39
You can weaponize it, and it will be devastating
The fact that Alpha and Beta radiation are do not pass through much matter before being stopped does not mean they can not transfer vast amounts of energy. When we say they are stopped, what we mean is that they collide with something and have some sort of reaction (as opposed to passing though without hitting ...
17
Out-there idea: Reverse-frangible bullets:
This isn't something invented yet, so it's a bit hypothetical. I imagine a team of armored SWAT or special-forces troops. Right before combat, everyone synchs a set of RFID transponders to the same frequency.
Their guns contain bullets that are frangible if they hit an armored target - as long as the tiny internal ...
13
Genetically modify your own troops to be immune to the deadly poison with which you coat your weapon's tiny dart rounds. Then when friendly fire accidents occur, the victim will take no more harm than a mosquito bite. Meanwhile, your enemy who are not genetically modified to handle your poison will die as quickly as if they were hit by a high caliber round....
11
It's called Induced Gamma Emission
This idea has been around for some time, and there was a successful but irreproducible result. Obviously the notion of storing vast amounts of nuclear energy in a small space and tapping it on demand, perhaps even in a non-radioactive environment ... well, that is very appealing. But it might also be used as the initiator ...
8
Appears that your protagonist doesn't have any fancy martial arts skills or experience in disarming armed foes, so...
Simplest and probably safest option is to run, the only consideration being "can this gang member run faster (or for longer) than me?"
Next option would be to fortuitously find a club-shaped piece of timber on the side of the road ...
7
Going in a little different direction from the rest of the answers, I propose a biochemical weapon.
Bullets cause physical damage, and without some really smart, quick acting, and extremely reliable technology, smart bullets would not be viable.
Instead, I propose a fast-acting neurotoxin in rounds that can pierce the skin without much damage. The entire ...
7
You can’t completely.
No matter what approach you take, there is some way to work around it or some dangerous failure path.
IFF tagging (mentioned by a number of other answers) can be fooled or hijacked (this has actually been an issue multiple times in the recent past).
A smart gun that only fires on identified foes can be hacked (and is still susceptible ...
7
"How should the artificial intelligence be trained to learn to differentiate allies from enemies?"
It will be trained in the same way that natural intelligences are trained.
People wearing the same uniform as you are likely friendly.
People wearing the ugly uniform of the enemy are surely enemies.
People shooting at you are clearly unfriendly.
...
6
Your thinking of a combat AI as a resident consciousness within a single robot, dependent on the continued functionality of that robot for its existence. Imagine instead a combat AI distributed across a thousand robotic bodies, linked together on multiple channel radio, laser and direct wired connection.
Want to know who the enemy is? Send a lightweight ...
5
Knives are tricky. They're small, twisty, and can easily kill you even if you beat up the wielder. If you can, avoid fighting them. Turning tail and running is a good idea. Giving them your wallet is another. Most good martial arts places will say this- fights can have life long consequences, don't get in street brawls if you can avoid it.
Also, if you do ...
5
As others have said this hypothetical weapon would be devastating, you effectively have proposed a mechanism to convert the energy of a nuclear fuel that would normally take hundreds or perhaps thousands of years to radiate its energy into an almost-instant death beam.
It is essential however for the working of a laser (or similar device) that the particles ...
4
I don't know if you'd tried to cut through a tree trunk but it's not as trivial as the animes make it seem. World champion competitive lumberjacks require about 15 seconds to cut through a dried 1ft diameter log with an an ax. So in a best case scenario you're talking about something that can hack through a tree with 15 seconds of focused high intensity ...
4
Sabotage, I believe.
You don't really need a world dictatorship to see how rebels fight against modern armies, there are plenty of examples around the world right now (unfortunately).
And from them, you can learn a lot about how you can fight against modern equipment with retrograde equipment: most of the time, you don't.
Every military has advantages and ...
3
The question is how should the AI be trained to learn to differentiate allies from enemies? What should they pay attention to in order to make that differentiation?
The way machine learning works in the current world: you don't bother with this question. You let a computer figure out what criteria are and are not important for a classification task.
The way ...
3
The same way many real world convolutional neural networks are trained: a huge collection of data that has been labeled by humans. Ever used an image captcha? You've helped train a model. Have your soldiers wear cameras on patrol. Send the footage to your data labeling team. Each video clip would have different types of objects coded (friendly soldier, enemy ...
3
Whilst I love the idea of plucky rebels finding lost arms caches and turning them against their oppressors, in this case most of the equipment is essentially useless. (But keep reading for the Good News...)
The pace of technological advance was so great during WWII, that by the end of it, most of the equipment used to fight it was already obsolete.
Many of ...
3
Implant microchips in allied soldiers. Then, use smart guns with the same chip, and install integral microprocessors in them that use coordinate-based data to determine how far away the microchips in other allies are.
At that point, the distance can be processed along with the average accuracy/dispersion of the gun (perhaps multiplied by some factor in order ...
3
I actually have a scythe, and used it for scything grass. It is definitely not suitable as a weapon.
The scythe has a curved blade. It is designed to slice grass off considering that it has mild resistance. Depending on the blade, it can cut through very THIN branches. It will NOT cut through bone. The blade is designed to push grass to the side as you ...
3
Segregation by equipment is unavoidable within this context, but you can minimize it.
Weapons will remain standard throughout the board. Since they're all of human proportions this will remain a non-issue, with the minotaurs being the only ones who have slightly different loadouts due to your usual two-handed weapons probably being used as one-handed for ...
3
For a normally proportioned dragon
Step aside (or roll or whatever to get away from where the dragon's maws will pass), let the head of the dragon head go past by inertia, strike the neck vertically behind the head. If you manage to deliver a good blow, the dragon will be paralyzed and you'll have the opportunity do deliver the rest of 20-40 blows required ...
3
Bipods would definitely be necessary, and even then, there are a few disadvantages your mallards would have in wielding guns.
I'm guessing your mallards' fingers would be similar to a hoatzin chick's. While fine for scrambling around branches, these fingers would not be as conveniently jointed for curling around a gun, though pulling a trigger should be ...
2
I will assume your character is incapable of running safely. This is the absolute best option in this situation. No misguided honor or confidence should ever lead someone to get into this fight.
"experienced at fist fighting"
This leads me to assume your character is an athlete of sorts. So. Whatever I suggest will be more applicable to your ...
2
De-escalate, distract, fight dirty, get injured, run away
A knife is a force-multiplier. This means that if one has it,
and the other does not, it is a very unfair fight.
Here is a video of someone that is an expert in bare-hand fighting, trying to defend himself against someone with a knife.
Result?
Very(!) badly for the bare-hand fighter, especially when ...
2
Stella the gang member is smaller than Jim the protagonist but she has a knife. So Jim turns around to run away, just as Stella lunges at him. The knife sticks in his backpack and is torn out of her hand as he turns suddenly. The knife clatters to the ground putting Jim between Stella and the knife. Then he can fight her with his fists.
Consideration: The ...
2
John Wick style?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpl-s-HrcNw
Keanu qua Wick uses his belt to effectively fight these 2 knife-wielding guys. A very sweet scene.
Unlike the nattily dressed Keanu your protagonist wears sweat pants but he could use those instead of the belt. Also unfortunate that he always goes commando. His opponent will probably be ...
2
It is possible. You make a firearm that has the safety switch fuzed in the "safe" state.
The real challenge is to make a firearm that meets your "safe" criteria and still does the job well enough to be carried by your soldiers. Fundamentally, the "never" in "never shoot someone from your own group" is a damnably ...
2
Frame challenge:
A weapon that can't work both ways is a bad weapon.
It moves the responsibility both for shooting and for not shooting from the user to some hypotetical technology.
The technology can be hacked and no one will be responsible for its major failures (so it WILL be hacked).
Well, a soldier can be hacked, too, but at least soldiers can be held ...
2
Well if enough of the atoms decay rapidly enough you will essentially create the same effect as a fission bomb.
Assuming the device doesn't explode, any radioactive decay will still produce a lot of decay heat. Your first challenge is going to be keeping the device from melting.
The most straightforward way to keep your device from melting would be if all ...
2
It's a warhead, not a delivery mechanism.
Alpha and beta rays are easily stopped […]
Why is that a problem? TNT has basically zero range. So do HBX, RDX, and any other number of three-letter acronyms that will definitely look very suspicious showing up right next to each other here. Bullets are easily stopped too. But that doesn't stop any of these things ...
1
Check out North Korea!
This seems remarkably similar as North Korea agaibst South Korea. The North has an impressive arsenal, though very old. I'm not an expert, but I've read that they can still be dangerous in their first wave. They can do an incredible amount of damage by simply grabbing as much bombs and rockets as they can, then fly towards their ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible