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Supposing you were to contend with an attack from one of two dinosaur species: Tyrannosaurus Rex or Deinonychus Antirrhopus. Which would you prefer to face? Note that this is a fairly open-ended question; you might be attacked in the city, the suburbs or the wilderness, while armed or unarmed, by one or more dinosaurs--for fairness' sake, imagine a number of deinonychuses (deinonychi?) equal in mass to the number of rexes.
For the sake of the present discussion, assume each rex weighs about 5 metric tons and has a top speed a little under 25 mph, which is about as fast as a pretty damned quick human being. However, they cannot speed up, slow down, or turn with any speed. They have reasonable binocular vision, an excellent sense of smell, and incredibly powerful jaws. Assume a sense of hearing about equal to a human's and cognitive abilities around the level of a lion or other apex predator. Finally, bear in mind that their bone structure is extremely robust and even the heaviest bullet is unlikely to break a bone.
Deinonychus is relatively unknown by name, but it's basically the dinosaur called a "velociraptor" in Jurassic Park. Actual velociraptors were about the six feet long, but half of that was tail. The actual dinosaur wasn't much bigger than a cat and would be reduced to clawing your shins. Anyway, deinonychus was about eleven feet long (again including tail), 2' at the hip, and 160 pounds. Also (not that it's relevant) it was almost certainly feathered, not scaled. JP exaggerated their intelligence considerably; given their brain size, they're unlikely to have been smart enough to open doors, which they lack the manual dexterity for anyway. Probably they weren't abysmally stupid either, though. The actual speed of a deinonychus (screw it, I'm just going to call it a "raptor" from now on for ease of typing) is a matter of debate, but it's pretty agile and very likely hunts in packs. Also, it has a stronger bite than a hyena's, and a vicious claw on each hind leg.
My thoughts: raptors are far more dangerous in wide-open spaces, where they can circle around and use their numbers and there are no effective barriers to hide behind. Rex is less of a threat if you can see him coming, and his speed is less impressive when there's room to dodge. In an urban or suburban environment, rex takes the advantage due to the more cramped conditions of a street. Also, while almost any wall or even a car could substantially slow down raptors, a POed rex would be able to bash through anything short of solid brick. I'm not sure if a rex even has a weak spot, given its bone mass. Ideally, I'd aim for the upper leg, which is a pretty big target and would make it harder to run. However, when the rex is charging you its leg would be basically impossible to hit. Of course this depends on what kind of gun you've got, and so on. Raptors, by comparison, would go down from a single shot above, say, .22 caliber. However, they come in pretty big groups...really, there's a lot to consider here, so let the discussion begin.
For the sake of the present discussion, assume each rex weighs about 5 metric tons and has a top speed a little under 25 mph, which is about as fast as a pretty damned quick human being. However, they cannot speed up, slow down, or turn with any speed. They have reasonable binocular vision, an excellent sense of smell, and incredibly powerful jaws. Assume a sense of hearing about equal to a human's and cognitive abilities around the level of a lion or other apex predator. Finally, bear in mind that their bone structure is extremely robust and even the heaviest bullet is unlikely to break a bone.
Deinonychus is relatively unknown by name, but it's basically the dinosaur called a "velociraptor" in Jurassic Park. Actual velociraptors were about the six feet long, but half of that was tail. The actual dinosaur wasn't much bigger than a cat and would be reduced to clawing your shins. Anyway, deinonychus was about eleven feet long (again including tail), 2' at the hip, and 160 pounds. Also (not that it's relevant) it was almost certainly feathered, not scaled. JP exaggerated their intelligence considerably; given their brain size, they're unlikely to have been smart enough to open doors, which they lack the manual dexterity for anyway. Probably they weren't abysmally stupid either, though. The actual speed of a deinonychus (screw it, I'm just going to call it a "raptor" from now on for ease of typing) is a matter of debate, but it's pretty agile and very likely hunts in packs. Also, it has a stronger bite than a hyena's, and a vicious claw on each hind leg.
My thoughts: raptors are far more dangerous in wide-open spaces, where they can circle around and use their numbers and there are no effective barriers to hide behind. Rex is less of a threat if you can see him coming, and his speed is less impressive when there's room to dodge. In an urban or suburban environment, rex takes the advantage due to the more cramped conditions of a street. Also, while almost any wall or even a car could substantially slow down raptors, a POed rex would be able to bash through anything short of solid brick. I'm not sure if a rex even has a weak spot, given its bone mass. Ideally, I'd aim for the upper leg, which is a pretty big target and would make it harder to run. However, when the rex is charging you its leg would be basically impossible to hit. Of course this depends on what kind of gun you've got, and so on. Raptors, by comparison, would go down from a single shot above, say, .22 caliber. However, they come in pretty big groups...really, there's a lot to consider here, so let the discussion begin.
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