Current combat vehicle platforms vs extraterestial hordes - Some imagination and idea

Sci-Fi/Fantasy
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Well, I already post question on more sci-fi focused forums/live chat, though I want some input from a more military oriented forums like here as well.

By hordes, I mean the space bug or swarms of creatures with little individual intelligent, but make up by huge number and controlled by a mastermind. Think of Starship Troopers (the bugs), Starcraft (zerg) or Warhammer 40k (tyrannide), aliens (xenomorphs) or anything alike (no zombies). Generally speaking, these creatures are stronger than most known animals on earth, their number make it difficult, though they are not hard to be destroyed. They also have some armored and flying types here and there.

If earth gets attack, I gear toward autocannon, because they are great to fight numerous light target, then something to fight armored/airborn targets like missiles or more powerful cannon. Therefore, platform with autocannon and missile combined platform (2S6 Tunguska, ADATS FAAD, LAV-AD system) and tank with coaxial autocannon (AMX-30, T-72M Moderna) are my choices.

Which real life combat platform would you pick to fight them?

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Flame tank with a pull behind fuel tank.

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Modern vehicles (land, air or sea) aren’t intended to operate individually but work in concert to maximize their effects. So the real question is whether you want your team organised from one nation/alliance or a United Earth response where old hatchets are buried to bury the aliens. The latter would allow for special strike forces “cherry picked” from humanities finest, but one should not discount locally organised resistance with improvised equipment such as the 2nd Massachusetts in “Falling Skies” with a “Ma Deuce” mounted on a ragtop Goat (they claim, possibly a Pontiac Le Mans).
In Japan there are mini public service vehicles (Fire Engines, Postal Vans) built on micro truck chassis so they can negotiate the narrow alleyways of urban areas. I’m considering mounting a rocket pod from the Airfix 1:24th scale Harrier (scrounged from a friend) on an Aoshima Suzuki Sambar to produce the world’s smallest “Technical” used by local defence volunteers to hunt Kaiju/Mecha. As a model the “World’s Smallest Technical” title is under threat if someone mounts a HMG on MiniArt’s Tempo E400 Hochlader Pritsche 3-Wheel Truck. In the real world the Ukrainians may have already beaten it, they seem to have discovered a stock of preserved 1920s Maxim guns and have been mounting them on small vehicles as a contemporary version of their Cossack ancestors’ “Tachanka”. This one has fallen into enemy hands:

I’m also working on a post-apoc scenario, but commencing 1918/1919; the way 1919 was going in reality it wouldn’t have needed an alien invasion to push civilisation over the edge (although I’m positing an Imperial Russian bio-weapon program using extraterrestrial genetic material recovered from Tunguska…).

Cheers,

M

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40mm quad Bofors… worked great against the Divine Wind

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I’d opt for the Mark 47 automatic grenade launcher with fire control and 40mm HEDP rounds. You need the 40mm AGL fire control to not waste ammo and the Mark 47 with fire control ensures a hit. One also needs a larger bin of linked 40mm grenades than the standard box and SOF vehicles have larger ammo bins.

Have you ever noticed that in those Sci-Fi movies with alien hordes, they use bullets and not explosives? The same philosophy of taking apart the horde with intense sheer firepower of bullets is too weak, too slow, and too ammunition-intensive! One needs guided explosives…and lots of it!

It’s the explosives in these Sci-Fi horde movies that make the difference in ensuring a fast kill, but our “reluctant heroes” don’t seem to carry enough explosives, or are too close to use explosives. So they load up on bullets and yell and scream as the tiny bullets pepper the alien hides and don’t stop the horde.

So I’d pick the USSOCOM Flyer 60 or 72 with door-mounted Mark 47 7.62mm swing-arm machine guns (three) and one Mark 47 in the rear bed (perhaps four MMGs total), the Mark 47 AGL with 40mm HEDP grenades, and perhaps a four-shot laser-guided APKWS 2.75" Fletcher rocket pod to take out the massive bugs.

And Flyers don’t travel alone so I’d give the second Flyer a .50cal M2HB with SLAP ammo as the main gun, perhaps the third Flyer a 7.62mm or .50cal minigun, and the fourth Flyer a Mark 47 AGL. So that’s a 12-man A-Team in four Flyers with one driver, one Commander, and one gunner (three Operators per vehicle and have regular soldiers as passengers). We’re talking three 7.62mm medium machine guns and one heavy gun opening up per each vehicle, and hopefully each will have a 4-shot rocket pod too.

I’d carry as many M203 and M320 40mm under-barrel grenade launchers, grenades, M72 and AT-4s, Claymores, and plastic explosives as possible. Notice that one needs LOTS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES to destroy these hordes…bullets and flame won’t work that well (a la “ALIENS” and “StarshipTrooper” movies). One needs to send as much aimed lead and explosives downrange as possible.

The RIwP turret would work also.

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How about 15 or 20 ground mounted Phalanx CIWS… Or a Daisy cutter out the back of a Herc…:grin:

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The last “Big Blue 82” was expended in 2008, but Fear Not!, there is now MOAB with a filling of 21,600ib of a more effective explosive than the 12,600lb of the Daisy Cutter. They are conventional bombs, but the Russians claim they have a FAE (thermobaric) bomb with four times the blast effect of a MOAB. Note that the explosive yield of a MOAB is still only roughly equivalent to that of a “Davy Crockett” Mini–Nuke at it’s lowest yield setting…

Cheers,

M

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Yeah, I did know about the MOAB and the Russkie one … I just like saying Daisy Cutter lol :grin:

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Well, it seems that every sci-fi movie has ‘Bugs’ that are resistant to fire, explosion, bullets, electricity, blades and so forth. So I would use a vehicle with a big TV broadcasting reality TV shows. Nothing would turn them brain dead faster…

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Indeed, the sound blaster vehicles for psychological warfare were a thing in our history. Though, you grossly overestimate their intelligence!

Flame works, but in the source materials, they used much hotter flame for them to be effective (or for the rule of cool).

40mm grenade is a little slow and poor at range for vehicle base. And you are right, for whatever reason, the explosive stuff in movie are always used last. So my choices are anti-aircraft vehicles, they they can engage ground target anyway, with SAPHEI over HE-I for that penetration bit just in case. The WW2 era German stuff like the Wibelwind, Ostwind and even the limited number Kugelblitz are great, the armament of these vehicles all have APHE, HVAP and other exotic ammunition for some odd reason, as if the German had prepared for this scenario since. 40mm bofors are battle proven even in today combat at reliably taking out light/medium armored targets, it is some fine choice. Soviet 57mm, some of the biggest autocannon on land vehicle, is a little slow.

Though, modern systems like these 2 are just league above:
Russian 2S6M Tunguska with x4 30mm (same ammo as the 30mm on BMP series) and 8 missiles. The system is way over the top, even for Russia.

US LAV-AD GAU-12 25mm gatling cannon with 8 missles!

For support infantry, Mark 47 is enough, otherwise, something like the new SIG LMG with .338 Norma, weaker than .50BMG, but more powerful than 7.62 and easier to use for infanteers. Infantry laucher with Thermobaric and HESH (recoiless gun) warhead are brutal, but they are what needed here.

In Japan, Toyota and Honda chassis can be fitted with anything this world have to offer, it is not a fair fight.

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It’s even done in Aliens the 2nd movie in the franchise (one of my all time favourite movies after Heat and The Shawshank Redemption) the robot sentries apparently “really kick ass” and then have a 500 round capacity! They should be sitting on a bin full of rounds.
sentryguns2

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Depending upon the size of the bugs in the swarm, I’d simply go with hundreds of thousands of flechettes. Think larger versions of the pod used in Black Sunday. A few batteries of those could devastate a swarm.

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“plasma rifle in the 40 watt range”

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No mention of artillery and rocket systems yet that can saturate the area with bomblets or mines. It all depends on the situation and the terrain the alien swarm is traveling into…and of course airpower will make life miserable for any ground swarm.

Artillery cannon can shoot flechette rounds with little to no elevation, and artillery did during Human Wave attacks dating back to ancient times. Ironically, never mind alien swarms as Human Wave attacks were all too common in the Global War on Terror and the responses to them can be read in real non-fiction war books at your local bookstore. Ironically, mobile artillery and Anti-Aircraft vehicles were few and far between in Afghanistan where Fire Bases and airfields depended mainly on fixed mortars.

The USMC LAV-AD is a good option with the 25mm gatling gun and 2.75" rocket pods, but the truth is the USMC has no idea what happened to them! I asked them and they’re not listed on the roster. Notice that there are no recent photos of the LAV-ADs online.

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Might be asking the wrong joes. Seems they all with 4th LAR and some time around 2004 their unit got caught up in the USMCR reorganization and they where stricken. Sorta like 4th Tanks going away.

https://www.angelfire.com/tx6/lav_ad/index.html

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During the Iran-Iraq War there were a great many Iranian attacks based on the human wave tactic. It was not particularly successful overall largely due to the Iraqis building and setting up efficient lines of defense which improved as the war went on. These often included large sand berms, debris, mines, explosives, choke points, funnels, water flooding, barbed wire and elevated OP and weapon emplacements.

I always thought the old fashioned cannon ‘chain shot’ was a particularly brutal weapon when utilised against human targets- just a few pieces of iron that would mow down anything unlucky enough to be in the way.

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Hey hey, let’s not stray to human target.

Human has fear, which greatly reduce their effectiveness. Monster hordes are bigger and stronger than a man, say similar power of a car, but living organisms. Most depictions of them have lack of intellect to care, therefore lack of fear. The fear factor play a big role in human wave attack, but not much versus something more mindless.

On that, does anyone remember the explosive 12 gauge developed in the early 2000s? I remember it from Discovery Channel back in the day. It would be great for personal weapons. Though, at 5g A-5, I’m not sure about its effectiveness.

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I would also consider the Metal Storm weapon that uses EMALS to fire metal slugs.

While the metal slugs probably won’t penetrate advanced armor, it would work against hordes. It is essentially a smaller version of a railgun, just in multiples.

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You guys are way too technical. Just chase them down an smack the little boogers.

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Or just cut them apart with this. It has 6 giant spinning circular saw blades.

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Blow them away

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Yes- I remember seeing this in a documentary as well. Fascinating piece of machinery and a definite ‘go to’ for a massed horde!

@TopSmith - the yellow tree cutter reminds me of this.

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For slicing hordes extra thin :smile:!

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