(RAR) Unnamed Ultramarine VS M1A1 Abrams (40K + Real Life)

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I do not believe blind grenades are standard; if they are that would give him a substantially better chance, as they are functionally obscuring against visual, IR and other spectra IIRC.

I just checked; they aren't. You have to spend points to equip an Astartes grunt with them.

[Sea Skimmer]

The marines are a combined arms force however.

With vehicles that would be grossly inferior to ones equipped for the size of conventional troops, which is why I ignore them as painfully stupid. So it's back to square one, avoid an equal fight at all costs. But when you do that the point of bothering is obvious.

There are things they lack from the combined arms suite of a modern nation, the ones that spring to mind are gun-artillery (the Imperial guard has this though), man-portable mortars

Ironically those being the place where physically bigger troops would actually be extremely useful... though only with towed weapons. Three Space Marines could probably work an 8in howitzer.

Logic has little to do with it, by design. They find the most metal killers because of this not because it's actually beneficial.

Which should simply fail in combat, given credible enemies and lead to you know, loss of the Empire ect... Real tradition always evolves, while true revolutions are almost unheard of in military art and science. Not that people don't throw it around like popcorn but you can disprove about all of them easily. The 'Infantry Revolution' people keep trying to claim took place in the 100 Years War being one of the most comical stupid. But this is why I have little interest in the details of 40K anymore, the lack of evolution + stupid baseline becomes very boring very quickly, and from what you folk all say it isn't an author problem nearly as much as it is a fanbase problem. Though given declining gamesworkshop sales perhaps that will change.

There are actually a couple that affect the blood. The secondary heart is able to increase oxygenation somehow

Like I was saying, dumb past further words...

, the Haemastamen increases the haemoglobin content of the blood and makes it more efficient and the Larraman's Organ makes the blood clot much, much quicker, in the RPG they have approximately half the chance of dying from blood loss due to critical wounds as humans because of this.

That's not a very impressive statistic, considering that even in the world wars infantryman had little chance of surviving more then 1 year of action, and that was predicated on most combat being 'crouch in a trench defending against nothing but random gunfire'. So ...this would grant a space Marine in principle a mighty 1.5 years of survival. Handy but not centuries. Also we actually have drugs now that can do the same thing, without making a cyborg.

But really the organs are only a small part of what makes them formidable. It's the combination of very quick reactions, excellent logistical support and superior equipment and training that makes them dangerous.

Quick reactions are nice, but unless you can dodge bullets, which is more or less impossible, it doesn't do a lot to make up for huge size. I wasn't joking or exaggerating when I said the guys are the size of the training targets we use for tanks. The survival of modern infantry is heavily predicated on small irregularities of terrain masking them from enemy fire, literally crawling under the bullets.

The survival of modern vehicles meanwhile, is primarily about tactics and strategy, the armor is just bonus. Dropping them directly onto an objective, that isn't very desirable since you have no idea which will be destroyed landing. That's also why I harp on the absurd sizes involved. Its a given that you will be able to build weapons to destroy your own vehicles, nothing else makes any real sense for some physical reasons, but if they are easy to hit or impossible to hide they will die a lot faster. But this reality of warfare is not something the creators either knew about or gave a damn about.

I sorta give them a pass for not realizing how vulnerable ballistic reentry pods would be though, as I'll accept a pass on various other weapons not existing. Except that Heinlein partly recognized it from the get go.....Why can't we get some damn lifting body landing vehicles in sci fi for once?

A marine in fatigues isn't that formidable (though I wouldn't want to wrestle one). A marine in power armour isn't really that shiny either; the better organized rebel groups would easily deal with a bunch of bozos charging around open fields. Bozos that have Attack of the Clones style tank landers that can fly their vehicles straight up to you and come supported by orbital bombardment and their own aircraft are harder to deal with.

Easier to deal with then 6ft tall guys appearing with much better vehicles though.

Perhaps the most relevant advantage of their biology is that they are able to pick up and wield what are to humans crew-served weapons, almost like a rifle for instance space marine vs imperial guard lascannons.

But given say a Bradley, I couldn't fit even one Space Marine inside. I can fit two teams of normal troops each with a crew served weapon, and still have another seat for someone to command them and direct artillery fire. And this vehicles turret top is only about 1ft taller then the Space Marine is standing! Since effective anti everything weapons exist that profile issue is a big deal. These guys are on the edge of just being a mech.

Of course more people have their own cost, but it isn't that much if conscription is allowed and the Space Marines require ginormous crap to drive around in and elaborate surgery just to exist. Even If we figured that surgery cost only a million bucks equivalent we could train a whole squad for that money without any trouble at all. And if the Space Marines are still primarily biological then the training will have to be unending, no skill is long retained if not used.

It's hard to murder them with artillery barrages when they're bombing you from space; really the space marines objectives (when they're sensibly portrayed) tend to be short high intensity missions with lots of support from either their own resources (listed above) or other imperial forces.

Try telling that to the fans.

If were going to assume the enemy is destroyed from orbit first, then hauling around a house sized APC for 8ft tall troops is going to rather strongly compete against the space for the bombs on the ships anyway. The problem is all 40K human forces were designed by someone ignorant trying to throw 'everything' into a basket. Try to cover all bases, and master none of them.

A more badass idea would be if you had something like the 40K power suits, but a normal sized guy inside who could actually get out when needed and still was equipped to fight, with the suit becoming a support mech for whatever.. an anime I cannot recall the name of had this, but it's obviously a little complex for a tabletop game.

As I say, it mostly depends if his gun is good enough to harm a tank (I don't think so unless he gets lucky, which is conceivable) or if he has some of the (vast amount of) anti-tank weaponry marines have.

Real tanks all have hoards of weak spots. But that's why you deploy armor in large numbers and great depth, and why the guns shoot as far as possible. Modern tanks are waaay undergunned in both caliber and precision of weapon too (with unguided rounds, the NATO 140mm guns were something like six times more precise then 120mm weapons, intended accurate range 6-7km), we just ceased seeing a point to further improvement in 1991. For this scenario the tank basically only has to fire and will score a kill, and its shells are probably physically faster, so the probability is strongly in its favor. This is also a place where human form simply works against the Space Marine, whatever his running speed it's going to be much less if he isn't swinging his arms because of physcis, and thus accurate firing on the move is very hard. For a tank it's not a problem as long as the elevation limits aren't exceeded.

[Elheru Aran]

The marines are a combined arms force however.

With vehicles that would be grossly inferior to ones equipped for the size of conventional troops, which is why I ignore them as painfully stupid.

I'm sorry, what? What exactly are you basing this statement on?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

The marines are a combined arms force however.

With vehicles that would be grossly inferior to ones equipped for the size of conventional troops, which is why I ignore them as painfully stupid.

I'm sorry, what? What exactly are you basing this statement on?

I'm actually curious on this point as well, though I think Skimmer's trying to say that the larger vehicles used to transport the Astartes are no better armed than combat vehicles sized for normal humans, which would actually make Astartes vehicles undergunned in comparison to normal-sized combat vehicles for normal-sized troops.

[Rogue 9]

Though to be fair, that IS why I play Guard and not Marines. They have real tanks, not those air-droppable toys the Astartes play with.

(Yes, I'm aware of the many design deficiencies of the Leman Russ, but that's not the point; AV14 and heavy weapons is. )

[Sea Skimmer]

Literally if you did not have to have space for an 8ft tall man inside of it, whom is also wide, and oddly proportioned (which wastes even more volume since he isn't squished into a can) it could be much more compact and very differently designed, with greatly superior armor, firepower and ammunition, with a lower profile, for the same overall weight. Or it could weigh less and have the same performance, gaining a major mobility advantage. If it was an infantry carrier it could either be several feet lower, or it could hold probably three times as many troops. FEET.

Seriously at least some of those vehicles are meant to have the crewmen as Space Marines in armor no less. See this image below for what that means. We only design modern tanks for ~6ft tall men max, and the Soviets accepted tank driver positions that had an even lower height limit. When you can recruit from a large population base this is simply not a problem, and well worth it. Mere height comparisons as I noted above, actually understate the problem. Space Marines are wide as shit.



Since mud does not give a shit how elite you are, and 40K does not field heavy anti gravity vehicles as standard you can't just pretend it doesn't matter, but the universe wants you to. Putting troops the size of small vehicles into large vehicles is stupid. They should have Dwarf Space Marines. Then they could not only be more logical, but also sell more models. So its extra stupid on that count.

[Eternal_Freedom]

With the exception of Predators, all Marines vehicles are IFV's (Rhinoa, Razorbacks and the ultimate metal box of Land Raiders) or artillery/AA platofmrs (Whirlwind, Stalker, Hunter). They aren't built for tank on tank combat. That some players use them as such is dumb on their part.

Predators however are, for their points cost, excellent tanks. One with lascannon turret and sponsons runs to about 160 points IIRC, roughly the same as a basic Leman Russ, but the Predator will be more likely to kill other tanks per turn than the Russ will, due to how 7th edition treats tanks firing weapons on the move, and firing Ordnance weapons.

[Sea Skimmer]

Umm, do you see the problem with a heavily armored assault force, intended to drop directly onto the objective, which is not designed to assault enemy tanks? Cause this feels like making my argument for me.

Also I cannot help but notice how much the Predator looks like something I know was a popular mil-tech corporate propaganda item in the 1980s when 40K got going.


M113 90mm Cockerill! Gun Caliber Twice the Armor Thickness, Victory is Assured!

[NecronLord]

Important thing Skimmer, the 8foot size is well. Disputed.

Back in the day they were described as 6 (yes 6) foot. Then it slipped up to 7, and now very occasionally we get 8 foot marines, though most sources still call them 7.

The fanwank you discover online focuses on the most extreme examples of course. They're not, in reality, that big. Here's a podcast for example that has Jes Goodwin, one of their main designers, talking about when they settled on the 7 foot average, and how he talks about some authors exaggerating their size; it pretty much blows the whole 8' thing out of the water.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Except they do have plenty of weaponry designed to hurt tanks. Predators in the triple-lascannon configuration, Dreadnoughts being run as riflemen (two guns, no CQC arm), Stormtalon/Stormraven/Thunderhawk/Fire Raptor gunships, land speeders, Devastator squads, special anti-tank guns (Melta) issued to drop pod units, Assault Terminators with storm shields and chainfists/thunder hammers, anything with a power fist and so on.

Given their intended role, a Space Marine force coming up against armoured or heavy mechanised forces in open combat has already screwed up somewhere.

[Elheru Aran]

It's no secret that the Rhino is basically a M113, just slightly better and with side doors. Wouldn't be the only example of GW shoehorning a modern vehicle design into their universe, either.

Anyway, if I'm reading you right, you're saying that Marine vehicle designs are shitty because they're inefficient, as in large oversized vehicles?

Bear in mind that the background of the universe has those Marines being the leading ground troops of the Imperium during the Heresy, with the result that they *were* the default infantry of the period. And as a result of the Heresy, a large proportion of The Opposition is going to be fielding broadly similar vehicles and infantry.

Apart from the Eldar/Dark Eldar and the Tau, the Imperium's primary opponents are the Orks and Chaos... both of which can be casually expected to field troops much more large and powerful than (40K) human average.

Yes, some of it is bad design. Yes, a LOT of it is bad writing/artwork. But in universe, Space Marines are more logical and better applied than on the tabletop. Tabletop does not translate 100% to lore.

[NecronLord]

And I'm pretty much staggered by the notion that you think space marines don't have anti-tank weapons.

[Elheru Aran]

Hell, even basic Tactical Marines can take out tanks, as noted Ragnar Blackmane did it in a Space Wolves book. Admittedly it's not as easy as just cracking it with a lascannon from a nice safe spot, but they can flank it, then either jump on top, pull the hatch open and throw in some frags, or clamp a krak grenade to the side and blow it to hell. If they've got a flamer, sticking the nozzle in a open vent will do the job too (and supposedly some flamers can even be switched to a cutting-torch mode... though obviously that wouldn't work if you were in a hurry).

Special Weapons loadout for a tac squad can include plasma guns, multi-meltas or rocket launchers... all of which, especially the rocket launcher, are quite competent at taking out armour. The only question is points cost, but it's usually not that much.

[NecronLord]

Ragnar Blackmane, guarded by the spirits, defeater of the Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red, Youngest Wolf Lord in history, should never be used as an example of a basic marine. Even when he was one, he was still a supreme talent.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hell, even basic Tactical Marines can take out tanks, as noted Ragnar Blackmane did it in a Space Wolves book. Admittedly it's not as easy as just cracking it with a lascannon from a nice safe spot, but they can flank it, then either jump on top, pull the hatch open and throw in some frags, or clamp a krak grenade to the side and blow it to hell. If they've got a flamer, sticking the nozzle in a open vent will do the job too (and supposedly some flamers can even be switched to a cutting-torch mode... though obviously that wouldn't work if you were in a hurry).

You know I can take out a tank with a tarp. Stuff it into the air intake and the tank is fucked.....do you realize that basically all of what you just rattled off has been accomplished by normal humans in actual combat? And thus proves absolutely nothing useful about a Space Marine other then perhaps that they are not rabid dogs? Yet somehow building the best tank is still dominate in ground combat in real life.

This is the fucking problem with 40K. Nearly everyone who likes it is so brainwashed into the unreality that they cannot see it. Instead we get people rattling off lists of weapons, all the damn time, as if a hugely complex logistical pipeline is actually a desirable thing in a force based around ~1000 man units! You should only field extra types of weapons if existing ones cannot do the job, otherwise improving the existing types, or replacing them with entirely better models, is a far superior solution. That isn't a modern thing or even a gunpowder thing, it's been true through history.

[NecronLord]

Or alternately, you could look at it as a setting built around the death throes of a decaying and irrational state besieged by various brands of magic and space orks.

The marines have all sorts of insane weapons options because they are, ultimately, pampered prestige troops who're probably more valuable for propaganda than their actual military power. You say it'd be more practical to use humans for almost every job marines get? You know what? You're 100% right on that, and the idea of them is itself meaningfully flawed in-universe and out.

I'm not sure where you're really going with that though. It seems to be an off topic critique that in some areas is odd (mechanical lungs?) and in some areas is stating the obvious (marines are too heavy, their vehicles are dated or supremely impractical) but kind of irrelevant.

[Sea Skimmer]

The whole 40K has lasted in human terms, forever, is the counter balance to that lame excuse.

Mechanical lungs is in response to someone else making rather lengthy post concerning blast effects, which apparently you didn't see fit to question either, even though no weapon on the M1 tank has a primary blast-kill mechanism or substantial blast effect in the first place. But because I understand something about how blast actually kill people I commented on it, in hope that it would improve future debates and what not, and if nothing else perhaps give other posters who like to write ideas on what would make sense.

But yeah this is all irrelevant because its not in question that the tank would fire one round and the target would die and this endless spamming of 40K data has not even slightly shifted that reality. Its a freaking 70 ton hull with a 7000lb cannon on it, its going to kill a guy in a suit. The fact that he's lamer and even worse thought out then I'm led to believe of late only reinforces this.

[NecronLord]

I didn't see fit to question because I think - like a sane person - that a hit - including case shot - from the main gun will kill the fucker dead? I'm not really convinced he's got any mileage in withstanding a machine gun either. Unless his firearm (whatever manner it may be bolter or otherwise) is up to the job of killing the tank, and he's quite lucky, or very quick off the mark, he's dead?

I think I said back on page one I think it's a matter of luck/skill in this kind of scenario and also depending what (undefined?) weapon the assailant has, and what sources you want to believe about them if we're presuming it's a bolter.

EDIT: Actually, I'd upgrade that to say he's particularly fucked if it get's to fire off case shot against him.

[Rogue 9]

With the exception of Predators, all Marines vehicles are IFV's (Rhinoa, Razorbacks and the ultimate metal box of Land Raiders) or artillery/AA platofmrs (Whirlwind, Stalker, Hunter). They aren't built for tank on tank combat. That some players use them as such is dumb on their part.

Predators however are, for their points cost, excellent tanks. One with lascannon turret and sponsons runs to about 160 points IIRC, roughly the same as a basic Leman Russ, but the Predator will be more likely to kill other tanks per turn than the Russ will, due to how 7th edition treats tanks firing weapons on the move, and firing Ordnance weapons.

140 these days actually; their price has gone down over successive codices. They're still low armor, though. Meanwhile, the various ordnance Russes have been nerfed into the ground since I started playing in 5th edition, but they'll still blow up a whole bunch of light armor at once if they're anywhere close to each other.

And yeah, there's basically no contest. An M1A2 would kill a lone Space Marine in the open stone dead if it starts at any range at all, no questions asked. Presuming Sea Skimmer was referring to me talking about blast weapons, I was attempting to define what sorts of things reliably penetrate power armor (and antitank weapons definitely do) in an attempt to get at least something interesting out of this thread.

[Archinist]

What about if the tank was loaded with HE rounds? Could those, at point blank range, reliably kill a space marine? Or would they just explode and blow dust everywhere?

[NecronLord]

What about if the tank was loaded with HE rounds? Could those, at point blank range, reliably kill a space marine? Or would they just explode and blow dust everywhere?

We've already established that it has ammo that can kill marines easily. Read the damn thread.

[Archinist]

What about if the tank was loaded with HE rounds? Could those, at point blank range, reliably kill a space marine? Or would they just explode and blow dust everywhere?

We've already established that it has ammo that can kill marines easily. Read the damn thread.

I did, but most of the people were talking about other rounds. I just don't see how a really big grenade will be able to kill the marines instantly, unless we're using very low-end calcs for the marines. I mean, there are higher-end calcs which allow the marines to chop the Abrams in half with their chainswords, while sabot rounds bounce of the marine's armor like they're nothing.

Plus most of the people here are ignoring that 40K is a soft sci-fi and is not supposed to be realistic in any way, and is also set in the far, far future and just assume that since the space marine is 'just a guy in suit', the tank will obviously kill him easily.

This is the fucking problem with 40K. Nearly everyone who likes it is so brainwashed into the unreality that they cannot see it. Instead we get people rattling off lists of weapons, all the damn time, as if a hugely complex logistical pipeline is actually a desirable thing in a force based around ~1000 man units! You should only field extra types of weapons if existing ones cannot do the job, otherwise improving the existing types, or replacing them with entirely better models, is a far superior solution. That isn't a modern thing or even a gunpowder thing, it's been true through history.

40K is supposed to be a over-the-top fantasy, not a historic documentary. It is not supposed to have any bearing over reality or be in anyway adhering to real physics or science. I mean, 40K is filled with literal magical forces, wizards, witches and whatnot.

I didn't see fit to question because I think - like a sane person - that a hit - including case shot - from the main gun will kill the fucker dead? I'm not really convinced he's got any mileage in withstanding a machine gun either.

The space marines can take hundreds if not thousands of lasgun rounds before dying, and a lasgun round is roughly the same as a .50cal round, so it's safe to say that the .50cal on the tank probably barely has enough bullets to kill/seriously injure the marine.

I mean, if the space marine can die just as easily as a normal human, what would be the use of having all that armor on, except to make it a bigger target and slow it down?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

A 12cm HE shell is not a "really big grenade," goddamnit. That's part of your problem with these RAR! threads, Archinist, you just pull shit out of your ass, fling it onto the screen, then fail to understand why other posters are calling it shit.

A 120mm HE round is more than sufficent to kill a thin-skinned target such as an Astartes, through concussion, fragmentation, or direct energy transfer. His armor is just not that strong.

Plus most of the people here are ignoring that 40K is a soft sci-fi and is not supposed to be realistic in any way, and is also set in the far, far future and just assume that since the space marine is 'just a guy in suit', the tank will obviously kill him easily.

None of us have lost sight of the fact 40K is science fantasy, but only you have failed to understand that, though, it is set in the 41st millenium, technological regression, stagnation, and technophobia have resulted in many Imperial technologies being no better than M3 tech(our present day), including armor and many weapons. And, not that it seriously matters. Any round the M1A2's main gun fires is going to kill a soft-skinned target such as an Astartes. That simple. Especially when the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore gun is comparable to a 40K battlecannon, and you don't see too many Spess Mahreens surviving an encounter with those.

Any anti-armor weapon fired by the tank's supporting infantry(and armored units are supported by infantry, and have been since at least WW II, if not since the Yom Kippur war, when the Israelis learned the lesson the hard way)will kill an Astartes. No doubt.

40K is supposed to be a over-the-top fantasy, not a historic documentary. It is not supposed to have any bearing over reality or be in anyway adhering to real physics or science. I mean, 40K is filled with literal magical forces, wizards, witches and whatnot.

Suspension of disbelief means we assume its real, treat it as real, therefore it is real, and conforms to what we know of the real world. Just saying "it's magic, baby," is not going to work.

The space marines can take hundreds if not thousands of lasgun rounds before dying, and a lasgun round is roughly the same as a .50cal round, so it's safe to say that the .50cal on the tank probably barely has enough bullets to kill/seriously injure the marine.

I mean, if the space marine can die just as easily as a normal human, what would be the use of having all that armor on, except to make it a bigger target and slow it down?

No, an Astartes cannot take hundreds, if not thousands of lasgun rounds, or any other rounds. Yes, he can shrug off more damage than, say, a Guardsman, but absolutely nothing in the lore even suggests anything as ridiculous as "hundreds, if not thousands, of lasgun rounds." Nor is there anything in the lore than quantifies the yield of a las being the same as that of a .50 ball round. Note, that I mentioned ball(solid slug)ammunition, as there's three types of armor-piercing ammo for the M2, including API-T, SLAP-T, and SLAP(Saboted Light Armored Penetrator)which can penetrate up to 19mm(0.75 in) of armor.

Not to mention the fact that the original .50BMG round itself was devised as an anti-tank round(back in WWI when tanks were much thinner-skinned), and is still used as an anti-material round capable of disabling engine blocks and penetrating concrete walls.

[Simon_Jester]

I did, but most of the people were talking about other rounds. I just don't see how a really big grenade will be able to kill the marines instantly, unless we're using very low-end calcs for the marines.

Ignorance isn't bliss, kid.

Seriously, don't assume you know how things work; I cannot remember a single time you've made a factual claim about weapons, tactics, psychology, human behavior, or technology in general where you didn't show ignorance of important facts.

A normal hand grenade might have minimal effect on a Space Marine (though if it blows up close to him it'll probably damage his weapons even if it doesn't pierce his armor). An artillery shell has hundreds or thousands of times more explosive than a typical hand grenade, and throws bigger shrapnel much more forcefully. Plus it has a totally separate mechanism called "blast" for killing that we were talking about earlier.

Plus most of the people here are ignoring that 40K is a soft sci-fi and is not supposed to be realistic in any way, and is also set in the far, far future and just assume that since the space marine is 'just a guy in suit', the tank will obviously kill him easily.

If "It's not realistic" is a reason for the Marine to win, then you might as well argue the Marine wins by turning into a unicorn who is too pretty to shoot at so he doesn't die.

By saying "what would really happen if X meets Y," you are also saying "take the capabilities of X and Y seriously, and don't make up bullshit about them."

40K is supposed to be a over-the-top fantasy, not a historic documentary. It is not supposed to have any bearing over reality or be in anyway adhering to real physics or science. I mean, 40K is filled with literal magical forces, wizards, witches and whatnot.

And yet you asked what would happen if a guy in power armor fought a real tank.

I mean, it's like asking what would happen if Conan the Barbarian met a bunch of angry guys with machine guns. Sure, Conan's a fantasy character, but that doesn't make him immune to bullets or somehow able to avoid being shot. So the answer is "he probably gets shot and dies."

I didn't see fit to question because I think - like a sane person - that a hit - including case shot - from the main gun will kill the fucker dead? I'm not really convinced he's got any mileage in withstanding a machine gun either.

The space marines can take hundreds if not thousands of lasgun rounds before dying, and a lasgun round is roughly the same as a .50cal round, so it's safe to say that the .50cal on the tank probably barely has enough bullets to kill/seriously injure the marine.

A lasgun is totally different than a .50 caliber round even if both do roughly the same amount of harm to an unarmored human body. The lasgun is a laser beam, it damages by heating and vaporizing material along its path. The Marine's armor is some kind of cerametal which is presumably heat resistant so it won't melt easily, and each individual lasgun bolt just digs a small crater in the surface

A .50 caliber bullet is a fast moving hunk of metal; it inflicts damage by physically punching into and through materials, it shatters things in ways that a laser beam will not do. I could design armors that would be very effective against a burst from a lasgun, but ineffective against bullets. Say, a slab of ice with opaque particles like sand or wood chips mixed in. That would absorb a lot of energy from a lasgun, because melting the ice takes a lot of heat. But it would not stop bullets reliably, especially not large armor piercing bullets.

Moreover, it is not plausible that a Space Marine could actually take hundreds or thousands of lasgun bolts before losing the ability to win a fight, if only because many of those bolts will hit his weapon and ruin it. Even if his body is heavily armored, we have no evidence that his bolter or other weapons are equally well armored.

I mean, if the space marine can die just as easily as a normal human, what would be the use of having all that armor on, except to make it a bigger target and slow it down?

The armor is useful for stopping certain kinds of weapons, but not others. It is not a magical defense against all things. Both in the books about 40k and the games about 40k, there are plenty of heavy weapons that will penetrate a Marine's armor easily, and Marines treat those weapons as deadly serious threats. The armor does, meanwhile, provide good protection against light weapons. It is useful for protecting the wearer's life. But in this case, if the wearer loses his weapon he's a dead man, because no amount of armor saves him from the enemy's heaviest weapon. So if being shot with a heavy machine gun destroys his weapon, it doesn't make a difference if the armor stopped the bullets from punching him full of holes. He just takes a few seconds longer to die.

---

There are things they lack from the combined arms suite of a modern nation, the ones that spring to mind are gun-artillery (the Imperial guard has this though), man-portable mortars

Ironically those being the place where physically bigger troops would actually be extremely useful... though only with towed weapons. Three Space Marines could probably work an 8in howitzer.

True.

I think the main reason the Marines don't have gun artillery (by and large) is that they simply aren't equipped or numerous enough to fight large scale land battles. Any battle they fight is on the company or battalion scale at best. As you noted they can't hold enough ground to secure a large perimeter, which means they can't stick an artillery park in their rear area and have it stay secure to provide supporting fire. So there's just not much point in them having any artillery heavier than what we'd normally expect them to carry at the company level.

If they badly need a firebase to support them, they're usually better off relying on the aerospace craft (and/or the orbiting starship) that brought them to the battle in the first place.

, the Haemastamen increases the haemoglobin content of the blood and makes it more efficient and the Larraman's Organ makes the blood clot much, much quicker, in the RPG they have approximately half the chance of dying from blood loss due to critical wounds as humans because of this.

That's not a very impressive statistic, considering that even in the world wars infantryman had little chance of surviving more then 1 year of action, and that was predicated on most combat being 'crouch in a trench defending against nothing but random gunfire'. So ...this would grant a space Marine in principle a mighty 1.5 years of survival. Handy but not centuries. Also we actually have drugs now that can do the same thing, without making a cyborg.

Yeah. The idea of biological modification to reduce blood loss is a good one, but as soon as you start trying to quantify it, it turns into nonsense.

I sorta give them a pass for not realizing how vulnerable ballistic reentry pods would be though, as I'll accept a pass on various other weapons not existing. Except that Heinlein partly recognized it from the get go.....Why can't we get some damn lifting body landing vehicles in sci fi for once?

The Marines do have shuttle-analogues (Thunderhawks) that can land troops directly from an orbiting starship, so it's not all ballistic reentry.

Umm, do you see the problem with a heavily armored assault force, intended to drop directly onto the objective, which is not designed to assault enemy tanks? Cause this feels like making my argument for me.

Also I cannot help but notice how much the Predator looks like something I know was a popular mil-tech corporate propaganda item in the 1980s when 40K got going...[/img]

M113 90mm Cockerill! Gun Caliber Twice the Armor Thickness, Victory is Assured!

Amusingly, the Predator tank is rather lightly armored for a main battle tank in 40k (frontal armor can just barely be penetrated by heavy autocannon and is overmatched by shoulder-fired antitank missiles; side armor will yield to just about any heavy weapon out there, including the weapons that serve as the functional equivalent of heavy machine guns in the Imperial Guard).

This is the fucking problem with 40K. Nearly everyone who likes it is so brainwashed into the unreality that they cannot see it. Instead we get people rattling off lists of weapons, all the damn time, as if a hugely complex logistical pipeline is actually a desirable thing in a force based around ~1000 man units! You should only field extra types of weapons if existing ones cannot do the job, otherwise improving the existing types, or replacing them with entirely better models, is a far superior solution. That isn't a modern thing or even a gunpowder thing, it's been true through history.

Hm.

Speaking for myself, it seems to me that the Marines generally only have one weapon of a particular type at a time, it's just that they do so many different things that they wind up training with a somewhat wider variety of equipment and doctrine than a normal military force would.Sometimes they're fighting swarms of zerglings and carrying a few flamethrowers is advisable. Sometimes, tank-busting is the order of the day, so they pick up rocket launchers or their equivalent. That would explain the absurdly intense training schedule- they practice with a lot of different kinds of weapons and tactics they don't necessarily use very consistently.

Some chapters rely on one type of tank for their armored support when they find it desirable; others pick a different tank. Plus, our main sources of material on them are books designed to include literally everything a Marine force could have, for purposes of assembling armies on the tabletop with some customizability. As in, some chapters supposedly rely on motorcycles (or hoverbikes) heavily for increased mobility, while others simply don't bother with that. Some chapters may use Rhinos as APCs, or jetpacks to jump out of flying vehicles as a variation on the concept of airborne infantry, while others may not.

Also, a typical logistical support structure for a single Marine chapter is "one entire planet they own in fee simple." And from the point of view of the Imperium, that planet's one job is to sustain the Space Marines who base from that planet. They have no other purpose, any other military forces they maintain are strictly optional, and I'm not sure the planet is even taxed by the Imperium at large. So even if said planet is mostly a primitive barbarian world, that's a hell of a lot of room for an industrial base to support the chapter's supply needs. And the Marines are, like, the one faction within the Imperium where we're explicitly told they have enough random schlubs doing support duty to make the tooth-to-tail ratio plausible: thousands or tens of thousands of servants and bureaucrats operating in their home base to keep the chapter equipped and ready to fight.
...

The function of the Space Marines, insofar as we can even work out what their function is, is to act as a type of special forces, albeit one that acts more like "shock troops hit the critical targets" and less "sneak around for a month working out the enemy's dispositions." They're also your go-to guys when the enemy starts breaking out explicitly magical bullshit and having someone who's actually capable of winning a sword fight with a giant four armed demon whozit or whatever is genuinely useful.

Exactly what they need to do on a given mission varies a lot; sometimes it's "recapture the space hulk," sometimes it's "kill the warlord," sometimes it's "storm the ritual center and stop the evil sorceror from summoning Cthulhu while demonic gribblies spit flame at you."

[Elheru Aran]

With the caveat that you can find Space Marine Chapters who do... pretty much everything across the rainbow of military deployments. About the only thing they don't do is wet navy.

The Raven Guard for example are pretty much just literal damn ninjas. They DO "sneak about for a month working out the enemy's dispositions" (though with their abilities it's probably only a week or less) before executing a lightning attack in the dark of night that completely wipes out the bad guys' strongpoints.

White Scars, meanwhile, are a highly mobile army-- they've got tons of bikes, landspeeders, amped-up APC's and whatnot. They're basically Mongols in space. Lots of lightning maneuvering, encirclements, flanking and what not.

And if you go back to the Heresy era with its ridiculous numbers you find even more roles-- Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists for example were competitors for "best fort builder". Iron Warriors in particular had a ridiculous amount of artillery. The Thousand Sons were the magic ones. It gets moderately ridiculous, but suffice it to say that even in the state of the galaxy, if a Warmaster *really* needs a Chapter to fulfill a *very specific* task... he can probably find one. Whether it'll actually be available or not is another question.