Questions tagged [military-defense]

For questions about strategies and structures for defending from a particular type of attack

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How would space battles alter combat tactics?

A thought occurred to me while watching Ender's Game. Why are these two fleets in space lining up like two armies during the revolutionary war (or pick your war of the musket/volley era)? Thinking ...
James's user avatar
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50 votes
5 answers
4k views

How would the existence of large rideable flying creatures have changed the design of castles?

I'm thinking not only of the impact they would have had on how you would defend from an aerial attack, but also that they could be used for much more specific bombardment by dropping large rocks and ...
Mourdos's user avatar
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52 votes
17 answers
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What would be the most effective way of keeping a psychopath with a spaceship from wreaking severe havoc in a suicide crash?

Any spaceship over several hundred tons is an extremely dangerous weapon in the wrong hands, particularly if it's intended for reentry. Made mostly of metal and possibly shaped to be able to breach ...
neph's user avatar
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15 votes
10 answers
2k views

Defeating the revised Snakebot of Doom

In Weapons for a civilisation-destroying giant robot I asked about what weapons might be placed on a sixty-billion-ton fusion-powered snakebot 9.27 km long and 1.19 km in diameter, armoured with 224 ...
Monty Wild's user avatar
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8 votes
13 answers
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Why can't the military stop my hidden pirate haven from illegal gambling and smuggling?

My pirate safe haven runs gambling rings, horse races, and trades contraband but no one can find it or penetrate it. Why? I've got a story revolving around pirates and a rescue. The pirates have a ...
Vogon Poet's user avatar
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57 votes
9 answers
9k views

What would the fortifications of an underwater city look like?

Merpeople, along with other similar underwater humanoids, are often depicted as living in great cities beneath the waves. These cities have many positive things going for them: plenty of real-estate, ...
ckersch's user avatar
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35 votes
22 answers
9k views

How would cities be designed that were threatened by dragons?

The dragons aren't all that common but they live in the nearby mountains and after a harsh winter are more likely to come looking for easy prey to fatten back up on. What are the major design ...
bowlturner's user avatar
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30 votes
4 answers
2k views

How would the design of a habitable underground fortification differ to that of a castle?

As a follow up from riding flying creatures to attack castles, let's assume that the practice is now so prevalent that a standard castle is no longer defensible. How would the fundamental design of a ...
Mourdos's user avatar
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29 votes
17 answers
6k views

How could medieval ships protect themselves from giant mermaids?

Long ago when apes and hominids split off a third group began to live in the seas and became mermaids/seafolk. Among several species of mermaids, there is a species of "giant mermaids" who ...
icewar1908's user avatar
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23 votes
8 answers
5k views

Could a Mars colony use asteroids as weapons against the earth?

If a future Mars colony declared war on the Earth, would asteroid manipulation be a feasible option as an effective weapon against the Earth from a Mars colony? How would this be accomplished? Are ...
Ansible's user avatar
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12 votes
10 answers
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Klemperer rosette vs Relativistic Kill Vehicles

In the book The Killing Star, Relativistic Kill Vehicles (RKV) are described as the ultimate weapon. They are described as impossible to stop, so that any civilization that develops them better ...
SilverCookies's user avatar
3 votes
6 answers
442 views

World Ending Asteroid

[Introduction] Set in present day Earth, several space agencies and military across the globe had been closely tracking many near earth objects for many years using deep space telescopes and also an ...
user6760's user avatar
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27 votes
2 answers
846 views

How would sails from a fireproof material affect ship's performance?

Related to: How would rudder protection against water elementals affect ship's performance In a world with ordinary magic, military ships should be prepared for enemy fireball-hurling wizards. Is ...
Pavel V.'s user avatar
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27 votes
18 answers
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Can spacecraft defend against antimatter weapons? How?

Here is what we know: We have the means to create stable antimatter We can direct it in a beam It can travel nearly as fast as light with ease Antimatter and matter combine in dangerous ways: one ...
Zxyrra's user avatar
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25 votes
5 answers
4k views

Deflective properties of a forcefield

I have always though of three basic ways that force fields function. The first way is that the force field projects an indestructible shell that oncoming objects can never break. Further, the ...
X-27 is done with the network's user avatar
16 votes
16 answers
3k views

How can The Temple of Elementary Evil reliably protect itself against kinetic bombardment? [closed]

This building is the centerpiece of my world and the reason for everything. Why would chromatic dragons and adventurers fight together? To take down this temple, of course. But why do I need them? I'...
Mephistopheles's user avatar
16 votes
6 answers
2k views

Space, the final frontier … to defend

OK, so you've got an empire in space. And that empire has a frontier. Now on Earth, we have many ways to defend a frontier. We can build border fences or even walls, we can build watch towers, and of ...
celtschk's user avatar
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12 votes
7 answers
1k views

Defensive strategies against teleporting dragons

I have finally found an edition of the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy - living in Italy, I only had access to it thanks to my father's old books, and he doesn't own the complete series - so I have been ...
Michele C's user avatar
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6 votes
6 answers
1k views

Planetary Defenses Against Interstellar Grey Goo Cloud?

I'm writing a story in which a cloud of grey goo is entering the solar system and humanity must prevent any particle of it from reaching Earth (and potentially other worlds too). Alternately, I need a ...
Lemma Prism's user avatar
6 votes
5 answers
2k views

Planet Wars 1 : Where to start? [closed]

When people consider a war between planets, they immediately think of throwing big rocks at it. What my question is, when you know another planet is going to attack, what is the first thing that ...
King of Snakes's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
2k views

Would an actively camouflaging airship cast a shadow?

I am currently writing about a military society that enforces its subjects using Acer-class airships. Picture the USS Iowa, except flying and with enough supplies for a year in the air. The only ...
JSCoder says Reinstate Monica's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
450 views

Using magnetic repulsion to build zombie-proof building

There has been much thought on how to create a zombie-proof building but I think I have this figured out. I propose a building that covers an area of about one city block, so: 264 x 900 ft, that ...
Kit's user avatar
  • 478
0 votes
9 answers
1k views

Defeating this fleet [closed]

I was watching the series called: "Once Upon a Time... Space" (I could only find the hungarian dub, which is my native language), that I want to make a fanfic about, and I ran into a problem.... The ...
Mephistopheles's user avatar
0 votes
6 answers
1k views

Can a secondary fuel economy ever be hardened against attacks?

If a society fully centralized their energy supply to a secondary fuel (artificial energy source like Hydrogen or batteries), the public loses the ability to directly access energy from the earth. ...
Vogon Poet's user avatar
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58 votes
23 answers
11k views

How do I defend an island nation from attackers with 15th century technology?

Apologies in advance that my bullet points got away from me and turned out a bit long, but I'm trying to give as much information as I can to ward off initial questions. Imagine the following ...
C. VanHorn's user avatar
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54 votes
26 answers
17k views

What would induce a country to actively guard an empty wasteland?

One of my favourite stories features a major fortress built on the edge of a poorly surveyed wasteland. In that context, the Butte makes sense, as a safety measure against the unknown. Once the wastes ...
Ash's user avatar
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31 votes
7 answers
3k views

What would an avian "castle" look like?

How would avians build a defensive structure? What would be the equivalent of walls, a drawbridge, a dungeon, etc. If two avian / arial cultures were at war, say birds vs. dragonflies, how and where ...
superluminary's user avatar
29 votes
15 answers
9k views

Zombie killing structure that's easy to construct, durable and low maintenance?

What would be an effective zombie killing structure that an average person could put together in a typical suburban neighborhood? Previous discussion that touched on the topic often rely upon ...
glyphin's user avatar
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27 votes
6 answers
11k views

If the Cold War went hot in the early 1970s, would the Warsaw Pact be able to reach the Rhine River?

So, let us go back in time to the year 1973, specifically around October of 1973; the time frame of the Yom Kippur War. In our timeline, the conflict almost became WWIII after the Soviets threatened ...
Future Historian's user avatar
25 votes
6 answers
9k views

Can one nuke reliably shoot another out of the sky?

A quick glance at real world anti-missile systems seems to show that they do work, but imperfectly. The problem naturally gets harder when the incoming missile is extremely high-velocity. If your ...
spraff's user avatar
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21 votes
14 answers
3k views

Why would you build underground defensive structures in an an alternate world medieval europe?

Assuming a world otherwise like ours and at the same technological level of medieval Europe, what change in the world might have caused people to build defensive structures underground rather than ...
Mourdos's user avatar
  • 2,886
17 votes
9 answers
2k views

How would a city with high defences fare against airborne creatures?

This always has been a point of trouble for me as a World Designer. How would a fantasy city be well-protected against airborne creatures? In all the examples we have on our own world (Earth) being ...
Adriano R Rodrigues's user avatar
16 votes
6 answers
2k views

How to accomplish planetary independence

Inspired by this question: How many of a Typical Sci Fi Army would you need to take a planet? Let's have a Galactic Empire which spans the galaxy. The Empire is ruled by The Emperor from one central ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
15 votes
14 answers
4k views

How can a pre-industrial civilization effectively defend against aerial attacks from large, fire-breathing creatures without the use of magic?

In my fictional world, there is a pre-industrial civilization that has advanced to a level of technology similar to that of the 15th-century Earth. This civilization is under constant threat from ...
dreamforge's user avatar
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15 votes
11 answers
1k views

How could trading posts be defended against pirates?

I got many little trading posts all over my worlds and orbiting around them. Everyone can trade in there, nice guys as well as scum of all kind. The trading posts are rich places. How could a system ...
Fulli's user avatar
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12 votes
4 answers
2k views

How would humans defend themselves against mice that are sentient and intelligent?

In How would sentient intelligent, normal-sized mice fight against humans? Humans are not doing well at fighting against the mice. They are small, smart and deadly. Humans will have access to ...
Skye's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
4k views

What would happen if Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo

Okay, so the Napoleonic wars are raging. Many men are dying in Waterloo. It appeared as if the Duke of Wellington and his allied army would prevail, but Napoleon rallied his troops at the last ...
Jax's user avatar
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9 votes
6 answers
2k views

How would humans in medieval times have adapted to giant roaming golems?

So in a world where giant rock and metal golems 'spawn' naturally. These golems are the kind with a power core hidden inside their bodies, their body and limbs are held together by invisible mana ...
Skye's user avatar
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8 votes
5 answers
3k views

Why does a hypersonic missile need to cruise Earth at low altitude before hitting its mark?

Imagine a certain nation tested a hypersonic nuclear-capable missile and it was designed to make a few trips around the Earth at low altitude before striking the surface. Don't they need to worry ...
user6760's user avatar
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8 votes
4 answers
1k views

City defenses against kaiju attacks?

In this series I'm mulling, kaiju have been around since prehistory, turning up off and on right up until modern times. In the near-future of this alt-history, say in the next twenty years (2040ish), ...
bsideswiped's user avatar
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7 votes
8 answers
2k views

How Many Soldiers are Needed to Patrol/Defend a Medieval Wall?

I have a walled city in a medieval RPG setting. It's out in the middle of a desert and has an impossibly efficient means of acquiring water and producing food off of farmland inside the walls (magic ...
FlyingLemmingSoup's user avatar
7 votes
5 answers
737 views

In a general sense, would it be better to equip troops with plate carriers, body armor, etc. if they’re fighting against zombies?

In a general sense, would it be better to equip troops with plate carriers, body armor, etc. if they’re fighting against zombies? Right now, my Troopers (what someone in the US Garrison is called) ...
user69268's user avatar
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7 votes
2 answers
331 views

Ideal materials for the outer layer of a whipple shield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipple_shield What I'm looking for is the best possible materials for the outer layer of a whipple shield. From what I understand, the outer layer turns a hypervelocity ...
spaceamoeba1010's user avatar
6 votes
6 answers
836 views

Most effective castle fortifications against fantasy/medieval airborne attack?

Edit: This question has been reopened! Medieval castles are mostly designed towards delaying or obstructing ground attackers. The only real threat a castle faces from above, at least from humans, ...
yolo man's user avatar
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6 votes
3 answers
658 views

Character must escape from a CERN/DARPA-like facility - Secrecy

This story is meant to be an introduction and background for a short videogame I'm working on. Our hero works at a secret, hidden facility. The secret is kept among every staff member working there. ...
Luis Masuelli's user avatar
6 votes
7 answers
1k views

Defending against directed Gamma Ray weaponry

I am trying to picture how space combat would happen with a sufficiently advanced level of technology (way beyond what we have today), and obviously defense from radiation would be a massive benefit ...
Jimmery's user avatar
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6 votes
13 answers
4k views

How would one defend against a being that can turn parts of itself intangible at will? [closed]

There are a number of stories that contain a being that can turn parts of itself intangible at will, meaning it won't interact with most objects: The twins from the second Matrix movie; The demon ...
Nzall's user avatar
  • 8,439
6 votes
6 answers
914 views

Defeating the Snakebot of Doom

In Weapons for a civilisation-destroying giant robot I asked about what weapons might be placed on a sixty-billion-ton fusion-powered snakebot 9.27 km long and 1.19 km in diameter, armoured with 224 ...
Monty Wild's user avatar
  • 56.3k
5 votes
3 answers
796 views

If a million heavily armed children stormed Area 51 what would they do? [closed]

Say a sorceress secretly enchanted 1 million kids, 12 years old, and under and made them break into Area 51 from all directions what would they do? These kids appear very normal and sane apart from ...
Chimaera Phantasma's user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
11k views

Should castle walls be circular or square?

In many medieval portrayals, the walls of castles are always portrayed as square. But would the castle be better off if the walls were circular instead of square?
JohnWDailey's user avatar
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