Not wanking. Aside from plot contrivance, the Colonial Marines in the ALIENS would have done well, but they were A.) fitted with an inexperienced CO, B.) Negated their pulse rifles in the opening encounter and had to use shotguns, pistols and flamethrowers, C.) Lost their only means of evac, again, do to an act of plot, D.) Through plot, became limited on ammo, weapons and a defendable position that wasn't on xeno territory and E.) If the marines won from the get-go, the movie would be lame.Cecelia5578 wrote:I detect quite a bit of xeno wanking going on here...
That being said, national guard units should have an easy time of holding off xenos. A 5.56mm penetration capabilities against unarmored targets and even structures past 20m is more then enough to punch right through an alien. Couple with squad support weapons, artillery(which, if times are desperate, be pulled by livestock) not needing to be within visual range and the fact that any type of position a military force is operating out of is going to have a no man's land around it watched by some rather strong surveillane, the bugs are dead the moment they make a move. Once the the details of the situation comes up, I really doubt that any military unit operating near an urban environment will set up camp inside say urban center because it gives too much of an advantage to the aliens. And once you setup a firebase, it comes down to said military personnel scouting out potential entrances/exits to hives, dropping arty on any structure above it to seal it and then, once you're down to one entrance, setting up a killzone and wiping them out as they come out.
Also, are we assuming that the military is capable of improvising? Would they have artillery shells able to act like modern bunker busting bombs to a limited extent? With that, it comes down located the nursery and then dropping said fortification penetrating rounds right onto the queen and her unborn brood. From there, flame throwers, high explosives, or what have you.
The problem with the OP comes down to me and you, joe average, surviving. I could have gone the 'LOL! Has gunz, wheel trabel!11!!1' route and insist I'll survive, but seriously, do you know what confronting can be considered an apex predator is going to be like? You can't? Yeah, me either. Our ancestors probably can and that's why they may have potentially killed them all off. As to how I'd fight them off, we know Gorman and Vasquez in the movie were firing .45 rounds into them and it barely slowed one, causing them both to decide that suicide was indeed the option. So that leaves my family with my families hunting shotguns/rifles.
Sure, a shotgun might be handy, but then you have to consider that inside pennsylvania, a shotgun's plug can be modified to allow 2 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Now, at the onset, that means my family would be armed with three round shotguns. Sure, the plugs would be removed rapidly, but that means eight rounds total. That's eight rounds fired followed by trying to rapidly hand feed rounds into the shotgun while a potentially large number of aliens are tear-assing right at us. My pants are now filled.
Also, what am I going to be using as shotgun ammo? Largets bird shot, FF, is .23" in diameter (warning, wiki link.) and we know .45 round isn't doing jack shit to one, and buckshot's largest bore (scroll down above link) is .36". Now you might point out that a shotgun shell has a bigger powder charge then a pistol round, and I'll point out that a shell of shot is propelling multiple pellets and, maybe, said .45 used by the colonial marines has a better propellent then a modern day .45 round.
So, from above, we conclude that I won't be using shot but a slug. Alright, a 12 gauge slug is .729" if this wiki article is right. More then enough to bring down an alien I think. So if I can catch one of these bastards at around 100 yards, I'm good. Gives me time to pump a new round into the chamber and blithely carry on my way. Problem is, they don't come solo nor do they attack from head on unless they have to (in ALIENS, they moved through the ductwork, manage to either have more numbers then the sentry guns could take down or confuse said guns and attacked from the ceilings and floor gratings.) So now I'm force into firing and pumping the slide as fast as I can while I have giant, black, glistening engines of death bearing down on me. Bummer. (the above mentioned hundred yard shot is kind of a long shot. Have you actually seen a grow adult form a hundred yards? Yeah, not very conducive to aiming. Couple that with a rifle that has no rifling, so really doesn't add any stabilizing spin to a slug means that the shot is going to end up 'in the neighborhood' and may not even be a wound. Yeowch)
We see how wonderful the shotgun compares, lets move onto hunting rifles. Assuming that the colonial marines really didn't move far from modern ammo sizes, that means a pulse rifle is either 5.56mm(.223 cal) or 7.62mm(.30 cal), a hunting rifle at .30-06 to .308 is more then adequate! And with a rifle, I get the super-duper range and accuracy of a rifled firearm with a large powder charge! Problem is, bolt actions are rather slow compared to a semi-auto or military assault rifle. But that's cool, I can post up in a tower and snipe, snipe, snipe away like a russian during stalingrad! Of course, by using a scope, I've now limited my field of view to whatever the sight lets me see. Not a problem? Well, no, it really is, as the report of a rifle is going to draw either survivors (marauders ftw!) or more bugs looking for lunch/host. So then I just look down the scope when I'm firing, problem solved. Of course, these aliens are going to be moving and descending upon me with a righteous fury, something that should be rather apparent from the movies. So now I have to hit a fast moving target through a scope while other potential threats are closing on me. Ow. Now maybe through some twist of fate, I've been hitting the local gun range for years day after day and I'm 'LoL! Snipzor like Zaitsev!!11!1' and hitting fast moving targets at range is easy, there's still the problem of my magazine size. I'm limited to, on the .30-06, 8 rounds in the mag, all having to be hand fed. Now I'm no flash, nor am I a trained combatant, so hand feeding 8 rounds while alien horrors descend on me is going to be damned nerve wracking and slow going, hell, mostly likely fumbling. But assume I do it and there's only one or two aliens climbing up my little tower and I blast them off. I win! No, not really, as their acid blood is now going to erode the base of my sniping location and probably take me down. And then there's the fact that a scope is going to take away my rifle's iron sights, meaning I'm going to be firing through the scope or on a guess at closer targets, or else doing without a scope.
Of course, there's the fact that we, as a human race, might not notice the growing alien numbers until it is too late. We know they can impregnate dogs, and a deer is bigger then a dog. Hell, many urban and suburb areas have a large number of dogs (the fraction of which are viable for impregnation I have no clue as, but if labrador size or around that, there's going to be a bunch.) If we assume that everyone gets hinted onto their existence at once, there's going to be mass panic, potentially rioting (hell, I expect rioting) and fleeing by foot conducted by people in not the best state of emotions. Easy prey for our alien friends, either to kill or impregnate, and that's assuming they just don't raid houses and drag individuals out of them.
Don't ask me what brought that rant about, but there it is.
