On one side , we have a T-Rex.
On the other, four large, reasonably athletic men with long, sturdy spears.
Let’s say the spear shafts are about 8-9 feet long. The men have nice sharp
3-foot swords as backup weapons.
Who wins this one? Do the guys have any chance at all against the fearsome beastie?
(I’m assuming no preparation time on the part of the men, or the dinosaur.
They haven’t had time to think up some strategy or to set up traps. The
setting is a rebuilt Roman Colosseum.)
The spears serve as toothpicks.
Most of these thought-exercises are a bit better balanced…
My favorite was a T-Rex vs. a guy in a Chevy Camaro. It all falls to one throw of the dice: if the guy can break the Rex’s legs in a daring high-speed smash, he wins. Otherwise, he hides behind the front seats and starves to death.
T-Rex vs. a dozen Deinonychus?
Historically, what was the likely outcome in a Bull vs. Bear fight, anyway?
And how many rats can a rat terrier tear if a rat terrier can tear rats?
I think it would depend on if the men were just trying to defend themselves or if they were acutally hunting the T rex with intent to kill it. The best strategy for the men would be to quickly kill a large docile feed animal for the T rex to eat, and while he’s eating it, sneak away.
The men are dead.
I think the key would be this bit of information from the Wiki link:
The humans would be far more agile than the T-rex. Even though the dino might have been much faster in straight pursuit (and its running speed - or even if it could run at all - is highly debatable), the humans could probably evade it pretty easily.
The main problem would be that their spears wouldn’t easily be able to reach any vulnerable areas on the T-rex (not that it had many). Their best strategy would be for some guys to distract it while others poked holes in it, then wait till it bled to death.
Well, gee, I just had a great idea for the 2016 Olympics. Can we clone 100 or so T-Rexes in time, though?
I would expect the humans to win, but with 50% casualties. While Dino was munching on one guy, that would probably be enough distraction for the others to move in for the kill. Dino would probably swat one of the unchomped attackers into the next county, though. So the score would be: one dead human, one severely injured human, one dead T-Rex, and one hell of a barbecue back at the cave.
The thought of a T-Rex sitting around coming up with different strategies makes me smile.
4 vs 1, isn’t that unfair? How about we take this to the next level and make the big guy look like this? Now you can give the men assault rifles or whatever, makes a lot better show.
The guys clearly win. By the time you can come up with 4 men with spears, every available T-Rex has been a corpse for 60+ million years. A pair of chihuahuas could beat that.
T Rex isn’t interested in appetizers. He jumps the wall and stomps on spectators or hits them with his tail. The floor collapses under his weight. Basically trapped within the stone work his thrashing eventually collapses enough of it on to disable him. Guys with spears go in to finish him. After T-rex crushes the first guy in his jaws, the rest turn tail and run out of the coliseum. Those three win.
It all depends on whether Mr. Rex is CGI or stop-action animation.
If the former, no way are the cavemen gonna win. Big T. will pick them up with his teeth one by one and flip them into his mouth for a quick snack.
If the latter, no sweat! Like in Kung-Fu movies, the trick is just dancing around the beast until an opening presents itself and you can spear the sucker.
Then the problem becomes: Which caveman is gonna bang Raquel Welch first, or do they fight over her too?
Or kill the slower(fattest) of the men, and try a sneak attack when the T-Rex is snacking on the fallen hunter
Just because a predator is large and has sharp teeth doesn’t mean he’s invulnerable. I saw a nature documentary once in which a seal on a beach was in a standoff with a penguin; yes, the seal was much larger and had sharp teeth, but if he screwed up, the penguin could permanently blind him in one eye with its beak. That would make for a costly meal.
Spears 8-9’ long? The men will defeat the T-rex. T-rex’s forearms are useless; his only weapons are his teeth, and he’s not going to risk injury by snapping at you without knowing what you’re all about. He’ll get his face close to you, and you can jab him at that point to put him on the defensive, or simply distract him while your cohorts slash his sides and rear legs (they can reach him easily with their spears). T-rex will either retreat or die.
In the movie Planet of Dinosaurs it was clearly the T. Rex in the battle of fangs vs. spears the first time, although the people rallied and got him at the end. They had to use things besides spears to take him down, though.
Interesting film. GREAT stop-motion effects, including work by noted dinosaur artrists. AWEFUL acting, though.
Are the spears even going to get beyond T-Rex’sthick feathers?
Maybe an email to the Creation Museum might solve this issue, they probably have a diorama of this exact scenario.
In an arena, my money is totally on the T. Rex. Out in the wild, where the people can formulate a strategy and choose the time and place of their attack, my money would be on the men, no question.
Yeah, the spearmen would totally kill the T-Rex in a competitive dance-off. Think of the moves they could pull with spears as props. Spins! Twirls! Leaps! While the best poor T-Rex could manage would be a sad Hokey Cokey shuffle.
Humans and Dinos together? The Jesus Camps win!
