Who would win between a modern fighter and a dragon?

Fighter can probably target and shoot missiles at it from several miles off, well out of the dragon's perception range.

Hope the dragon is paying attention.

If we're talking Shadowrun, of course, then the dragon because it's a fucking dragon.

holy shit gurps is worse than i thought, what the fuck

Oh yeah it's so much worse than D&D where the dragon would have a lot of HP and AC and DR, that the missiles would do a lot of damage, and the dragon would be low on HP and reeling and only survive thanks to its many feats.

>GURPS is the absolute truth!
Worse than Pathfags.

what fighter and what setting is the dragon from? a hellfire missile would probably wreck a dragon if it was from most dnd settings.

i feel you were trying to be sarcastic but failed

depends on the setting

feuerschwinge wrecked shit in berlin after the awakening and i dont doubt they threw a fighter or ten at her

Depends on context.

There are stories where dragons are basically flying dinosaurs that puke fireballs. There are also stories where dragons eat up literal gods like candy.

>he thinks a creature of flesh and bone can survive an anti-tank missile.

If the dragon has more in common with shoggoths, radar-guided SAM sites and particle accelerators than actual dragons, there isn't much that fighters can do.

>he thinks dragons are creatures of flesh and bone

m-muh humanity fuck yeah

magic, motherfucker

there's no beating that edge pool

>BRRRRRRRRT

this isn't humanity fuck yeah, it's technology fuck you.

sure thing, underage b&

probably the fighter unless the dragon is a caster, xboxhueg enough or has a gimmick that fucks up targeting or gives itself bullshit manoeuvrability

That is Untrue. The zero was a fine fighter with excellent mobility. It stacked favorably against early war US aircraft. But multiple issues such as lack of trained combat pilots, supply lines and American air superiority affected its effectiveness against late ware planes

I'm not convinced that a sidewinder would lock on. The guided missile rules usually assume that the weapon is locking onto the kind of target that it's intended to. Unless it's using its breath weapon, a dragon doesn't have the IR signature of even a stealthy jet. Highly visible compared to other creatures, but nowhere near a jet aircraft.

The main problem is speed and maneuver. A dragon's maximum speed is close to a fighter's stall speed. You'd be using fast pass rules. Neither have weapons well suited for fighting the other.

Remember also that a dragon would have spellcasting. Deflect Missile Weapon would work nicely vs cannons. Also, a dragon that knew what it was facing would probably get into mountainous terrain and land. Casting shapeshift or stealth spells would rock.

But overall I think you're right. If a dragon's armor is such that a mighty but still human hero can cut through it, then any modern antivehicle weapon can tear right through. You can rebalance dragons to change that, but then forget muscle powered weapons having any effect-- you're fighting Godzilla at this point.

In the modern age, a dragon's best weapons are his intellect, strong personal magnetism, and magical ability.

Well what else are you supposed to do? If you have some other system where you can quantify and compare dragons and fighter jets, go right ahead.

The bottom line is that a dragon's armor in nearly every setting can be penetrated by at least near-peak human effort, at least in some places. Modern heavy weapons hit far, far harder. So in a slugfest, it's open and shut, regardless of what system you use.

Of course, a dragon is usually smart enough to avoid a slugfest. That's another question.

The zero was excellent at the beginning of the war. But Japan decided to not bother with R&D to improve it. By the end of the war, they were trash because everyone else worked at a breakneck pace to come out with improved designs.

And obviously also what you said about supplies and trained pilots.

No mundane weapon can pierce the scales of a dragon. No mundane being can hope to face the might of a dragon. No mundane army can hope to survive the wrath of a dragon.

The answer is entirely setting-specific, so I gave a setting-specific answer.

>laser guided bomb blasts dragon to pieces from several kilometers away
>some random paladin claims he defeated the dragon with a holy smite from the heavens

Honestly if we're going by D&D 3.5 rules, it really depends on the gunner of that fighter. Simple Ranger spells like Hunter's Mercy get really silly when you use d20 Modern rules to model the typical guns found on modern fighters (10d10 is insane). With various crit damage boosters, you could easily one-shot a CR 20 dragon so long as it didn't have any magic boosting its defenses. That said, a CR 20 dragon could just summon a sphere of annihilation (black hole) and foil all ranged attacks categorically by being in the center of a perpetual hurricane because Batman Wizards.

Strip away the magic on both and it's easily the fighter. Dragons are just too slow.

The Dragon.
Related: youtube.com/watch?v=zeYz56_oJwg

Yeah most dragons exist to be fought with swords, not modern weapons.
Modern times would need some of those fancy Shadowrun dragons or the kind that can transform into humans.

>I tried to make some comparison using D&D rule but it wasn't really convincing.
almost like D&D doesn't accurately simulate supersonic air superiority craft

So Dragon vs Old Cargo Airplane?

youtu.be/G80XpHACiuw

Have fun with that.

Well, thinking about Shadowrun dragons at least, I imagine something akin to the cinematic. Jets would get proper fucked. youtu.be/MVbeoSPqRs4?t=21

Not to mention what Aden did to the Iranians.

GURPS Technomancer runs with that, and finds a good role for them.

Dragons were bred and fielded (very effectively) in the US army, not for use against aircraft, but to augment infantry with an air-mobile and human-intelligent transport capable of wielding heavy weapons, carrying supplies and living off the land.

St. George killed a dragon with just a lance.

As long as the fighter pilot is pure of heart and motivated by a love of god and country, his missiles will get the job done.

St George TAMED the dragon, by being pure of heart and using the power of Jesus.

Diplomancers are OP

play more moderns and historicals.
...with veterans

your lingo will expand

Nice.

>B25
it's a light bomber turned gunship you dolt.

So a non-modern bomber?

My bad.

The zero was one of the best in the 1940s

If it's a D&D 3.5 dragon, there's no contest.

A great wyrm red dragon is a level 19 sorcerer.
The biggest, tankiest, and scariest level 19 sorcerer you can imagine,
but its magic is so advanced, none of that really matter for this scenario.

...

2 things that might be interesting in this discussion:

Can you get a radar lock from a dragon?
Can you get an IR lock from a dragon?

Granted dragons are filled with fire and shit, but would the exterior of their skin be hot enough for an IR seeker head to lock on to? my guess would be no.

So without a radar or IR lock, you can't fire missiles at it. Which leaves you with cannons and perhaps unguided rockets.

It would come down to maneuverability. A dragon has a head that can pivot, and a body that can twist and turn, giving it an insane angle of attack. It could spit fire at you from behind, while a fighter can only fire cannons or rockets directly ahead.

My guess is a dragon would probably fuck up even a modern fighter. The fighter might get a few hits with the cannon, but dragons can take an insane amount of punishment, and the first flame breath from the dragon is going to cause a very bad time for a fighter.

The next question is - how powerful is a dragons flame breath - are we talking superheated plasma? or just a fireball like burning petrol?

If it was superheated plasma, a fighter wouldn't stand a chance - one hit and it would be destroyed.
If it was just a fireball like a petrol explosion, a fighter could easily just fly through it.

The other problem a fighter might have is that a dragon could physically grab the fighter, smash it with claws or teeth - that would be a huge problem for a fighter and one good hit could cripple it or destroy it.

It would be an interesting battle. Of course if you can get an IR or radar lock on a dragon things would be quite different - you could fire missiles from BVR and likely cause a shit ton of damage (or even kill it) before you even got close.

Also - if dragons are immune to fire, does that mean they are immune to hellfire missiles? The shrapnel would cause damage, but would the kinetic energy of a shaped charge punch through a dragons armor if it had some kind of magical immunity to fire?

There's not really any reason to think you wouldn't get a radar lock on it. It's not like radar only detects metal.

Depends on the creature. Special weaknesses are a thing.

Technically, you can drop every single nuclear weapon in the world on a werewolf, and the werewolf will survive because none of them were a silver bullet. Werewolves have to be killed by silver, that's the rules. Take it up with god.

If we are dealing with dragons from a setting like Dragon Venom (dragonhide can only be pierced by obsidian, because they share a magical affinity) the fighter jet cant do shit.

True that, radar would easily detect a dragon.

This forum completely wrecks any chance a dragon might have:
physicsforums.com/threads/can-radar-detect-flying-animal.463038/

Considering that dragons are system-/setting-relative, GURPS' answer offers absolutely no further indication than how well GURPS dragons would fare against GURPS fighters.

Well shit man, dragons got fucked up by normal knights, a modern fighter jet would be the instrument of dragon genocide. They can shoot over the horizon for fuck's sake.

>(dragonhide can only be pierced by obsidian, because they share a magical affinity) the fighter jet cant do shit.
With sufficient impact, piercing is not necessary. If the dragon's insides are completely wrecked by an explosion, it dies even if its hide is still perfectly fine.

Grorious nippon steerr, folded one soursand times!

>The zero was a fine fighter

>turn and burn fighter
>good

Every modern weapon will absolutely shit on anything short of the actual divine powers in a fantasy setting.

Okay, that is straight-up nonsense. He's Saint George the Dragon-SLAYER, not Dragon-Tamer.

Given that magical bullshit can handwave literally any discussion away, let's assume we're talking generic fantasy dragons.

If you're not aiming for a weak point, like under the arms, or a soft belly or something, it's reasonable to assume that a sword or a lance that isn't enchanted as fuck isn't going to do a goddamn thing. Siege weapons might. So that's equivalent to what, 50-80mm of steel plate? No way in hell a mortal human could cut through that. And even its 'weak' points are presumably as tough as tanned or boiled leather.

An M1 Abrams tank has armour that varies in effectiveness from 360mm to 700mm and even THAT gets literally sawed in half by a GAU-8. Granted, most aircraft, especially air superiority fighters, don't use that gratuitously oversized exercise in overkill, but even the kind of outdated F-15 uses the M61 Vulcan, a 20mm cannon. These weapons typically are fitted with bursting ammunition that would have no trouble shredding a dragon's wings and soft parts, but would have little effect on its scales. Replace those bursting rounds with ball or AP ammunition however and I guarantee that 80mm of steel is no protection. The vulcan has an effective range of over two kilometers as well, to say nothing of heat-seeking or radar-guided missiles (depending on if a dragon has a significant heat signature, or is just a bigass target that can eat multiple horses or cows in a meal every couple of days or so). A dragon's firebreath? Well we don't have numbers, but I'd guess maybe as far as a longbow or ballista's maximum range or so; so maybe 400-500m.

Even with a dragon's advantage in maneuverability or potential to use magic equivalent to an experienced or skilled mage or archmage, we're still not talking a serious threat.

Considering a dragon from a generic fantasy world, mages cannot be that much of a gamechanger, or the world would not resemble what it does! If a skilled mage, or more than one mage in a thousand, is capable of more damage than say, a few trebuchets, there would be no castles or castle-towns. These individuals would have such a knock-effect as to re-shape all of society away from the Early-to-High Middle Ages which our supposed typical fantasy world resembles. Granted, an archmage may be significantly more dangerous and a dragon, equivalent to them, could presumably level a castle single-handed, given a few hours and no interference. But if we consider that, then it only turns into a slightly more even fight. A dragon is simply not specialized to fight supersonic, areal threats, capable of striking it from kilometers away, with weapons specifically designed to eliminate hardened targets. A dragon is a hunter; an apex predator not used to facing threats in its element; it's the king of the skies, so its only real challenges would come from giants or mighty beasts of the land or sea, which it could escape by flight, if it felt itself threatened.

A slightly more even fight would be a dragon against an infantry section or platoon, with maybe a light armoured vehicle or IFV in support. Infantry weapons would pose a threat to the dragon only in its vulnerable points, with squad automatic weapons capable of harassing it and potentially shredding its scales through sustained fire (if the dragon was kind enough to stand very still and let them concentrate fire). Man-portable anti-tank weapons, or high-caliber guns would certainly pose more of a threat, capable of seriously injuring the dragon, but would they be able to stand up to firebreath capable of melting steel? Steel's melting point is 1370 Celsius, so to melt it swiftly, a dragon's breath would have to be at least that, maybe as high as 1800 Celsius. Napalm can combat-kill light vehicles and only reaches 1200 Celsius on a good day. An infantry group could probably kill a dragon, sure, but it'd be a MUCH closer fight.

>you can drop every single nuclear weapon in the world on a werewolf, and the werewolf will survive.

I don't think you can classify radioactive ash as "alive"

Listen, I love the A10 and shit, BUT... the A10 was designed for ground support, not air-to-air combat. I mean it's fucking cool but I don't think it'd do too hot in a fight against a dragon.

Someone needs to watch Monster Squad.

...

So he's not supposed to answer at all unless it's a universally true answer for all systems and all settings? Then what is this thread for?

Exactly. And even if a silver weapon is ten, or a hundred times more effective than something 'mundane', a nuke at 10% or 1% power is still enough to kill a werewolf.

That's to say nothing of what determines 'effectiveness' here. Can a monster not hit with its weakness straight-up ignore all laws of physics? Does getting hit with a wrecking ball NOT made of silver just result in the werewolf cracking the ball or bouncing it off like a balloon? What about its weight? What about the resistance of whatever the werewolf hits? Does silver make it easier to cut its hide? What about inhaling a toxin or cracking its bones and pulping its organs? Is silver toxic to the werewolf? Does its presence make the beast weaker in a localised area? Then there has to be SOME level of MUNDANE force and damage that would kill it!

Dragons don't fly fast enough to have it really count as "air to air".

It would be more like strafing a target in the air.

What... is the airspeed velocity of a dragon?

>An M1 Abrams tank has armour that varies in effectiveness from 360mm to 700mm and even THAT gets literally sawed in half by a GAU-8.
Not really. Even against the T-62 they didn't expect the penetrate the frontal armor.

And someone else needs to watch Monster Squad. Okay I'll expand on that, becoming a werewolf was a curse that could only be broken by being killed by a silver weapon. So it doesn't matter that the werewolf gets hit by a car, kicked in the nads, and reduced to gibbets by dynamite. His body just puts itself back together from almost nothing so he can go back to being a murderous beast until he gets put down with silver.

Yeah, a Dragon could catch a SUPERSONIC FIGHTER and grab it.

Assuming we're dealing with your stereotypical western fantasy dragon, as imagined in the 20th century, probably the speed of a fast car, far outpaced by every jet I'm aware of.

A jet, especially modern ones, would be too fast for a dragon to grab, especially since they can fly much higher.

And if not, we'd design a jet that can fuck up a dragon. Human ingenuity will always beat nature.

It was superior to US fighters of the time when it was first in production and when they first entered the war.

Compare the zero to US fighters of 1940 and you'll see how good it was.

Pretty much everything across the board was superior to US equipment at the start of the war though - they were behind just as in WW1. Didn't take them long to catch up though.

I mean, when you think about it, a dragon is basically just a Hind attack helicopter with all weapons replaced by a front mounted napalm projector.

>The other problem a fighter might have is that a dragon could physically grab the fighter, smash it with claws or teeth - that would be a huge problem for a fighter and one good hit could cripple it or destroy it.

This would be very bad for both the fighter and the dragon. The fighter would get shredded by its own speed and the dragons arms, while the dragon would have it's limbs ripped off by trying to catch a jet that's whizzing by at past the speed of sound.

This may or may not kill the dragon, but it will certainly be extraordinarily uncomfortable.

Are you making fun if my sexual identity you fucking bigot?

Modern fighter by far.

>Way faster.
>Way heavier firepower.

The Dragon wouldn't know what hit it before being blown into oblivion.

No one ever mentioned supersonic and we don't really have flight characteristics or top speeds for dragons - they can be as fast as a writer wants to make them.

Also many aircraft are subsonic these days - the harrier for example.

Faster speeds also decrease an aircraft's maneuverability. You have a pretty wide turn arc at mach 2.

A dragon could be a major problem for an aircraft on take-off or landing....

I know ameri/k/ans get hot throbbing boners whenever nukes are mentioned, but please keep back your weaponloving autism long enough to acknowledge we're talking about fantasy.

Fantasy is a genre based on pretenses that may well go against things like the laws of physics and even logic. Each fantasy setting has its own set of 'rules'.

Let's use Superman as an example. Superman's powers come from the fact that he's arrived from a planet with a much feebler sun than our own, so our sun gives him superpowers.
That's not how it works, and by all logic Superman should be burned to a crisp by solar radiations alone, let alone able to tank a supernova.
But in the context of DC's universe, Superman has superpowers; if this was a thread about "How would Superman fare against a modern fighter?", pollac/k/s arguing that Superman should realistically be torn apart by rapid-fire weaponry would be sorely wrong.

If in a given setting werewolves take extremely reduced damage from non-silver weapons, then sure, these werewolves would still be vaporized by a nuke, damage reduction or not.
If, instead, these werewolves were ENTIRELY IMMUNE to mundane harm, and impact, pressure, heat and radiation were to be counted as 'mundane' by that setting's logic, then that werewolf would be immune to nukes.
That's how fantasy WORKS, for fuck's sake.

ANd that, , is why we can't give any meaningful answer.

Returning to the previous similitude, we could answer "how would a modern fighter fare against Superman", because we have enough information about Superman and in how many ways he rapes common sense and physics; but this thread's OP question is as loose as would be "how would a modern fighter fare agains a superhero". How the fuck am I supposed to answer? What superhero? Which power does it have? In what universe?, etcetera.

What we can do, for example, is speculate about setting-specific dragons.

Well that does sounds like a shitty weapon system.

...

>front mounted

Except a dragon could swivel it's head and twist its body in flight.
Its more like a 360 degree line of sight napalm launcher.

You had an opportunity and you missed it, user.

Came to post this.
Euro-fighter Typhoon vs Eldritch Dragon proves a surprisingly even match

Yeah, the hinds front mounted cannon can rotate.

This like goku vs superman. Who gives a fuck.

People who want to put fantasy and dragons in their modern settings, I'd assume.

Is that that show where a couple Japanese special ops take down a Spetnatz and Navy SEAL team with no causalities and then the characters get together and circlejerk over the Japanese Defense Forces?

>F-4 Phantom and brown elf waifu
WHAT SERIES IS THIS?

That and pretend that "wow, people with machine guns beating a medieval setting shows how badass we are! Look at this one sided slaughter, clearly this is drama!".

Fuckers also don't realize how badly D&D, the most generic of Fantasy worlds, would utterly destroy the modern world. Here's a bunch of two words to describe what I mean because just one isn't enough.

>Summon Undead. Wraiths unkillable. Exponential growth.

>absolutely abominable roll rate, high-speed performance, and VNE
Yeah nah m8. The trained 1000 times pilots went 1:1 with Average Joe USN in Wildcats.

Modern IR missiles can lock on to the aircraft itself and not just the big heat, thanks to imaging sensors.

youtube.com/watch?v=G80XpHACiuw

Modern fighter. The dragon might be a walking behemoth of destruction, but fighters can use any weapon. This includes weapons of mass destruction - fighters intrinsically learn all nuclear launch codes as a class feature.

Boom-and-zoom wins, dragons don't have the speed to compete.

A dragon vs helicopter is more balanced.