Given advanced technology, could Native Americans defeat aliens?

Question

An estimated 4000 Trophy hunter aliens have landed on earth in the year 1320 in what would become the Midwest and Quebec. One of the scout ships was ambushed and killed by Osage First Nations, their advanced technology is stolen by these people.

The aliens attack and wipe out many first nation tribes before the Osage decide that they must respond. Allying with the local Blackfeet, Sioux, and Chippewa tribes, this new force is angry and equipped with alien technology.

Using the alien weaponry, enough to supply 750 individuals, could this band of Native Americans ever hope to defeat the aliens?

The aliens are there for rite-of-passage hunting: they will receive no help or back up - even from each other.

Answer 1

Given an expected population in the region of roughly 500,000 individuals, and assuming only a third are 'fighting fit', the aliens are outnumbered roughly 40,000 to 1.

We know:

• The aliens can be wounded.
• The aliens can be visually camouflaged, but this is not foolproof (they can be seen moving through water, for instance).
• The aliens have superior sensors, but these too can be fooled (by something as simple as mud).

The biggest advantage the aliens have is that the First Nationals were unaware - but that advantage has been blown. With time to spread knowledge about the threat, coordinate tactics and prepare traps, the First Nationals stand a very good chance merely on the strength of their numbers (especially given that there is no time constraint, allowing them to take as much time as they need). With alien technology available in addition to this, they almost certainly can't lose in the long run, though their losses might be considered 'staggering'.

A bigger question is whether the environmental effects of four thousand miniature nuclear devices detonating would leave the Osage people with an environment so pock-marked by radiation that they find it difficult to sustain themselves.

Historically, we can also look at the Battle of Shangani, one of the most technologically lopsided battles that can be cited. The British, armed with the Maxim machine gun, the first machine gun to be used in combat, killed over 1500 Matabele during the battle, out of the 5000 that attacked. Notably, though, the defending force was 700 individuals acting in concert: I think what we can take from this is that losses against superior arms would, indeed, be staggering, but a smaller force or an individual could not hope to survive as the British did in that case.

Answer 2

Depends if they had the time to train and get accustomed to their new super weapon. If you give an untrained person a gun, and put him against a man who's been using the same gun everyday for years, who do you think will win? Also, remember that the Indians have to have time to figure out what exactly is a weapon and what is not. Also, they have to form strategies around that weapon. In World War 1, lots of people died because generals built strategies around old fashioned weapons such as rifles and cavalry, even though their troops had access to machine guns and artillery.

Also, it depends how advanced technology is in relation to the enemy they're going up against. We, for example, have a wide variety of weapons: consider the difference between an AK-47 and a nuclear bomb. If a group of Indians ambushed a small Patrol and captured a few machine guns, they could mistakenly think that a machine gun is our highest level of weapon.

Numbers, of course, will also play a role: how many aliens are there?

In most circumstances, I'd say that the aliens have the advantage over the Indians, but it may be possible for the Indians to defeat them in the right circumstances.

Answer 3

The aliens wouldn't stand a chance. They are unorganized, uninteresting in greatly destabilizing the local native populations, and most importantly, ARE DELIBERATELY LOOKING FOR FIGHTS. So they would be extremely easy to bait into ambushes and combats where they could be overwhelmed. The aliens aren't going to shy away from hunter parties, on the contrary, they will SEEK THEM OUT. Even if they decline to engage a really large war band, they won't hide from people in general, particularly small groups of warriors. So time and chance are on the side of the natives, especially since they can have the young, old, and females gathering food right next to an alien with little risk of being engaged.

The real advantage the natives need are communications. Being able to use a radio analogue to coordinate search parties and dragnets for aliens would let them quickly eliminate the threat. If the aliens don't utilize such technology, then the natives can just weaponize individual warriors as much as possible and let the aliens find these chosen men. The natives have the advantage of being able to prepare the battlefield, and depending on how well they understand the technology, deliberately sabotaging the alien by affecting it's vision, hiding their own heat signature, etc. Remember, it is not 750 against 4000, it is 750 against one at a time (and the 750 is growing while the 4000 is shrinking).

Answer 4

In my opinion, it depends on the weapons the aliens are using.

These are my assumptions:

1. The 4000 aliens are equipped with the same weapon as the 750 weapons which could be distributed.
2. The aliens do not care for each other(as you have stated)
3. We do not know their physical build, and as such, we do not know what weapons we have that could damage them, and with this information, i'd think that the only thing that would do such damage is the 750 weapons.
4. We do not know the destructive capacity of the alien weaponry, hence, being outnumbered may not be an advantage.
5. We do know that there is no back up for them, hence, killing one of them would lead closer to victory. Killing a hundred humans may be crushing, but the population would still grow, so there would be an endless supply of soldiers.

My final answer would be, I think we could, but the question would really lie on the height of the aliens. why you ask? If these aliens are 10 feet tall and there arms length are 10 feet wide, then could humans use the weapons? But assuming that the aliens height are the same as ours, then this battle would be fought for decades, hence, humans would chip away their numbers until the last one falls.

Answer 5

Pretty sure they couldn't lose, even if they never figured out the advanced weaponry. After all, they managed the original ambush-and-kill of 750 aliens (assumed, based on "leftover" weapons") with only the tactics and weapons they already had. They repeat that feat, say, six times and the invasion force is toast, even with no new weapons or tactics.

Of course, it isn't quite that easy - the aliens might not be grouped together or positioned right to replicate the first event (and whatever other variables they took advantage of to take out the ship) - but neither will the aliens be supporting each other, and they may not adapt their tactics all that much - coming of age ritual, to me, means ceremony and ritual and not that tolerant of changes. And how often they can replicate the event anyway will depend on how much it actually cost them, in resources, recovery time, and casualties - it will be a lot longer if they have to raise replacements, than if they recruit, for example.

On the other hand, they very well might be able to figure out the advanced weaponry. And they will be working together, communicating successes, and they have examples of some tactics that the new weapons work with, both what the aliens used against them, and what they used against the aliens that they couldn't counter. They can use the information to adapt tactics sensibly - I mean, it's not like they just found the weapons, and are making up tactics without a clue, they've seen them in use.

So even if they only had, what they had when taking down the scout ship, they have a pretty good chance. And as a bonus, they have increased their own firepower by recruiting survivors and making alliances with other tribes, they will gain more again by picking off aliens and recovering their weapons, and they will better their weapon handling and tactics by observing the aliens fighting, and by innovating - which aliens in the middle of rituals (emphasis ritual) will find a lot harder to do than if it were, say, war.