Historical armies vs nonhuman Sci-fi/fantasy armies

[Lord Revan]

*snip*
Do the mages know that they have to hide, put up shields or drop prone when an artillery barrage starts? Besides, who says we can't use gas? Mage, meet Chlorine. Chlorine, meet mage. Have fun choking to death.

well if there verse has explosive artillery of it's on (like Warhammer or Warcraft) I'm pretty sure they would know to protect themselves against it, verses that don't have that I'm not so sure.

as for gas it's even worse then a simple shelling as at worse shelling is just wastefull, gas on the other hand can bite you in the ass really badly if the wind conditions are wrong (sure you might kill the mage but you might also kill or injure a good portion of your own people trying to kill what's again just a 1 man(which btw is a reason why not even Nazi germany used gas after WW1, the treaties banning it were in effect at 1914 IIRC)), you'd have a major difficulty convincing a general that something like that is needed to kill a single man (I know, I keep repeating that but I'm doing it on purpose).

[wautd]

How about the Bugs attacking the fortresses of Verdun?

I know I'd watch that movie

Who would win? The French or the Bugs?

Unless there are more bugs than the French have bullets and shells, my money would be on the French. Hell, their rifles might even do better in killing bugs than those pussy assault rifles MI got.

[loomer]

Do the mages know that they have to hide, put up shields or drop prone when an artillery barrage starts? Besides, who says we can't use gas? Mage, meet Chlorine. Chlorine, meet mage. Have fun choking to death.

A pretty standard ability for mages is actually being able to nmake non-porous magical shields. Chlorine gas is useless against that. Don't forget that mages are also associated with making their poison gas.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Creatures from the 1001 nights, arrive in Bagdad, during the 2003-2010 period.

[Black Admiral]

no more your typical colonial force sent to quell uprisings of the natives,

Can we try the Ork forces at Helms Deep vs. Wellington? Or vs. the whole British army at the Anglo-Boer war?

Which Anglo-Boer war, and when during either? That has a pretty big effect on what forces are available, and the quality of generalship (which, early on in the Second Boer War was of ... dubious effectiveness, to put it charitably).

[RedImperator]

*snip*
Do the mages know that they have to hide, put up shields or drop prone when an artillery barrage starts? Besides, who says we can't use gas? Mage, meet Chlorine. Chlorine, meet mage. Have fun choking to death.

well if there verse has explosive artillery of it's on (like Warhammer or Warcraft) I'm pretty sure they would know to protect themselves against it, verses that don't have that I'm not so sure.

as for gas it's even worse then a simple shelling as at worse shelling is just wastefull, gas on the other hand can bite you in the ass really badly if the wind conditions are wrong (sure you might kill the mage but you might also kill or injure a good portion of your own people trying to kill what's again just a 1 man(which btw is a reason why not even Nazi germany used gas after WW1, the treaties banning it were in effect at 1914 IIRC)), you'd have a major difficulty convincing a general that something like that is needed to kill a single man (I know, I keep repeating that but I'm doing it on purpose).

....I don't even know where to start here.

You're aware both sides in WWI unleashed gigantic gas barrages on each other, despite the risk of blowback and the certainty of retaliation. This was against enemies with chemical warfare gear. Against an unprotected medieval army? Of course they're going to use gas. As for the mage, the "one guy" they're trying to get happens to be a one-man artillery battery. Killing him or keeping him bottled up in a bunker for a week is completely worth it, especially since even if you miss him, you're going to scythe down shitloads of other dudes. You're talking about armies who kicked off offensives with weeklong artillery barrages here. They're not going to worry about wasting shells.

[Sea Skimmer]

Mustard gas contaminates the ground too, so unless the mage can move while suspending himself in the air with a complete bubble shield, and not suffocate while traveling across thousands of yards of terrain like this, gas will still work. Gas in WW1 actually proved less lethal then high explosives on average, but everyone could produce colossal quantities of the stuff.

WW1 artillery bombardments were far more sophisticated then they are usually given credit for, particularly by 1918. Targets were deliberate and often were specific defensive features like pillboxes and gun pits or key bits of communications trenches. Targeting a specific person is entirely within reason if they have corresponding strength. If they don’t, then anything in the open will DIE from the creeping barrage which swept ahead of the infantry advance.

Course that’s all besides of course the hoards of tanks and hundreds of indirect firing machine guns all laying down a curtain of bullets all the time. Someone being able to stop a bullet sure wont mean they can stop sustained fire from a Maxim gun. Stopping an 18pdr round doesn’t mean you can stand up to an army with a thousand such weapons alone.

[starfury]

Dragons are in my opinion, gigantic overglorified flying flamethrowers. Sopwith Camels and Fokkers would peck it to death with machine guns from outside the dragons range. And besides, how fast are dragons? Something that big, even if I suspend my disbelief, would just be as fast as an ordinary bird. Biplanes however...and we can build planes faster than dragons can breed if it is simply a battle of attrition.

I thought the more typical dragon was exactly that, of Dragonlance, LOTR Fell beasts and other smaller designs, which tended to literally model their air combat off of world war I aerial dogfights anyways.

In general this reminds of toned down version of the salvation war part one, with a more generic middle ages army supported by mages and heavy assault monsters, with winged creathures providing air support going up against even a WW I army would slaughtered, I mean we did debate of what happens if a modern army invades middle earth years ago.

[Peptuck]

The Aleran Legions from Codex Alera would probably cut a swathe across any pre-WWI army, though they'd probably get pasted against a WWI and later army. Not even someone as adaptable as Tavi could win that.

The Vord might actually be able to win WWI and possibly WWII if they start off in a "safe" corner of Earth (like, say, South America) and get a year or two to build up. Once they figure out how to use guns and aircraft, humanity is at the very least going to be in for a hell of a fight.

[starfury]

Well the original questions seems more about a set piece battle, which tend to almost always end with the fantasy army being crushed like the baldrick forces in the first half of the Salvation war, though thanks to the modern force being merely World war I as opposed to 2003, the gap was not quite was large as that conflict

[lance]

Well the original questions seems more about a set piece battle, which tend to almost always end with the fantasy army being crushed like the baldrick forces in the first half of the Salvation war, though thanks to the modern force being merely World war I as opposed to 2003, the gap was not quite was large as that conflict

I think lower tier fantasy would fall under that, but higher tier things like the mages from Negima, Rifts, and 3rd edition D&D mages that are willing and able to use Apocalypse From the Sky.

Negima has a huge amount of magical/tech transparency to where robots are powered by magic and a magical barrier thats powered by a hydroelectric dam. Not to mention airships, anti-army mines, laser cannons and mid tier characters that can destroy cities.

Rifts- Magical creatures compete with tanks and mechs with unobtanium armor. Some have weaknesses, like werewolfs. You can either get a point blank shot with a M-1 or just use a silver bullet. Magic has crap range so mages also have laser rifles and unobtainium armor.

D&D-Apocalypse from the sky is a 10mile radias/level spell from BoVD. Also liches, who will keep coming back for more.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Two fantasy forces that would win against WWI and earlier:

The nations from The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump, since they are basically modern Earth with magic replacing technology. Including "megasalamanders", magical equivalents to nuclear weapons.

The cultures of Five Twelfths of Heaven and sequels since they have magic driven starships and can therefore simply drop asteroids on the enemy.

[Peptuck]

Well the original questions seems more about a set piece battle, which tend to almost always end with the fantasy army being crushed like the baldrick forces in the first half of the Salvation war, though thanks to the modern force being merely World war I as opposed to 2003, the gap was not quite was large as that conflict

In that case, a battle against the Vord might be a different matter altogether, because the Vord tend to fight very strategically, i.e. being able to rapidly replace losses even after a defeat and coming back within weeks or months with an army just as big. Verdun, Somme, or Stalingrad-scale losses are more annoying than costly. They also adapt very quickly to enemy tactics and weapons - i.e. adjusting their basic warrior forms to either strike over or crawl under an Aleran shieldwall, creating flying vord troops to fights Aleran airborne troops, creating huge hulking vord creatures to fight Aleran earth furies, etc. And the queens that direct the Vord are tactical and strategic geniuses and - unlike a lot of biowank critters in fiction - don't hesitate to use enemy technology or abilities themselves.

On a tactical level, the Vord forces encountered in the novels and geared to fight the Alerans/Canim are going to get pasted because WWI weapons are perfectly built to crush the kind of massed assaults that the Vord did in the books. On a strategic level, they might be able to win through sheer numbers and how clever the Queens are at adapting, using their enemies' technology/powers, and exploiting weaknesses.

[kilopi505]

Creatures from the 1001 nights, arrive in Bagdad, during the 2003-2010 period.

What creatures are those? And what are their chances vs. the Iraqi army or the insurgents? The U.S. army?

[kilopi505]

no more your typical colonial force sent to quell uprisings of the natives,

Can we try the Ork forces at Helms Deep vs. Wellington? Or vs. the whole British army at the Anglo-Boer war?

Which Anglo-Boer war, and when during either? That has a pretty big effect on what forces are available, and the quality of generalship (which, early on in the Second Boer War was of ... dubious effectiveness, to put it charitably).

Ok. How about the best British armies in that war? Or in the American Revolution. Wellington is the best during the Napoleonic wars.

[kilopi505]

Part 2:
How much wanking up is needed to enable these armies to fight the sci-fi or fantasy armies at their best and with ALL their equipment? For example, I wanna know how much wanking up, technological or magical, you need to give Admiral Horatio Nelson and the English fleet a chance to engage and defeat...say the Minbari. In Space.

And part three of this funny topic.
Let's pit the combined armies of...all the armies that mankind has ever raised in it's history vs. these sci-fi opponents. Just how many people is that? Would this be the first case the Zerg from Starcraft gets zerg rushed? And the Bugs too? Would the Klingons and the Narns love being pitted against this gigantic army? Will Napoleon and Ceasar and Alexander the Great and all the military greats of our history outsmart and outnumber Sauron at the battle of the Black Gate? Will the Orcs of Warhammer 40k actually stop for a moment to think about the sheer ridiculity of this scenario? What will happen?

Nobody wants to do these two? Come one! It will be fun!

[The Yosemite Bear]

Creatures from the 1001 nights, arrive in Bagdad, during the 2003-2010 period.

What creatures are those? And what are their chances vs. the Iraqi army or the insurgents? The U.S. army?

Genies, those bird woman things (like harpies, but total babes, who don't like you recieting prayers to Allah) <hint Sinbad married one, of course the rest of his crew got eaten by Rocs>, Rocs, Ghouls, undead who want to do good to those who did them a positive inlife/death.

[open_sketchbook]

I'm willing to bet the Skaven could take on anything pre-WW1. Between numbers, technosorcery and spliced-up monsters I can't really come up with a force they'd lose against short perhaps the Mongols at their peak thanks to the lack of calvary.

If you, say, replaced the Central Powers in WW1 with a united and driven Skaven Under-Empire during WW1 they would probably still lose, but it would not be pretty. The Skaven would take to large scale chemical warfare like a fish in water, tunnel under trenchlines with abandon, and probably adapt hilariously unsafe versions of era tactics and technology within a few short months. Expect to see poison coated barbed wire or something almost immediately.

Their biggest weakness would be lack of real artillery, but fortifying their front with trenches, foxholes and dugouts is right up their alley, so they could hold a front even if they couldn't bombard with the same vigour. They can match snipers with warplock rifles, machine-guns with rattling guns, flamethrowers with their own designs, and so forth. They also have some pretty wierdo weapons that would really come to their own in a static entrenched fight, like the aformentioned poison gas and ability to tunnel through most anything, plus their ability to spread magically-powered diseases and various magic trickery.

Again, they are going to lose eventually; they don't have the ability or inclination to mass-produce firearms for their line troops and their matching tech is unreliable and less effective, and the gulf between the tech levels is probably too vast to gap before they get worn down. However, they will put up a bloody, horrific fight and the diseases the troops fighting them are going to pick up and bring back is going to make the Spanish Flu look like seasonal influenza.

The Skaven are straight up the most wanked-out faction in Warhammer Fantasy and should by all rights have taken over by now.

[Playerofeve]

Here's an idea for a versas match:

The ten thousand Uruk-hai from Helms deep vs. A full Roman legion, both sides with full supporting gear and personnel(Rome circa 100 AD).

[kilopi505]

Here's an idea for a versas match:

The ten thousand Uruk-hai from Helms deep vs. A full Roman legion, both sides with full supporting gear and personnel(Rome circa 100 AD).

I got a better idea. The 10,000 uruk-hai vs. Leonidas and his Spartans and whoever was left at that last stand at Thermopylae, which includes the Spartan slaves and the 700+ volunteers from that other city state. Or against Hannibal and his war Elephants. Or Julius Caesar and his best legion.

[kilopi505]

What creatures are those? And what are their chances vs. the Iraqi army or the insurgents? The U.S. army?[/quote]

Genies, those bird woman things (like harpies, but total babes, who don't like you recieting prayers to Allah) <hint Sinbad married one, of course the rest of his crew got eaten by Rocs>, Rocs, Ghouls, undead who want to do good to those who did them a positive inlife/death.[/quote]

And who wins?

[hongi]

A pretty standard ability for mages is actually being able to nmake non-porous magical shields. Chlorine gas is useless against that. Don't forget that mages are also associated with making their poison gas.

How does that work? Do the shields still let in oxygen?

[Star Wars 888]

Here's an idea for a versas match:

The ten thousand Uruk-hai from Helms deep vs. A full Roman legion, both sides with full supporting gear and personnel(Rome circa 100 AD).

That would depend on a lot of things? How competent are the generals? How much time does each side have to prepare and how much knowledge do they have of the other side?

[B5B7]

Here's an idea for a versas match:

The ten thousand Uruk-hai from Helms deep vs. A full Roman legion, both sides with full supporting gear and personnel(Rome circa 100 AD).

It should be against two Roman legions to make the two sides more equal in number of combatants.

[The Yosemite Bear]

can we make it at thempyle and give the Romans a week to fortify?s