US Military Confident it Could Stop a Real-Life Godzilla Attack

[Gorrath]

Act 2 of any Godzilla movie pretty much always goes like this.

General Military Man: Send out all the tanks and planes and shit!
Assistant Military Man: Yes sir!

*fight scene*

General Military Man: Status report on operation Godzilla-splodey!
Assistant Military Man: Godzilla ate everything.

General Military Man: ...crap.

Later, in the President's office.

President: What's the status of our attack General?

General: We've hit him with everything, including nukes, but nothing we have can stop him!

President: What about our scientists. Do they have any ideas?

General: Yes Mr. President, but there's still an hour and ten minutes left in the movie, so things are going to get worse before they get better. I'll start listening to that crackpot who warned us all of this would happen and make up for my hubris by dying heroically to give him enough time to figure things out.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

*wonders how many posts it'd take after the first post for someone to say "PSHAW, actual tactical authority who's had years upon years of experience? Fuck plausibility, we'd be totally screwed!"

I'm not an unpatriotic American by any stretch of the imagination. But c'mon duder, Godzilla would melt us all.

The second post! Excellent job clouding out reality in favor of geek culture worship, Escapists! Keep up that status quo!

I honestly can't tell if this is insulting or flattering. Seriously.

 

[Wulfram77]

Surely America could simply unleash King Kong?

 

[Arkynomicon]

Realistic Godzilla without the plot-armour would not last long if it started attacking cities.

 

[DrOswald]

This is a problem with any giant monster attack story-the monsters always need to be mysteriously bullet proof to explain why the military can't take them down. Not that I'm complaining! I like that idea in fiction.

That's what I was going to point out: it's not Godzilla's thick hide you need to penetrate, it's his plot-armor. It doesn't matter what weapons or ordinance you bring against Godzilla, according to his canon he's nigh indestructible when it comes to facing the military.

...hell, he's just nigh indestructible, period. =P

The only way to defeat plot armor is to create something that also has plot armor. This is why the Jaeger program worked. They created robots that were equally impossible and also equally cool to the kaiju, giving them equally powerful plot armor.

I think the US military could cook up some plot armor if it needed to. The question is if it would occur to anybody before it was too late.

Edit: This begs the question... If our survival ever depended on our need to create the most powerful plot armor imaginable, what should we do? How do we create the most powerful plot armor ever?

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Obviously any *real* creature would get it's armor eventually cracked by sustained attacks.
That is, after it could survive a hit by bunker busters AT ALL, which it probably couldn't.

Just think about the first Kaiju attack in Pacific Rim, seems realistic to me that even any regular force hastily assembled could whittle Godzilla down. We're talking realism in this situation, not magic "survives A-bombs... somehow"-armor that simply cannot exist IRL.

 

[Gorrath]

This is a problem with any giant monster attack story-the monsters always need to be mysteriously bullet proof to explain why the military can't take them down. Not that I'm complaining! I like that idea in fiction.

That's what I was going to point out: it's not Godzilla's thick hide you need to penetrate, it's his plot-armor. It doesn't matter what weapons or ordinance you bring against Godzilla, according to his canon he's nigh indestructible when it comes to facing the military.

...hell, he's just nigh indestructible, period. =P

The only way to defeat plot armor is to create something that also has plot armor. This is why the Jaeger program worked. They created robots that were equally impossible and also equally cool to the kaiju, giving them equally powerful plot armor.

I think the US military could cook up some plot armor if it needed to. The question is if it would occur to anybody before it was too late.

Edit: This begs the question... If our survival ever depended on our need to create the most powerful plot armor imaginable, what should we do? How do we create the most powerful plot armor ever?

If this were an international effort, my money is on the Japanese. They've been developing some of the most effective plot armor I've ever seen for decades. Of course part of plot armor relies on the creator knowing jack-all about science while being sophisticated enough to write grade-a bullshit, that's a strong recipe for a bit of good old American ingenuity.

 

[DrOswald]

This is a problem with any giant monster attack story-the monsters always need to be mysteriously bullet proof to explain why the military can't take them down. Not that I'm complaining! I like that idea in fiction.

That's what I was going to point out: it's not Godzilla's thick hide you need to penetrate, it's his plot-armor. It doesn't matter what weapons or ordinance you bring against Godzilla, according to his canon he's nigh indestructible when it comes to facing the military.

...hell, he's just nigh indestructible, period. =P

The only way to defeat plot armor is to create something that also has plot armor. This is why the Jaeger program worked. They created robots that were equally impossible and also equally cool to the kaiju, giving them equally powerful plot armor.

I think the US military could cook up some plot armor if it needed to. The question is if it would occur to anybody before it was too late.

Edit: This begs the question... If our survival ever depended on our need to create the most powerful plot armor imaginable, what should we do? How do we create the most powerful plot armor ever?

If this were an international effort, my money is on the Japanese. They've been developing some of the most effective plot armor I've ever seen for decades. Of course part of plot armor relies on the creator knowing jack-all about science while being sophisticated enough to write grade-a bullshit, that's a strong recipe for a bit of good old American ingenuity.

I'm getting a really fun conspiracy vibe here. Like there is a shadow council of 12 manipulating events on a global scale to create a single super weapon and a single super pilot to lead us to victory.

We would have to keep people in the dark though. If they know that the plot armor is there, if they count on it, then the plot armor would stop working. It stops being a story about the implacable spirit of man and becomes a story about the hubris of man. In addition, I don't think our hero would react well to finding out a giant monster was deliberately herded into their city to generate their tragic back story.

 

[Gorrath]

I'm getting a really fun conspiracy vibe here. Like there is a shadow council of 12 manipulating events on a global scale to create a single super weapon and a single super pilot to lead us to victory.

We would have to keep people in the dark though. If they know that the plot armor is there, if they count on it, then the plot armor would stop working. It stops being a story about the implacable spirit of man and becomes a story about the hubris of man. In addition, I don't think our hero would react well to finding out a giant monster was deliberately herded into their city to generate their tragic back story.

I like where your head's at here Dr. Oswald. Manipulating us up some tragedy to make our hero sympathetic and throwing him against "impossible odds" might just do the trick! Throw in a few "the fate of the world rests on your shoulders" and an adopted orphan he now has to (unwillingly) look after and we've got a recipe for a neigh-unkillable force!

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Act 2 of any Godzilla movie pretty much always goes like this.

General Military Man: Send out all the tanks and planes and shit!
Assistant Military Man: Yes sir!

*fight scene*

General Military Man: Status report on operation Godzilla-splodey!
Assistant Military Man: Godzilla ate everything.

General Military Man: ...crap.

Later, in the President's office.

President: What's the status of our attack General?

General: We've hit him with everything, including nukes, but nothing we have can stop him!

President: What about our scientists. Do they have any ideas?

General: Yes Mr. President, but there's still an hour and ten minutes left in the movie, so things are going to get worse before they get better. I'll start listening to that crackpot who warned us all of this would happen and make up for my hubris by dying heroically to give him enough time to figure things out.

I freakin' love you two. This is hilarious.

And being an uptight Military leader in a monster movie is akin to brushing aside Jeff Goldblum's concerns of impending pod-person takeover / dinosaur apocalypse / alien armageddon as "Nah, what's the chances of that actually happening?" You're pretty much screwed.

 

[Jodan]

Wellll we can't really know untill it acctually happens... so... soon?

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Surely America could simply unleash King Kong?

He would just get his ass handed it to him if it was anything but a really stormy day. Even then they'd both just fall into the ocean with no resolution to who wins.

 

[tkioz]

Honestly as cool as Movie Monsters are if anyone did a 'realistic' version of them they wouldn't last very long, most people don't really understand how balls crushingly powerful modern 'conventional' weapons are, or how many can be brought to the front rapidly.

Godzilla wouldn't be swatting down a half dozen fighter jets if he landed in a US city, he'd be facing *hundreds*, and they wouldn't be firing their machine guns at him from point blank range, they'd be kilometres away. Hell, I don't know if he can reach up to 40,000 feet to snatch a predator drone down as it rains hell-fire missiles on his arse, and I don't think he'd stand up very well to a few dozen cruise missiles fired from hundred of kilometres away.

 

[Mr. Q]

My initial reaction upon reading this article...


Joking aside, there are some comments that have some logical ideas on how to take Godzilla down. J. Tyan's in particular...

They wouldn't need nukes, or even need to go near it. The infantry could concentrate on evacuation, they could just drop GBU-57A/B MOP onto Godzilla and turn him into chunky kibbles.

14,000KG of kinetic death at near supersonic speed followed up by the warhead of 2.4 tons of high explosive, B2s can carry two of them at a time. Unless Godzillas skin is tougher than 60ft of bunker grade steel reinforced concrete he would be smashed apart just by the kinetic impact, after the bomb has penetrated his skin the explosives would go off. This would liquidise his internal organs, his tough skin would work against him as it would contain the thermobaric pressure wave inside his body and reflect and ricochet the blast wave around internally.

Even if it had super regeneration powers I doubt they could sort out literally liquidised internal organs.

I did some digging online to find out his attributes. Thankfully, there is a wiki for that.

http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Godzilla

While the actual measurements for the Legendary version are not yet known (just his height at the time of this posting), it does list the millennium version's max stats from his final appearance in Godzilla: Final Wars. According to the wiki, the previous Godzilla stood at over 328 ft tall, a little over 738 ft long, and weighting in at 55,000 tons. No mention of the thickness of his skin but, depending on which era Godzilla you go with, he's had powers ranging from regenerative abilities to even flight.

http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Godzilla#Abilities

I could say its possible the military can take down Godzilla, unless someone can come up with the actual thickness of his skin. I'd be more worried about the property damage left in his wake. ^^;

 

[Gorrath]

Act 2 of any Godzilla movie pretty much always goes like this.

General Military Man: Send out all the tanks and planes and shit!
Assistant Military Man: Yes sir!

*fight scene*

General Military Man: Status report on operation Godzilla-splodey!
Assistant Military Man: Godzilla ate everything.

General Military Man: ...crap.

Later, in the President's office.

President: What's the status of our attack General?

General: We've hit him with everything, including nukes, but nothing we have can stop him!

President: What about our scientists. Do they have any ideas?

General: Yes Mr. President, but there's still an hour and ten minutes left in the movie, so things are going to get worse before they get better. I'll start listening to that crackpot who warned us all of this would happen and make up for my hubris by dying heroically to give him enough time to figure things out.

I freakin' love you two. This is hilarious.

And being an uptight Military leader in a monster movie is akin to brushing aside Jeff Goldblum's concerns of impending pod-person takeover / dinosaur apocalypse / alien armageddon as "Nah, what's the chances of that actually happening?" You're pretty much screwed.

Jeff Goldblum? Damnit man you're hired! I want to see a script on my desk by the end of the week. This material practically writes itself! And try to see if you can get those eggheads down in Industrial Light and Magic to work a Nike swoosh into Godzilla's new, edgy look... Well don't just sit there, we've got a movie to make!

 

[Arkynomicon]

Just poison him with a lot of arsenic or something. That seems to kill most lifeforms on Earth.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

let's remember what godzilla is made of, being a presumably reptillian-like organism:
meat, bone and thick skin.

As far as I can tell, it's not exactly resistant against machinegun fire or guided missiles, a modest airforce could take him out.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Nope and the main reason why is he is an unstoppable force of nature, the only way to stop it is take out a quarter of the planet along with him.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Just because some movie shows him being invincible doesn't mean that a real life monster like that would be. That's just dumb. You see, in reality, there are these things called physics that govern what can and cannot happen. And you just can't say something is invulnerable to something so destructive as a nuke based on "because." There is no magical because I said so status in real life.

Same thing I thought of when watching Cloverfield and Pacific Rim. Sure, the damage would be immense but there is no way they would live against serious bombardment. People don't understand the sheer amount of energy and destructive force even conventional weapons can inflict. They are movie monsters and have to be formidable. In reality, dangerous sure. Nearly invulnerable? Not at all.

In reality, such a creature would not exist. His body would crush itself under it's own weight, even if his heart and lungs were magically able to sustain a system that big. Maybe on a super low gravity world with super rich food, but even then I doubt it outside of creatures restricted to the oceans. Look at how much large creatures like Blue Whales and Elephants have to eat to get by. Imagine something that big?

And to those of you comparing US/Nato military against "80 year old farmers" you're just stupid for so many reasons. It's far more complicated than that. You could probably beat Mike Tyson in his prime, if he were blindfolded, restrained, and had a muzzle on. But could you really boast you beat up Mike Tyson if that is what it took? So many handicaps are involved with dealing with cowards that hide among civilians. You have to hold back and try to be careful, and that slows things down but it is the right thing to do to avoid collateral damage.

But you know, it's not even worth it to explain any further to you, you obviously wouldn't understand.

Captcha: blah blah blah

Sounds about right.