Which sci-fi nation could be beaten by modern military?

[Shrykull]

The only one I can think of are the Martians as they appeared in the original War of the Worlds by Wells. It's difficult to define what equal numbers would mean, since they have no regular ground troops. Their overall tech is not that great, since they have no magic-tech shields and their armor could be defeated with massed fire by late 19th century artillery.

Um, is perhaps the book/radio play different from the original movie? Their ships certainly DID have shields in that movie, which no weapon on earth, not even an A-bomb could penetrate.

As Tysroc said, the book Martians were just barely better than the late 19th century British Army. In the radio play, if I recall correctly, the US army (circa 1939) did manage to kill one tripod, at the cost of a huge number of tanks and men, and were unable to stop the Martians from reaching New York City. So both those iterations of the Martians would be meat against a modern force.

Movie Martians, no way. Maybe multiple A-bombs or H-bombs could crack their shields, but a conventional force has no chance. Their heat rays probably can't track fast enough to hit modern jets, but there isn't much the jets can do to them.

We don't know the yield of that bomb they dropped on them, but if you've seen the movie, it didn't scratch the ships that had their shields up. I'm talking about the original movie, not the Tom Cruise remake.

[Shrykull]

Movie Martians, no way. Maybe multiple A-bombs or H-bombs could crack their shields, but a conventional force has no chance. Their heat rays probably can't track fast enough to hit modern jets, but there isn't much the jets can do to them.

We don't know the yield of that bomb they dropped on them, but if you've seen the movie, it didn't scratch the ships that had their shields up. And it was only like 3 ships! Think of all the A or H bombs you'd need (provided your assumption that multiple ones could crack their shields is correct) you'd need several a bombs just to kill 3 ships (and the damage the fallout would do as side effect- nuclear winter, etc) I'm talking about the original movie, not the Tom Cruise remake.

Maybe there would be something more feasible than A-bombs, what if you connected the entire output of a nuclear power plant, into say a X megawatt laser (but you'd need to use it's whole power output, and have lines running to the weapon, it wouldn't be very mobile, but maybe you could mount it on top of a building and be able to aim it from there.

I wonder if they didn't have their shields on all the time, but when they WERE on they did stop bacteria. If they didn't, you could use anthrax clouds or something against their ships, their ventilation system didn't keep it out either.

[AMT]

Harry Turtledove's The Race. Those lizards were fought to a stand still by WWII Earth. Modern armies would pulverize them.

I'd have to question that slightly. The only reason the Race was fought to a standstill was due to the fact they didn't have the manufacturing capabilities to keep themselves going. Technically speaking, if the Race followed their same doctrine as they did in the books, the US military forces would be hurt due to the high altitude EMP's nationwide (not crippled, since a lot of their stuff is supposed to be hardened against it).

I'd say that if we go with the Race being "equal" to the enemy force instead of the Race being heavily outnumbered in both manufacturing and personnel, it would actually be a close contest since the technology used by them is slightly more advanced then our own (hydrogen power and the like)

[RedImperator]

Movie Martians, no way. Maybe multiple A-bombs or H-bombs could crack their shields, but a conventional force has no chance. Their heat rays probably can't track fast enough to hit modern jets, but there isn't much the jets can do to them.

We don't know the yield of that bomb they dropped on them, but if you've seen the movie, it didn't scratch the ships that had their shields up. And it was only like 3 ships! Think of all the A or H bombs you'd need (provided your assumption that multiple ones could crack their shields is correct) you'd need several a bombs just to kill 3 ships (and the damage the fallout would do as side effect- nuclear winter, etc) I'm talking about the original movie, not the Tom Cruise remake.

Yeah, I know. The bomb dropped in the 1953 film would have probably been in the mid double-digit kilotons (since the hydrogen bomb, at that point, was the size of an apartment building). Modern nuclear weapons can exceed that yield by several orders of magnitude, though there aren't actually that many weapons that powerful still around. Still, I don't think you can extrapolate all the way to "immune to nukes" from the one bomb used in the film, though you're right that hurling nukes at them comes with its own drawbacks.

I wonder if they didn't have their shields on all the time, but when they WERE on they did stop bacteria. If they didn't, you could use anthrax clouds or something against their ships, their ventilation system didn't keep it out either.

We saw Martians walking around outside their war machines with no protective gear. On top of that, they extended probes from the ships, and if they didn't sterilize those, then that's another possible way for germs to get into their ships. Their ventilation system is another possibility, but in my opinion, it's a slim one. Not only do the shields extend all the way to the ground (making visible sparks and, if I recall correctly, leaving a scorched trail behind the machines as they move), but you have to think that at some point in the 1953 invasion, someone would have tried using chemical weapons against the Martians, to no apparent effect.

[Samuel]

Harry Turtledove's The Race. Those lizards were fought to a stand still by WWII Earth. Modern armies would pulverize them.

I'd have to question that slightly. The only reason the Race was fought to a standstill was due to the fact they didn't have the manufacturing capabilities to keep themselves going. Technically speaking, if the Race followed their same doctrine as they did in the books, the US military forces would be hurt due to the high altitude EMP's nationwide (not crippled, since a lot of their stuff is supposed to be hardened against it).

I'd say that if we go with the Race being "equal" to the enemy force instead of the Race being heavily outnumbered in both manufacturing and personnel, it would actually be a close contest since the technology used by them is slightly more advanced then our own (hydrogen power and the like)

Hydrogen power is an energy storage medium. I don't think it really counts as advanced because we have it now- we just don't use it because we currently have better methods (gasoline powered cars).

As for taking us out with high power EMP isn't military gear hardened to prevent that from happening?

As for equal footing, I'm pretty sure we would be more productive. Aren't they supposed to advance extremely slowly?

[AMT]

Harry Turtledove's The Race. Those lizards were fought to a stand still by WWII Earth. Modern armies would pulverize them.

I'd have to question that slightly. The only reason the Race was fought to a standstill was due to the fact they didn't have the manufacturing capabilities to keep themselves going. Technically speaking, if the Race followed their same doctrine as they did in the books, the US military forces would be hurt due to the high altitude EMP's nationwide (not crippled, since a lot of their stuff is supposed to be hardened against it).

I'd say that if we go with the Race being "equal" to the enemy force instead of the Race being heavily outnumbered in both manufacturing and personnel, it would actually be a close contest since the technology used by them is slightly more advanced then our own (hydrogen power and the like)

Hydrogen power is an energy storage medium. I don't think it really counts as advanced because we have it now- we just don't use it because we currently have better methods (gasoline powered cars).

As for taking us out with high power EMP isn't military gear hardened to prevent that from happening?

As for equal footing, I'm pretty sure we would be more productive. Aren't they supposed to advance extremely slowly?

They are able to process and use Hydrogen power as efficiently as we use fossil fuels. It's stated they used to use fossil fuels themselves before switching. Since they can do something we can't (mass produce and exclusively use a clean energy source) then I would say they're more advanced there.

And as I stated the EMP would be only somewhat affected, due to some military stuff being hardened (I don't think everything is).

And they advance slowly when it comes to technological advancement. They show no evidence of slow manufacturing or production, actually building production facilities and entire cities (the colonization fleet) quickly and efficiently, thus perhaps actually being faster at this.

So on a battle of "equal footing" as in the OP, they would either have parity in both men and material, and advantage they did not have in the series, and one that would make the fight much closer then one would think with a surface look of the series.

[NettiWelho]

Guess this is as good time as any to stop lurking and register an account...


Race's Pre-invasion invasion-fleet would have no say in earth's matters really; altought having longer range, stronger weaponry, better armor, better optics, vastly more stealthy by being silent; the Germans had AP shells capable of penetrating their tanks frontal armor in '44 already(and had armor, that in some cases was enough to stop the race's rounds), and on top of that, the race was still using the same model of tanks in the 60's(and their "armored troop-carriers" were quite vulnerable to anything bigger than machinegun), and even after 2-3 years of fighting their armor tactics hadnt really improved at all from what they were in the beginning; just advancing towards their enemy in straight line

being politically unified for over 50k of our years also meant that none of the invasion fleet had any combat experience prior to arriving on earth; only simulators and thats-something-like-it -level of training(there was even speculation by the fleetlord that the training materials would have been censored millenias ago, because some of the tactics being so horrifying and barbaric); also, when they set out, they were expecting 13th century humans waiting for them, also they were completely taken by suprise after humans started with chemical weapons, they didnt even have protective gear for a fraction of their troops

Also, their fighters lack any kind of countermeasures, they dont have bombers of any sort really, they completely disregarded ships and naval operations untill few years into the invasion, and their land-to-land, land-to-air, air-to-air missiles are actually quite alot behind what US now has with lack of variants in warhead selection

[AMT]

Guess this is as good time as any to stop lurking and register an account...


Race's Pre-invasion invasion-fleet would have no say in earth's matters really; altought having longer range, stronger weaponry, better armor, better optics, vastly more stealthy by being silent; the Germans had AP shells capable of penetrating their tanks frontal armor in '44 already(and had armor, that in some cases was enough to stop the race's rounds), and on top of that, the race was still using the same model of tanks in the 60's(and their "armored troop-carriers" were quite vulnerable to anything bigger than machinegun), and even after 2-3 years of fighting their armor tactics hadnt really improved at all from what they were in the beginning; just advancing towards their enemy in straight line

The model change from the 40's to the 60's (or lack thereof) doesn't matter in this context, as we're comparing two groups who have equal men and material for a single war. The tactics will be an issue, and will likely cause most of the losses for the lizards, though as time goes on the vets will do better (since despite your recollection, their tactics did start to improve as the war continued and the soldiers gained experience).

being politically unified for over 50k of our years also meant that none of the invasion fleet had any combat experience prior to arriving on earth; only simulators and thats-something-like-it -level of training(there was even speculation by the fleetlord that the training materials would have been censored millenias ago, because some of the tactics being so horrifying and barbaric); also, when they set out, they were expecting 13th century humans waiting for them, also they were completely taken by suprise after humans started with chemical weapons, they didnt even have protective gear for a fraction of their troops

Which doesn't matter in this scenario, as we're comparing the military strength of each to each other, with, once again, equal facilities and support. In the books the Lizards only (or mainly) lost because they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned (from a numbers standpoint).

Also, their fighters lack any kind of countermeasures, they dont have bombers of any sort really, they completely disregarded ships and naval operations untill few years into the invasion, and their land-to-land, land-to-air, air-to-air missiles are actually quite alot behind what US now has with lack of variants in warhead selection

Where do you get that their fighters lack countermeasures? They had a supply of anti fighter rockets and radar homing weaponry. The enemy didn't have guided missiles in the book, so why would they have wasted flare or chaff (or whatever) against dumb rockets?
Their weakness wasn't due to a lack of warhead selection, it was due to a lack of numbers. If, like in this OP, we assume they have parity of men and material, then the battle should be more like a contemporary war would be today, except, as you pointed out, the US would have the edge in experience and tactics, especially when it comes to Naval operations.

I'd say that if the Navy factors into it, that a lot of the Race's bases and positions would be decimated by nuclear boomers and carrier based operations, except for those that are extremely inland.

Plus, there's also the MAD scenario to consider, since the Invasion Fleet had a good stockpile of nukes in their (stupidly, single) starship that was blown up.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

It ought to be noted that if the Invasion Fleet arrived and saw Modern Earth rather than 1942 Earth, with our satellite networks and nuclear weapons, I suspect they'd be a lot more likely to simply use Fleetlord Straha's plan (rejected in 1942) and nuke the shit out of every major city before touching down. I suspect that if they did that their chances against Modern Earth would be pretty good.

[NettiWelho]

The model change from the 40's to the 60's (or lack thereof) doesn't matter in this context, as we're comparing two groups who have equal men and material for a single war.

My main point was that a tiger or a panther with those new AP shells they got had better-than-abysmal chance to take out race's tank in 1 on 1, and have a small chance to survive the incoming round; ie. what would modern ammunition do to their armor, and how well modern armor fair against their shells?

Which doesn't matter in this scenario, as we're comparing the military strength of each to each other, with, once again, equal facilities and support. In the books the Lizards only (or mainly) lost because they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned (from a numbers standpoint).

I dont think lack of protective gear against chemical warfare(granted, they DO have the gear, but in so small numbers it doesnt matter) and being completely oblivious to "enhanced interrogation" and a whole bunch of dirty tactics are too irrelevant to ignore, if these dont calculate into their military strenght then what does?

Where do you get that their fighters lack countermeasures? They had a supply of anti fighter rockets and radar homing weaponry. The enemy didn't have guided missiles in the book, so why would they have wasted flare or chaff (or whatever) against dumb rockets?

Truth, i just kinda assumed that because they didnt use them during 7 bookfulls of action

Their weakness wasn't due to a lack of warhead selection, it was due to a lack of numbers.

By lack of warheads i ment vs. modern army, the race basicly had just types of explosives, wheres you need more than your both hands to count all types of varients of missiles modern armies have in their arsenal designed against very varied types of tasks

[...]we assume they have parity of men and material, then the battle should be more like a contemporary war would be today, except, as you pointed out, the US would have the edge in experience and tactics, especially when it comes to Naval operations.

Except their armored units would be decimated by modern tanks, and their anti-tank weaponry would prove to be insufficient against what we use now, AND if we give them a tech-upgrade then whats the point of the entire argument?

Plus, there's also the MAD scenario to consider, since the Invasion Fleet had a good stockpile of nukes in their (stupidly, single) starship that was blown up.

That being all the whole more funny because they landed the ship and the germans taking it out with a railroad gun

It ought to be noted that if the Invasion Fleet arrived and saw Modern Earth rather than 1942 Earth, with our satellite networks and nuclear weapons, I suspect they'd be a lot more likely to simply use Fleetlord Straha's plan (rejected in 1942) and nuke the shit out of every major city before touching down. I suspect that if they did that their chances against Modern Earth would be pretty good.

I thought we disregarded the nuke-from-orbit -approach?

anyways; we WOULD spot their recons and their ships in orbit(even the british radars in days before the invasion had spotted their killercrafts[anti-radar coatings and designs lightyears behind ours, appearantly], doing recon or such, but had disregarded the findings as 'fairies', if i remember right), and by the time they would be able to translate our languages and content of broadcasted material over the airwaves to find out we got nukes(as its not something they can spot from orbit), all armies would pretty much be ready for action, and have our return salvos pointed at them

also, dont we nowadays have multiple systems designed against such attacks?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Return salvos pointed... At space? Counter-measures against the same? What the fuck?

[Batman]

Where does the 'equal materiel' bit come from? The OP says equality in numbers, nothing more. If the invaders have equipment that stinks compared to modern day gear in the story they're from, they have gear that stinks compared to modern day equipment HERE.

[AMT]

Where does the 'equal materiel' bit come from? The OP says equality in numbers, nothing more. If the invaders have equipment that stinks compared to modern day gear in the story they're from, they have gear that stinks compared to modern day equipment HERE.

because the OP wanted to keep it "interesting". Giving say... the Lizards, an extra couple hundred thousand soldiers but no guns to go with it... would be stupid and not interesting.


Note I'm not saying give them technology that they wouldn't possess or knowledge, but to increase the basic amounts of what they do have (guns, bullets, rockets, tanks, jets) to an even ration of however much their forces increase.

[NettiWelho]

It ought to be noted that if the Invasion Fleet arrived and saw Modern Earth rather than 1942 Earth, with our satellite networks and nuclear weapons,

= arriving in our orbit ?

I suspect they'd be a lot more likely to simply use Fleetlord Straha's plan (rejected in 1942) and nuke the shit out of every major city before touching down.

= nuking us from orbit ?

if i understood those bits of your msg correctly... then whats up with:

Return salvos pointed... At space? Counter-measures against the same? What the fuck?

What so diffucult to understand? if we got fleet of possibly hostile alien ships arriving in our orbit, are you saying we wouldnt aim our weapons into space? especially if theyre sitting there quietly for time being, trying to figure out what to do with us?

And are you saying we'd disable our anti-icbm systems in an event of alien ships arriving in orbit??

[Samuel]

I think he is saying that ballistic missiles would be useless against a target in space. They aren't made to maneuver so the aliens can simply stand off and use lasers to destroy them.

[NettiWelho]

I think he is saying that ballistic missiles would be useless against a target in space. They aren't made to maneuver so the aliens can simply stand off and use lasers to destroy them.

Not to nitpick, but they use missiles to shoot down incoming projectiles(which actually failed to bring down the railroad-gun shells fired on their landed spaceship[the one carrying the nukes], regardless of numerous hits)


and considering they arent using energy shields of any kind; pretty much everything we can aim at the orbit will do a big dent if it hits

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, I know. The bomb dropped in the 1953 film would have probably been in the mid double-digit kilotons (since the hydrogen bomb, at that point, was the size of an apartment building). Modern nuclear weapons can exceed that yield by several orders of magnitude, though there aren't actually that many weapons that powerful still around. Still, I don't think you can extrapolate all the way to "immune to nukes" from the one bomb used in the film, though you're right that hurling nukes at them comes with its own drawbacks.

True, but with no way to estimate the upper bound on their shield strength, it's hard to say one way or the other. Do we still use megaton-range bombs? My impression was that the megaton-range bombs were built extensively in the '50s and '60s when guidance systems were still primitive and you needed something with a multimile blast radius to reliably nail your target over intercontinental distances, but that we've since gone back to more precisely targeted (and/or MIRVed) kiloton-range warheads.

I think he is saying that ballistic missiles would be useless against a target in space. They aren't made to maneuver so the aliens can simply stand off and use lasers to destroy them.

Not to nitpick, but they use missiles to shoot down incoming projectiles(which actually failed to bring down the railroad-gun shells fired on their landed spaceship[the one carrying the nukes], regardless of numerous hits)

Their ABM systems are good enough to reliably shoot down V2-equivalents; they just don't have enough of them around. They only fail against railroad gun shells because said shells are heavily armored, with a casing thick enough to shrug off missile shrapnel. Since antimissile systems aren't advertised as being able to shoot down artillery shells in real life, either, that shouldn't be a surprise.

They also have some kind of space-to-space weapons (which they use against German military spacecraft in orbit during the Colonization series), missiles or projectile weapons... but against a ballistic target, with guidance systems designed solely to target a point on the Earth's surface, that's likely to be good enough.

[NettiWelho]

We do have anti-missile systems with kinetic warheads that would be more than sufficient in bringing down 800mm shells

[Shrykull]

Yeah, I'm just kind of curious just to see what a laser with the output of a nuclear power plant could do, I wonder if we'd be able to make one in real life, not for the Martians of course, but just to see what kind of damage it could do. I suggested a laser like that instead of nukes that way you don't the problem with fallout you would have by nuking them.

We saw Martians walking around outside their war machines with no protective gear. On top of that, they extended probes from the ships, and if they didn't sterilize those, then that's another possible way for germs to get into their ships. Their ventilation system is another possibility, but in my opinion, it's a slim one.

But they ALL died. Some of them must had stayed in their ships the whole time. I wonder if they would even need a ventilation system, at least one that lets in air from outside the ship. The ships could travel through space and were relatively small and not big enough to carry lots of air. And, assuming they did need air (putting aside the fact that Mars has no atmosphere, and no life in reality) their ships could recycle it internally, no need to take it in from the outside.

[RedImperator]

But they ALL died. Some of them must had stayed in their ships the whole time. I wonder if they would even need a ventilation system, at least one that lets in air from outside the ship. The ships could travel through space and were relatively small and not big enough to carry lots of air. And, assuming they did need air (putting aside the fact that Mars has no atmosphere, and no life in reality) their ships could recycle it internally, no need to take it in from the outside.

Um, you are aware diseases are contagious, right? All you need is one Martian from any given crew to get exposed and the entire ship is infected. And for that matter, why would you assume that any of them spent the entire invasion in their ships? Tank crews don't. We have no idea what was happening behind Martian lines. Maybe they all congregate to eat.

I think the anthrax idea is a dead end. Like I said before, somebody must have thought to hit them with sarin or mustard gas, and it didn't work. Besides that, anthrax doesn't kill instantly the way conventional, chemical, or nuclear weapons do. Unless the Martians have had their vulnerability to germs magicked away, they're still going to die relatively quickly (if you just go by Clayton Forrester's timeline, the entire movie only lasts a few days). Anthrax won't be any faster than whatever killed them in the film.

[Simon_Jester]

We do have anti-missile systems with kinetic warheads that would be more than sufficient in bringing down 800mm shells

I'll take your word for it that we do, but we don't have to, in the sense that we would be guaranteed to develop such a thing and so would anyone else at a comparable tech level. There are sane reasons to go for a fragmentation warhead (think PAC-2 Patriot instead of PAC-3).

[Batman]

and considering they arent using energy shields of any kind; pretty much everything we can aim at the orbit will do a big dent if it hits

Um-we currently don't HAVE anything we can aim at a target in orbit leave alone expect it to actually GET there. ICBMs sure as hell can't unless it's a REALLY REALLY low orbit.

[Ford Prefect]

Um-we currently don't HAVE anything we can aim at a target in orbit leave alone expect it to actually GET there. ICBMs sure as hell can't unless it's a REALLY REALLY low orbit.

Yeah, we do. The RIM-161 anti-ballistic missile has been used to kill a satillite in low orbit, the Chinese recently killed a weather satillite with a missile, and there was the F-15 launched AIM-135, I think, which killed a satillite during testing back in the late 70s but was never deployed.

EDIT: by recently I mean two years ago.

[NettiWelho]

Also, atleast some of the Race's spaceships had _really_ low orbits, since they were able to pickup their jetfighters after recon missions before invasion, atleast those providing fighter coverage could be targetted by most of our weapons

[Simon_Jester]

On the other hand, they also have fusion drives, enabling them to dodge better than most orbital targets. And they are way better armored than an ordinary satellite or aircraft, simply by virtue of their enormous size. Doing significant damage would require heavy aircraft bombs, sustained artillery fire, or a nuclear warhead. Only one of those can be launched into space, and nobody has a missile suitable for doing the job.

We could probably hit an orbiting starship with a RIM-161, if it was low enough, but that doesn't mean we'd be doing much damage to speak of.

In any event, it's kind of a moot point. On the ground, humans have parity in materiel (since Turtledove was basing the Lizards' ground combat abilities roughly on those of the US military circa 2000), and an overwhelming advantage in tactical adaptability. Unless the Lizards have greatly superior numbers or orbital bombardment (both outside the parameters of this exercise), they're going to lose.