Guns that could kill a dragon?

Well, I'm writing a story. In it, there are dragons. Essentially, mankind is kind of sick of the whole Can't Argue With Dragons thing and the fact most of them are tremendous asshats. Combine that with superstition & the fact that they're now an extreme minority with the remaining dragons either being hunted outcasts or oppressive nobility for The Kingdom / The Empire, and, well...

You get the general idea. Anyhow, assuming that the dragons in question are somewhat classical european dragons (thirty foot long, four arms, one really big pair of wings, breath fire, pointy tail, tremendously strong & intelligent, scales like thick iron, razor sharp claws/teeth etc.) what sort of weaponry do you think would be needed to take one down?

Assuming the time-frame is roughly equivalent to late 19th century or pre-World War One 20th century, would there be any small arms that could effectively bring down a dragon in a confined space?

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:17:44 AM by Eventua

...confined space? Keep dreaming.

They had battle rifles and elephant guns, but significant anti-tank weaponry... well, there were no tanks yet, obviously, so you're out of luck there.

I suppose you could just say the guns work, but to my knowledge of how good dragon natural armor was supposed to be, you'd need something like the heavy guns of World War One or the Barret .50 of today...

Artillery.

A Gatling would make short work of its wings, if it can't penetrate the armor.

Confined space, Alex...

How confined can it be if it contains a dragon?

Well, what do you want from me? That's the description given by the OP.

It could be a large room with a small land-based opening, but a large vertical opening (i.e. a bigass skylight...).

You could use the artillery to destroy the defined space.

Eh, the opening to a large cavern in the side of a mountain: the dragon in question is old and tired, and would basically be waiting for the humans to come to her.

...

Also, I was under the impression they had better firepower back then. o_O

Actually, would they have explosive rounds? Would those work?

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:42:07 AM by Eventua

Well, you could have emplacement weapons of various types. Old school cannons are always an option, too.

First off, I desperately hope that is an elite forces unit being sent to fight a dragon with small arms, otherwise they'd be dead.

Since you have dragons you will need a specialized defensive plan, such as fireproof armor, so that your soldiers can get within fifty feet of the dragon without getting roasted at once. Since it's a cave, however, the dragon might not flame as much in order to keep from burning up all the oxygen or anything it has hoarded.

As for weaknesses, dragons could have a soft underbelly, or spaces between scales such as the joints. While blinding is generally a good idea and feasible with a good shot, I do not suggest aiming for the eyes in this case since a large animal thrashing around in a cave on a mountain would be even more dangerous.

Long blades or lances are traditional, and in this case it is justified as dragons are usually living suits of fireproof armor. Swords (such as rapiers) and lances are designed to get past the chinks in plate armor.

Guns are well and good, but one would have to be at least an above-average shot to do the same thing. Not to mention, I highly doubt that explosive rounds or even grenades would work against something that breathes fire.

edited 3rd Sep '11 11:10:30 AM by Leradny

For...? The tank was still a ways away, while fortress sieging was the exception, not the rule.

I'm not sure if they had explosive rounds. The Hague Convention was back in the 1800s and banned that kind of thing, so...

Of course, this is probably not really Earth, and Technology Levels is a myth, so your description of their level of technology is basically useless...

Artillery would probably work. They had some fairly nasty artillery even back then; I don't think a dragon could survive even a simple round-shot naval cannon. (You'd probably want to use anti-ship or anti-fortification artillery; anti-personnel probably wouldn't have enough force per area to pierce a dragon's armor.)

So then:

• Elite dragon-slaying troops
• Armour-piercing rounds (since Technology Levels don't exist, and this is a setting where dragons are hunted, they'd likely have invented armour piercing rounds)
• Fire proof armour
• Melee weapons, particularly spears and/or lances
• And, if all that fails, bomb it

edited 3rd Sep '11 11:41:41 AM by Eventua

I'm sorry to kill the drama, but if they have good artillery, they could, you know, just collapse the room...

Draw the thing out into the open. Why the fuck would you try and engage it on its own terms?

Because its' a dragon. Busily guarding a crap ton of horded artefacts and crap: the sort of thing you don't want buried under several tons of rock.

It might be safer to bomb it, but if you want its' stuff in tact and you're kind of an uncaring asshat, then why not get some dragon slayers from your army to risk their lives fighting it directly?

...

I should've mentioned that earlier, shouldn't I? o_O

edited 3rd Sep '11 11:48:55 AM by Eventua

Is there an open firing lane from outside? If so, then sniping with round-shot is probably your best bet.

Sniping with artillery. Hah.

...so you're going to risk your life in an obvious suicide mission for money that will probably get destroyed either way setting off artillery in a closed room.

At least you can get at it with far less chance of death, and it's not like all the money will just be gone. You can dig it out, after all...

...

Damn. Yeah, I forget sometimes how bad-ass dragons are.

Ya know what, screw it. With the military power they have available, they can just shell the cavern: if she's not killed she'll be trapped, and the oxygen won't last long in that case. It also helps highlight the difference in mentality between both races, anyway.

Ah, well, I can bring in epic dragon fights later in the story anyway, tsk. I hate it when drama gets opposed so vastly by what would probably maybe actually happen, or something.

edited 3rd Sep '11 12:02:07 PM by Eventua

Well, the point isn't that it can't work, so much as your worldbuilding has conspired to make it not work.

In other words, dragons < guns. At least, if they're stuck in a cave and are restricted to wimpy classic European dragon-type powers. Conversely, they're unkillable if they aren't. So yeah, you can't really win here...

You'd need to use a shell: any caliber over .50.

Anti-aircraft/armor-piercing rounds would work best since dragons have tough hides and are airborne. if all else fails, air-to-air rockets would work.

I'd go for a Ballista. It's not a gun, but I think it has better odds.

Heavy Machine guns, rifles,spigot mortars, grenades, There are plenty of small artillery pieces that are not going to turn that room into a pile of smoldering treasure. Infantry howitzers come to mind. Small or light weight man towed artillery that fires light shells.

Even a confined open topped space is going to be huge to allow a dragon to fly around even a little bit. Unless you have small dragons. Are we talking airline sized dragons?

The British had weapons like the Pom-Pom gun a early Auto-Cannon.

Oh and Early AA guns would probably work as well. WWI that is.

USAF: having a massive natural flame thrower is far from wimpy. Flamethrower in close quarter fighting is nasty.

edited 3rd Sep '11 3:08:27 PM by TuefelHundenIV

My point is that, first of all, you shouldn't be in close-quarters (fighting on the enemy's terms = bad idea) and that was back when we were still throwing swords around. Not so impressive with the stuff we had in the lead-up to World War One...

What is more in the dragons favor the open air where it can easily fly out of range and make fast swooping attacks or engaging it where it's mobility is limited. While your in danger from it's natural weapons it is also in range of yours. I would say that evens the battle field quite a bit.