Guild Wars 2

Could our own, real-life military wage war on Mordermoth and its minions and win? Based on our highest available technology (aka USA army much), with helicopters, fighter jets, artillery, infantry and tanks, but not nuclear weapons.

Thoughts?

Since a sw map can only contain a couple hundred of players, a lot of them being ranger (who fight with arrows and trained dogs), and yet still manage to take down powerful Mordremoth lieutenants, then I would say yes, certainly.

Well I guess at least in this scenario, tanks would be viable

Dont forget the helicopters that arrive for the 3 bosses…helicopters can fight too.

Satenia.9025:

Well I guess at least in this scenario, tanks would be viable

Good one.

Given that Mordremoth seems to be mostly underground, and probably kind of stationary I’d say a couple of bunker-busters would sort him out right proper.

Unlikely.

Considering how easy it took out the whole Pact Airship-fleet it is unlikely that air-support would be possible. The fact that it can also sprout vines more or less everywhere would make a land-assault rather dangerous as well.

Yeah.

With satellites they can gather intelligence as to where they’re located and ICBM’s mean that they wouldn’t even need to step foot in the jungle.

lordkrall.7241:

Unlikely.

Considering how easy it took out the whole Pact Airship-fleet it is unlikely that air-support would be possible.

Depends on how high them vines can reach and how fast they can react to threats. Modern aircraft can fly quite high and break the sound barrier after all.

Drones at extremely high altitude with precision striking missiles and/or napalm bombs (or Agent Orange) Ballistic/cruise missiles, even without nuclear warheads. Satellite recon (although of limited use due to high density jungle and underground system).

You are really describing Vietnam War as would be fought today, with a correction that you aren’t interested in keeping territory, but in complete annihilation.

Guess we really need the Commando class to find out
But I’d say something like Vinewrath is probably a lot easier but I can’t really see them easily killing an underground structure that extends over kilometers. (Does Mordi even have a centralized nerve system?)

One word: CHARR!
There´s you´re “modern day” military right in game. And even much more advanced due to all the Asura and Sylvari augmented technologies blended with Charr-tech, resulting in the Pact´s war machines.

So the answer would be, not a chance.
As the Pact version of the Vietnam defeat shows.

Ask Michael Bay to direct it and Mordy would have no chance.

Our current military have the power to destroy our world 7 times, so yeah, we could take Mordremoth, all the living beings could also die in the process … BUT it would be dead, and the other Elders Dragons too

Belzebu.3912:

Our current military have the power to destroy our world 7 times, so yeah, we could take Mordremoth, all the living beings could also die in the process … BUT it would be dead, and the other Elders Dragons too

Now that sounds like a proper speed-clear to me…

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Given that Mordremoth seems to be mostly underground,

So… the turned Sylvari are hipsters. <_<

Dark Saviour.9410:

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Given that Mordremoth seems to be mostly underground,

So… the turned Sylvari are hipsters. <_<

Best post ever, I need more +1’s

Obligatory link to Rome Sweet Rome on reddit!

Satenia.9025:

Belzebu.3912:

Our current military have the power to destroy our world 7 times, so yeah, we could take Mordremoth, all the living beings could also die in the process … BUT it would be dead, and the other Elders Dragons too

Now that sounds like a proper speed-clear to me…

Berserker as its finest, eh?

Napalm. That is all.

Napalm that kitten. Instant win.

Agent Orange might work too :P

Chuck Norris.

15 char

Nuclear bombs, napalm, nuclear bombs, nuclear bombs, tanks, fighter jets, nuclear bombs

lordkrall.7241:

Unlikely.

Considering how easy it took out the whole Pact Airship-fleet it is unlikely that air-support would be possible. The fact that it can also sprout vines more or less everywhere would make a land-assault rather dangerous as well.

That’s why we should not allow talking cabbages to command our military.

Yeah sure we’ve got weapons of mass destruction.
But we’ve got no magic at all. What if a guardian shield is enough to block a rocket ? :p Imagine the power of a giant magical dragon. The fact that he’s a plant doesn’t change a thing : he’s magical. Throwing bombs at him wouldn’t be enough, I think.
We don’t even know how clever he is. He could just destroy our main military bases just by attacking from underground. Or our power plants.
We never had to deal with armies of monsters coming from the ground. :p

So… yeah, I’m not sure it would be that easy just because we’ve got bombs, jets and stuff.

The problem here you can’t mix facts and fiction: It is purely the imagination of a writer or idea, if the military COULD destroy a creature or not. If the author decides so, it can. If not it can’t. Therefore, your question is irrelevant.

I always had problems with this in fantasy generally: it is pure imagination of the author that Son-Goku is stronger than Vegeta. If the author decides otherwise, the result is different.

So, with other words: the Elder Dragon has magic, the author could set the premise: the Elder Dragon is able to negate the power of an atomic or thermonuclear/hydrogen bomb or even absorb it. You see where this goes?

For the sake of answering the OP.

Modern military (more than just Army…btw Navy, Marines, Air Force) limits it’s own capabilities as a means to protect non-combatants. Go back to Cold War era mind-sets, we were on the edge of global destruction because of threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles. These do not have to be nuclear, but at that time it was current threat.

Today we do everything we can to discourage the use and proliferation of ICBMs and mindlessly tossing weapons at each other from the “safety” of each countries borders for fear of retaliation and arms races picking up again.

Drones/UAVs have limited payloads and weight capabilities, so do not expect mass mayhem from a bunch of tiny missiles or dumb bombs. Those are used for precision strikes to soft targets, not typically against large and fortified defenses. Or they are used for surveillance and reconnaissance and overwatch for friendly forces. Of course without air superiority, all those UAVs are worthless as they are slow and will be taken down with ease.

Without self imposed restrictions, a modern military can wage wars without ever leaving home or putting itself in harms way (unless the opponent can also fire back with similar weapons….which is where we are today).

So in terms of fighting Mordremoth, a modern military could feasibly rain destruction from a distance and cause meaningful damage to the target. In regards to mordremoth being underground, there are capabilities of ground penetration to certain depths, but this could be a barrier in total destruction and provide a stalemate.

The question is what are the critical nodes that maintain mordremoth’s combat capabilities? Direct attack or indirect attack are both options, so by crippling the ability to fight you can feasibly win the war.

We could force mordremoth into submission/retreat at the least. In terms of nuclear/chemical/biological agents, there are plenty options that could be used, but again at what cost? An area can remain inhospitable for years after exposure.

We also could track seismic movement and maintain generalized locations of mordremoth in anticipation of a resurfacing. At most we can clear an area and wait for it to pop it’s head up and unload more force on it, in hopes of debilitating it or forcing it back down.

[soapbox]
As horrible or glamours as people try to make war and military’s, most of us in the military recognize we are big dangerous giants who are trying our best to refrain from hurting anyone while preventing more dangerous and deadly adversaries from acting freely. The day that killing without thought becomes fun, is the day we need to stop and re-evaluate ourselves. War is about protection, not about killing.
[/soapbox]

HawkMeister.4758:

One word: CHARR!
There´s you´re “modern day” military right in game. And even much more advanced due to all the Asura and Sylvari augmented technologies blended with Charr-tech, resulting in the Pact´s war machines.

So the answer would be, not a chance.
As the Pact version of the Vietnam defeat shows.

Our modern military is far superior to the Charr military as seen in game. They have steampunk1910’s war machines and I haven’t seen them use planes. You can’t compare the in game engineer rifles to modern machine guns, and their artillery doesn’t have 1/10th the range or firepower our artillery does.

A pact airship would stand no chance against a fighter jet, it’s much, much slower and too big a target. Asura do have very advanced technology, but when it comes to weapons the best I see are the megalasers, which would make an efficient anti-air weapon but otherwise too slow to reload.

For wide-scale destruction, MOAB and various thermobarics would get the job done without resorting to anything leaving nuclear fallout. Specialized chemical and biological weapons, defoliants; it’s game over pretty quickly. As to how the area looks after…

This is all assuming that the magics of these creatures can’t counter most of it.

Prototypemind.4026:

For wide-scale destruction, MOAB and various thermobarics would get the job done without resorting to anything leaving nuclear fallout. Specialized chemical and biological weapons, defoliants; it’s game over pretty quickly. As to how the area looks after…

This is all assuming that the magics of these creatures can’t counter most of it.

Both types you mention only work over the ground. Esp thermobarics use the surrounding oxygen, and MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) needs to be detonated before touching the ground for efficiency (which is why the spiritual precursor for it which has the same concept got the nickname Daisy Cutter).

MegumiAzusa.2918:

Prototypemind.4026:

For wide-scale destruction, MOAB and various thermobarics would get the job done without resorting to anything leaving nuclear fallout. Specialized chemical and biological weapons, defoliants; it’s game over pretty quickly. As to how the area looks after…

This is all assuming that the magics of these creatures can’t counter most of it.

Both types you mention only work over the ground. Esp thermobarics use the surrounding oxygen, and MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) needs to be detonated before touching the ground for efficiency (which is why the spiritual precursor for it which has the same concept got the nickname Daisy Cutter).

Yes, and I’m assuming we’re talking the military of most films and novels—and of our past, I suppose, i.e., Dresden, all of Vietnam—since we’re in a fantasy setting, i.e., they have no problem with laying waste to the entire area in order to achieve goals. I’m replying in regards to those who kept mention the nuclear kitten nal, which would be entirely unnecessary for simply flatting large areas to destroy easy to locate surface targets.

I think an even more interesting question would be how many 5 year old humans could Mordremoth and its minions take on?

If he has enough oil.

If Trehearne was in charge….. No.

Anyone else,…… yes.

Nuke it from orbit. Done.

Well, we killed Zhaitan with popcorn… soooo….

It would depend on the writer. All s/he would have to do is make the dragon and its minions immune to damage from non-magic weapons… I don’t think the modern RL military has those. That was the excuse in HG/L.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

HawkMeister.4758:

One word: CHARR!
There´s you´re “modern day” military right in game.

You can’t compare the in game engineer rifles to modern machine guns, and their artillery doesn’t have 1/10th the range or firepower our artillery does.

I thought that was the whole point of this silly thread?

And with the fact that Charr manged to create guns with unlimited ammo, that means our army units would be hilariously outclassed by 4 foot armored roaring Bigcats running at them fullspeed (what 30 MPH?) while they fumblingly try to reload.

Also you vastly overestimate the utility of artillery and air superiority(see US defeats in Vietnam or recently Afghanistan) while underestimating a well machined “steam punk” gun. Our modern infantry guns and rifles are barely more advanced from WW1&2 era weapons. And in the German case even criminally inferior.

As for the Pact side, Asura build the MEGA-lasers for the mega dragons.
They would easily adapt if they had to deal with some silly bookah flying machines that fight by throwing away explosive slugs propelled in tubes farting hot gases out the backside.

It’s just a plant, all you have to do to kill a plant is salt it or take away it’s water. But since this dragon feeds on leyline energies you just need to get some asura genius to redirect the flow away from the dragon. But the fact of the matter is that around 100 of us ‘heroes’ are going to go in there and use some steampunk charr stuff and some psuedo magical asura tech and destroy it using mostly melee attacks at great personal risk every 4 hours.

So yes, toss a little agent orange on that dragon and it should die rather quickly, if not we have tons of other ways to kill plants. The only issue is that Mordremoth has the ability to grow minions, animate plants, and reach around the world, he has superior tactical advantage and thanks to history not really knowing anything about him, his surprise attack would be globally devastating and would leave us completely naked militarily and publicly in complete chaos as our house plants started to attack us and our rainforests come alive to take the world back from us. Our only hope would be from the navies of the world who would likely be untouched by the invading plant armies. But since most navies don’t carry around plant busting chemicals like agent orange, we’d have limited strike capabilities against what would be compared to a plant zombie apocalypse. Without proper intel and with a desire to protect as much as possible, we could run out of munitions rapidly.

However, if we were to find Mordremoth quickly the fight would end just as quickly as it began as precision strikes would be employed to massive effect regardless of location.

Considering they can’t beat a bunch of guys in the desert riding donkeys no, I don’t think they could…

HawkMeister.4758:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

HawkMeister.4758:

One word: CHARR!
There´s you´re “modern day” military right in game.

You can’t compare the in game engineer rifles to modern machine guns, and their artillery doesn’t have 1/10th the range or firepower our artillery does.

I thought that was the whole point of this silly thread?

And with the fact that Charr manged to create guns with unlimited ammo, that means our army units would be hilariously outclassed by 4 foot armored roaring Bigcats running at them fullspeed (what 30 MPH?) while they fumblingly try to reload.

Also you vastly overestimate the utility of artillery and air superiority(see US defeats in Vietnam or recently Afghanistan) while underestimating a well machined “steam punk” gun. Our modern infantry guns and rifles are barely more advanced from WW1&2 era weapons. And in the German case even criminally inferior.

As for the Pact side, Asura build the MEGA-lasers for the mega dragons.
They would easily adapt if they had to deal with some silly bookah flying machines that fight by throwing away explosive slugs propelled in tubes farting hot gases out the backside.

A interesting argument can be made to say the US actually won Vietnam (we certainly weren’t losing battles) And I recall at least one interview on RT where a foreign politician commented that there was no need for a us military base in his region to support Afghanistan because we had clearly won there.

Even if we declare these as “losses”, it wasn’t so much militarily as we didn’t win the “hearts and minds”. Comparing these conflicts to mordy would be like saying we are trying to build an coalition government of mordermoth minons, but tje thrashers keep leaving IEDs….

In all seriousness, had Vietnam and Afghanistan been wars of extermination, like a war with mordy would be, and it was win or die, like a war with mordy would be, the us would have 2 new states right now without question. The body counts we left on the enemy in both conflicts is just too massive. We were just limited by the fact that we weren’t there to commit genocide.

As fir charr tech:
*All tanks and helicopters seem to do in gw2 is blow up. Modern artillery would make that happen before they even had a chance to fire back.
*Their rifle tech is comparable to muskets with a faster fire rate (many of the firearms in game are percussion cap firing at best, flint lock most often, and match lock at worst). they have neither the range, stopping power, or fire rate to seriously compare to modern firearms, and are routinely outclassed by even bow and arrow. The reason they won’t have to reload is because they will have died from bullet wounds well outside gw musket range.
*pact airships are simply armed blimps. They simply lack the armorment or armor to defend against modern jets and SAMs without adding some random BS magical explanation. Even with crazy asuran tech, their mounted energy weaponry always has massive charge times and tenancy to explode…So yeah…
High chances of self destruction.

If we are concerned that mordy would strike to fast, keep in mind that we had quite a bit of time in ls before mordy even bothered to attack anything, and he only hit two forts (of more symbolic than military importance).

No. Based on the track record of the US military fighting in jungles, Mordremoth and its minions would wipe the floor with them.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

If Cloverfield is any indication . . . no.

Mordremoth’s anti-air defenses don’t seem to be highly magical – they’re mostly limited to “attack it with massive plant tentacles”. The only reason that tactic worked on the Pact was because Trahearne was an idiot and had them flying way too low.

It’s very hard to do attack supersonic jets with tentacles moving at that speed, especially since they don’t fly at 150 feet, but more like 20,000. Even if it weren’t, there’s always cruise missiles. And modern warheads – even the non-nuclear variety – can have pretty incredible firepower.

I don’t think Mordremoth’s minions would have a prayer.

Except all those bombs and missiles would be shooting some vines. Mordremoth IS the jungle, it can just grow other vines and more vines. Unless you can hit the big guy (who is hiding somewhere presumably underground) you would just waste your bombs shooting plants.

Which “modern” military are you asking about? The ones depicted in movies or real life?

If it’s the former they’ll flounder horribly for whatever contrived reason until a strong and independent recruit who answers to nobody and embodies the virtues of recklessness and inexperience leads them to nonsensical victory. Modremoth’s plot spear and shield will transfer to the protagonist and the ending credits will be performed by whichever flavor-of-the-month pop idol/rock band is popular at the time.

If it’s the latter the staff will take one look at their Rules of Engagement and the Geneva Convention, realize it doesn’t apply to dealing with hostile shrubbery, and have a jolly old time pounding Mordremoth into an ash pile from hundreds of miles away with the ridiculous stockpiles of artillery we constantly accumulate in the name of peace. About the only thing that will give the military pause is evacuating civilians, but since Mordremoth doesn’t seem to be keen on taking hostages as human shields it’s more of a speed bump than an obstacle that needs getting around.

serenke.4806:

Except all those bombs and missiles would be shooting some vines. Mordremoth IS the jungle, it can just grow other vines and more vines. Unless you can hit the big guy (who is hiding somewhere presumably underground) you would just waste your bombs shooting plants.

Because fictional plant dragons are the only ones who burrow underground, right?

Look up modern bunker busters. Designed to not only punch through fortified underground facilities, their sensors have the ability to count how many floors it has gone through before detonating, allowing payloads to be delivered exactly where the sender wants it, no signature required. They come in nuclear flavor too, if you’re unconvinced one would have sufficient oomph to obliterate a dragon.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

…..

……solved
https://youtu.be/3boy_tLWeqA

Pandaman.4758:

If it’s the latter the staff will take one look at their Rules of Engagement and the Geneva Convention, realize it doesn’t apply to dealing with hostile shrubbery, and have a jolly old time pounding Mordremoth into an ash pile from hundreds of miles away with the ridiculous stockpiles of artillery we constantly accumulate in the name of peace. About the only thing that will give the military pause is evacuating civilians, but since Mordremoth doesn’t seem to be keen on taking hostages as human shields it’s more of a speed bump than an obstacle that needs getting around

Hundreds of miles away does not work with a dragon that has the ability to send minions across the whole continent.

Pandaman.4758:

Look up modern bunker busters. Designed to not only punch through fortified underground facilities, their sensors have the ability to count how many floors it has gone through before detonating, allowing payloads to be delivered exactly where the sender wants it, no signature required. They come in nuclear flavor too, if you’re unconvinced one would have sufficient oomph to obliterate a dragon.

Mhm, and if the vines would stop the bunker buster before it would go deep enough then it would not detonate because it would just count floors while stuck in the shrubbery? Remember, it’s the jungle you are trying to shoot.

Also, not sure why nobody reads posts they are replying to, but

Could our own, real-life military wage war on Mordermoth and its minions and win? Based on our highest available technology (aka USA army much), with helicopters, fighter jets, artillery, infantry and tanks, but not nuclear weapons.

Thoughts?

“Not nuclear weapons.”

Can I go with regular application of weed killer at troublesome spots and the odd bit of deadheading?

If necessary, a contained fire to burn off troublesome overgrowth, and invigorate the earth ready for healthy new growth which isn’t evil and wanting to eat my face off. I’ll then plant some nice daffodils, and an array of pretty hardy perennials.

But enough of my gardening plans for this year and next; let’s get the dragon with Rentokil and Bruce Willis with a drill.