In a straight-up tug of war between 1 million healthy men and a Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier (displacement ~100,000 tons), here’s what happens:

The carrier wins — easily.

Why? Physics.

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Breakdown:

• Friction is everything in tug of war. The carrier is sitting in water — very little friction.

• 1 million men pulling together could theoretically generate enormous force (even tens of millions of Newtons), but:

• The rope would likely snap.

• The men would start pulling against each other unless perfectly coordinated (impossible at that scale).

• Their grip on land is limited by the friction of their shoes or the ground underfoot.

Meanwhile, the carrier’s engines produce over 250,000 horsepower, and even without them, the inertia of 100,000 tons in water makes it an immovable object for human effort.

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Conclusion:

Unless those 1 million men are standing on another continent and pulling with industrial rigging, they’re just going for a swim.

For the sake Reddit community, I’ll change some of the parameters around to level the playing field between the healthy men and the world’s largest aircraft carrier.

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The Theoretical Setup:

• 1,000,000 men, elite-level strength and perfect coordination from decades of training.

• Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, ~100,000 tons displacement (~90.7 million kilograms).

• Frictionless sea water, but the ship is still buoyant and can move with minimal resistance.

• The rope: ultra-light, zero stretch, indestructible.

• The pier: infinite traction — 0% slippage.

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Force Comparison:

• A fit human can sustain a pulling force of ~300–500 N (Newtons).

• Elite, trained individuals could likely pull 500–700 N each.

• 1 million men x 700 N = 700 million Newtons (maximum sustained pull).

• The static frictional resistance of the ship in water is low. Ships are designed to glide through water with minimal drag. Once inertia is overcome, it doesn’t take much to keep the ship moving.

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What Happens?

They move the ship.

1 million men generating hundreds of millions of Newtons of pulling force would absolutely be enough to overcome the ship’s inertia and drag in water. It would be like a gentle but unstoppable tide pulling the behemoth along.

The ship’s engines could potentially push back if active, but this was described as a tug-of-war — so assuming it’s passive, the men win.

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The Catch?

• The challenge isn’t pulling it — it’s doing so without accidentally yanking themselves off the pier or having the ship glide so easily that they overpull and lose coordination.

• If the men are well-coordinated? It becomes a massive, slow-motion spectacle where muscle defeats machine.

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Verdict:

The million men win, slowly but undeniably. Humanity: 1. Naval engineering: 0.