Was Kirk Lying?

[T'Girl]

if a pair of raptors had plowed into the world trade center towers on september eleventh 2001, both buildings (probably) would still be standing today

 

[MaximRecoil]

Heh, when you phrase it like that - the B767.

Obviously wrong.

After all, the weapons of the F-22 are incapable of hurting buildings ahead of the suicidal fighter, save for the peashooter gun that carries virtually no ammo even on an "operational" sortie.

So your claim is that an F-22 can't hit a high-rise building with its missiles. Again, obviously wrong, and obviously absurd.

It's not a matter of energy at all, then, but of footprint: the fighter creates a much narrower path of destruction through an urban area. And this matters whether it's about impacting high-rise buildings (the B767 spreads over a wider area after the fatal meeting with the first building) or plowing through a shacktown.

You don't seem to understand the concept of energy. Which does more damage at the muzzle, a 55 grain, .224" diameter bullet at 4,000 FPS or a 255 grain, .454" diameter bullet at 800 FPS?

Of course, if somebody did get hold of a Raptor, deploying it against a building would be about the least fearsome thing the villain could achieve.

Given that it could cause more destruction than the airliner hitting the same building, you've just defeated your own argument.

But the real point here is, weapons of sufficient mass destruction are easily available to the determined member of the Sixpack family,

Yeah, fire. None of the rest are easy to obtain and/or deliver to a target. And also, this isn't even in the category of "weapons of mass destruction", especially when compared to a transporter or replicator. Both of those devices are dealing with massive energy levels that make airplanes of any sort look like a static electric spark from a doorknob in comparison. For example, just transporting one 180-pound man involves the harnessing and transfer of energy equivalent to 1,754 megatons (1,754,000,000 tons) of TNT. That's about 1.75 billion times the energy of an airliner crashing, and about 70 times more energy than the 25-megaton B41 nuclear bomb. You're dreaming if you think transporters and/or replicators will ever be released to the public at all, to say nothing about being released without restrictions.

and those being jealously guarded by the armed forces aren't really worth coveting.

Yet another absurdity.

if a pair of raptors had plowed into the world trade center towers on september eleventh 2001, both buildings (probably) would still be standing today

WTC Building 7 wasn't hit by a plane at all, yet down it went. If the official story is to be believed, it was the first and only time in history that a tall building has collapsed due primarily to fire.

 

[Drone]

and those being jealously guarded by the armed forces aren't really worth coveting.

Yet another absurdity.

Uh, what do you mean by coveting exactly? Is it a statement of personal disdain or are you making a blanket claim, that at least so far as aircraft are concerned, includes those with nuclear weapon launch capabilities?

 

[The Old Mixer]

You're dreaming if you think transporters and/or replicators will ever be released to the public at all, to say nothing about being released without restrictions.

Well, that's two items off my Christmas list....

 

[T'Girl]

WTC Building 7 wasn't hit by a plane at all, yet down it went.

WTC 5 also wasn't hit by a plane, but the 4th through 9th floors partially collapsed.

If the official story is to be believed, it was the first and only time in history that a tall building has collapsed due primarily to fire.

I call bullshit on that, it's the only time a tall building completely collapsed, but fire has resulted in partial collapses. And fire has structurally weakened tall building to the point where there was no option but to demolish them.

 

[OpenMaw]

It wasn't just the fire that brought WTC 7 down. It was the masses of heavy steel structure that fell off of the World Trade Center that damaged it.

 

[T'Girl]

The intense vibration caused by the two main towers coming down probably didn't help either.