Rock Beats Laser: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|We were defeated by one thing only -- by the inferior science of our enemies. I repeat -- by the ''inferior'' science of our enemies.}}
* There's a short story called ''Hawk Among the Sparrows'' about an advanced jet fighter accidentally sent back in time to the First World War. The American pilot thinks he can win the air war single-handed. However, his radar cannot pick up the mostly canvas-and-wood biplanes of the era, his guided missiles are useless as they are designed to lock onto jet exhausts not piston engines, his engines are fueled by what is used mainly as lamp oil and field-heater fuel, so he cannot get a sufficient regular supply, and even then needs to filter it, and his plane flies faster than bullets, so a gun cannot be fitted. {{spoiler|Eventually he works out that the supersonic wash from his plane is enough to rip apart the German planes he is up against.}}
** Which is [[Just Plane Wrong]] - the stall speed for an F-15 is approximately 75 knots, or approximately the same as the top speed of a Piper Cub. Other high-performance aircraft have similar characteristics. At minimum safe flight speed he'd still be going faster than WWI aircraft, but in about the same ratio that an FW-190 was faster than a B-17 -- IOW, more than slow enough to shoot them down all day.
* As the protagonist of a Christopher Stasheff SF novel points out, anyone who denigrates the abilities of primitives armed with "sticks and stones" has never experienced a volley of stone-tipped arrows fired from ambush.
* In the first story arc of the ''[[Deathstalker (novel)|Deathstalker]]'' series, slow-charging energy weapons and highly-effective energy shields have rendered the advanced weapons ineffective in ground battles. After an opening volley of disruptor fire, most soldiers charge into melee with swords. This tactic allows for a brutal example of this trope later. The protagonist's party locates a cache of "ancient" kinetic projectile weapons, including very effective machine guns. When they face an army using the standard disruptor-melee combination, they slaughter their enemy with machine gun fire when they drop their shields. The advances in technology had forced them to use primitive weaponry, which were useless against the antiquated/more advanced weapons.
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