OT: Archery in combat

[PvK]

How long before a modern warship becomes inoperable due to complete lack of supply and replacement parts?

How many people on a US warship have archaic international language and diplomacy skills?

How well does morale, discipline, and mental health survive this time warp scenario?

Why would the captain decide to become a world-dominating powermonger, and if he did, how would his command structure and loyalty of subordinates evolve?

One of my cousins and a friend got into this discussion once about twenty years ago. I think my dad had the correct answer (besides just ignoring it as multidimensionally silly): if a handful of time-warped modern people with some modern equipment thought they could use the equipment to rule the ancient world, the contest would not be about combat, but about guile and politics, and older generations had that in abundance.

PvK

[Arkcon]

geoschmo said:
"The Final Countdown. A mostly forgettable movie starring Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas."

I remember seeing this movie on late night T.V., and I found it fascinating, in a campy sort of way. I won't say I love it, but the philosophical dilemma it presents is very compelling for me.

*SPOILER SPACE*


Stop reading unless you want to jump in on my questions.









Basically, Kirk Douglas figures out that some sort of temporal rift in the Pacific Ocean has shot his nuclear powered carrier back in time to just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

His plan is perfectly clear to him from the outset. Truly, he barely debates his decision, either internally with himself or with anyone else -- He has info about an attack on his nation, he is going use his knowledge and capability to defend his nation, then report to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Then the same rift appears just before the attack and he orders his fighters back so they can all go through. Total rip-off cop out.

Is what to do so obvious? Yes he took an oath to defend his nation, but he's back in time before he took said oath. Does it still apply? And after he's done, he's going to float on into Pearl Harbor, drop anchor, and report for duty? Ready to take orders from President Roosevelt? Sure it all makes sense from a military standpoint, but its not the sort of question people usually have to worry about.

I'd like to be there when they put in for refueling. "I don't know where you came from or what class ship you are, but do you need fuel?" "Uhh..no thanks, the reactor can run for about ten more years without refueling, which, if the Manhattan project is on schedule, means you'll have the fuel just about when we need it."

Here's another question. The fighters are much more impressive than what the Japanese had, but are they really going to rule the skies? I knew a guy who said that modern jets are fuel guzzlers, and can only stay up a short time. A fleet of carriers can square off against another fleet of carriers, but one Nimitz class carrier against the entire Japanese fleet, a little unmatched. He said it, me, I don't know. What were Japanese fighters back in 1941, canvas over a wood frame? Still, its got a gun, can they even penetrate modern fighter jets' skin?

I always figured the next mission would be to go to the enemy ports in sequence and start hitting them with the long range missiles until the obvious technical superiority scared the living s... out of Japan and Germany and ended the war, I gave it about 6 months tops. Many people don't agree it would be so cut and dry. It would ruin everything if the Nimitz got sunk by a lucky shot. Another friend told me my plan was way off.

After the carrier returns, the crew is debriefed, and put on a special mission, one which pretty much involves them all living alone far away from contact with anyone else. Particularly their parents, who will soon meet and give birth to them some years later. Meanwhile the ship and jets are deconstructed and analyzed, to insure that, when the time is right, they can be constructed. The historical information the crew has is likewise used for one purpose -- to insure everything happens exactly as it is supposed to. Even the bad things, the only reason they happen as they do is because an even worse outcome is avoided. Because there's nothing a bureaucratic government craves more than the status quo.

In a way, that last outcome is like the ancient Roman legend of the Cybaline Books (sp?). Basically, a group of history books from the future are sold to an empire, which uses them solely by reporting the future a little bit before it is to happen. As unsatisfying as that outcome is, it always works as an option. The timeline is preserved. In fact, it could be happening all the time, as long as the temporal Men In Black are there to fix things.

Ah well, just a bunch of stuff that bounces around in my head because I saw some camppy movie. Move along all you sane people. Nothing to see here.

I always wondered that if the temporal races in SE4 could really control time, wouldn't they try to bring a ship from the future to help in a war they're fighting? You could model this by letting them design and build a ship with 2 or 3 levels of tech higher than they've researched, but only let it exist for 5 or 6 turns.

[geoschmo]

The Japanese navy fighters on Dec 7 1941 were all-metal monoplanes, not wood and canvas. The army might have had some scout planes that were wood and canvas, but the only front-line fighter plane in WWII that wasn't all-metal was the Hawker Hurricane flown by the British.

One Nimitz class nuclear carrier would have obliterated teh task force the Japanese sent to attack Pearl Harbor. Interestingly I'm not sure they could have stopped the attack so much. Modern Jets vs WWII fighters would be an interesting fight. The Modern jets would have a great advantage in that they could launch air-to-air missles from great distance. I'm not sure either could get guns on the other with the great speed diference. The WWII fighters would be much more agile at the slow speeds, but the jets would be so fast it would bascially take blind luck for either to hit an enemy target. Except the missles, and I'm not sure how many missles they would have. The Japanese had hundreds of planes in the air that day.

Where the Nimitz would really rock would be in taking out the Japanese fleet. They have anti-ship missles that would take out every ship in the fleet and any Japanese planes returning form Pearl wouldn't have anything to land on but oily water.

[Sivran]

geoschmo: You're confusing the Hurricane (a single-engine air-superiority fighter which fought alongside the Spitfire in the Battle of Britain) with the Mosquito (a twin-engine multi-role aircraft). The Mosquito was constructed entirely out of wood, and received more than its fair share of criticism because of it. It performed quite well in combat however and proved its critics wrong.

Modern Jets vs WWII fighters would be an interesting fight...

More like lopsided Despite the agility of the slower piston-driven fighters, the jets could quite easily cut them apart with guns, as they are easily capable of flying slow enough without stalling to get in some hits. With slashing, high speed (relatively) attacks from any angle they wish the jets would rule the day. The slower aircraft would simply have nowhere to go. This is not to say that there wouldn't be casualties among the Tomcats and Hornets, but they would be very few.

[PvK]

Modern aircraft are not really armored - bullets will damage them... if they ever get hit.

Damage potential in the Final Countdown scenario would mainly be limited by lack of resupply, I would think... I wonder though if say the CVN sailed into Pearl Harbour before they figured out the date and the Jap strike hit just then with hundreds of planes, if the CVN could scramble and intercept quickly enough to avoid getting torpedoed.

PvK

[Sivran]

Not sure about that, but I have a hunch a modern nuclear carrier is much harder to sink than its World War 2-era ancestors.

[Mephisto]

Sivran said:
More like lopsided Despite the agility of the slower piston-driven fighters, the jets could quite easily cut them apart with guns, as they are easily capable of flying slow enough without stalling to get in some hits. With slashing, high speed (relatively) attacks from any angle they wish the jets would rule the day. The slower aircraft would simply have nowhere to go. This is not to say that there wouldn't be casualties among the Tomcats and Hornets, but they would be very few.

In the Korean war the first jet planes had major difficulties with the old piston-driven planes as they were flying to fast to score a hit with guns easily. If they would reduce speed they were in constant danger of a stall made worse but the recoil of their guns.

[geoschmo]

Mephisto said:

In the Korean war the first jet planes had major difficulties with the old piston-driven planes as they were flying to fast to score a hit with guns easily. If they would reduce speed they were in constant danger of a stall made worse but the recoil of their guns.

That is what I was thinking about when I made my original post. But I think Sirvan is correct. I think that modern jets like the F-14 are much more capable at slow speed combat then the Korean war combat jets were. With the variable sweep wings and full flaps they could probably fly slow enough to be able to target the slow flying japanese zeros so one on one it would probably be no contest. I still think that the Zeros would have a manuverabilty advantage at those speeds though and IIRC they would have the Nimitz fighters pretty heavily outnumbered. I'm not sure how many F-14's it carries, but the Japanese had hundreds of planes in the air that day. They'd probably do better taking out a few with sidewinders and scaring the rest off with a few highspeed passes then mixing it up in a real dogfight. And then sinking the Japanese carriers before they could get back of course.

[Rasorow]

Something to consider is that in addition to the 14s 18s etc, you could use the A6Es which did carry guns and could carry sidewinders. While an intruder would not be considered front line fighter it is more then a match for a WWII fighter. The only problem the modern fighter craft would face is running out of bullets.

The Nimitz (or other super-carrier) could easily defeat the Japanese surface fleet but would be in danger from submarines. While not as quiet as todays submarines, electric motor subs are very quiet and could give the Nimtz fits if they could lie in wait.

Rasorow

[Arkcon]

geoschmo said:
"They'd probably do better taking out a few with sidewinders and scaring the rest off with a few highspeed passes then mixing it up in a real dogfight."

Yeah, that's the angle I harp on that everyone seems to ignore. In the movie they capture one Japanese scout. They force him to land on the supercarrier, he's escorted to the brig, and he takes a long quizzical look at the parked jet, before he gets taken away, and pretty much nothing elese happens.

He should have gotten a sprained neck whipping his head around -- a supercarrier, jet fighters, a giant mast bristling with satellite dishes, guys with radios built into kevlar helmets -- all of that should make about as much sense to him as the engine room of the Enterprise would to us -- if you've never seen a scifi movie or tv show.

I still say, hit one city with Nimitz's guided missiles, then slowly steam a carrier group over to the European theater, and send them some newsreels of what we got and what it can do. I'd expect people would want to cut a deal to shorten the war.

But maybe tipping our hand so much is so uncertain, that keeping it a secret is the best plan.