Recent content by JagerIV

  1. J

    Christian Nationalism and it's weakness

    Yeah, this seems to be the opposite of the people I've seen who self identity as Christian nationalists, like Steven Wolfe. The Case for Christian Nationalism - Wikipedia "In addition, he argues that this should be accomplished through a "measured theocratic Caesarism".[1] Wolfe follows early...
  2. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    The prompt does invite at least a bit of thought on the theory of crippling the US. Obviously, killing everyone would cripple the US ability to respond. If the Federation asked for troops, or Iran decided now was a good time to formally invade Iran, the US can't credibly threaten to to send a...
  3. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Million I definitely agree could do a lot of damage. Even ignoring the asexual reproduction thing. Men with rifles in the open might lose at a 1-1 numerical ratio: M-16 terminal ballistics seems to suggest that rifle can penetrate about 4 mm of steel at 100 meters, so with the Warrior bug...
  4. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Not to overstate my point that we don't have extremely effective weapondry. Its just I think trenches are so effective at reducing the effect of firepower that even a 10x more effectiveness from smart bombs takes you from, say, a 99% reduction to a 90% reduction. We are somewhat used to the...
  5. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Eh, this I think overstates things a lot, like claiming tanks are virtually worthless on a modern battlefield. Which I think is well disproved by what we see on the modern battlefield. Even if it did nothing else, it reduces the effectiveness of 90-99% of other weaponry. If for example your...
  6. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    I have actually started playing terrain Command due to the Starship Troopers itch. I am leaning on the games a bit to bring in the idea of using the Plasma bugs as anti surface artillery, which I don't think they were used for in the movie, but is a common thing in the games. And I think...
  7. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    And to go on a completely different scale, I was instead thinking about bug vs Armored Brigade Combat Team, which is probably the most difficult formation for the bugs to deal with. Roughly 5,000 men, 90 tanks, 150 Bradley's, roughly 20 artillery pieces. Which I assume would mean about 900...
  8. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Number chosen basically for giving a nice round number of 10 million tons of bugs. Workers: 20 million - lots of carrying and digging needed, plus bodies to absorb fire and clear minefields better options aren't available. Warriors: 2 million - gives numeric parity bug warrior to human...
  9. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Hm, I feel like there's a threshold problem: if your very strong so you can win within 12 hours or so of landing, it makes sense to rush in and break up the beachead immediately. If you can't confidently rush in however, I'm not sure a hasty attack is the best option: it moves your forces out of...
  10. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Reinforcements from other countries is certainly a possibility, but probably not within the first month or so. With the humans not knowing the goal or scale of the invasion, I'd assume while the landing is ongoing, most are going to want to bunker down and defend themselves, and probably for the...
  11. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Yeah, autocannons and 50 cals should have lots of stored kills, and they're fairly numerous weapon systems, so they can be employed widely to probably reasonable effectiveness. Avenger I'm not so sure of: doesn't that just fire stingers? Which might be in somewhat short supply. I think the...
  12. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Well, its a bug invasion of the continental United States, via bug drop pods, with the goal of crippling the US. I'm sure they could concentrate if that was useful to do so, but I don't think it would be required. I'm thinking as the invader it would be better for them to launch a broad based...
  13. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Yeah, I'm not sure we could stand up that many more formations, especially if the threat is only really real with a month warning. I think between guard and National we have something like 60 combat brigades, which would be about 300,000 front line troops. Which at commonly stated tooth to tail...
  14. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    I'm not sure the Fission material actually would be the big limiting factor for tactical nuke production. I'm also not sure its necessarily that big of an advantage, especially initially. Initially, most of America is fairly inhabited. Tactical nukes on the scale of kilotons are likely to cause...
  15. J

    Versus Match How many Arachnids (Star Ship Troopers (movie)) to cripple the United States?

    Hm, does the US even really have many tactical nukes left? Quick look at it, (https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/NuclearNotebook-May2022-US-Table1.pdf), the US only seems to have about 3,000 nukes total right now, and only about 500 of those are bomber delivered nukes that could...
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