Imagine that tomorrow some genius scientist invents a material which is lightweight, easy to mold and is completely impervious to bullets. It is, however, pretty expensive, costing about $8,000 to equip a single soldier with it. It is also hard when molded, like steel. Soldiers wear armor that covers their whole body, from bulletproof shoes to bulletproof helmets. The most effective way to kill an armored soldier is to either get lucky and have the bullet slip between the armor plates, or to run up to them with a pointy thing and stab them in the gaps.
So my question is, once that guns become ineffective against even basic infantry, how would war change, and what countries would come out on top if war breaks out? I imagine that smaller states would have a bigger impact in the world after that, just like they did in times when warfare consisted of stabbing the enemy with a spear.
Also, the armor does not stop artillery or tank rounds. It does stop shrapnel, though, so artillery is a lot less effective.
Jayden Gomez
artillery would rise to dominate warfare, along with air power since that is the only effective counter towards artillery.
Easton Bell
>easy to mold and is completely impervious to bullets.
I don't think you know how this works.
Evan Cook
NBC is a thing you know, and the US still has a looooot of VX
Thomas Baker
Whats to stop everyone being armed to the death with explosives and flamethrowers? I think you should instead ask;
>What if all explosive material in the world disappeared and we were unable to make more - meaning a return to melee combat as the primary effective killing machine. That is before automatic crossbows become mass produced.
Connor Hughes
This. It’s already happened, artillery dominates warfare alongside air superiority.
Samuel Green
if it's easy to mold it will be chainmailed
Carson Nguyen
Artillery has to be supported by infantry, otherwise it can be easily captured by the enemy infantry. I think that a single WW2 artillery piece required a crew of 50-100 soldiers.
Easy to mold as in "we can melt it and pour it into molds, and when it sets, it is bulletproof"
I like to try more possible questions. But I think that flamethrowers and shit are banned by the Geneva convention, and most armies abide by it, even shitholes. As for explosives, they mostly rely on shrapnel to kill.
Michael Rivera
Chemical warfare
Aaron James
also, guns are already ineffective, being a soldier is one giant meme. ur absolutely useless
Anthony Gonzalez
Soldiers are not worth that much.
Bentley Bailey
we just haven't had a war yet to prove this point. in a war shit & its effectiveness gets put to the test.
Cameron Smith
What is a Molotov cocktail?
Gavin Reyes
But that's kinda illegal. And also very risky, since a gust of wind can fuck up your own soldiers like in WW1. Also, let's assume that people follow the rules of war.
Jackson Richardson
Currently yes. But if a bunch of super armoured soldiers get hit with high explosives the blast effect would kill them in their armour without drawing blood.
Levi Evans
Then try to control certain area without soldiers. Sure you can nuke everything but it won't be profitable.
Camden Myers
soldiers are for occupying and policing.
Eli Ramirez
>>So my question is, once that guns become ineffective against even basic infantry Use more gun
Cooper Ross
That's true, though with modern warfare, soldiers are usually fairly dispersed, so pure explosives would be prohibitively expensive since you'd need so much of them. Also, the enemy could employ Stalingrad tactics, hugging your lines, so blowing them up would also blow up your soldiers.
Samuel Bennett
Effective range of most assault rifles is 300 meters, where as towed artillery has range of 10-15 kilometers not to speak of mobile artillery. Infantry simply has no means to approach artillery positions.
Artillery pieces require a crew of 3-4 personnel or at least it used to be somewhere between that when I served.
Henry Sullivan
A sword isn't going to be able to penetrate something a bullet can't.
Don’t forget the diamond drill bits needed to drill for that oil which cost 6,000,000 lives per soldier
Jonathan Moore
>The force of the bullets magically don't cause serious injury anymore Sure they won't bleed to death anymore, but I still can inflict a ton of different trauma with guns.
Ayden Cruz
Everyone would use explosives
Adam Baker
Soldiers can be microwaved, gassed, blown to bits or even electrocuted.
Caleb King
>would rise
arty, air and armor are what warfare is all about.
Andrew Baker
>user invents kevlar user, you need to go to Jow Forums more, we're very close to this point anyway, modern body armor has no problem stopping multiple rifle bullets, and exoskeletons will soon get better and will allow to carry moar of it to become pretty ridiculous
Jackson Lopez
>Geneva convention Literally implying that this matters
Michael Taylor
and I'm pretty sure the direct impact of a bullet in your chest even clad in thick kevlar would still at the very least make you seek cover, so I wouldn't say anything would change much maybe new calibers/bullet types?
OP is obviously a fag. I stopped reading after you said "lightweight" bullets. There is a reason bullets are made out of lead you retard.
Nicholas Lee
What do you idiots not understand about Tesla tech? Theres spaceships with laser beams being produced in secret for 40+ years.
Once the mind control is broken and the aggregate of humans wake up to human slavery by government, they are going to bio gas a bunch of people and use brute force space ships to keep everyone else in line
Kayden Garcia
>what if guns become ineffective What are grenades and explosives?
Sebastian Perez
>Use more gun
damn straight.... if they can make better armor, they can make higher caliber and yet easier to carry (lighter) guns.
Motherfucking red queen, all up in this bitch.
Logan Perez
>So my question is, once that guns become ineffective against even basic infantry, how would war change read dune
Completely the opposite, the third world and small states would be even more fucked.
Adrian Sullivan
>>Geneva convention >Literally implying that this matters
Generally speaking, the geneva convention is followed simply because the weapons it prohibits are too fucking gruesome to use.
The geneva convention bans weapons that are basically designed to main a person for life.
Weapons that outright kill someone, and thus spare them a miserable existence are fine.
Mines for example are generally frowned on by the geneva convention, because cleaning them up afterwards is a hassle, and they regularly kill civilians, even years after a conflict.
The Geneva convention doesn't tie any militaries hands behind their backs.
Sand people would continue to use IEDs to blow up US soldiers, because they can never win in gunfights anyway. It would probably be given to police and infantry. It would be banned for being too "dangerous". The only interaction 99% of westerners would see from it is some ISIS zealot using it to shoot up some major city
Jonathan Gomez
>war >illegal Lmao, you believe in some Disney type of war were the enemies respectfully shake their hands before killing each other? You do everything necessary to win, because it is either you or them.
Evan Edwards
Hey, we used to have those before somebody decided to go full retard.
Luke Young
Artillery is vulnerable to close aerial support and guerilla warfare (if in a particularly dense environmental situation), bonus point if stealth technology is used. Even I know this and I'm an absolute dunce in military strategy. Don't make the mistake of WWI-era fools charging artillery with infantry.
Justin Hughes
Bear in mind the artillerymen will also have magic armour, and they can use emplaced guns. Guerillas aren't going to do shit, and air support isn't infantry.
Magic armour would in fact make warfare a lot more like WW1.
Thomas Jenkins
>how would war change, and what countries would come out on top if war breaks out? Lasers, flamethrower and microwaves, not to mention co2 bomb or chemical warfare.
the slav is right. You should see what the Jews in Israel are using via ceramic ball filled body armor. That shit stops ak rounds and leaves simple welts after!
James Phillips
we would have to sell such a amazing material to Israel.
Bentley Thomas
What the fuck are you talking about? The force of even a .50 bullet spread over the area of a small plate is completely no lethal. A gun exerts the same force when shooting and then the bullet hits you. Newton's second law.
Angel Reed
Explosive, larger caliber, higher velocity bullets. Laws of physics still apply.
Julian Jones
>wars are won by small arms meme
desu nothing really changes, basically all conflicts right now are armoured soldiers vs towelheads and infantry are practically outdated anyways
Henry Thompson
I bet there's a ton of ways to kill a guy in magic armour. Many good options listed. However! If it's this much of a hassle to kill a single soldier, then you should look outside of the combat itself. An old strategy is to target your enemies food supply for instance. Poisoned wells and burned fields, or spreading disease among the population. I think it's way more interesting to look at the things you could do outside of direct combat to stop magically armoured fighters. Hallie Selassie simply bribed his opponents soldier- he literally bought their weapons off them - and secured his position.
A hard material offers zero protection from high explosives so we'd just start using grenade launchers a lot more (buy our XM29, only 6 gorillion a piece)
Gavin Evans
Are you taking into account that explosions can cause major internal damage to humans? Shockwave from arty can liquify insides.
we'd just have to get more creative in the ways we killed each other.
Henry Scott
Fucking krauts
Grenades usually kill through shrapnel though, the explosion is really small.
Jacob Carter
bullets lol. HE & WP mortar. Gas. And let's not forget good old fire.
Kayden Rogers
Laser weapons. Burn the eyes of the enemy soldier.
A blind solder cannot fight, and also a blind soldier adds costs to the enemy.
Colton Reed
Fuck the Geneva Con. amirite? HUEHUEHUEHUE JAJAJAJAJA
Hudson Hernandez
Militaries would make that obsolete faster than when they introduced gas masks
Also what are the Geneva conventions monkey?
Blake Adams
Those are shrapnel grenades you are describing, I proposed that we'd be using high explosive grenades to directly hit armored soldiers. I get you just want melee combat but you'll have to wait for proper power armor and ligh sabers for that.
Juan Bell
Bruh
Ethan Powell
Nukes, missiles, and gas will still be around.
Also lasers that melt you from the inside.
Evan Perry
If such a thing was invented there would still be internal bleeding from the impact on said plates. I don't care if you have level 4 plates, try getting hit with 550 grains of 45-70. A bullet might not penetrate, but you will get knocked on your ass and not have a good day. Best case scenario you're flat on the ground and incapacitated, worst case scenario you have internal bleed and you will die. Also keep in mind there are 12ga frag grenades, so for military vs military warfare these and large caliber center fire rifle calibers would be the order of the day until directed energy weapons were employed. Also see Mk19/GMG. All that being said I could see elite units getting such armor, but for the average grunt we give our soldiers garbage as is, I doubt they'd get any such armor. As long as there's giant military industrial complex boondoggles to dump money into (aircraft carriers, bradley AFV's, etc) our soldiers will continue to get shit equipment. Look at the new US standard rifle caliber they're looking at. It's been near a decade and it's been on and off "yes we're doing it" one year and "we don't need it" the next.
Hunter Nguyen
Small arms makers would up the velocity and Doctrine itself would change. Soldiers would be trained to charge up close and personal so the loss of velocity over range would not be a factor. Basically it will be like call of duty or halo. fierce firefights at relatively close range.
Lucas Price
So.. carbon fibre
Josiah Brown
Bullets carry very little power, though. Definitely not enough to cause internal bleeding if they hit a big plate. If they were that strong, soldiers wouldn't be able to fire them, you do realize that?
Robert Perry
>what are buffer springs
Hudson Ward
explosives
Logan Hill
>pretty expensive, costing about $8,000 to equip a single soldier Do you have any clue how much the gear most modern military's costs is?
Gabriel Torres
As for what I'd guess would change I'd imagine more use of flamethrowers as impervious to bullets doesn't mean oxygen independent.
