Aliens invade 1950s Earth.

[MKSheppard]

Allright -- who can conceivably defeat the US Army equipped the way it wanted to be equipped back in the 50s?

The army's Lieutenant General James M. Gavin, deputy chief of staff for research and development, under General Maxwell Taylor, told the JCAE in 1956 and 1957 that the total requirement for the army alone would be 151,000 nuclear weapons: 106,000 for tactical battlefield use, 25,000 for air defense, and 20,000 for support of our allies. Gavin estimated that a typical field army might use a total of 423 atomic warheads in one day of intense combat, not including surface-to-air weapons.

[Stark]

Given a total lack of yield information, who knows?

[MKSheppard]

Uh, Stark, it's not that hard to come up with yield information:

10-20 ton yield Davy Crocketts

15 kiloton 280mm Atomic Annie projectiles

2, 20, and 40 kiloton warhead on Nike AJAX SAM (can be used in ground attack mode)

[Stark]

It's totally my fault your post was meaningless to everyone who isn't married to military trivia!

Limited to 50s rockets for delivery = raped by aliens. Look, I didn't provide any numbers either!

[RedImperator]

Any remotely competent aliens could stand off in orbit and give the United States the TBO treatment without any fear of retaliation. They could do this now, let alone against 1950's Earth.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Allright -- who can conceivably defeat the US Army equipped the way it wanted to be equipped back in the 50s?

Anyone with self replicating war machines for one. Drop them where they won't be noticed, let them dig in underground and start replicating, and given time they could covert much of the Earth's crust into a hive-factory. There's plenty of material, energy ( geothermal and radioactives come to mind ), and nuking the Earth's crust into radioactive gravel would only do their job for them even if we had the power. Or just drop them on Mercury and send robot armies until we run out of nukes or Earth is covered to the depth of a few miles in radioactive robot remains.

Anyone who could strike from orbit at ground targets, and defend against what few missiles could reach them, if any - this was the 50's

Anyone willing and able to send enough waves of troops; if we actually used that many nukes, we'd pretty much defeat ourselves.

Anyone with suffiently advanced bio- or nano- tech. Or even bug sized robots. Anything too small to shoot that can get in among the troops and get through any 1950's versions of NBC gear. And yes, I'm sure that NATURAL organisms can't eat through what they had, but they weren't made out of Marvel Comics adamantium. And them can't use nukes to kill something that fills the air around them.


Really, nukes aren't really all that good as weapons. Powerful, but indiscriminate, and messy. That's why we DIDN'T and won't arm our forces with nukes to the eyeballs in the first place.

[MKSheppard]

Any remotely competent aliens could stand off in orbit and give the United States the TBO treatment without any fear of retaliation. They could do this now, let alone against 1950's Earth.

That's the thing.

How many remotely competent alien races or militaries are there in science fiction?

I'd probably thin the list down to a couple of adversaries:

1.) Heinlein's Starship Troopers

2.) Galactic Empire (if nothing else for the fact that their primary assault troops are encased in NBC armor)

3.) Hammers' Slammers (taking on a small section at a time; they're just too small to do a full scale fight)

4.) Melconians/Concordiat from Laumer's Boloverse (through shear wank)

5.) The Various landing forces from Weber's Honorverse (see above)

6.) The Culture

Damn my brain is drawing a blank on anyone after that...

[Stark]

7) anyone with either high-orbit bombardment or shields good vs 50s nukes

[MKSheppard]

7) anyone with either high-orbit bombardment or shields good vs 50s nukes

That eliminates all the powers of B5 and Trek.

[Surlethe]

7) anyone with either high-orbit bombardment or shields good vs 50s nukes

That eliminates all the powers of B5 and Trek.

Since when have B5 and Trek not had orbital bombardment capabilities?

[Gullible Jones]

B5's Centauri bombarded the Narn homeworld. IIRC they did a pretty good job of it too.

Let's face it - against any enemy that has control of space and knows how to shoot things from orbit, we're quite thoroughly fucked, let alone 1950s America.

[Peptuck]

About the only interstellar civilization I can think of that would have trouble fighting this kind of a defense would be the Citadel races from Mass Effect, and that's because they're bound by law to not bombard habitable planets from orbit.

Then again, if they realized how trigger-happy the stupid humans are with their nuclear arsenal, they'd probably write the humans off and bomb the planet from orbit anyhow.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Are ANY aliens allowed?

Cause i can just say Eddorians and win the thread.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Any remotely competent aliens could stand off in orbit and give the United States the TBO treatment without any fear of retaliation. They could do this now, let alone against 1950's Earth.

That's the thing.

How many remotely competent alien races or militaries are there in science fiction?

Not being military myself, I'm not going to opinionate on that. However, it doesn't matter much, since a sufficiently overpowering enemy can succeed with even quite crude tactics.

I'd probably thin the list down to a couple of adversaries:

1.) Heinlein's Starship Troopers

2.) Galactic Empire (if nothing else for the fact that their primary assault troops are encased in NBC armor)

3.) Hammers' Slammers (taking on a small section at a time; they're just too small to do a full scale fight)

4.) Melconians/Concordiat from Laumer's Boloverse (through shear wank)

5.) The Various landing forces from Weber's Honorverse (see above)

6.) The Culture

Damn my brain is drawing a blank on anyone after that...

Off the top of my head, the following sci-fi enemies could defeat this nuke happy 1950's army :

1 : Any spacegoing power in Schlock Mercenary. Hell, a single battleplate or non-Terran equivalent would be grotesque overkill.

2 : Any power in the Honorverse, even quite weak ones, can pound Earth with near-c missiles until we give in or are all dead. They don't need to bother with landing forces in this scenario; such are generally for small scale actions or garrisons. They'd send down the landing forces to accept the surrender, not fight.

3 : Starfire Arachnids would either keep sending troops until we ran out of nukes - assuming they don't just shoot them all down - or kill the planet from orbit.

4 : Kanga from The Apocalypse Troll would just kill all of humanity with a tailored bioweapon.

5 : Achuultani from the Dahak books would just toss an asteroid at us.

6 : The Fithp from Footfall would use lasers and meteors to destroy military and industry until we surrendered or collapsed. Or drop an asteroid on us.

7 : After Klingon ground troops got annihilated enough times, they'd mutter something about dishonorable tactics and kill the planet from orbit.

8 : The Thing would assimilate the biosphere.

9 : Berserkers would pound the planet into a lifeless ball from orbit.

10 : The world killing aliens from The Forge of God would blow Earth up as they did in the novel.

11 : The Waveries from The Waveries shut down all electicial devices, including nukes and vehicles with electrical components.

I could go on and on. An immense number of sci fi aliens could win, by shooting down the nukes, raising shields that block them, using some sort of technobabble suppression field, or most common of all by just striking from out of range.

[loomer]

People, you're all forgetting something. It's the 50's. Clearly mankind will triumph, through the POWER OF SCIENCE!

[Jadeite]

For those using the "It's the 1950s " argument, I'd like to point out that the XB-70 was a product of that decade's design work, and that a production B-70 would fly higher and faster than any known aircraft in existence today.

However, the scenario only matters in terms of ground warfare. Shep should have included that in the OP, otherwise there's no point debating this.

[Adrian Laguna]

However, the scenario only matters in terms of ground warfare. Shep should have included that in the OP, otherwise there's no point debating this.

It's clear from Shep's posts that he means ground warfare only. Notice how he mentions the Motherfucking Galactic Empire of Death Stars and Base Delta Zeroes would be well equipped to deal with Earth because... their troops have NBC protection. If we restrict it to ground warfare it becomes pretty even, especially given lots of Sci-Fi powers are alergic to using nuclear weapons on the ground, meanwhile the the USA that Shep is positing plans to deploy hundreds of the things per day.

[Adrian Laguna]

Oh Shep forgot to mention that the Davy Crocket had 10 or 20 tons as its low setting. You could dial it up to 500 tons. Fun thing about nuclear weapons, a couple hundred half-kiloton devices will actually do more damage than a single 100 kt device, with the bonus that the hundred half-kilotn devices can be used in the field without murdering your own troops. Tactical nuclear weapons are awesome things indeed.

[NecronLord]

Cause i can just say Eddorians and win the thread.

<Doc Smith> ... What?


Every space-going power from Stargate, Star Trek, and B5 (Well, there was a bit where the EA couldn't shoot a ground target directly in Crusade...) would appear to have no problem doing this. Maybe the Alliance from Firefly? We've not seen them do orbital attack of any kind.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Well, if you restrict it to ground combat it gets more interesting. A few offhand ( too tired for more ) :

1 : Starfire Arachnids, who are even more nuke happy and perfectly willing to accept the annihilation of both armies as a victory.

2 : The Waveries; no change.

3 : Trolls from The Apocalypse Troll, since it takes a hit with a megaton range nuke to kill one, assuming they don't shoot it down. Tactical nukes wouldn't do any good. Especially since we are talking a megaton bomb for each Troll.

3 : The faster-than-the-human-eye aliens from ST : OS. They could just kill off the Earth army with pointed sticks before they reacted. Superspeed's useful that way.

4 : The slaves of The Masters from the Callahan's Place books. Mere nukes are no problem.

5 : The Thing STILL eats the biosphere. Unless they happen to know it's there in time and nuke that spot. And if there was ever an excuse to nuke a spot to be * absolutely sure * the target's dead, this is it.

6 : 4th-5th Imperium soldiers, due to personal stealth fields that let them fight while invisible to anything we have.

7 : Vernor Vinge's Peace War/Marooned In Real Time universe forces, because they have "bobbles" ( spherical time stop fields ), which can be projected great distances. Since we lack bobble suppressor fields and bobbles of our own, they could use them freely. Bobble our forces in long term bobbles, or bobble themselves in short term bobbles that'll let them ride out a nuke, and so on.

[Surlethe]

It's clear from Shep's posts that he means ground warfare only. Notice how he mentions the Motherfucking Galactic Empire of Death Stars and Base Delta Zeroes would be well equipped to deal with Earth because... their troops have NBC protection. If we restrict it to ground warfare it becomes pretty even, especially given lots of Sci-Fi powers are alergic to using nuclear weapons on the ground, meanwhile the the USA that Shep is positing plans to deploy hundreds of the things per day.

The problem with only estimating ground combat is that no sane commander would invade a planet without ensuring and making use of space superiority. This is like asking how the Allies would have done at Normandy without supporting fire from cruisers and destroyers in the straits, or asking how the US military would have done in Iraq without air superiority.

[Jadeite]

The problem with only estimating ground combat is that no sane commander would invade a planet without ensuring and making use of space superiority. This is like asking how the Allies would have done at Normandy without supporting fire from cruisers and destroyers in the straits, or asking how the US military would have done in Iraq without air superiority.

Then consider "Q did it because he's a jackass" for the purposes of the scenario.

[Zor]

A Civilization with Reletively advanced robotics and STL Intersteller travel could do it rather easily. It could put a ship into Geosync earth orbit and nuke every industrial center to cinders and use point defense lasers to destroy any retaliatory attack. After which, wait about a couple of years as human civilization reverts to roving bands of barbarians, land drones to establish industrial facilities on the moon and begin production of a robotic army complete with hydrogen fuel cell powered AFVs, UAVs and Robotic Infantry and prefab industrial equipment, land forces in unpleasant regions such as the Saharah or Siberia, establish industrial centers there and commence conquest or extermination of the surviving ape things to prepare the world for comming colonization fleets.

Zor

[Cykeisme]

Fun thing about nuclear weapons, a couple hundred half-kiloton devices will actually do more damage than a single 100 kt device, with the bonus that the hundred half-kilotn devices can be used in the field without murdering your own troops.

Cool. Why's that, though?
Is it because a single large device has a lot of energy wasted going into the environment due to radiation and convection, whereas more smaller devices with the same total amount of energy release can put more of it into targets?

[Batman]

Fun thing about nuclear weapons, a couple hundred half-kiloton devices will actually do more damage than a single 100 kt device, with the bonus that the hundred half-kilotn devices can be used in the field without murdering your own troops.

Cool. Why's that, though?
Is it because a single large device has a lot of energy wasted going into the environment due to radiation and convection,

Not to my knowledge but I'm no nuclear physicist.

whereas more smaller devices with the same total amount of energy release can put more of it into targets?

That's it. Inverse square rule. The 100KT device will destroy the single target it hits (presumably rather convincingly so) and do ever decreasing damage to the surrounding area.
Unless those 100 targets are rather closely spaced for targets that CAN be killed by half-KT warheads, you're definitely better of with the latter.

And for the alien attack scenario, any civilization has the means to mount an interstellar assault on us wins by default (though one wonders why they'd bother) regardless of historical era.
Orbit is the ultimate high ground as has been pointed out repeatedly. They don't NEED to engage on the ground.