REALLY OT: Shooting Down a Dragon

[pmulcahy11b]

I'm watching a show on the History Channel about how JRR Tolkein came up with the Lord of the Rings, and then I had a very weird thought: How long would you have, after Smaug breathed fire, to get a tone on him and hit him with a Stinger missile

[cavtroop]

Id rather get him from 10KM away with an AGM-65 or Maverick

[Legbreaker]

Not long enough.....

I'd be more inclined to try something like a M-163A1 PIVAD, or better yet, something along the lines of a 40mm Bofors.

[Benjamin]

I once played a very fun Twilight 2000 campaign in which Dragons had slowly reappeared beginning in late 1997. The GM gave conflicting hints that they were awakened by the nukes, had just been hiding, had recently arrived from space and or had been created by a genetic experiment gone bad. He made their armor toughness to be about between that of an M113 and a Bradley. I don't have the stats with me but I may be able to get them.

I do remember a few times where we took out feral dragons using stingers but our weapon of choice was our old PIVAD 20mm Vulcan. We would lure them in using a cow as bait (horses worked a bit better but were too expensive to lose) and then open up on them when they were at close range. After the kill we harvested much of their body. The hide made great leather and body armor. The teeth and bones were made into tools and the various organ were processed into useful chemicals and medicine. The fire glands were especially useful in making explosives, heaters and as an additive for alcohol fuel.

The Dragons could hover and were amazingly maneuverable in the air, but usually clumsy on the ground and their wings were a bit fragile. Some of the wingless wyrms were nasty on the ground though. Most dragons were about as smart as dogs and could be trained if caught before hatching. If in the wild these ferals could be pretty nasty, but a small percentage were more curious than dangerous. About 10% of dragons were fully intelligent and would bond with a person upon hatching. These made great mounts but ate a hell of a lot. Wild intelligent dragons were more likely to be curious but if angered or more feral they were very nasty opponents.

Overall it was a great game and we ended up having five dragons in our group, one of which was a PC. We also had a recurring bad guy in the form of a feral intelligent dragon that called itself Schwarzhimmelteufel. We called him Scheissehauptteufel. He didn't care for that and he ate my horse!

I'll see if I can dig up more if you're interested.

Benjamin

[pmulcahy11b]

I once ran a campaign similar to that -- but the players were in a D&D world. The only dragon they encountered fell to a (ironically) Dragon ATGM and small arms fire.

[Raellus]

ADATS would be good for dragons since you can use them against airborne or surface targets.

Ironically, I would not want to try to use a Dragon (ATGM) to kill a Dragon. The chances of getting imolated while trying to hold the beast in your sights are just too great.

[copeab]

Doomfarers of Coramonde featured an M113 ACAV and it's crew transported to a fantasy world to kill a dragon.

Their plan was:
1) Have a crewman pretend to be a virgin sacrifice dressed up in, a well, dress. When the dragon got close enough, he tossed a WP grenade in the dragon's mouth. Didn't kill the dragon, but did expend all his ready fuel.
)2 Open fire with the MGs. The M60's had little effect, but the M2 was a major annoyance (like firing an automatic BB gun at a person's head) The wings were disabled, however, leaving the dragon unable to fly or breathe fire.
3) The commander forced the dragon's head down with the M2 and ... the driver slipped the M113 into reverse and backed over the dragon's head, crushing it.

[pmulcahy11b]

Doomfarers of Coramonde featured an M113 ACAV and it's crew transported to a fantasy world to kill a dragon.

Their plan was:
1) Have a crewman pretend to be a virgin sacrifice dressed up in, a well, dress. When the dragon got close enough, he tossed a WP grenade in the dragon's mouth. Didn't kill the dragon, but did expend all his ready fuel.

Definitely couldn't have been an American crew... No one of military age is a virgin anymore in this country...

[Cdnwolf]

Guess no one has seen the movie Reign of Fire then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Fire_(film)

Days later, a team of American volunteers arrive, led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and bringing a Chieftain tank and an Agusta A109 helicopter, piloted by Alex Jensen (Izabella Scorupco). Van Zan and his heavily armed band of 200 soldiers have devised an elaborate tracking system to hunt and kill dragons.

[copeab]

Definitely couldn't have been an American crew... No one of military age is a virgin anymore in this country...

As it turned out, the dragon was too old to care

[Cdnwolf]

What's a virgin Is that something like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus

[weswood]

Of course, if I were running the game, the heat seeking missiles would go after the fire the dragon breathed, not the dragon itself.

There was a show about dragons on the Discovery channel a couple years ago. I can't remember why, but the dragons would eat rocks of some type, maybe iron pyrite, for either fuel or the ignition source.

[copeab]

There was a show about dragons on the Discovery channel a couple years ago. I can't remember why, but the dragons would eat rocks of some type, maybe iron pyrite, for either fuel or the ignition source.

I remember that show. IIRC, it presented biologically "realistic" types of dragons.

Ah, four dragon types and it was on Animal Planet:

http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/dragons/

[Legbreaker]

Guess no one has seen the movie Reign of Fire then

Unrealistic in some ways (like Dragons!) but soooo cool.
Shame the greater bulk of the unit was so quickly defeated without adequately covering it in the film - seemed like thye tacked it on almost as an afterthought to give a reason why only three people were left to face the male.

[Adm.Lee]

When I was in college, I remember asking one of my military history profs to be a moderator for the game club (we were about 1/3 minis gamers, 2/3 RPG'ers). He asked me if D&D was still popular; he and his Air Force pals (apparently Vietnam vets) had tried it in the '70s. They found that satchel charges were effective against the dragons, but B-40 rockets worked much better.

He never did play with us, but he did visit a few times.