Questions tagged [warfare]
For questions related to the effects of certain circumstances, conditions, or locality changes on war. Related tags: [civil-war], [nuclear-war], [cold-war]
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How to stop ants from learning philosophy and taking over Belarus
Something magic happened in the 1970's somewhere in Eastern Europe, causing people to develop psychic powers. These powers allowed ants in Belarus (and a large swathe of Eurasia) to learn human ...
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Is there a NON-CHEMICAL weapon that can target the central nervous and/or muscular system?
There is research on nerve agents and gases, but are there any man-portable weapons that may be able to harm the CNS without gas? Thanks.
AMENDED: Results in symptoms like shaking, tremors that are ...
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Is it possible to create a to create a homemade weapon using electromagnetic or microwave energy, sound or sonic beams? [closed]
Entire question: is it possible to create a homemade weapon using electromagnetic, microwave energy and/or sound or sonic beams that can permeate buildings and their structure without damaging the ...
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What thickness of human flesh would have the same protective value as 100mm of RHA?
I'm trying to judge how much damage modern anti-tank weapons would deal to giants and I'm looking for a rough, order of magnitude estimate on how much protection layers of flesh would provide.
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Would a freeze ray be effective against modern military vehicles?
Similar to my previous thread. In my setting, wizards from a pre-industrial fantasy world come to real life. One of these wizards is a cryomancer recruited by the US military and tries out his talents ...
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What would be a good reason for a clan of 'Pure bloods' to want all other supernatural creatures dead? [closed]
In my novel, I'm working on having some form of clan/club/group of 'pure-bloods' that are descended from Van Helsing that are now an entire organization (in the 21st century) still working to carry ...
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Would lightning bolts be effective against modern military vehicles?
In my setting, wizards from a pre-industrial fantasy world come to real life. One of these wizards is a destruction mage recruited by the US military and tries out her talents against modern forces. ...
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Tanks, weapons, equipments and armor for super soldiers
I am writing a fiction draft about a main character who happens to be transported into another world as the leader of his main faction in an RTS game he used to play. The background of his RTS faction ...
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How would zombies affect trench warfare?
After thousands of years the mightiest of magic uses have finally cracked the code to revive the dead... Kind of. The resurrection spell, while restoring the body to a basic capacity, leaves them a ...
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How can muscle atrophy due to long gestation in artificial wombs be avoided?
Lebensborn is a Schutzstaffel-led state-supported program led by the Eternal Reich with the stated goal of increasing the number of children who meet the Nazi standards of racially pure and healthy ...
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Weaponizing the return-energy channel of a one-way portal
In my world, portals are magical devices that, when activated by some command, create a connection to a linked portal device. Portals allow objects to pass from the source (the portal device that was ...
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At what technological level can a mixed-gender military not be at a disadvantage to an all-male one?
In various fantasy settings, female combatants are quite common. There is a history of women in the military in real life but such women were generally rare and often hid their identity. Warfare was ...
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How useful would were-creatures be for military applications?
If a modern military acquired the means to grant some soldiers the ability to transform into a bipedal were-creature, what kind of military applications/roles would they be best suited for?
Abilities
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How to counter bulletproof plate armor with 19th Century technology? [closed]
I'm writing a timeline where the Russian Empire figured out how to make magical armor. By fully immersing plate armor in holy water, that plate armor is now fully bulletproof. No projectile will ...
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How hard is it to ruin the Earth permanently?
Your average Invading Alien Species shows up and plans to invade Earth. They are Default Dumb Movie Aliens and don't have nanotech, AI, space habitats, diplomatic abilities, self-replicating factories,...
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Are we able to generate fusion by firing macroscopic particles really fast?
Big gun in space (let's not care about how the gun will work yet)
Pew pew,
If we fire fusion fuel,
Would we be able to cause a fusion reaction upon the particle's impact?
What speed would that take?
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How far back in time would the USA need to travel to be able to conquer the entire world? [closed]
I've been thinking of a scenario in which the US wants to control the entire world, via time travel, but I'm not sure what time to travel to.
The US is generally considered to have the most powerful ...
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What govt. members need to be captured for a successful coup d'état? [closed]
I'm working on a story where a corrupt government official manages to blackmail his nation's government into secretly letting him and his cohorts run things from behind the scenes. This is achieved ...
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Is a particle accelerator weapon feasible?
I am envisioning a weapon that operates similarly to a proton therapy machine, only with the aim of killing a person. Essentially, a beam of protons is launched towards the target. However, the proton ...
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Why does the faction/race with the most information remembered not wipe out the other factions after a planet-wide memory wipe?
In this world, there are several (around 7) "races" of humans. This has less to do with "Race" in the modern sense, more like a "subspecies" in that they can interbreed, ...
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Possible mechanism for telescoping barrels
Is it a good idea?
No. A very definitive no.
However, that's not stopping a young aristocratic terrestrial cuttlefish (long story) that lives on this world's equivalent of a highly mountainous and ...
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Would a stationary railgun be possible utilizing 1910s electrical technology?
I am building a world in which gunpowder was not invented (chemistry is less advanced compared to other sciences), but other kinds of projectile weapons still dominate the battlefield (compressed air ...
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Is it possible for an airplane on the sky to play a sound so loud it could be heard 50km away?
I have a story where one side of a war takes advantage of psychological warfare, where a plane on an altitude of 60k ft or 15.2km has massive speakers to play horrifying, disturbing sounds recorded ...
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How are militaries supposed to communicate if they completely shut down wireless communication because the other side can intercept all of them?
This is a story where two militaries are intensely fighting on extremely mountainous terrain, but both of them has developed technologies that is capable of intercepting a great range of signals; from ...
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Usage of dinosaurs in war [closed]
In the story, humans have found a way to revive any dinosaur, no matter how complex the dinosaur may be. They are also able to cause mutations which can greatly increase or decrease the potential of ...
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How should I design a cheap, shipping container class nuclear warhead? [closed]
Requirements:
cheap (so rather not Pu-239 but U-235)
easy and cheap to store for years with near zero maintenance (so no tritium and at most little plutonium, as admixture of Pu-240 would be source ...
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How to raise an army against the dark lord when everyone thinks he was already defeated? [closed]
A long time ago there was a vast prosperous kingdom, with magic and steampunk-level technology. But secretly, an evil mage, whom we will call the "Dark Lord" was using forbidden magic to ...
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How could I justify use of swords, bows, and similar in a technological setting? [duplicate]
First, a quick explanation of the world's functioning.
It was home to nature-worshipping tribes, which had such a strong connection to the goddesses that developed to be like super-humans (longevity, ...
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Would my particle cloud shield be effective in limiting the use of combined arms/maneuver warfare operations? [closed]
Since I have particle shields in my setting for my armored vehicles, my military forces have also decided to try and extend that technology to the larger battlefield. One of the issues plaguing my ...
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What properties should my fictional HEAT rounds have to punch through heavy armor and ERA?
I have some forcefield shielding in my setting whereby particles act essentially as solid mass armor for all intents and purposes. Warheads grind themselves down against armor just like modern ...
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Making an Evil Empire not too humanized [closed]
In my world, there is an "evil" empire trying to expand its rule. However, in reality, they are just like any other empire expanding. Despite this, I still want to make them like a force the ...
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Why would a corporation secretly trigger kaiju attacks against humanity? [closed]
Some context
In a parallel version of our Earth, some decades ago a big attack was launched from an unspecified point, where insect-like kaijus (some as "small" as cars and houses, others as ...
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Would ATV Cavalry be as effective as horse cavalry?
During the early 1800s, various countries are gifted tall and modern ATVs (All-Terrain Vehicles). These ATVs require no fuel and come with manuals. After a few months of trials, many Europeans master ...
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What chemical agent can cause both nervous and reproductive effects?
In a realistic dystopia, warring religious sects turn on each other using chemical warfare, resulting in mass destruction. Because of the nature of their beliefs, these sects avoid technology; thus, a ...
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What are limitations of using the same vehicle to carry both SAM and rocket artillery?
Theoretically it should be feasible - one end up with a tracked or wheeled vehicle with rockets strapped to top of it and it shouldn't be a big deal whether they are designed to hit land/sea or air ...
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What man or crew sized weapons should my infantry bring into an area where electricity doesn't work to help breakup trench warfare? [closed]
I have an area with highly valuable resources that is highly contested over. The only issue is that the moment someone enters the area, all electronics regardless of type stop working. As such only ...
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Can we build a radio-controlled flying drone using only pre 2000s military tech?
I have a constantly moving floating island that is looking to augment its air force against numerous threats in the sky. Having long run out of resources that don't grow out of crystals or biomaterial ...
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Why would soldiers continue using helmets after the Renaissance?
In my world, it is a mix of Renaissance and 17th century style. For soldiers, they wear helmets as part of their uniform and armor. However, even into their version of the 1700s and 1800s, they ...
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Should a fast shooting tankette bother with using APFSDS against frontal armor of main battle tank? [closed]
I'm thinking about something loosely resemble RDF/LT:
So the whole idea is a vehicle much lighter than a main battle tank, with gun of caliber 75 mm but able to shoot six rounds in very short ...
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Why does an interstellar civilisation use outdated weapons? [closed]
Backstory
In a distant galaxy, humanity once had an empire sprawling hundreds of thousands of stars. Then it collapsed. Now humanity is beginning to spread again, absorbing its old colonies into a new ...
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Is the method of a telekinetic throwing people a probable combat technique?
My world is set in the time of the Inca's. Every 100 births, a telekinetic is born, someone who can move objects and people with their mind. The common way for a telekinetic to fight other tribes and ...
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How do I enable trench warfare in a hard sci-fi setting?
As stated in the title, I would like my setting to have combat akin to WW1 trench warfare. I've done my best to create systems that would enable that, such as keeping weapons and vehicles comparable ...
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Can a medieval fantasy world have a world war?
So I basically have a medieval fantasy world, where there are several empires on an Earthlike planet. These empires originated from early Bronze Age civilizations, and have stood the test of time in ...
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How could someone induce a cave-in quickly in a medieval-ish setting?
The idea here is that a commander of an army intentionally caves in a cave for a tactical benefit, and this needs to happen quickly. The best ideas i had were either explosives (obvious, but maybe ...
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Would Iridium be a good metal for crafting muskets and cannons?
Iridium is a metal discovered in 1803 that is quite dense and is very resistant against corrosion.
Let's say that in the year 1600, every musket and cannon on Earth has their metal components ...
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Does technological advance necessarily start a war between men and women in a dystopian future? [closed]
Technology of the future is likely to remove the differences of possessing power, strength and resources between genders. Moreover, it is likely that one gender becomes completely independent on ...
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Suicide Pact Technology and the Dark Forest Theory [closed]
There is nothing I enjoy more than pondering on life on other worlds. I have been fascinated by alien life ever since I grew up watching E.T. And Star Wars as a kid. And I like many dream of joining ...
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If you had an infinite amount of any element, which would be the best metal to make bullets?
Lead is pretty much the go-to metal when it comes to making bullets. That is because lead is cheap, dense, soft, and has a low melting point. But of course, bullets can be made out of other metals.
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What are the ideal features for an aircraft to fight flying monsters?
In the real world, combat aircraft are generally classified into two main groups; ground attack planes, which deploy weapons against land targets, and fighter planes, which are meant to destroy other ...
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How can we make dumbfire rockets more accurate?
I am using rockets as a main weapons platform for my vehicles. Currently they are fired from a railgun like apparatus. A rocket is at the center of three rails arranged in the fashion of a triangle. A ...
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