Could dragons ever really defeat the military?

[Elheru Aran]

Well it *is* defeating the military, if only kinda in a long-term sense. Taking them to a 'draw' or 'strategic defeat' point would accomplish the objective. Gank their resources and that'll do a lot. Tanks, for example, drink fuel like crazy-- globalsecurity says a M1 Abrams takes 300 gallons (!) every eight hours with variations from terrain, maneuvering and other factors. So say the dragons blow up a few fuel convoys, you're seeing a bunch of tanks reduced to being static turrets.

This situation reminds me of the extended thread we did on 'Nazis in Atlanta' or whatever. Some interesting conversation there about how quickly the US military could deploy to confront an internal situation. I vaguely recall the general theory was that it would take a few days for ground forces to fully deploy, while air assets could be on site fairly quickly. The US is a big place... so the 'where' of the situation is fairly important.

[Gaidin]

While that's certainly true, that wouldn't be defeating the military, which is kinda the point of the thread.

You make a good point though. The dragons as described almost certainly can't actually conquer the Earth, because of a lack of numbers of nothing else (even in the "100 colonies" scenario there's only 1 dragon per 7,000 humans). So as with the zombies, the question becomes not "can they win?" but more "how much damage can they do before they lose?"

Isn't that legitimate though? Military depends on its infrastructure. If all they do is fight the military, short of personnel being recruited and trained, military needs its infrastructure. Forget its morale. Dragons vs military, we can play morality games here, fair game because this isn't human vs human where ethics come into play. They get to play dirty against a species they've never seen that unwelcomely kicked them out of their dirt nap.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True. Though (to me at least) "can xyz defeat the military" implies straight-up combat whereas, say, "can xyz defeat (insert nation/group here)" implies a larger-scale scenario.

It's the difference between saying "which force would win a battle" and which side wins the war."

[Gaidin]

True. Though (to me at least) "can xyz defeat the military" implies straight-up combat whereas, say, "can xyz defeat (insert nation/group here)" implies a larger-scale scenario.

It's the difference between saying "which force would win a battle" and which side wins the war."

Eh, with the way things are now being bandied about your question now becomes what level of regiment/technology/whatever given the numbers in the OP. Because if they get tired of stuff and go after what they assess to be military much less societal infrastructure who the hell knows what happens to change things. It changes the game when the country has to decide what they have to protect and prioritize.

[Borgholio]

Would dragons even know to attack ammo dumps and fuel depots? They are very smart and cunning but we're talking a tech gap comparable to the Salvation War in terms of what they are familiar with. They might go straight for the glittering, shiny skyscrapers of modern cities and totally ignore military bases.

[Gaidin]

Would dragons even know to attack ammo dumps and fuel depots? They are very smart and cunning but we're talking a tech gap comparable to the Salvation War in terms of what they are familiar with. They might go straight for the glittering, shiny skyscrapers of modern cities and totally ignore military bases.

Meh, go after the farmlands if they decide they need to. If the military suddenly finds itself spreading its infrastructure all over the midwest...

And that's after you've lost a season's worth of crops....

[Elheru Aran]

Well... if you win the war, you do defeat the military. You just do it in a more indirect fashion than usual. The military is nothing more than force projection by a sovereign entity, if you defeat that entity even though its military consistently defeats yours, you still win.

Psychological factors should also be considered. If we're talking Smaug-size dragons, that's an animal with a wingspan and length the size of your average small passenger jet. Big. Actually some research suggests Smaug is bigger than that... ~130m long! Linking as this is a big-ass image...
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/lot ... 0331042021

Of course if this image is accurate Ancalagon was just ridiculous:

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/lot ... 1124174534

So. Yeah. Having to confront a host of animals that are among the largest land (and air!) creatures on earth, fight them and defeat them, when they fully well bite back and can cook you before they do so... is not quite so easy.

[Gaidin]

Ok, I've had a few issues with some of the ideas of the thread. I think I've figured out how to explicitly put them into words now. First, I don't think 'more or less together' is a good enough description for how the dragons would work. It might work to start, but...Dragons have always been a fairly intelligent species in most worlds. Very intelligent in fact. One of the only exceptions I can think of is Dragonlance and that's more like because White Dragons are the teenager with a baseball bat of the evil dragons. Still "intelligent". Just not...well...shall we say smart? You bring in 10,000 dragons, most of them fully grown into one little area they're going to start talking. To start they might not be working as a, well, nation. But at some point when modern military technologies start downing them, and BEFORE LONG, they're going to figure out they need to work together. I ACCEPT THAT THESE TECHNOLOGIES WILL KILL THEM. They will too. The writing will be on the damn wall for them to see. These guys are typically very fucking smart. They will decide to work together. Ego or not. And the ones that are like the White Dragons I describe will get beaten into line. You either nuke them fast, or I make an argument that they will start working closely together and the rest of my post happens in some form or another.

First, the argument the nuke doesn't happen so fast as some people might...think. Well, we've always been reluctant to use nukes. Arguments might be made. But I just don't see it happening when standard weaponry is doing it(examples given in thread) and our civilian leaders have always been reluctant to take that step even when we've been near scared shitless backed into the corner.

Now, take what you typically know dragons do. I'm not really worrying about the physical capabilities of the dragons here. I want to establish some arguments for patterns sort of like I did in the first paragraph. The OP isn't really clear on where they come from. I'm presuming typical fantasy dragon patterns because it's what we have. It's literally all we have. Burn the farms. Burn the town. Burn the caravan on the road. If they're feeling humorous kidnap the princess, god knows what I'd analogize that to so I'll put it here for completeness sake and let others take it and run.

From the beginning they're mostly acting...sort of independantly. They want their territory, but I think it'll become pretty clear they just can't hold it. And any country with a 3rd World Infrastructure will be able to contest them. See point: working together.

But now that they might be working together, pick your breadbasket. Everybody here who wants to talk about war? I'm pretty sure going after supplies is a time honored tradition in war. I'm not sure that I give a damn if they know that they're going after the suppply train or the source or could tell a supply train from the mess of cars. But a cow is a cow and corn is corn. But how many countries spread anti air around EVERYWHERE? Your fundamental defensive doctrine just changed if you want to keep people fed. And they're not even going after your military bases or cities. They're just doing what they normally do.

Now, bear in mind, the towns are not the cities. The cities are the glittering jewels of WTF to them. Sure they might have screwed with the cities already. But that's all they can really do with New York or Washington or LA or Seattle while they're solo. Screw with it. But, that just might make those little towns that service the farms all that easier. Burn them. Bye bye groceries. Bye Bye mechanic shops.

I really did like Elhuru's scale pics. Now when they're not fighting directly....

Where can we find that horse drawn carriage to burn? State highways? Interstates? A bridge isn't a new invention. Neither is a major road made of something other than dirt. We have no idea what one of *America's* fundamental ideas behind their interstate was, but I think we might screw with a bit of it.

These ideas are just based off of basic fantasy dragon traditions and analogizing them to this. Eternal Freedom wants a direct fight. I say, why?

[biostem]

At 300MPH, they'd be sitting ducks for modern fighters. You send roaming patrols of troops with AA missile mounted on Humvees or fixed AA installations across the country, and mop-up any dragons you encounter. Their only chance for survival would be for the more intelligent ones to work out some kind of deal w/ the government. It'd be difficult for them to go into hiding, unless they could somehow work out a deal w/ the local populace, (like maybe some people in a rural area that gets attacked by random warlords, could negotiate a deal, as said warlords are unlikely to have anything big enough to take a dragon down). Still, they could inflict terrible damage - especially if they could get to a dense city with a lot of skyscrapers - they could hide under bridges or maybe even tunnels...

[Eternal_Freedom]

These ideas are just based off of basic fantasy dragon traditions and analogizing them to this. Eternal Freedom wants a direct fight. I say, why?

As I've said "can they defeat the military?" (to me) implies a direct fight. I've said this, and the answer is, no, even a third-world military is going to be able to competently fight dragons (provided there isn't some political or social or maybe even religious reason for the soliders not to fight).

However, I also said that if we're discussing an actual war rather than a set-piece battle, then the dragons can do plenty of damage before they are defeated.

As for the "nuke might take a while" argument. Sure, I can see there being arguments against it. But we're talking about suddenly facing fucking dragons, beings right out of myths and legends, not other humans. That means that any previous precedent where we might have used nukes but didn't doesn't apply because we weren't fighting dragons. Consider it as an alien invasion where they already have a foothold (that's basically what it is after all). Now tell me that the military aren't going to say to the President "we have one bomb that can wipe them out without friendly casualties, before they do any more damage."

[Gaidin]

As for the "nuke might take a while" argument. Sure, I can see there being arguments against it. But we're talking about suddenly facing fucking dragons, beings right out of myths and legends, not other humans. That means that any previous precedent where we might have used nukes but didn't doesn't apply because we weren't fighting dragons. Consider it as an alien invasion where they already have a foothold (that's basically what it is after all). Now tell me that the military aren't going to say to the President "we have one bomb that can wipe them out without friendly casualties, before they do any more damage."

I've made my arguments against the nukes. Dude, we've not used nukes when there were nukes in Cuba and it was balls to the wall. You're going to have to do better when a god damn vulcan cannon we've had for DECADES can kill these things and all we need is fancy flying.

I'm just not buying the fact that these guys just can't be intelligent and flip over the fucking table a few times. Get over it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yes, a Vulcan cannon can kill them, that isn't in doubt. What is in doubt is whether the military can mobilise fast enough to kill all the dragons before they cause huge amounts of damage to civilians and infrastructure.

Now, you're in charge. You can chose to send in your planes and tanks etc and start killing dragons, but meanwhile they're going to be attacking and terrorising your civilians, causing chaos and so forth. Or, you can launch one missile/drop one bomb, that can at the very least cut down the enemy numbers drastically and prevent reinforcements. Try and tell me that isn't going to be an attractive option.

Oh, and your example of not using nukes in Cuba is absurd. The reason why that was so ball-bustingly scary is the other side had nukes too. That isn't the case here.

[Gaidin]

Yes, a Vulcan cannon can kill them, that isn't in doubt. What is in doubt is whether the military can mobilise fast enough to kill all the dragons before they cause huge amounts of damage to civilians and infrastructure.

Now, you're in charge. You can chose to send in your planes and tanks etc and start killing dragons, but meanwhile they're going to be attacking and terrorising your civilians, causing chaos and so forth. Or, you can launch one missile/drop one bomb, that can at the very least cut down the enemy numbers drastically and prevent reinforcements. Try and tell me that isn't going to be an attractive option.

Oh, and your example of not using nukes in Cuba is absurd. The reason why that was so ball-bustingly scary is the other side had nukes too. That isn't the case here.

I've got single fucking dragons by the designs of the thread, trying to mark out territory. Perfectly manageable.

If and when they start working together it's been established that they can be perfectly managed with normal weaponry. You're getting nowhere with a nuclear argument except that you're extreme. Point is, after the initial shock, which really doesn't happen by the way, this is a perfectly manageable situation.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The OP says it's a single colony discovered underground, and that all the dragons are (initially at least) working together. I dunno where you get this "single dragons marking territory" stuff from.

Oh, and as for "Point is, after the initial shock, which really doesn't happen by the way." Really, do we have any precedents for unexpectedly discovering a large colony of formerly mythological creatures that are large, dangerous, working together and rather aggressive? This is what is (AFAIK) called an "out of context problem," something so far beyond our usual frame of reference that the very idea is shocking.

[Gaidin]

The OP says it's a single colony discovered underground, and that all the dragons are (initially at least) working together. I dunno where you get this "single dragons marking territory" stuff from.

Oh, and as for "Point is, after the initial shock, which really doesn't happen by the way." Really, do we have any precedents for unexpectedly discovering a large colony of formerly mythological creatures that are large, dangerous, working together and rather aggressive? This is what is (AFAIK) called an "out of context problem," something so far beyond our usual frame of reference that the very idea is shocking.

It says they're kind of sort of working together but have their own agenda. I made a distinction for this in my post before saying they were distinctively "working together". I think they're too smart to have their own agenda when crap like we have is able to shoot them down so easily, once they realize the situation they're in. But that's me. At some point it's survival. Whether that's war or that's diplomacy I couldn't give two shits less. I'm personally in favor of diplomacy as favorable to them. But for war, as I said, I think they can flip the table over quite a number of times. Last time a country like America made an assumption like that we lost a war in Iraq, so what the fuck do I know.

[Tribble]

Just for fun, the OP did mention a variant scenario where there were two Ancalagon-sized dragons on the loose, one rampaging in China while the other attacks the US. Aside from using nuclear weapons, how do you think a modern military would fare against one of those? I think we'd have some problems dealing with a dragon that would view Godzilla as a light snack...

Also, I'd imagine Everest-sized dragons would be the top priority to take out, which might give the other dragons time to plan things (or at the very least spread out from their initial location).

[Sea Skimmer]

'Withstand F-22 cannon' is a borderline useless criteria. That could mean anything from a .50cal AP round is still effective, as it will penetrate more then the actual ammo carried by the F-22 on a round per round basis, to the dragons are also going to withstand some fairly heavy missile hits and single 23-37mm rounds if they can withstand any 20x102mm ammo ever at 6,000rpm on a sustained basis. That's a huge difference in the context of the anti aircraft and automatic weapons which actually exist right now.

A million dragons would be a real problem either way, but still probably well enough defeatable with heavy damage via the use of nuclear and chemical weapons (would depend a lot on how smart the dragons act, such as do they KNOW to cripple all high tension power lines to bring the world economy to a halt? China in particular would be well placed for this since it has a fairly modern air force and military in general, and yet has not yet scrapped its colossal masses of cold war flak guns.

[Starglider]

I believe the idea in 'Reign of Fire' was that the military did nuke the dragons, but they were so much more resistant to blast and radiation than humans that it was actually counterproductive. I think the biggest question here is how intelligent are the dragons. If they are human level plus they will be able to identify and hit the weakest points of human infrastructure, a very different proposition from chimp-intelligence dragons just randomly attacking the closest meals and annoyances. If they are wounded, do they take months to heal with a high risk of complication and infection, or do they have enhanced biological or magical healing?

[Borgholio]

The problem I had with Reign of Fire is how they described the dragons "feeding off the ash". It sounded literal, as if the nukes and raging fires actually gave them strength. And yet, they prove to be fairly vulnerable to normal weapons. I think that the only reason they could have won is by breeding insanely fast.

[biostem]

It'd be interesting to see a setting where dragons are introduced to a "modern Earth", have human+ level of intelligence, and are basically touch enough to colonize some unclaimed island somewhere and defend it as a sovereign country of their own. They could petition the UN to be recognized, and perhaps even make trade or other agreements.

[Batman]

Shadowrun. One of them actually became POTUS.

[biostem]

Shadowrun. One of them actually became POTUS.

Wow! Haha! "We're gonna need a bigger Air Force One!"

[Batman]

Shapeshifter. He could actually pass for an ordinary human.

[biostem]

Shapeshifter. He could actually pass for an ordinary human.

Ah... well, then that doesn't really apply to this scenario. Still, it makes for an interesting story.

[Batman]

Wasn't meant to. You asked for a setting where dragons are introduced to a "modern Earth" and have human+ level of intelligence. Shadowrun is such a setting.