Terminator vs Predator

[Ryu]

Los angeles: 1984

A T-800 arrives in Los Angeles to kill Sarah Connor, picking clothes and weapons, but is unaware it is being watched by another hunter: a yuatja hunter, who comes across the terminator and selects it as his new target.

Unfortunately for it, the yuatja camouflage is useless against the infrared sensors on the T-800, and the instead of the assassination the predator intended, he ends up in a duel.

The terminator has all his weapons from the first film, while the predator has all the weapons he used in the second film. (Same predator)

[Lupercal]

Wouldn´t the Predator just cut the Terminator in half with his disc or blast him to smithereens with his shoulder cannon? IIRC the Terminator in the movies kinda just stands there and take it like a man, so it´s not like it´s going to actively seek cover or something.

[Tritio]

The Terminator wins! Without a workable wanky cloak, the Predator has nowhere to hide. With iron biceps, titanium triceps, targeting software, an array of weapons and an Austrian accent, the Terminator blows him away! The Terminator doesn't need cover. He IS a walking piece of cover! And well, if he gets killed, he'll be back.

[Darth Lucifer]

Weapons from Ternminator that I remember include a colt 45, some assault weapons during the police scene, including a shotgun. In Predator 2, a shotgun fucks up the Predator pretty good, but he does get back up for more.

I'm wondering what kind of penetrating power did those spear darts have and how powerful was the shoulder cannon? I'm not real knowledgeable on Terminator and Predator, but I vote Predator, unless the Terminator gets in close and crushes him to death I guess.

[Stark]

The shoulder cannon barely penetrates a human; high destruction is not demonstrated. If the Predator doesn't take him out fast (which he won't, he may even try to close into a fistfight) he's toast.

[Ryu]

The shoulder cannon barely penetrates a human; high destruction is not demonstrated. If the Predator doesn't take him out fast (which he won't, he may even try to close into a fistfight) he's toast.

The yuatja cannon is a thermal weapon, it kills humans by incinerating them, hence why the wrist-mounted version required a human to quickly remove his body armour before it burnt him to death. As for the terminator, it might burn off some tissue, but the weapon should prove useless against his titanium-tungsten body. I think all that's left are the blades at this point, and only a piercing blade should be able to cause serious damage, so it will likely come down to a melee.

[Ryu]

Weapons from Ternminator that I remember include a colt 45, some assault weapons during the police scene, including a shotgun. In Predator 2, a shotgun fucks up the Predator pretty good, but he does get back up for more.

I'm wondering what kind of penetrating power did those spear darts have and how powerful was the shoulder cannon? I'm not real knowledgeable on Terminator and Predator, but I vote Predator, unless the Terminator gets in close and crushes him to death I guess.

Assuming non-expanding ammunition, let's run through the firearms and their effects.

He used a 12-guage combat shotgun, which was demonstrated in predator 2 to penetrate the skin and into the muscle, but not reach vitals. The pistol was a .45 longslide with a laser sight. It will penetrate just a little more than the shotgun, and is easier to use, more handy in close quarters and has longer range, at the expense of stopping power. He also bought an uzi submachine gun, which will have about the penetration of the shotgun buckshot, actually a little less, but is fully automatic. (Judging by the effect of the shotgun, I'd say the pistols used in earlier scenes in predator fired hollow points.) As for the rifle, he uses an AR-15, which should have good enough penetration to reach vitals and maybe even completely perforate the body. (Depending on ammunition.)

This should tell us how the terminator's weaponry should fare, and at this point I'm going to have to side with him on this.

EDIT: Well, shit. Upon reviewing the footage, the rifle was clearly NOT an AR-15.

[adam_grif]

In Terminatorverse, plasma weapons are the resistance's primary tools for terminator killing. The only question is whether the Predator plasmacaster is good enough to kill a terminator or not.

[Xenophon13]

Depends if the terminator uses legitimate tactics or if he does the whole intimidate by inexorably marching forward thing.

[Stark]

I hear all plasma weapons are the same? It apparently takes a fair bit of fire to kill a Terminator, and the predators gun fires slowly and has hilarious targeting dots.

Regardless, at first the Predator is very likely to go melée and be too injured to win by the time he realizes his mistake.

[adam_grif]

It's a pretty safe assumption that "plasma weapons" aren't doing their damage kinetically in either universe considering how slow the bolts move in both cases. We know for a fact it's thermal in Predator anyway. So the mechanism for damage is the same. Unfortunately we don't know the relative power of either weapon, or how durable T-800's are to that kind of punishment.

[Ryu]

Weapons from Ternminator that I remember include a colt 45, some assault weapons during the police scene, including a shotgun. In Predator 2, a shotgun fucks up the Predator pretty good, but he does get back up for more.

I'm wondering what kind of penetrating power did those spear darts have and how powerful was the shoulder cannon? I'm not real knowledgeable on Terminator and Predator, but I vote Predator, unless the Terminator gets in close and crushes him to death I guess.

Assuming non-expanding ammunition, let's run through the firearms and their effects.

He used a 12-guage combat shotgun, which was demonstrated in predator 2 to penetrate the skin and into the muscle, but not reach vitals. The pistol was a .45 longslide with a laser sight. It will penetrate just a little more than the shotgun, and is easier to use, more handy in close quarters and has longer range, at the expense of stopping power. He also bought an uzi submachine gun, which will have about the penetration of the shotgun buckshot, actually a little less, but is fully automatic. (Judging by the effect of the shotgun, I'd say the pistols used in earlier scenes in predator fired hollow points.) As for the rifle, he uses an AR-15, which should have good enough penetration to reach vitals and maybe even completely perforate the body. (Depending on ammunition.)

This should tell us how the terminator's weaponry should fare, and at this point I'm going to have to side with him on this.

EDIT: Well, shit. Upon reviewing the footage, the rifle was clearly NOT an AR-15.

I missed a few... Now that my mental lapse is over, the rifle is actually an AR-18. Never the less, it would perform more or less the same. He also had a .357 magnum revolver, which would penetrate deeper than the .45 and likely reach vitals.

[Ryu]

I hear all plasma weapons are the same? It apparently takes a fair bit of fire to kill a Terminator, and the predators gun fires slowly and has hilarious targeting dots.

Regardless, at first the Predator is very likely to go melée and be too injured to win by the time he realizes his mistake.

If I'm not mistaken on the effects of plasma weapons (and therefore producing a seriously fucked up estimate), the plasma cannon the TX uses in terminator 3, which the T-800 survived with only moderate damage, has something in the order of 10^7th joules and transfers it quickly. (As for efficiency, I don't know how much of it would go to waste) As for its temperature, this depends on the gas used and the amount, which is definetely a hydrogen isotope and occupies an ~10cm sphere, although we don't know how compressed the gas is because we don't know how much of it there is.

However, my estimate is rather imprecise and I'm not sure on acuracy. If we could get somebody more knowledgable to review the footage and check my estimate, that would be great.

EDIT: the yuatja cannon looks to be an order of magnitude weaker, by the way, but that's as rough of an estimate as you're going to get.

[Sarevok]

Can we please stop calling Predators yautja ? No one has ever used that stupid term in the films and neither do Predators have mouths capable of pronouncing yautja. They are fucking extraterrestrial lifeforms not a foreign culture from another country.

[Ryu]

Can we please stop calling Predators yautja ? No one has ever used that stupid term in the films and neither do Predators have mouths capable of pronouncing yautja. They are fucking extraterrestrial lifeforms not a foreign culture from another country.

We pulled yautja out of the expanded universe, the other option was hish. They're both correct, take your pick.

[Shroom Man 777]

Can we please stop calling Predators yautja ? No one has ever used that stupid term in the films and neither do Predators have mouths capable of pronouncing yautja. They are fucking extraterrestrial lifeforms not a foreign culture from another country.

What if the Predators have an extraterrestrial country with extraterrestrial lifeforms whose culture is foreign to us?

[Vympel]

I agree, 'Yautja' is stupid and it sucks and lets not dignify it by using it. Everyone knows what people mean when they say "Predator", so lets stick with that.

The shoulder cannon barely penetrates a human; high destruction is not demonstrated.

Yeah, it blew through Blane but the blast clearly expended itself through his body. I've got a tough time believing it'll be able to fuck up a Terminator with one shot. Also, Dutch's flimsy M16A1 was all that was required to completely save him from dying to a blast later in the film.

That said, I don't believe the Predator is likely to close to melee first. He demonstrates often that he likes to open with the shoulder cannon - it just depends on his mood.

[NecronLord]

It's a pretty safe assumption that "plasma weapons" aren't doing their damage kinetically in either universe

I take it you've not seen Terminator 3? When the TX uses its plasma weapon on the T-850, the 850 is physically hurled into the air across a car park, through a building's exterior wall and then a couple of internal ones. That's a fair old bit of mometum right there.

This weapon is intended to kill T800s, but arequires a hit to a vital "organ" fuel cell to reliably do so.

Unfortunately we don't know the relative power of either weapon, or how durable T-800's are to that kind of punishment.

Terminator weapons can go up to single figure megajoules/shot in some sources (The James Cameron produced 'T2-3D' ride, for example, featured a rifle model blasting a hole almost a foot across in a concrete pillar when a T-800 test fired it.

[adam_grif]

I take it you've not seen Terminator 3?

Oh I've seen it, I just like to ignore it. Did we get any shots of the plasma rifles hitting terminators in T2? And are you sure it was Christiana Loken's plasma cannon, and not one of the other 60000000 weapons she had on her?

[Ryu]

Thank you, NecronLord, for being a logical human being, not another midnless technofapper. Now let's get some figures here.

It's a pretty safe assumption that "plasma weapons" aren't doing their damage kinetically in either universe

I take it you've not seen Terminator 3? When the TX uses its plasma weapon on the T-850, the 850 is physically hurled into the air across a car park, through a building's exterior wall and then a couple of internal ones. That's a fair old bit of mometum right there.

As far as that, the T850 was hurled at a velocity of ~25m/s. I haven't gone through the frame-by-frame to get a more exact measurement, so let's say 20-30m/s for now. The T850 is established to weigh in at 200kg, that's 4000-6000n*s. This is likely to be mostly from the expansion of the plasma and the material it vapourizes upon impact.

This weapon is intended to kill T800s, but arequires a hit to a vital "organ" fuel cell to reliably do so.

Not true. The T850 is more resistant to plasma weaponry than the T800, so it is plausible that a single shot would be enough to destroy a T-800. However, the increase wasn't atronomical, all they did was add coltan to the titanium-tungsten chassis, so it might still take a second shot on the weaker chassis.

Terminator weapons can go up to single figure megajoules/shot in some sources (The James Cameron produced 'T2-3D' ride, for example, featured a rifle model blasting a hole almost a foot across in a concrete pillar when a T-800 test fired it.

This is true, and that is both an order of magnitude smaller than the T-X plasma cannon and on the same order of magnitude of the predator's shoulder cannon. This should mean that the weapon will do a similar amount of damage to the terminator, which means it likely won't kill without multiple shots and hitting vital areas.

[Darth Tanner]

but is unaware it is being watched by another hunter: a yuatja hunter, who comes across the terminator and selects it as his new target.

Does this mean the predator has time to observe the capabilities of the terminator before having his stealth broken and forced into a duel?

Wouldn´t the Predator just cut the Terminator in half with his disc

Would this work? We see it cut near effortlessly through meat and bone but concrete and his own wrist blades stop it. The wrist blades are likely composed of the same material as the spear head the humans recover that is later described as being 'as strong as steel'. Terminators are made of titanium are they not which would offer even greater resistance to the cutting disc.

or how durable T-800's are to that kind of punishment.

In salvation we see Terminators are very good at dealing with extreme heat and we already know the Pred shoulder cannon is not very good at piercing armour.

So Terminator wins, the Pred simply lacks sufficient firepower to take it down and his cultural need to get close in and dirty could get him ripped to bits.

[adam_grif]

In salvation we see Terminators are very good at dealing with extreme heat

In that same movie we also see 5.56mm rounds penetrate right through their skulls at the start (albeit an already-dead termie, but it has an in-tact skull), and 7.62mm rounds killing active terminators.

Salvation also takes place in a different timeline to T1/2, the same one as T3, indicating that there may be differences in the technical specs on various terminators since it was started by an advanced model terminator right back in 2003, which came loaded in knowledge of the future and the resistance's future efforts against them, including tactics.

The wrist blades are likely composed of the same material as the spear head the humans recover that is later described as being 'as strong as steel'.

Or maybe it's made of the alien acid-proof blades we see in the expanded universe? Maybe it's super strong, or maybe it's super weak. How could you possibly know? Do predators only know how to make one kind of metal?

[sirocco]

Just to be sure : with all the sensors on their helmet wouldn't the Predator be able to :
1- know that predators are not human?
2- spot weaknesses (like joints or tube)?

Because I think they are still smart enough to use any of the tactics shown in the 4 movies. It's not like they have to kill their prey only with their own weapons. They just have to kill it one way or another.

Note : in Predator 1, the alien hunter fought already against the Terminator and lost. So why are we having that discussion?

[Marcus Aurelius]

He used a 12-guage combat shotgun, which was demonstrated in predator 2 to penetrate the skin and into the muscle, but not reach vitals. The pistol was a .45 longslide with a laser sight. It will penetrate just a little more than the shotgun, and is easier to use, more handy in close quarters and has longer range, at the expense of stopping power. He also bought an uzi submachine gun, which will have about the penetration of the shotgun buckshot, actually a little less, but is fully automatic. (Judging by the effect of the shotgun, I'd say the pistols used in earlier scenes in predator fired hollow points.)

The Uzi is a 9x19 mm submachine gun with a 400 mm barrel and higher muzzle velocity than a 9 mm pistol, therefore it will penetrate much better than buckshot and also better than the .45 . In fact even a 9 mm pistol would penetrate better than the .45 (of course assuming the same type of bullet for both), since it has a higher muzzle velocity and smaller bullet cross-section. The .357 Magnum revolver would be better still, although the AR-18 would be in the class of its own, of course.

[Crazedwraith]

Did Hartigan even use buckshot? Each time he pulls the trigger it looks like one large impact, so he could have been using solid slugs instead.