If a dragon can survive a MBT shooting it easily, does that mean it must also survive falling?

[ExTank]

@Trinopus

No. Really, really hard armor will not save you if you fall from a great height. Imagine, if you will, wearing a suit of miraculous (non-magical, but futuristic) “Iron Man” armor. And falling from a great height.

You die from internal injuries. Your brain smashes against the inside of your skull; your heart tears away from the aorta; your spine telescopes.

(“Ever drop a wrench inside a submarine?”)

@Folacin

People should stop fighting your hypothetical.l

The fall could kill him because all of his internal organs would slam to his chest/back/ass (depending on orientation on hitting) at terminal velocity and would likely get, to be technical, smushed.

@naita

You’re right, they are wrong. Unless it’s able to survive projectiles giving it a sudden change in momentum similar to what it experiences when hitting the ground the comparison is flawed.

:smack: Why do we need so many long-winded ways of saying, “It ain’t the fall that kills ya; it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

[snfaulkner]

Ok, we’re assuming “little to no magic” in the dragon. How much magic can we assume the Abrams has?

[MrDibble]

@Finagle

There’s a weird trope in some fantasy genres (cough Buffy cough) that bullets never work, but punching the bad guy really really hard does the trick.

Buffy seems to be an exception to this trope, not an exemplar.

Well, rocket launchers, not bullets, but still…

[Chisquirrel]

@Darren_Garrison

Is this the same Snarf that used to hang around with He-Man snarf snarf?

The Snarf you’re thinking of was a ThunderCat. They’re not the same though, apparently. Snarf snarf.

[Chronos]

Was it a Boojum, you see?

[Declan]

@dude_robert

If a very heavy dragon, made out of extremely thick hide, muscle, fat and bone, so heavy and thick it could survive “tank blasts”, fell out of the sky and hit a hard rocky surface at terminal velocity, would it survive? How badly injured would it be? Assume little to no magic in the dragon itself.

Loved that show, finally put to rest the notion that a roman legion could take on a modern fighting force and have some hope of victory.

Now bout this dragon thing.

Thick hide, muscle, bone and some sort of scales for armor protection, mean weight. Unless its one giant air bag that stores hydrogen for lift, it can’t fly. The wings are too long to generate down force for a vertical or short take off run, and they don’t beat very fast to actually fly.

So unless it hits its reptile brain on the splat, its just going to be one huge air bag when it hits something hard.

[Chronos]

Loved that show, finally put to rest the notion that a roman legion could take on a modern fighting force and have some hope of victory.

In the first encounter, nope, no hope. But if it’s a protracted situation, eventually the Romans are going to get their hands on modern weapons somehow or other, and then they’re going to train with them. Extensively. If there’s one thing the Roman Legions were good at, it’s training. And a legion that’s trained with (say) AK-47s, vs. an all-modern force, yeah, now we’ve got a fight.