How will Battle commence?

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 38245

Earendil wrote:
> 
> I'm not really sure if there will be or can be an all out war between 
> Muggles and Wizards.  But if there was to be such a thing, I fear 
> that our Wizard companions have been **extremely** underestimated.
> 
> One word...Magic...period.  Our Wizards have magic powers.  You think 
> guns outweigh wands?  While guns can do 1 thing, wands can do 
> multiple upon multiple things.  Give me a wand, and I'll Expelliarmus 
> your gun.  Shoot a missile at me and I can Summon it to slow down and 
> go back to you.  Flamethrow me and I'll charm myself with that 
> tickling charm that the witches used in the Witch Hunts.  Ride in 
> with your tank and I'll fly in with my Ridgeback and sweep 3 of your 
> steel steeds with my tail, and proceed to barbecue your army.  
> Surround me with a platoon of your men and I'll Apparate somewhere 
> else or freeze them still.  Planes and jets?  I'll turn them into 
> paper airplanes.

I have to say that you're overestimating magic. Magic, as all other 
forms of internal energy (like shooting arrows with bows or using a 
sword) can get very tiring in very short time. If you use AK a few 
times, except the most poweful, you're going to be panting quite 
heavily. I'd agree that, on equal numbers, an army of wizards could 
probably win over an army of muggles, but the fact is that wizards are 
so hopelessly undernumbered that they wouldn't stand a chance in an 
all-out battle (I do accept Hana's ideas about surprise, which is maybe 
all Voldemort would need, but I doubt even that would be enough). Allow 
me to explain:

You suggest expelliarming guns. If you expelliarmus, let's say, the 
guns of 20 soldiers you're facing, it takes about 2 minutes (allowing 
for 1 expelliarmus every 6 seconds, which is a very high rate). You'd 
be dead before you get to the end of the row, because in two minutes 
you have been emptied a full clip by everyone but the three first. Even 
if, by some previously casted shield (although I don't think any 
magical shield can stop a 800 km/hr bullet) you survive, you've 
depleated a good deal of energy. The soldiers get up, brush their 
clothes, pick up their weapons and no major harm done.

Missiles: we know almost for certain that summoning charms obey the 
thermodinamic laws. You cannot expect to stop a missile by summoning 
it: it's momentum is just too great. You don't see a missile coming, 
nevertheless (you're too busy expelliarming the soldier's weapons, or 
whatever). Jets and bombers rush through the battle, and attack from 
beyond eye-sight. A dragon may destroy one tank, but there are hundreds 
in each battle, and dragons are inmune to magic, not technology.

In conclussion: wizards, in open battle, don't have a chance. The only 
solution is to go for secrecy (and maybe, as Hana said, surprise, but 
even that would be nearly-suicide). They are just too few, and using 
magic takes too long as is too much energy-consuming when faced off 
with the weapons of mass destruction muggles have developed over the 
centuries (from the gun: one man has the power to kill six without 
effort to the atomic bomb).

> The point is they would have a far better chance than earlier 
> percieved.  Have our Marines been trained to deal with Order of 
> Merlin Wizards??  We would be unprepared and so would the Wizarding 
> World.  Numbers don't mean a thing when a powerful community such as 
> our Wizards can be woken with a sudden wrath if they feel 
> threatened.  If they need to defend themselves, they will do whatever 
> is necessary.  But I don't believe anything like will ever happen.  I 
> don't believe JKR will be able to write World War II tale.

And that's where the difference in our views lies: you believe that a 
single wizard can overrun an army. I believe that wizards would be more 
surprised at muggles capabilities than the other way round, and that 
5-to-1 against a wizard means he's lost.

 
> I'm just shocked that some people believe that guns are still the 
> only answer to the world's problems.
> 
> Earendil

I hope you're not pointing that comment in my direction. Wars have at 
times stopped conflicts, but have never solutioned any problem. War is 
the most stupid proffesion of humankind (and, against popular myth, 
it's the first one ever: before aything else, or simian ancestors where 
selecting rulers by the simple method of eliminating the competition).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf