Scenario: SW Galactic Empire vs. WH:40K Imperium of Man

[Gunhead]

I dug up some more AFV data and did some more estimations.

Imperial armour states that the earthshakers caliber is...(drums please)
a whopping 132mm (feel free to be disappointed). If the pictures of the shells at the end of the book are to scale, it puts the vanquisher cannon to around 90mm calibre.
I'd still would need to know how much shells weight to be able to figure out how much power they generate. There's no mention how much muzzle velocity Imp AT-gun rounds have but if we use figures from the ES it should be 814-2400m/s depending on the type.

ES has a muzzle velocity 814m/s and a range of over 15km (These figures would put it on equal terms with RL arty) http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/2a36.htm <--- something like that.
More later when I have time and energy.

-Gunhead

[PeZook]

There was also a mention of Predator side armor, which is theoretically equivalent to a 200mm steel plate, which gives us a nice idea of armor strenght, and a lower limit of armor penetrating warheads, if we ever saw any used against it.

If course, that would make the sides of a Space Marine battle tank armored about as well as a T-55's front turret, which is somewhat unimpressive for the 40th millenium, and can be easily penetrated by a modern RPG-7.

[Black Admiral]

Earthshaker rounds weigh at least three tonnes, and create 15m wide craters.

And as for Imperium tank armour strength:

Re-laying the gun took a vital second. In that time, the second tank fired again and hit the Wrath squarely. The impact was enough to lurch all sixty-two tonnes of armoured machine several metres sideways. But it didn't penetrate the twenty centimetre-thick armour skin. Inside, the crew were dazed and they'd lost most of the forward scopes.

The Pardus Conquerors were basically shrugging off HV 105mm tungsten-cored rounds to the front armour, and IIRC the side armour as well.

And just as a random addition, the recoil of a Conqueror's main gun:

When it fired, the breech of the main gun hurtled back into the turret space with one hundred and ninety tonnes of recoil force.

[Black Admiral]

So in theory, the 122 "warheads" might include the breaching charge.

Yes, although that's not definite.

Well, thats why you target the weak points.

Yeah. Of course, that depends on the hulk not retaliating, which is by no means certain.

Oh, game revisions. Wouldn't that also potentially gover the "122 5-gigaton warheads" though? Or are the Revisions known to be explicitly selective (IE stuff that is not explicitly corrected revised or contradicted is still valid?)

Pretty much. As long as it's not directly contradicted, it stands.

I see.

Most of those it's fairly obvious what they do, but I've got no idea what graviton pulsars do.

Well, assuming a cylinder 100 meters long and 50 meters in diameter, made of iron, and with no empty space... the projectile might mass 1.55e9 kilograms. Assuming "near-c" means 90% of the speed of light, we're talking about 1.8e26 joules of KE and 9.6e17 kg*m/s worth of momentum. at .99c its 8.5e26 joules and 3.263e18 kg*m/s.

IIRC though, its full of explosives.. and not knowing the density/mass of the explosive, this figure might be extremely generous...

True, and there's no data on the explosive density or what percentage of an NC shell's filled with explosives that I'm aware of.

Such as?

For one thing, the number of ships involved isn't stated, and for another, Heresy-era ships aren't very well documented, so their armaments are somewhat iffy.

Yeah... pulverizing is definitely not the same as total vaporization or cremation.. Sot he enerrgy porbably would be less.. how much though, I'm not entirely sure OTOH.

The armour also makes things difficult.

Sorry, I'm not quite sure i'm following here.

DAoT era ships are really munchy, like using their teleporters to rearm the guy in command (the Slaughtersong does that), and typically have really nasty and/or insane AIs.

Okay.. this is definitely more usable.. 1 Grey Knight = hundreds of millions of "normal" minds.

So how do others compare to the Greys?

The Adeptus Custodes are comparable, other SMs are weaker, but still impressive: the feedback from a daemon prince mindfucking an SM, one more susceptible than most to mind control, cracked the SM's teeth and scorched his skin, which is not an easy task: Sgt. Cloten was hit with a crew served flamer-type weapon in Bloodquest without a helmet, and it only pissed him off.

Well true, and it shouldn't be a problem if the Empire can't bring sufficiently heavy firepower to bear (however much that is, and how much damage the Empire is willing to inflict on its hallways) However, if they start mowing down Spacemarines, there's going to start being problems, especially if the bodies start piling up.

Well, that's when you break out the meltabombs and powerfists and commence making your own corridors.

Okay.

OKay.

Depending on?

Space Marines deploy either in ten man full squads or five man tac-squads. I dunno the criteria for each: it's probably to do with the number of objectives that need achieving and the time which is available to achieve them.

Okay.

IIRC I don't recall exactly how powerful hellguns were compared to lasguns (I suppose that depends on the specific lasgun, since I can recall as litlte as 19 mw to hundreds of mw or even several gigawatts.)

19MJ is the listed range for a certain model of las IIRC, though that doesn't seem to match up to their observed effects. Probably a case of differing manufacture.

OTOH though, they're not substantially more powerful than a heavy blaster rifle (at full auto). Might take a couple of seconds or so (or more than one trooper conceentrating on a single trooper) but they might be able to do it, especially since they could conceivably cram more people into a corridor than a Space Marine could.

True. Of course, the Space Marine will be shooting back, and using their grenades to the best possible effect. That said, getting into a straight fight with an ISD's crew+marines is suicide, since they've got the numbers to overwhelm SMs with concentrated firepower.

Not sure.. "tearing through" is kinda vague.. I can't see much of a point of referncec her efor calcs.

It was mainly for the range, since 300m is pretty good for a pistol.

Okay.. incomplete incineration At least one arm and a head remaining - mid to high MJ range, probably, disregarding armor and differencecs in mass.)

Another example of plasma pistol fire from from Honour Guard:

Then he [Hark] spun round abruptly, brought up his weapon, and cremated an Infardi who had risen from the roadside weeds with a rifle.

[Gunhead]

Admiral... Where the hell did you get that weight for ES rounds?
That thing is manually loaded, so I guess those Imp. soldiers are pretty strong.

105mm tungsten core rounds are inferior to APFSDS-T.
http://www.battlefront.co.nz/Article.asp?ArticleID=324
^--- tank round types

Also your honor guard quote doesn't tell us what type of round was used (suspect HE since it can toss a tank around if it explodes under it)
But it wouldn't pentrate.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

Admiral... Where the hell did you get that weight for ES rounds?
That thing is manually loaded, so I guess those Imp. soldiers are pretty strong.

First And Only.

105mm tungsten core rounds are inferior to APFSDS-T.
http://www.battlefront.co.nz/Article.asp?ArticleID=324
^--- tank round types

*shrugs* Barring hits to the turret, or a lucky hit on the front/side armour the Infardi's tanks weren't having much luck vs. the Pardus Conquerors.

Also your honor guard quote doesn't tell us what type of round was used (suspect HE since it can toss a tank around if it explodes under it)
But it wouldn't pentrate.

-Gunhead

Actually, the Infardi tanks didn't use HE, and the phrasing of the quote sounds to me like a penetrator round (no mention of blast for one thing).

And as a random note, IG tanks are loaded down with sensor gear, inertial dampeners to hold the main gun on target, and in the case of the Hydra at least, autotracking turret systems.

[Gunhead]

So we have a novel telling something different than a GW source book..... All those surprised raise hand... no hands... good.

Well just so I can I can say "I said it" : There is no fucking way a 132mm shell can weight 3 tonnes. There, I said it. (Ok maybe if it was made from neutronium or whatever the stuff collapsed stars are made of).

Since Imperial armour is by GW I'm inclined to go with their numbers. No matter how pussified they are.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

So we have a novel telling something different than a GW source book..... All those surprised raise hand... no hands... good.

Well just so I can I can say "I said it" : There is no fucking way a 132mm shell can weight 3 tonnes. There, I said it. (Ok maybe if it was made from neutronium or whatever the stuff collapsed stars are made of).

Since Imperial armour is by GW I'm inclined to go with their numbers. No matter how pussified they are.

-Gunhead

I'm inclined to go with the numbers given in Gaunt's Ghosts myself, since they're direct observations of Guard officers and line infantry who definitely know what the hell they're talking about, since in at least some cases their lives depend on it.

And as a side note, the detonation of 14 Baslisk's ammo stockpiles incinerated an area of forest a square kilometer across, and shook a 100m tall Leviathan command vehicle 16 kilometers away.

[Gunhead]

Well say three tonnes is how much a full basilisk reload weights. (That's 150kg per shell) 14x3t=42t. Say there's 5 reloads per basilisk at the dump, and on the average a single round is about 4 times more powerful than regular TNT. 42x5x4= 840t of explosives going off and sice it's a dump it could be alot more than 5 reloads per basilisk. Big BOOM! (There would also be incendiary rounds in the mix just for extra fun.)


-Gunhead

[Connor MacLeod]

So we have a novel telling something different than a GW source book..... All those surprised raise hand... no hands... good.

Well just so I can I can say "I said it" : There is no fucking way a 132mm shell can weight 3 tonnes. There, I said it. (Ok maybe if it was made from neutronium or whatever the stuff collapsed stars are made of).

Since Imperial armour is by GW I'm inclined to go with their numbers. No matter how pussified they are.

-Gunhead

Dunno.. assuming I did my calcs right.. a cubic meter of that stuff could weigh as much as uranium.. maybe ten times that. Its not "Execptoinally dense" material... Hell Star Wars has denser stuff (hypermatter reactants are 100x denser than the ships themselves, adn they're as dense as uranium at least..)

I'm not 100% sure its that implausbile.. it might be the evidencec for "exotic materials science" I mentioned to Black Admiral earlier. I'm not sure tho.

[Gunhead]

Did a bit of re-checking, actually all imperial tanks that have a projectile main weapon use human loaders. This puts an effective upper limit to the weight of the shell they can use.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

Did a bit of re-checking, actually all imperial tanks that have a projectile main weapon use human loaders. This puts an effective upper limit to the weight of the shell they can use.

-Gunhead

No they don't. The Exterminator and Hydra both have autoloaders, and I'm fairly certain that the Leman Russ Phatheon and Conqueror variants do in at least some case.

[Gunhead]

Exterminator Leman Russ has a loader, so does hydra. Exterminator uses a standard autocannon that uses 4 round clips that need to be replaced manually. The weapon itself is automatic. Hydra also has a loader, but I think building a manually loaded AA-tank would be utterly stupid so I'm willing to say it's autoloaded.
Conqueror Leman Russ has a loader. (might be some special cases but none as standard)
I couldn't confirm phatheon.

All this is yet again from imperial armour sourcebook.

Note: It doesn't say specifically that the Exterminator has two standard ACs, but since their standard AC is as I've described above, and STC is the way to go. I have no reason to assume otherwise.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

Exterminator Leman Russ has a loader, so does hydra. Exterminator uses a standard autocannon that uses 4 round clips that need to be replaced manually. The weapon itself is automatic.

Um, the Line of Death in Double Eagle was firing off a lot more than four shots before reloading (it's described as putting out a "stream" of fire on pg. 170, and there's no mention of the Line's ACs running out of ammo).

Hydra also has a loader, but I think building a manually loaded AA-tank would be utterly stupid so I'm willing to say it's autoloaded.

Honour Guard pg. 230 outright states that Hydras have autoloaders (and 30secs of fire from a Hydra can clear out an area 50m deep and 30m across of thick jungle).

Conqueror Leman Russ has a loader. (might be some special cases but none as standard)
I couldn't confirm phatheon.

All this is yet again from imperial armour sourcebook.

It depends. Guard tanks are massively variable in their equipment, though the "standard" Leman Russ Phatheon is kitted out with laser rangefinders, auspexes, inertial dampeners, the works. Some elite units may have autoloaders as well.

Note: It doesn't say specifically that the Exterminator has two standard ACs, but since their standard AC is as I've described above, and STC is the way to go. I have no reason to assume otherwise.

-Gunhead

There's no such thing as a standard AC. There's everything from the .50-cal ones that Guard use as SAWs, to 100mm variants (on some models of Exterminator for instance).

[white_rabbit]

Boarding wise, Marines only actually go somewhere if they have to by all accounts.

So if they really want to capture a vessel, etc etc. They teleport in as close as possible to a comcon "node" /whatever.

If they just want to blow something up, they teleport in, clear the immediate area, set up a portanuke, then port out, with the bomb going off seconds after their retrieval.

[Connor MacLeod]

Most of those it's fairly obvious what they do, but I've got no idea what graviton pulsars do.

Some sort of alternating tractor/repulsor effect (constant/rapid push and pull on the target area) would be my guess.

True, and there's no data on the explosive density or what percentage of an NC shell's filled with explosives that I'm aware of.

Nope. And I'm just guessing at the length of the shell really.. and "near lightspeed" might mean something lower as well (.75-.8c)

For one thing, the number of ships involved isn't stated, and for another, Heresy-era ships aren't very well documented, so their armaments are somewhat iffy.

Ah. But Armament aren't strictly neccecsary to derive average firepower figures (the only real problem is number of ships, effect on the target/target nature, and duration.) Fleet sizes might be estimated if we had some indication of what "kind" of fleet was it - if it was a fairly standard fleet for example, you might get away with using whatever numbers are "usually" in a fleet.

Alternately, you might also use comparisons of how many ships they might get together for an engagement or a war, since attacking the planet would presumably involve defeating an enemy fleet.

The armour also makes things difficult.

It usually does. Most of my calcs aren't factoring in armor, just the biological being inside (and assuming a standard human, not one of those modified 40k humans that Marines are I think.)

[quote
DAoT era ships are really munchy, like using their teleporters to rearm the guy in command (the Slaughtersong does that), and typically have really nasty and/or insane AIs.[/quote]

I see.. I think.

So how do others compare to the Greys?

The Adeptus Custodes are comparable, other SMs are weaker, but still impressive: the feedback from a daemon prince mindfucking an SM, one more susceptible than most to mind control, cracked the SM's teeth and scorched his skin, which is not an easy task: Sgt. Cloten was hit with a crew served flamer-type weapon in Bloodquest without a helmet, and it only pissed him off.
[/quote]

Well it does make mind control or influencing somewhat unlikely unless you get multiple Dark Jedi interacting (or if Palaptine makes thousands of Anakin clones or something.)

Well, that's when you break out the meltabombs and powerfists and commence making your own corridors.

Which presumably would make trracking them easier (they'd be at least
m ore noticable on the ship's sensors, I imagine.

And hopefully they don't burn into any power feed lines (like the weapons ones that feed gigatons or teratons of energy from reactors to turrets..)

19MJ is the listed range for a certain model of las IIRC, though that doesn't seem to match up to their observed effects. Probably a case of differing manufacture.

Well for the most part the armor is probably resilient to low GW range firepower, which means the stormies are goign to need to use heavier armaments, concentrate multiple guns on a single trooper, and use sustained fire... difficult, but not impossible.

True. Of course, the Space Marine will be shooting back, and using their grenades to the best possible effect. That said, getting into a straight fight with an ISD's crew+marines is suicide, since they've got the numbers to overwhelm SMs with concentrated firepower.

Yes, which is one of the reasons I proposed deploying stationary forcefield barriers (like the ones used onbord the Intimidator in "Tyrant's Test") to help the troopers. Gravity traps or messing with the internal gravity may or may not also assist either.

Short of that, the only other thing that might work is using spacetroopers onboard. Or the Dark-side endowed Darktroopers in body armor.

It was mainly for the range, since 300m is pretty good for a pistol.

yeah. A rifle probably has at least a couple times the range.. so they should be able to reach out to a few kilometers.

Another example of plasma pistol fire from from Honour Guard:

Then he [Hark] spun round abruptly, brought up his weapon, and cremated an Infardi who had risen from the roadside weeds with a rifle.

Well cremation and incineration are the same thing.. it doesn't say if it was total cremation or not (I suppose we can assume it was or nearly complete).. so again its basically in the hundreds of megajoule range.

[Connor MacLeod]

Carapace armor is pretty similar, though as Black Admiral posted above, it took a full-power las round to take out someone armored in it.

Okay.

Mandragore's psychic abilities were purely telepathic/mind influencing, as befitting a servant of Slaanesh.

Okay. Even so though, I'm not 100% convinced that the guy is even analogous to a 'standard' Marine or Chaos Marine, but it doesnt seem to be much of an issue now given what Black Admiral posted.

Of course the Marines will take casualties and their overall numbers depleted accordingly, but they will keep throwing themselves in front of their Emperor to damage, delay, or annoy the Empire until the last of them is dead. There will be roughly a million rushing to Terra as soon as the call goes out. That said, a lot of these will be years away, though.

That also assumes the Empire just throws themselves blindly forward as well. They could easily take as long as they need to just whittle them down using their capabilities to maximum advantage.

That siad, I'd think things would be more interesting to bring the other parties into play with the full GE (including Death STars and whatnot.).

If these are Imperial Fists or another 'normal' Chapter, many of these will be Terminators and far, far more heavily armored and armed than a normal Marine. Quantification is unfortunately difficult given their rarity in the novels and the like. I'll dig around and see if I can find anything.

Even assuming 100x greater durability and capabilities, that still usually means the neccessity of bringing in heavy firepower (E-webs and thermal detonators) and just accepting the fact they're going to be fucking up some of the corridors of their ship.

Automatic fire is less accurate, particularly at that range.

Because of the accumulated recoil.. but since we're not neccearily talking about *just* projectile rifles (Ie laser rifles, etc.).. recoil isn't neccesarily as great an issue for equivalent energy levels (or even for substantially greater ones.. a 50 MJ laser is going to have only a fraction of an assault rifle's recoil.)

It'd be suppression fire - used to keep the enemy's head down. Great against the Guard (though they have their own heavy weapons and support, too), pretty useless against Marines.

Which actualyl brings up another point.. in these 2 1/2=3 meter tall suits of armor, they're going to be somewhat larger targets than a stormy is (especially since IIRC that armor tneds to be pretty wide across the top.)

As for Marines' long-range capability, they've got Devastators carrying all manner of anti-material and anti-tank weapons (heavy bolters, plasma cannons; missile launchers, lascannons respectively), Scouts who often fulfill marksman roles, and finally getting close to the vehicle level with weapons platforms like Dreadnoughts.

The Empire has others too. ASide from the TDs and the E-web (or the medium repeating blasters), there are also handheld antivehicle blasters (Forcec commander, Tatooine Ghost, etc.) handheld "rocket" launchers (like from the Clone Wars cartoons, etc.) The latter has at least a 50 km range I believe. Alot of examples of infantry blaster "artillery" (called varying things, including "bazookas" as well) was shown in TESB at Hoth (firing on the Walkers no less.)

There is also a possibility that the Empire could deploy portable shield arrays to protect their troops against any long-range counterfire (maybe even artillery fire) from the Imperium trroops. (I am disregarding starfighter/capital ship support of the ground forces, of course.)

Most of the "heavy" stuff is going to be the armor and vehicles though.

[Connor MacLeod]

I am absolutely ASTOUNDED by the rampant Star Wars fanboyism in this thread. It's truly disgusting.

As one of those speaking for the Star Wars side, blow me. The 40kers were being very reasonable and intelligent up until you showed up. (I might point out this guy's behaviour does not and should not reflect on the others.)

I started reading the forums, because of a brilliantly done website. Well thought out, not obviously biased (I mean, he /wanted/ Star Wars to 'come out on top', but he didn't try and make it happen) and a very enjoyable read.

Gee. Unlike myself. I'll have to ask Mike next time if he thinks I'm overly biased towards Star Wars.

Here I have people comparing e-penis re: two sci-fi's which simply cannot be compared.

Nice obligatory "We can't compare it so we shouldn't bother" whining (even though we've been successfully doing just that, and rather hypocritically, you go on to make your own 'comparison'.)

Obviously you didn't read Mike's website quite as thoroughly as you try to make it seem you have.

All the people complaining about the War40k 'uberweapons' and saying they can't be mentioned because they are only ever vaguely talked about with reverence... its BS. THIS is what War40k is about. It's as simple as that. War40k is about the invincible Emperor. It is about the devestating technologies, which the Imperium keeps closed, to save the universe. It is about Space Marines that cannot be defeated, that can fight without sleep for a year, that only take 12 men to defend against an army.

Rant rant rant.. You know, you're really the ONLY 40Ker here that is actually insisting that the Marines and the Emperor and stuff will somehow automatically guarantee victory (without, amusingly enough, bothering to give evidence or reasons for this "victory." - whereas your compatriots have been both helpful AND straightforward with evidence. Maybe you should be taking lessons from them.)

Whats more, you just got done saying SW and WH40K can't be compared, yet here you are saying in the same breath that the Empire has no chance at all against them.

Star Wars isn't. It's about more traditional good vs evil armies battling it out. I love Star Wars... but it's a wet dream for the Empire to ever be able to defeat the Imperium, let alone anything in the War40k universe.

I repeat, not only are you being a fucking hypocrite here (making a comparison you just got done saying couldn't be done, but you're the only one here engaging in fanboyism and dishonest (and idiotic) tactics. Thankfully the other 40k'ers aren't even remotley as stupid as you are.

In a universe where ORKS ARE SPORES THAT SPREAD TO PLANETS AS FUNGII and then grow into the bipeds we recognise, the Imperium is going to be some hardcore mother fucker that's not to be trifled with. Orks make things work with the power of the MIND! They'll think red makes wartraks go faster, so the wartraks DO go faster. They think a bolter-shaped piece of metal is in the shape of a pistol, so IT WORKS LIKE A PISTOL.

Blh blah blah.. more of that obligatory "we can't compare or analyze it, but I'm perfectly content insisting that WH40K will still win through some unknown and mystifying reason."

You know, having expressed your opinion, you can shut up and go someplace else and let the rest of us discuss this intelligently away from y our offended sensibilities.

The Imperium sends holy crusades of guardsmen armies several billion strong without pause, it's perfectly normal and not even difficult for them to do. The Imperium is very tightly packed with countless populated worlds, where often they will just mobilise an entire planets population for war, without a second thought. It supports these with fleets of countless ships, the smaller transport types being only slighter smaller than a Star Destroyer.

You've apparently made this all-encompassing statement without bothering to consult any of the prior parts of this particular discussion, since none of this has anything even remotely (or quantitatively) relevant to the discussion or s upporting what you are attempting to pass off as a logical argument.

Lasguns/Hellguns are some of the weakest weapons available. They only have a 1 in 6 chance of getting through the armour of a Space Marine, if we follow the tabletop game rules, and AFTER THAT they AGAIN only have a 1 in 6 chance of WOUNDING said Space Marine.

Wow, I wasn't expecting you to attempt to put game mechanics above analysis or actual sciencec. Nope, didn't see that one coming at all.

Not some special Space Marine, but your most basic run of the mill SM. That Chaos Marine that was mentioned really is just a Chaos marine. Don't bring up some absolutely fanboy rubbish about them 'therefor being able to dissapate the same amount of energy because they are pyskers'.

Once more, blow me.

No. Sorry. Doesn't work that way. Heck, even according to Star Wars it doesn't work that way.

Obviously you didn't really bother to read Mike's site, then.

The only thing that the Empire has better is the speed of their ships. It's just a different story telling device, the War40k needs the 'Warp' (there are a few short stories here and there mentioning a time before the technological regression of the Imperium where the Warp was NOT the way they travelled quickly across space) and Star Wars needs hyperspace.

Blah blah blah.. another typical sore loser tactic: "Reduce it to the literary/storytelling level so we don't have to compare numbers!"

I can't even think of something that could stop a squad of Terminators and a squad of Assault Terminators taking over a Star Destroyer. These guys wear armour that can't even be penetrated by a bolter, let alone a lasgun. In fact, the weapon that has the least chance of killing one is a bloomin lascannon. A FRIGGIN LASCANNON. They're armour is so strong they can pick up tanks in their powerclaws and crush/split/cut them in two.

*yawn* Once more you simultaneously denounce rational analysis/comparison, and then attempt to insist that SW has no chance by.. making an analysis/comparison (even if its not a particularily good one). Thank god you're the only one like that here.

Heck, even have a watch of the intro to the computer game Dawn of War. That's ONE Space Marine unit, one Walker, and one heavy support, which is the relatively weak Predator tank (as far as War40k goes, that's a recon tank).

Ooooh.. bring up vague refernces to games and such again! I don't know how I'm going to refute that.

AGAINST AN ORK INVASION. The stop the attack, and the sergeant still runs and grabs the flag that the unit's flag bearer drops, takes fire, a BULLET GOES THROUGH HIS JAW and he STILL sets the flag up high as a standard - to the backdrop of the rest of his Chapter droppodding in to mop up the stragglers of the Ork army.

And orks are 3 times the size of a normal human man, and can rip men limb from limb without any trouble at all. And their natural hides are only slighter weaker than Space Marine armour. AND THEY GROW OUT OF THE FRIGGIN GROUND.

There ya go, being a fucking hypocrite YET AGAIN.

You always question the fact that the Imperium don't 'simply orbital bombard everything blah blah blah'.

You must actually read and understand the underlying history that's meant to be there... It's all honour. It's not honourable to kill from afar, to use technology to do your righteous duty, etc. For the most absolute, vile, cockroaches of beings they will in fact, just sit in orbit and turn the planet to slag. It's described a fair few times, the populace of a planet that's been recently rediscovered doesn't even remember the Imperium, and refuses to accede to it's rule again, and it's just plain fucked on from orbit - lowly humans that don't accept the Emperor aren't even worthy of ground troops, they don't deserve the honour of hand to hand nor do you get any honour from doing so.

Its funny seeing you say the words "read and understand" and apply it to anything pertaining to this discussion when its so blindingly obvious that your understanding of it is almost nil.

However, enemies, even dangerous ones... if it's not killed by your own hand, you yourself have succumbed to it's ways (technology to some extent). THAT is why so much is close or hand to hand combat. The Orks simply love battle and chopping things, the Tyrannids are basically xenomorph terrors ala Alien, the Tau are a society based on castes and honour, the Necrons a bloomin robots ala Terminator styles (why waste energy on weapons when your own limbs can tear the enemy apart), Chaos don't follow physics and their power is in the mind and GODS for fecks sake, the Imperium is preventing another Great Heresy by stopping too much Technological influence... in fact, the only major race that is all about tech is the Eldar, and they don't even use the Warp offhandedly, they have a stargate like system set up that goes through the Warp, and they suck absolute dogsballs in close combat for the most part. And guess what? They are stuck being essentially simple pirates of the universe.

Are you done embarassing the other 40kers to be pretending to be on their side?

I'm very dissapointed with the War40k people here as well, you've forgotten the roots of the Imperium, and what it's all meant to mean. You started playing the fanboys game, when you should have been saying all that I've just said.

Oh, boohoo.. you're "disappointed" in them. You're not only an idiot and a hypocrite, but you're an elitist twit as well. What the fuck should your opinion matter to any of them? They're the ones who have actually been conducting a rational discussion and presenting evidence... so really.. go fuck off.

(sorry about spelling, I only had 5 minutes to type this)

Gee, I can tell. I'm betting you finished with what.. 3 minutes to spare? I'm sure you were quite talented at removing every last drop of anything remotely intellectual from your response.

(I actually like Star Wars far far farrrrrrr more than I like War40k).

Ah, this is the obligatory "I'm not really biased, I'm just a fucking idiot" line..

[Connor MacLeod]

PeZook- Good points, but for one. With regards to Stormies breaking out the heavy weaponry against terminators, yeah, good to a point. Except that those sort of weapons are really not the sort of ordinance one wants to be slinging around on one's own vessel. So they could well end up destroying significant portions of the ship in order to save the ship, and if that works out to a mission kill on the ship, then the termies did their job.

It might blow huge hole sin the wall, but even a GJ-level output isn't neccecariyl going to do much to an ISD. Most of the damage is going to be cosmetic, at worst. I doubt you're going to be disabling substantial numbers of weapons, the reactor, or engines (how much damage would a single starfighter do to a capital ship in SW, without shields?)

About the only exception might be the areas with lots of windows (like the bridge) and even then you need high GJ/low terajoule level energy output to breach those.

One thing I'm curious about is what if the Emperor, who would recognize this for the apocalyptic, Imperium-shattering event that it would be, decided to shut down the Astronomicon temporarily and turn the full extent of the power he normally feeds into that on the invading GE forces? Given their lack of psi-shielding, he could probably simply turn the invading fleet upon itself, or warp their minds into serving him perpeptually.

Wouldn't that just ruin Palpatine's day?

Again, this is largely a pointless comparison without some sort of common reference point (See the discussion with Black Admiral involving Grey Knights)

[Connor MacLeod]

Earthshaker rounds weigh at least three tonnes, and create 15m wide craters.

And as for Imperium tank armour strength:

Re-laying the gun took a vital second. In that time, the second tank fired again and hit the Wrath squarely. The impact was enough to lurch all sixty-two tonnes of armoured machine several metres sideways. But it didn't penetrate the twenty centimetre-thick armour skin. Inside, the crew were dazed and they'd lost most of the forward scopes.

We alreay discussed this IIRC.. the momentum is around 60,000-120,000 kg*m/s (assuming a 1 or 2 m/s velocity, which might be somewhat generous)

the Pardus Conquerors were basically shrugging off HV 105mm tungsten-cored rounds to the front armour, and IIRC the side armour as well.

Not very useful without knowing the energy and momentum of the projectiles.

And just as a random addition, the recoil of a Conqueror's main gun:

When it fired, the breech of the main gun hurtled back into the turret space with one hundred and ninety tonnes of recoil force.

a "ton" of force is roughly equivalent to thousands/tens of thousands of newtons, IIRC. (I think equivalent to the force of gravity on one Imperial ton) So we're talking around hundreds of thousands to millions of Newtons worth of force.

Out of curiosity, how much does the Conqueror mass?

[Connor MacLeod]

Did a bit of re-checking, actually all imperial tanks that have a projectile main weapon use human loaders. This puts an effective upper limit to the weight of the shell they can use.

-Gunhead

That depends on how they load things. Do they use some sort of 'tractor" or repulsor device? Do they use telekinetic or other forcefield devices?
Its not inconceivable that the loaders have some sort of suit that enhances strength to allow them to do this (a 3 ton projectile would.. eaisly analogous to lifting a car, but from some of the glimpses I've seen, its not beyond reason that they have people capable of that sort of lifting capacity.)

[Connor MacLeod]

I dug up some more AFV data and did some more estimations.

Imperial armour states that the earthshakers caliber is...(drums please)
a whopping 132mm (feel free to be disappointed). If the pictures of the shells at the end of the book are to scale, it puts the vanquisher cannon to around 90mm calibre.
I'd still would need to know how much shells weight to be able to figure out how much power they generate. There's no mention how much muzzle velocity Imp AT-gun rounds have but if we use figures from the ES it should be 814-2400m/s depending on the type.

ES has a muzzle velocity 814m/s and a range of over 15km (These figures would put it on equal terms with RL arty) http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/2a36.htm <--- something like that.
More later when I have time and energy.

-Gunhead

For the msot part the guns seem to be comparable to battleship rounds..

If I recall correctly, ,comparisons have been done to AT-Ats against an Iowa-class battleships guns.. I'll have to dig to find it.

Finding mass or velocity for the rounds isn't difficult. If we can figure out the momentum or know the momentum (or the force) of a round.. we just need to know one or the other (or be able to derive it, assume it, or whatever) If we know mass and momentum, or velocity and momentum, we can derive the other unknown.


But iI find it quite possible

[Petrosjko]

One thing I'm curious about is what if the Emperor, who would recognize this for the apocalyptic, Imperium-shattering event that it would be, decided to shut down the Astronomicon temporarily and turn the full extent of the power he normally feeds into that on the invading GE forces? Given their lack of psi-shielding, he could probably simply turn the invading fleet upon itself, or warp their minds into serving him perpeptually.

Wouldn't that just ruin Palpatine's day?

Again, this is largely a pointless comparison without some sort of common reference point (See the discussion with Black Admiral involving Grey Knights)

Whawhahwha?

I've missed about half the discussion, so at this point I'll just concede and bow out. Do continue with the good work, Conner.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Quote:

Lasguns/Hellguns are some of the weakest weapons available. They only have a 1 in 6 chance of getting through the armour of a Space Marine, if we follow the tabletop game rules, and AFTER THAT they AGAIN only have a 1 in 6 chance of WOUNDING said Space Marine.

Wow, I wasn't expecting you to attempt to put game mechanics above analysis or actual sciencec. Nope, didn't see that one coming at all.

It should be noted that Marines are pathetically gimped in the tabletop game.

Anyways;

Okay. Even so though, I'm not 100% convinced that the guy is even analogous to a 'standard' Marine or Chaos Marine, but it doesnt seem to be much of an issue now given what Black Admiral posted.

If it does ever become relevant, I do have Xenos, Malleus, and Dead Sky Black Sun on hand for supportive evidence, though very little directly quantifiable IIRC.

That also assumes the Empire just throws themselves blindly forward as well. They could easily take as long as they need to just whittle them down using their capabilities to maximum advantage.

That siad, I'd think things would be more interesting to bring the other parties into play with the full GE (including Death STars and whatnot.).

True. And yes, most of the 40k/SW debates seem to revolve around the GE vs IoM, so another faction would be of some interest.

Even assuming 100x greater durability and capabilities, that still usually means the neccessity of bringing in heavy firepower (E-webs and thermal detonators) and just accepting the fact they're going to be fucking up some of the corridors of their ship.

As Black Admiral pointed out, powerfists are often used to just tear through bulkheads, and Termies carry them as standard issue (with variants like chainfists used specifically for this purpose).

Because of the accumulated recoil.. but since we're not neccearily talking about *just* projectile rifles (Ie laser rifles, etc.).. recoil isn't neccesarily as great an issue for equivalent energy levels (or even for substantially greater ones.. a 50 MJ laser is going to have only a fraction of an assault rifle's recoil.)

Alright.

Which actualyl brings up another point.. in these 2 1/2=3 meter tall suits of armor, they're going to be somewhat larger targets than a stormy is (especially since IIRC that armor tneds to be pretty wide across the top.)

True. Marines can keep their heads down if they want, of course, if the situation really does look like it's turning into a long-range grind.

The Empire has others too. ASide from the TDs and the E-web (or the medium repeating blasters), there are also handheld antivehicle blasters (Forcec commander, Tatooine Ghost, etc.) handheld "rocket" launchers (like from the Clone Wars cartoons, etc.) The latter has at least a 50 km range I believe. Alot of examples of infantry blaster "artillery" (called varying things, including "bazookas" as well) was shown in TESB at Hoth (firing on the Walkers no less.)

There is also a possibility that the Empire could deploy portable shield arrays to protect their troops against any long-range counterfire (maybe even artillery fire) from the Imperium trroops. (I am disregarding starfighter/capital ship support of the ground forces, of course.)

Most of the "heavy" stuff is going to be the armor and vehicles though.

I could go on and on about Marine armament, but I think we get the picture (though it should be noted that personal forcefields are often employed by veterans and officers of the Marines as well). More relevant in these long range battles would be the Guard's equipment, who are the real backbone of the Imperium's defense (Such as the Conqueror, above, which is one of zillions of variants of the universal MBT, the Leman Russ).

[Gunhead]

Exterminator Leman Russ has a loader, so does hydra. Exterminator uses a standard autocannon that uses 4 round clips that need to be replaced manually. The weapon itself is automatic.

Um, the Line of Death in Double Eagle was firing off a lot more than four shots before reloading (it's described as putting out a "stream" of fire on pg. 170, and there's no mention of the Line's ACs running out of ammo).

This doesn't prove the thing is autoloaded, a competent loader can keep up with the guns ROF.

Note: It doesn't say specifically that the Exterminator has two standard ACs, but since their standard AC is as I've described above, and STC is the way to go. I have no reason to assume otherwise.

-Gunhead

There's no such thing as a standard AC. There's everything from the .50-cal ones that Guard use as SAWs, to 100mm variants (on some models of Exterminator for instance).[/quote]

Imperial armour SB says there is, althought since there are numerous unofficial variants laying around that 100mm thingie could be one of them.
I'm a bit dubious about that 100mm, It could be a semi-automatic gun similar to modern day 75mm guns mounted on some LAVs. None of the example AC rounds in IA SB were 100mm, but since I'm basing my numbers to that 132mm ES round (which I consider official) this should be no surprise. RL ACs are 20-50mm range. 50mm is what I'd put as the caliber of the standard AC.

Note: I admit even I who is not a a WH40K fan am not pleased with the puny figures in the IA SB. The earth shaker should be at least in par with the biggest arty pieces in RL. THis would put it around 203mm which sounds a lot more impressive.

Connor: No, it says in a few descriptions how the crew has to manhandle the rounds into the breech. No mention of mechanical or other aids whatsoever. Yes such things could exist, but since they haven't been mentioned or described, my view is they don't.

-Gunhead