If you've seen Guillermo del Toro's epic Pacific Rim (read our review here), then you've seen some damn effective demonstrations of how to take out giant monsters, a.k.a. Kaiju, with the help of human-piloted mega-robots called Jaegers. But in case you hadn't noticed, we're kinda lacking in giant mech-tech in the real world, leaving us vulnerable in the event of an actual kaiju invasion... but not according to the magazine Popular Mechanics, who published a piece entitled "We Don't Need No Stinkin' Robots" on how we might use present-day military resources to defeat a hypothetical city-stomping menace.
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The article explains how personnel can be most effectively deployed for both attack and population safety (tip: bullets don't work, so use ground troops for evacuation and crowd control), and how even impressive hardware like the M1A1 Abrams tank is ineffective against most giant alien threats (too slow and crushable, as so many movies have illustrated). However, Apache helicopters could be useful if refitted with more potent ordnance, like 70mm rocket pods and laser-guided Hellfire missiles.
The article also nitpicks at poor military strategy when it comes to anti-monster air support in movies, not only Pacific Rim but in Cloverfield. Instead, they suggest bombing runs – like a two-pronged attack by the massive B-52 Stratofortress and the more maneuverable B-1 Lancer – instead of direct frontal attacks from jet fighters that you usually see on screen.
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Check out the article for the full plan of attack... on land, anyway. In the water, it seems we're kinda screwed.
