you'd need fins or steering systems or else you're stuck with WWII-era dumb iron bombs. Hell, it's even less accurate than iron bombs since those jerry-rigged "daisy cutters" are in no way aerodynamic or optimized for bombing.

The Venture Star doesn't have military-grade targeting systems, and I don't think the Scorpions or the Dragon have bomb bays since all they fire are rockets and missiles.

Using such ones for something like bomb drop is an overkill. 80's era aircraft mounted computers could do this pretty well, and your early XXI century mobile phone (not even mentioning your computer) literally crushes them in terms of performance.

Can you, or anyone, jerry rig a XXI century mobile phone (that crushes 80s era aircraft mounted computers) into a bomb targeting system? Was there such a person in Pandora, with the RDA guys? Can you expect them to create a successful device without even spending time (which the RDA didn't have) to test it? This isn't an episode of MacGuyver.

Answer:Flying high enough means flying way above the flying mountains, and way above the altitude a flying monster or chopper can fly on. Make it even suborbital if necessary.

Then how can they drop their bomb accurately? The "daisy cutter" was jerry rigged, they did not have a working guidance system for it, and it was composed of multiple separate explosives held together by webbing. That's NOT something that can be dropped from high altitude with any semblance of accuracy.

If they do don't need pinpoint precision (which they rather do not) all they need is a ballistic computer. Even modern computers with modern "dumb" bombs can get a CEP as low as 100-200m. If not enough, just use WW2 old method called dive bombing.

Dive bombing brings up the problem of fog and moving mountains. And, again, the half-assed property of their crappy jerry-rigged bomb means that a fast dive-bombing run might not be so accurate.

Resources? Well, they have technical resources to maintain a pretty big ground base and many various aircraft, so i would say they aren't bad. Not even mentioning a bunch of scientists and scientific equipment.

Maybe they simply couldn't have MacGuyvered a better bomb? It's not like the RDA brought in a "Jerry Rigging Semi-Accurate Guidance Systems for Bombs Made From a Bunch of Mining Explosives That Have Simply Been Duct Taped Together" for Dummies book. They're miners and mechanics and their scientists are a bunch of biologists, they're not aerospace engineers.

Sensors? Which ones? Radar? Even modern aircraft often operate with radars off.
At least we know that these flux fields do not mess with light, so at least laser guidance should work. Also, if there was any sort of communication working in the area, remote guidance would work aswell.
Mountains? These mountains are not small nor moving nor hard to see. And if it is flying high enough, the crew has nothing to care less about than these.

Unless if their bomb was jerry rigged and unguided, which means that they would have to fly low and close if they wanted to hit the target accurately. Either that or they could've stayed high and done WW2 style carpet bombing, which was not an option.

Add every computer assisted optical device RDA has to those Mk. 1 Eyeballs. If these works, all optical sensors have to.
Islands? Don't they have computers there? Just calculate a proper trajectory, if the tree is not fully covered by these from above, it is all that is needed.
Actually, B-1B have much better than WW2 "dumb" bomb dropping accuracy.
Considering the timeframe, i would doubt that RDA has nothing at least as good.

What if the RDA did not bring the requisite materials for strategic bombing because they were a mining company given only helicopters and light armor, and a non-combat transport space shuttle, without any provisions for bomb-making?

And again, missing, and ending mission with no losses, and then trying again, would still be better than making such crazily expansive asset like a space shuttle vunerable to attack by flying infantry, espacialy for a profit oriented organization RDA is. These shuttles, and even choppers, are not cheap, are they? And they need to be transported from Earth, what makes them even more expansive to replace.

The Na'vi won't be sitting pretty. The RDA, actually the Mercenaries who took over, launched their attack because they were running out of time - because after a limited time, the Na'vi would have enough numbers to overwhelm them and swarm their base.

And, thinking about it, while dropping a bomb from high above will be inaccurate, a dive bombing run like you suggested might also be just as risky. There's the risk of flying into a mountain, there's the fog, and we don't even know how maneuverable the Venture Star Valkyrie shuttle is and if it can pull up or if it stalls.

The approach they took in the movie worked. They would've destroyed the Tree of Souls if it HADN'T been for the magic intervention of Eywa. The RDA tactics DID defeat the Na'vi themselves, I mean all the Na'vi flying infantry (and ground infantry) were slaughtered en masse!

The RDA appears to take weekly stupid pills, it is almost the only way to explain the frankly unbelievable amounts of plot railroading you see in the film.

And this honestly is not a suprise, James Cameron has a tendancy to use plot railroading with unbelivable stupid authority figures.

Or maybe the RDA was a mining company that did not have massive military force but instead just a relatively "lightly armed" security detachment, placed in a planet far far away from Earth, that stretches their supply lines, in a disadvantageous environment against an enemy that outnumbers them?

Look, the RDA won the battle against the Na'vi. Only the intervention of Eywa, which nobody expected, saved the Na'vi and defeated the RDA. Frankly, modern helicopters and humvees wouldn't have done better against bird swarms or elephant stampedes.

3) If we replace the RDA forces with a small contingent of UNSC Marines and a couple of Warthogs packing a few thousand rounds of ammo each, their rear-mounted AA guns can probably kill incoming super-creatures. The problem is that the dense terrain means you can't see or fire on them until they're almost on top of you, at which point the ability to take out a number of them (even a large number) won't keep them from overrunning your position.

Those bigass machineguns carried by the RDA mechs are probably not much smaller than those Warthog guns. If the terrain was flat, allowing the RDA mechs and mercs to see and fire upon the animals before they got too close, I think the RDA mechs and mercs would've killed the whole herd and could've fallen back while slaughtering animals.

5) No doubt some will argue that they couldn't go faster because of the limited navigation in the flux area. However, the Na'Vi were flying faster on their dragon creatures, so it's pretty obvious that simple visual navigation is adequate to go much faster than the flying U-Haul.

The Na'vi were intimately familiar with the flux area, though. And the Na'vi were flying faster than the gunships, but at much shorter distances. The Na'vi dragon creatures moved fast while diving, but I doubt they can move at those speeds while in level flight - the dragons being animals and all.

By the way, regarding the brief tangent about how SW stormtroopers would fare, I think it's worth pointing out that we did see a showdown between durable megafauna and SW blasters in AOTC, when Jango Fett took a shot at a charging red beast in the Geonosian arena. One good hit from his pistol put the beast down permanently.

I mentioned this when I addressed Starglider previously. If the Stormies do what Jango did, then they'll be one-shotting space dinosaurs and at the end of the day they'll probably have a whole lot of steak with a serving of Soul Tree salad.

Not that I'm doubting your word on the matter, but someone is invariably bound to bring up the "naturally occuring carbon fiber" crap that got mentioned with the Na'vi in the movie - I'm wondering if that would affect anything with the super creature, since some have claimed they are 'better than normal organics.' (and I will admit despite the fact we saw RDA firearms taking the natives down fairly easily.)

Unless the naturally occurring carbon fiber is significantly stronger than manufactured carbon fiber, I don't think it'll make a lick spit of difference.

[Sky Captain]

Well, I think designing and building aerodynamic bomb with some primitive RC guidance is within the capabilities of RDA given they had access to their 3d fabricators. However it was probably considered overkill for such simple task as blowing up a tree especially since no one expected to be swarmed by every critter in the area. Even with all the swarm without Jake blowing up an engine the bomb would be dropped and brain tree blown up.

[Shroom Man 777]

The 3D fabricator probably used pre-set designs to fabricate preprogrammed stuff. You'd still need someone to design actual bomb designs if you want to turn those mining charges into a real bomb. The 3D fabricator won't create it by itself. And, really, the RDA didn't NEED a real bomb to do the job. In the movie, they already killed the Na'vi forces and were ready to deliver the coup de grace before Eywa's magic intervention ruined their shit. The RDA's tactics, in the movie, were already victorious!

[Starglider]

Can you, or anyone, jerry rig a XXI century mobile phone (that crushes 80s era aircraft mounted computers) into a bomb targeting system?

Actually, yes. Any reasonably programmable phone with GPS would be fine. The main hassle would be the interface electronics for the fin servos. See this project (now five years old) for how easy it is for even a single hobbyist to make a guided missile in their spare time.

Was there such a person in Pandora, with the RDA guys?

Almost certainly, they have people maintaining all their milspec equipment, link beds and computing hardware. They'll need experts on site, since they don't have realtime comms with earth.

Can you expect them to create a successful device without even spending time (which the RDA didn't have) to test it?

It'd take somewhere between a few hours and a few days depending on exactly what resources they've got.

Those bigass machineguns carried by the RDA mechs are probably not much smaller than those Warthog guns.

But they have a much slower rate of fire. RoF is critical when you want to kill a whole herd before it reaches you.

Unless the naturally occurring carbon fiber is significantly stronger than manufactured carbon fiber, I don't think it'll make a lick spit of difference.

Wouldn't matter anyway against blaster bolts, because penetration is based on vaporisation not mechanical sheering or shattering.

In the movie, they already killed the Na'vi forces and were ready to deliver the coup de grace before Eywa's magic intervention ruined their shit. The RDA's tactics, in the movie, were already victorious!

Only because Jake waited until most of his troops were dead before trying the 'jump on shuttle and blow engine with grenade' trick. If he'd done that earlier, or more sensibly gotten a large number of his force to concentrate on slinging debris at the engine intakes (frankly rough gravel would have worked just as well as a grenade) the shuttle would have been toast in the opening scene.

[Shroom Man 777]

Who knows how they planned their defense though. Between the fact that only he, Blue Chick, Tsu'Tsey and Shaggy Doo had throat-mikes (along with Michelle Vasquez Rodriguez), and the fact that those Na'vi fliers were a bunch of primitive warriors as opposed to real soldiers (and a bunch of them were probably assholes from those other tribes who just arrived on the scene and had no fucking clue what was going on), the clusterfuck in the movie was probably pretty "realistic". I mean, despite the asskicking the RDA ended up getting, the whole fight really didn't go the Na'vi's way either.

It's not like Jake had time, between going around all over the place rallying his forces and speechifying, to hearing news of the RDA preemptive strike, to planning his defense, to any attempt at training his guys. Like the RDA, Jake didn't have the luxury of time either.

Actually, yes. Any reasonably programmable phone with GPS would be fine. The main hassle would be the interface electronics for the fin servos. See this project (now five years old) for how easy it is for even a single hobbyist to make a guided missile in their spare time.

Almost certainly, they have people maintaining all their milspec equipment, link beds and computing hardware. They'll need experts on site, since they don't have realtime comms with earth.

It'd take somewhere between a few hours and a few days depending on exactly what resources they've got.

Hrm... thinking about it, yeah, it would be definitely doable. Just mash together their helicopter guidance systems, and the fins and whatever-systems of their existing aircraft.

Hell, they could've used a friggin remote-controlled Scorpion gunship decked out with explosives or something, tossed it out of the Shuttle and have it fly to the Tree of Souls.

But testing the whole thing would've taken time. And I don't think Quarritch was really into MacGuyver solutions, preferring to Keep It Simple Stupid. If flying the shuttle low right over the Tree of Souls and dumping the load would've blown shit up fine, then that's what he'd choose. Either way, the Na'vi flyers did end up losing in the actual fight.

But they have a much slower rate of fire. RoF is critical when you want to kill a whole herd before it reaches you.

Point. But if each monster succumbs to those large-caliber MG rounds, maybe it won't be how fast the guns shoot, rather how fast the gunners can select targets and burst-fires each of them that matters? The RoF would only be for pray-and-spraying. It depends on what kind of ammo the RDA/Haloids are using, how effective it is on the Na'vi supercreatures.

Still, the environment pretty much placed the machineguns at a disadvantage.

Wouldn't matter anyway against blaster bolts, because penetration is based on vaporisation not mechanical sheering or shattering.

True.

Only because Jake waited until most of his troops were dead before trying the 'jump on shuttle and blow engine with grenade' trick. If he'd done that earlier, or more sensibly gotten a large number of his force to concentrate on slinging debris at the engine intakes (frankly rough gravel would have worked just as well as a grenade) the shuttle would have been toast in the opening scene.

The problem is with aiming though. It's not like those pterodactyls had guidance systems, a bucket full of gravel is even less accurate than a jerry-rigged daisy cutter.

I think Jake just really didn't have time to organize his defense, though. He was all busy speechifying and traveling around campaigning to his voters, and maybe he didn't have much time to plan or to train his men after that Fat Guy told him about the RDA Mercenaries' plans.

[CBG]

How does a computer that guides the flight path of an aerodynamic piloted vehicle equate to a system designed to steer a dumb bomb that is composed of a bunch of mining explosives that have been rigged together by webbing? Not to mention, if you want something that's actually precise you'd need fins or steering systems or else you're stuck with WWII-era dumb iron bombs. Hell, it's even less accurate than iron bombs since those jerry-rigged "daisy cutters" are in no way aerodynamic or optimized for bombing.

The Venture Star doesn't have military-grade targeting systems, and I don't think the Scorpions or the Dragon have bomb bays since all they fire are rockets and missiles.

Just write a proper program? WWII-era dumb iron bombs are still used, and with computer assisted targeting they have 100-200m CEP in level drop. Dive bombing would make it even better. It could even be dropped from high altitude at 0 speed, ensuring good accuracy and 100% safety for the shuttle.
And bomb bays are not neccessary for using bombs.
Does F-16 have bomb bays?
Does Stuka have bomb bays?
Can they drop bombs properly?
Even Mi-24 helicopter can drop bombs.

Then how can they drop their bomb accurately? The "daisy cutter" was jerry rigged, they did not have a working guidance system for it, and it was composed of multiple separate explosives held together by webbing. That's NOT something that can be dropped from high altitude with any semblance of accuracy.

Technical support fucked up. Why couldn't they in a very short time just weld some thin steel or aluminium plates into something at least semi aerodynamic that is trying to look like a bomb, and put these explosives inside?

Dive bombing brings up the problem of fog and moving mountains. And, again, the half-assed property of their crappy jerry-rigged bomb means that a fast dive-bombing run might not be so accurate.

Inertial navigation and the fact that trees are stationary targets makes up for the fog.
And dive bombing (=from above) gets around the flying mountain problem much better than level approach, as there were no flying mountains shown directly above the tree.

Maybe they simply couldn't have MacGuyvered a better bomb? It's not like the RDA brought in a "Jerry Rigging Semi-Accurate Guidance Systems for Bombs Made From a Bunch of Mining Explosives That Have Simply Been Duct Taped Together" for Dummies book. They're miners and mechanics and their scientists are a bunch of biologists, they're not aerospace engineers.

These "miners and mechanics and their scientists" were producing most of their equipment, including heavy vehicles. They can build a huge truck, including powerful engine, suspension, steering, and strudy metal frame (excluding electronics), why couldn't they build something as simple as a steel, bomb shaped container? And they needed to have some aerospace engineers to maintain all their aircraft, especially shuttles. Oh, and they were also manufacturing munitions on site.

Unless if their bomb was jerry rigged and unguided, which means that they would have to fly low and close if they wanted to hit the target accurately. Either that or they could've stayed high and done WW2 style carpet bombing, which was not an option.

There are 2 interesting differences between WW2 style carpet bombine and this:
1 - WW2 bombers over Germany were shot at, even at high altitudes.
2 - show me one WW2 bomber that is VTOL, so it can come to full stop mid air, and then drop bombs.

What if the RDA did not bring the requisite materials for strategic bombing because they were a mining company given only helicopters and light armor, and a non-combat transport space shuttle, without any provisions for bomb-making?

A ot of it's stuff was not given, they had a huge potential in their stereolithography plant that produced it, including pretty complicated stuff, like a huge, remote controlled bulldozer. This means that building something as simple as a bomb body (or even a heavy tank) on their own would be possible.

The Na'vi won't be sitting pretty. The RDA, actually the Mercenaries who took over, launched their attack because they were running out of time - because after a limited time, the Na'vi would have enough numbers to overwhelm them and swarm their base.

So, why weren't they just bombing the shit out of Na'vi from high altitude till they numbers would be miserable? Throwing a critical element of forces (most of combat aircraft) into a mission that is risky, makes serious losses pretty sure, and even if it succeeds, does not guarantee preventing the attack, is not a wise move.

And, thinking about it, while dropping a bomb from high above will be inaccurate, a dive bombing run like you suggested might also be just as risky. There's the risk of flying into a mountain, there's the fog, and we don't even know how maneuverable the Venture Star Valkyrie shuttle is and if it can pull up or if it stalls.

Valkyrie is VTOL, which means it does not have to worry about stalls.
There was no mountain directly above the tree, so diving there would be pretty safe.

The approach they took in the movie worked. They would've destroyed the Tree of Souls if it HADN'T been for the magic intervention of Eywa. The RDA tactics DID defeat the Na'vi themselves, I mean all the Na'vi flying infantry (and ground infantry) were slaughtered en masse!

Again, critical error in jungle guerilla warfare. Especially in jungle guerilla warfare on an alien planet, against not fully researched aliens.
Expect the unexpected. That should be Quattrich's motto on Pandora.

But testing the whole thing would've taken time. And I don't think Quarritch was really into MacGuyver solutions, preferring to Keep It Simple Stupid. If flying the shuttle low right over the Tree of Souls and dumping the load would've blown shit up fine, then that's what he'd choose. Either way, the Na'vi flyers did end up losing in the actual fight.

They did not lose. They suffered huge losses, but they also inflicted serious losses on RDA craft (which made repelling the suprise attack by animals impossible), and above all, they have fulfilled their primary mission objective - stopping Valkyrie from dropping the explosives on their tree. RDA failed to fulfill it's primary objective - bombing the shit out of tree of souls.
Quarritch just fails to be cautious. Not being cautious in a guerilla waragainst opponent, which he does not fully know, and being sure, that he will throw everything he got (not really knowing what exactly he got at his disposal) is an error that can lead to complete defeat (and it did).

Almost certainly, they have people maintaining all their milspec equipment, link beds and computing hardware. They'll need experts on site, since they don't have realtime comms with earth.

Don't forget they did not only maintain their equipment, they also had means to manufacture most of their equipment, especially the ground vehicles, on-site. Thats a capability more in line with something like starcraft than with modern warfare.
Imagine what would it look like, if for example US could just manufacture a bunch of Abrams tanks in middle of Afghanistan, and just crews and advanced electronics would have to be shipped in.

[open_sketchbook]

Also, imagine trying to explain the concept of jamming the intakes to a bunch of primitives, in their own language. You'd probably come across like you're trying to shove gravel into their nostrils, and unless I've seen a sky-machine before I'd probably just ignore the crazy ghostwalker and use my bowlista on it. The vast majority of the natives in the final battle were from out of town and didn't know shit, and Jake hardly had much time to explain. This is clearly the case with the plains dudes on the hexahorses, who went all charge of the light brigade against machine-guns and 20mm cannons.

[PeZook]

Also: the shuttle could've probably taken gravel with ease, seeing as it can survive re-entry. Then there's the matter of dropping bags of gravel into the thing while swarms of gunships are shooting at you. Same problem with just boarding the shuttle straight away and blowing up the engines: escorting gunships could just pick off the boarders.

Jumping into the thing like Tsu'Tey did and pushing the pallets off earlier/detonating them would be an option, but only for the most skilled/craziest of warriors.

Then there's the slight problem of Na'Vi having poor communications and a warrior culture: implementing a complicated battle plan would be really, really hard, especially since Jake didn't know the formation the enemy would fly in, their exact force composition, if the shuttle would fly fast or slow, what route they'd take, etc.

And he only had a limited grasp on the Na'Vi language to boot, further complicating command and control.

Which is why he probably went with the simple order of "follow me and kill as many of them as possible", hoping mass and surprise would be enough to overwhelm the enemy and allow them to destroy the shuttle.

And, as Shroom observed, if it wasn't for Eywa (or, more precisely, Sully's crazy attack allowed only by the fact the gunners were distracted by the RAR PTERODACTYL SWARM), the Na'Vi would've been fucked. Which is why the USNC would probably do better, since the Pelicans are A) Armored, B) Much smaller and C) Their loading bays are arranged differently.

All of these are important: armor allows them to take more punishment, their size means they can fly and maneuver much faster, and the fact they carry their payload underslung means they don't have to fly carefully in a straight line to dump the explosives with meaningful precision.

I'll let Shroom argue about the feasibility of designing, fabricating, integrating and deploying an aerodynamic Daisy Cutter and ballistic computer on a civilian space shuttle in a few hours. Remember: they didn't just want to bomb the tree. The Dragon could've done that by itself. They wanted to annihilate the tree and every Na'Vi around it in an apocalyptic display of Godly power so that the Na'Vi would be too scared to ever try and fight them again (how well that would've worked is debatable, but that was the plan). So they didn't just need a bomb, they needed a huge motherfucking bomb.

[Darth Wong]

I think it's worth pointing out that the extremely rushed nature of the original attack was due to Quaritch's belief that they had to move immediately or risk being overrun by thousands of Na'vi once the tribe built up their forces with allied reinforcements. However, leaving aside the improbability of a successful frontal assault by spear-wielding primitives against a modern fortified position, that still should have given them many days to prepare; how far did the reinforcements have to travel? There was no need to rush into the ships and fly off in mere hours with no real plan and a half-assed bomb created by stacking explosives onto a shipping pallet and tying them down with rope.

It seems to me that Quaritch's whole justification for this operation was due to his desire to teach the Na'vi a lesson, and that he probably exaggerated the threat in order to convince everyone else to go along with his plan. They've had that base there for many years; it is virtually inconceivable that it would not have been sufficiently fortified to fend off any assault mounted by Na'vi locals.

[Darth Wong]

It might have been just the skeletal structure, but I'm not sure if that alone would matter - for one thing the Na'vi are incredbily strong (far moreso than a person) yet not terribly bulky - so it may say something about thier muscle tissue (or not - one of the other factors like their height might influence those things also.) This is why I am asking Mike if it makes a difference or not - he's an engineer and I'm not and his knowledge of materials science is far better than mine - hell for all I know he already is factoring that in and I just asked a silly question - its been known to happen before. Or maybe the super creature in AOTC ought to be as "durable" (also possible). I'm just curious about the exact reason why or if it does matter.

Carbon fibre is not magic. I don't know why people think it's sooo special. It does allow you to make fairly lightweight and stiff objects like car bodies and tennis rackets, but I honestly don't see why it would make any difference whatsoever to their durability against bullets. It's not like steel armour.

Quaritch's "very hard to kill" comment was made during a "welcome to Pandora" safety briefing, where the objective is to scare the shit out of new arrivals. We saw during the battle that there was nothing special about them, in terms of resistance to bullets.

It also doesn't hurt to ask Mike for clarification because in my experience you'd run into some idiot fanboy who claims that using "carbon fibre" or something in their makeup would naturally make them tougher or suggest that other parts of their body might (you know, a leap in logic).

Edit: I've also learned that its better to ask and be told I asked a stupid question than just assume my intuitive guess may be correct. Like you my intuition says that if gunfire can kill Na'Vi they probably aren't super resilient, but intuition isn't a replacement for knowledge - blasters aren't bullets, and carbon IIRC has some rather good thermal properties and such, so a direct comparison of the two could be flawed. Mike could very well be referring to the fact blasters put fucking huge holes in walls on higher settings too.

Assuming that their bodies have some kind of naturally occurring high-strength fibres in them, that would probably just increase the ability of their limbs to withstand breakage, avoid bone fractures, etc. It really has nothing to do with combat, and more to do with surviving accidental falls from trees.

High tensile-strength fibres are not particularly good as armour. What they are good for is helping to resist bending moment, which is what tends to break most engineered thin-wall structures. In bending moment, half of the outer surface is in compression, while the other half is in tension. The side of the structural element which is in tension benefits from the inclusion of high-strength fibres as part of a composite material.

[PeZook]

I think it's worth pointing out that the extremely rushed nature of the original attack was due to Quaritch's belief that they had to move immediately or risk being overrun by thousands of Na'vi once the tribe built up their forces with allied reinforcements. However, leaving aside the improbability of a successful frontal assault by spear-wielding primitives against a modern fortified position, that still should have given them many days to prepare; how far did the reinforcements have to travel? There was no need to rush into the ships and fly off in mere hours with no real plan and a half-assed bomb created by stacking explosives onto a shipping pallet and tying them down with rope.

About a hundred kilometers, judging from the holo-display in the command centre: the Home Tree showed up at 94 clicks IIRC, and the Na'Vi were able to reach the Tree Of Souls in less than a day (it was still the day when Jake and co. were imprisoned, they were busted out in the evening, by morning they had the mobile lab moved and set up again) on foot with their elderly, wounded and children.

Of course, we don't know how Pandora's day/night cycle looks like.

It seems to me that Quaritch's whole justification for this operation was due to his desire to teach the Na'vi a lesson, and that he probably exaggerated the threat in order to convince everyone else to go along with his plan. They've had that base there for many years; it is virtually inconceivable that it would not have been sufficiently fortified to fend off any assault mounted by Na'vi locals.

That was probably a factor, too, since we all know Quaritch was a racist asshole. Then again, the base's total manpower was tiny. Quaritch was able to brief everyone there at the same time in that mess hall: thinking that 20 000 warriors would be able to overrun the perimeter was quite justified, IMHO, especially since they have fliers.