Part two.. and I'm done
Page 231
..the Chimera-mounted Brimlock Dragoon regiments took position behind them. Gauge intended to use this mighty armoured force to smash through the main body of the tau forces and press into the city itself without even stopping. Aside from the tau destroyers, the Departmento Tacticae had not identified anything in the enemy’s arsenal heavy enough to confront a Titan. On the evidence gathered so far, the tau did not utilise Titan equivalents, as so many other races did.
Tau don't use titan analogues, but their Mantas are Titan grade. It shows roughly how space and titan weaponry compare. Also note the use fo mechanised forces against the Tau (contrasted with taros.) And again the Dragoons are mechanised.
Page 233
The tau had displayed such an ability at the tactical level, when individual squads would pull back and re-deploy with well drilled precision and often-deadly effect. But for the tau to enact the same doctrine at the operational level was not something the crusade had anticipated.
I dont remember if they do or not, might depend on circumstances, but its an interesting question Sarik raises. In this case, though they seem to be waiting in ambush.
Page 234
. It was an impressive structure, a hundred metres across and twenty wide. It was by far the largest bridge across the river, and far larger and sturdier than anything the Imperial Guard’s combat engineer units could have erected even had there been time to do so. The bridge was pristine white, unmarked by the devastation that been unleashed on the buildings of Erinia Beta. Even a single stray artillery round or rocket could have rendered the bridge unusable, but the bridge was perfectly intact.
Bridge. Engineer units can create bridges to move their forces over, but would take longer than 24 hours to do so.
Also a single Basilisk shell (or Manticore rocket) can render the bridge unusuable, meaning they would either destroy it, or put a crater in it that makes it uncrossable. Given that a Titan's stride length is some 8-9 meters (they mention Warhounds having to use it to cross, whereas the Reavers and Warlord just ford across the river directly) we're talking 8-20 meters. A shell or missile would be at least 90-100 kg of TNT analogue by that (for a crater of equivalent diameter in rock) to over a ton or so of TNT for close to 20 m. It meshes with the magnitude of other artillery weapons (600 kg shell from Wolf's honour, the basilisks from Storm of Iron, munitions from the GG series, etc.)
Page 236
The shore five hundred metres to the right of the opposite end of the bridge was even more obscured, a pure white bank of smoke sizzling.
Distance from bridge to bank. Means an approximate combat engagement range.
Page 237
Then the white smoke was parted by the passage of an invisible, hyper-velocity projectile. It left no trail or wake, and struck the Predator’s glacis plate at an oblique angle. The entire front left section of the tank was vaporised, tearing a ragged wound in the prow, peeling back layer upon layer of armour and exposing the Predator’s mangled innards. The driver was killed instantly, his body directly in the path of the projectile. No trace of it was ever found.
...
The white smoke that had parted when the projectile had been fired now drifted clear, revealing that it had been generated by some hybrid gas/distortion charge device mounted on a grav-tank.
Another sneaky tau ambush. Does damage to a Predator, soft killing but not obliterating it. Whether the round vaporized or the armor did we don't know.
Page 237-238
With its power systems crippled, the Predator was unable to traverse its turret to fire on the enemy vehicle. But the tank was not dead yet, as Choristeaus knew. By activating the capacitor surge device, every ounce of power remaining in the Predator’s machine systems would be flooded to the turret actuators. Enough power would be provided to turn the turret and line up a single shot, even as every fuse in the entire vehicle blew out.
...
A dozen angry sparks went up from various points on the wounded Predator’s hull as the capacitors were squeezed dry and the vehicle’s fuses blown. Then the turret tracked right, and the autocannon lowered. The Son of Chrysus opened fire even as the tau grav-tank found its mark. The Predator’s first shot struck the enemy’s left thruster pod, the cannon shell slamming right through the slatted armour protecting the intake and exploding within.
Autocannon vs Tau Hammerhead. While the thruster pods probably aren't the most armoured parts of the ship, it still penetrated and did damage which says somethinga bout tau armor. Also note the last ditch means of swinging the turret around.
Page 238
Before the second autocannon round could cycle into its chamber, the tau grav-tank fired. The alien gunner’s aim must have been spoiled when his vehicle’s thrusters had been struck, for the shot clipped the rear of the Predator, tearing through the armour protecting its rear section. The hyper-velocity slug was transformed into plasma as it impacted against the solid mass of the Predator’s armour, which in turn burned its way through one of the tank’s ammunition hoppers. A hundred shells detonated as one, and blow-out panels intended to protect the crew against such catastrophic damage were automatically jettisoned from the rear, a great gout of fire and burning debris erupting forth.
Less than a second passed between the projectile striking the Predator and the second autocannon shell cycling into its chamber. Even as the ammunition hoppers detonated, sergeant Choristeaus fired the last shell, which boomed from the cannon mouth and struck the tau grav-tank a metre to the left of the first shot. The joint between the grav-tank’s thruster unit and its main hull was shattered, and the entire pod split off to slam to the ground.
Tau railgun vs autocannon again. The HV slug turns to "plasma" which may explain the earlier vaporization - the round vaporizing itself with impact and creating a crater. This can cause widespread damage but is not neccesarily penetrative. although if the vleocity is low enough and the mass of the projectile high enough, the plasma might retain enough momentum to "penetrate" through. another possibility is that the Tau fire multiple shots.. some sort of kinetic penetrator analogue to tandem charge perhaps, or they have some means of force field "shaping" the blast for penetration briefly. Hard to say. Either way it seems to be both an explosive HV detonation and a penetrating one, which is sort of the best of both worlds. Assuming an iron slug that weighs as much as a APFSDS round (4-5 kg) and it vaporizes (nevermind reducing to plasma) we're probably looking at a good 30-40 MJ of KE at least for the Tau railgun (which given a stated velocity of 8-10x speed of sound is not impossible.) Higher velocities might be required for this, however.
It's also quite possible the Tau just have different kinds of ammo. They may use KEP for most of it, which does not neccesarily have to be high velocity or "plasmatize" - this may be a heavy vehicle killer round for all we know (Their equivalent of HEAt, perhaps.)
The autocannon carries at least 100 shells, but has safety measures against detonations like that. It also apparently reloads pretty damn fast.. within a second or so. Also again autocannon pentrate and damage the Hammerhead.
Page 243
Lucian fired, and the roiling blast of raw plasma took the tau’s right arm off at the shoulder, the backwash of lethal energies spraying across his blank faceplate. The alien screamed horrifically as he fought with his one remaining hand to tear the rapidly melting helmet away before the liquid energies melted through.
Lucians plasma pistol. Iwant to say single digit MJ for melting the helmet, but it looks flamethrower like and I don't think it behaves like conventional burning. It might be single digit MJ/triple digit KJ for its flamethrower like properties, though.
Page 244-245
It was as if lightning struck the ground not ten metres from Lucian. An instant before, the air became charged and his skin stung, then everything went white.
...
The surface of the road along which the Rakarshan platoon commander had been running was a blackened crater, seething with arcs of bright energy. Inside the crater was scattered the charred remains of the officer and at least five of his riflemen, every single bone of their bodies pulled apart, their flesh burned away by whatever had struck them.
The screams were coming from those riflemen not caught in the blast’s full effect, but who had been close enough to suffer from its blast wave. Men writhed upon the ground, arcs of what looked like electricity sweeping up and down their bodies and burning their flesh wherever they passed.
...It was a tau grav-tank, its turret surmounted by the previously unknown weapon that had unleashed the devastating energy ball.
This is, I suspect, a tau ion cannon in action. Whether or not it behave slike an actual PBW is up for debate but... its nasty. Single/double digit MJ at least for "charring" burning at least half a dozen.. cremation of any kind obviously amps it up a considerable amount (triple digit MJ, etc) and a crater beig enough to hold them (maybe 4-5 meters across at a guess?).. maybe 12-25 kg of TNT equivalent (cratering comparison).
Page 246
The rifleman to Lucian’s right was shot in the knee, his entire lower leg blown away as he collapsed to the ground.
Pulse rifle round.
Page 249
“Call in a medicae lander,” Lucian said. “I want those men
evacuated.”
Medicae airlift for injured soldiers
Page 251
Gurney’s sermons drove the beleaguered flank units to superhuman efforts, his furious imprecations ringing in the ears of the combatants, lending strength to the arm of the Guardsman, succour to the wounded and dying, and even planting fear in the hearts of those tau warriors close enough to hear them.
He's an ass but Gurney serves some useful psychological purpose
PAge 251
At one stage the fastest of enemy cadres threatened the army’s mobile
artillery concentrations at the rear, which were moving forward in great, bounding advances while keeping up a storm of supporting fire for the front-line regiments.
The Brimlock Light Infantry moved swiftly to counter the sudden threat, redeploying seven companies and holding the enemy at bay long enough for the heavy weapons companies to set up their field pieces and drive the enemy off completely.
the mobile artillery (basilisks, Manticores, etc.) Firing, stopping, firing again. This might be an example of
shoot and scoot but I'm not sure if that covers advancing forward or if its suppsoed to mean moving backwards, laterally or what.
Page 254
This one’s arms were twinned fusion blasters, each capable of melting a fully armoured Space Marine to bubbling slag.
200-300 kg of power armor 250-350 MJ for iron, 400-750 MJ for silicon. Boiling is bound to be higher (upwards of a Gigajoule or more)
Page 254
Sarik squeezed the trigger of his boltgun, unleashing almost an entire magazine of mass-reactive explosive bolts directly into the enemy’s torso. The first shots sent it reeling off-balance and it stumbled backwards on its claw-like mechanical feet. As more shots impacted against its armour, detonating with furious staccato flashes...
...
Then a crater appeared in the centre of its torso armour, and Sarik concentrated
his last few rounds on that exact spot. Round after round buried themselves in the wound, and detonated as one.
About an entire clip of bolter ammo to take down a battlesuit.
Page 258
The first weapon to fire was the Warlord’s gatling blaster. Rounds the size of
men were cycled into the weapon’s chamber, and fired with explosive force before the next barrel rotated around to fire the next shot.
...
Each round was as powerful as a heavy tank shell, blowing out the already damaged structures across the river one by one as the line of fire swept along their length in seconds. Sarik had only previously seen such devastation from a low-level bombing run conducted by an entire wing of fighter-bombers, each successive explosion coming microseconds after the last as the detonations walked across the line.
Figure 4000-8000 kilos per bomber perhaps (Thunderbolt to Marauder.. although marauders are argued to only carry 6000 kilos in both payloads which is a bit silly but eh.. an entire Wing might be anywhere from 6 to 20 fighters depending on source and definition... we're talking 24 tons of TNT to 160 tons of TNT over a period of seconds.
We also don't know wht a "heavy tank shell" qualifies as.. it could be a baneblade, or a Demolisher, or something in between.. "Man sized" might suggest something between 50-100 kg (depending on how big a man we're talking) It might also be roughly 6" gun analogue (~40 kg). We're looking at tens of kg of TNT equivalent per shell easily regardless, though. We don't know the exact rate of fire of such, but I'd just guess maybe 10 rounds a second we'd be talking about hundreds, perhaps thousands of kg of tnt per second (which fits with the earlier calc.)
Page 266
The tau utilised what they considered to be highly advanced technologies, reducing the reliance on living and breathing, and fallible, crew. The Imperium warned against the folly of relying too heavily on machine intelligence, many considering it a blasphemy capable of bringing about the doom of the entire human race. Indeed, Brielle had read texts that claimed that such a thing had come about in humanity’s pre-history, texts that ordinary men and women had no access to whatsoever.
Tau "techno heresy" using extensive automation. Of course the Imperium does this wirth servitors and machien spirits and auto-systems, not being much different. On the other hand, given hwo often Imperial tech can get corrupted or infested or possessed such a concern probably makes some sense. Although I suspect the tau are less vulnerable to this for whatever reason (we haven't heard of possessed tau computers or starships yet.) Also a reference, I suspect, to the Men of Iron
PAge 267
The tau, Brielle had learned, made extensive use of such machine-intelligent devices, some for basic security tasks, but many more for maintenance and other menial jobs. The heaviest examples carried weapons underslung beneath an armoured disc.
Tau drones.
PAge 268
Two million, three hundred thousand kilometres was impossibly far from a safe distance from a planetary body for a vessel to break warp and translate back to real space. Not even the most legendary of Navis Nobilite master Navigators would attempt such an operation, for in all likelihood their vessel would be smeared across interplanetary space, and every soul on board smeared across the depths of the empyrean.
...
Nonetheless, at a point in space two million, three hundred thousand kilometres
coreward of Dal’yth Prime, a wound was ripped in the flesh of reality. Were it not for the vacuum of space, the gibbering of ravening, hungry monsters and the wailing of every damned soul ever to have lived and died might have echoed from that wound, and driven any mortal that heard it utterly insane.
...
A black patch of space started moving, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed.
Whatever systems propelled the sleek black form, they cast no signature on any
spectrum the human race could read, though several older races might have detected them.
An inquisitorial starship, stealthed and apparently using some sort of stealthy (reactionless?) drive to move along, is able to emerge from the warp 2.3 million km from an inhabited planet... a distance which is an unarguable upper limit for "safe" distances (more probably tens or hundreds of millions of km from a planet as a safe lower limit). While not impossible to come out safely (Orks have done it) it carries dangers which probably mean destruction, and there are unpleasant side effects regardless.
Page 270
Where humanity’s cities continued to grow for centuries, even millennia, buildings often constructed in layer upon layer of rockcrete sediment, the tau built their cities according to need, and built another
when that need was exceeded.
Tau construction vs human construciton and urban planning.
Page 271
One Space Marine, the sergeant of the single tactical squad contributed by the Subjugators Chapter, was shot clean through his helmet’s eyepiece while riding in his Rhino’s hatch by a sniper at least two kilometres distant.
Tau pulse weapon (or possibly rail rifle) range. By FFG range a long las has a similar effective range, and a lasgun about 65-70% of that (1.3-1.4 km)
Page 272
“Brimlock 2nd Armoured is now across River 992,” the officer said. “As are the Rakarshan Light Infantry.”
..
..how had a tank and a light-role infantry unit crossed at the same time?
...
“The Rakarshans are riding the tanks, sergeant.”
They should have done this at Taros.
Page 275
The weapon locked onto a rapidly-dropping battle suit, and opened fire.
The burst of fire lasted only three seconds, but in that brief period, several
hundred rounds were cycled through the six barrels from the huge hopper at its rear.
...
The battle suit was caught in the torso at a range of eighty metres and a height of thirty, and it simply disintegrated before the Space Marines’ eyes.
3 seconds of assault cannon fire obliterates battlesuit. 66-100 rounds per second.
Page 277
Two-dozen missiles streaked from the launchers atop the
tanks on boiling black contrails, sweeping high into the air before plummeting down on the aliens. The resulting explosion engulfed the entire horde, slaying a hundred or more as missile after missile detonated in their midst. When the smoke cleared, the surface of the road the enemy had advanced along was a mass of black craters, several hundred aliens blown to charred meat scattered across the whole area.
Whirlwind barrage, obliteratres/burns several hundred Kroot - figure several hundreds kg of TNT total at least, at least 8-10 kg of TNT per missile, roughly?
Page 277
..from rapid-firing burst weapons similar to the Dreadnought’s
assault cannon..
...
..others used longer-ranged missile systems to fire warheads fully
capable of slaying a Space Marine or cracking open a tank with every shot.
Battlesuit weapons.
Page 279
Another of the hyper-velocity projectiles hammered down from above, striking an Iron Hands Predator battle tank square in the commander’s hatch.
...
The projectile turned to superheated plasma as it impacted on the armoured hatch, and the jet went straight through the commander, the tank’s innards and out through its belly armour. The entire tank seemed to be pushed down as if by an invisible fist, as far as its suspension would allow. Then it sprang back up as its systems reversed the impact, but not before something deep inside detonated. There was a sharp explosion and a fountain of crackling flames erupted from the top hatch. Another three seconds later, the entire tank exploded, shunting sideways the Rhinos on either side...
Broadside battlesuit weapon. Again note it combines KEP with shaped charge like effects seemingly. Impact also knocks the tank downwards.. implying significant momentum (10,000-20,000 kg*m/s perhaps?)). To be fair hitting hte tank turret hatch (and up on top) is probably the weakest armor on a tank possible.
Also explosive effects of autocannon round detonation is powerful enough to knock Rhinos sideways (wihtout apparently harming or blasting them apart), the blasts being channeled by the blow out panels. I'd assume at least several hundred kg of TNT for those shells.
Page 281
All three of them were carrying twinned weapons that Sarik had
learned were the tau’s equivalent of meltaguns, fusion effect blasters capable of
reducing an armoured vehicle to slag in a single shot.
Tau fusion blasters can melt a vehicle in a single shot.. assuming a 20-40 ton IFV/APC type we're talking 24-48 GJ at least (assuming totally iron.)
Page 281
The twin lascannon turret on the back of the vehicle spat a double lance of searing white light towards the enemy, striking the lead battle suits full in the torso. But amazingly, the blast, which was amongst the most powerful armour-piercing weapons in the column’s arsenal, did not penetrate.
At the last possible moment, a bubble of blue energy sprang into being, and the
lascannon blasts were absorbed.
Battlesuit shield absorbs two lascannon blasts.
Page 283
The two blasts converged on the nearest Space Marine, turning his entire body into a seething lava-orange mass. In an instant, his armour was reduced to slag, great gobbets of liquefied ceramite blowing backwards and splattering across the battlebrothers following close behind. In less than a second, the Devastator was gone,
nothing but a long smear of rapidly cooling, bubbling liquid marking his passing.
Fusion blasters together.. melt/boil power armoured marine again.. hundreds of MJ at least.
Page 285
The other battle suit’s energy shield cast a shimmering blue bubble. Sarik
bellowed as he held the weapons on target, forcing the fusion beams to burn through the shield. Overwhelmed by the titanic energies, the shield pulsated, before collapsing in upon its projector.
The battle suit’s armour withheld the raging sun storm for all of three seconds
before the panels peeled back, one laminate at a time, each layer disintegrating into billowing black gas. The instant the armour was gone, the rest of the suit was turned to liquid fire which splattered on the hot winds stirred up in the wake of the devastation.
Tau dual fusion blasters vs Tau battlesuit.
Page 289
Lucian was hitching a ride in a Chimera belonging to the 2nd Armoured’s
regimental intelligence cell...
...
The passenger bay was cramped, filled
with staff officers working field-cogitation stations and yelling into vox-sets.
Intel chimera.
Page 289-290
“You know as well as I that his authority beyond the Imperium relies on others acknowledging it. His rosette holds no more inherent authority than your warrant, or the council’s charter. The council only accepts its dissolution because its members are scared of him.”
...
“You’re right; we’re all peers out here, but what happens when we get back to Imperial space? If we make an enemy of him, a real enemy, we make an enemy of the entire Inquisition."
Inquisitorial authority again. It seems to depend on the compliance/submission of those facing it, which may or may not work depending on circumstnaces (power/influence, resources, perceptions of authority or political backing, etc.) Again theoretical vs practical.
Page 290
He looked across the command Chimera’s transport bay, towards the glowing map displayed on a nearby tacticae-station. The 2nd Armoured was coming up on ten kilometres from the star port, and would soon be linking up with Sarik’s Space Marine force.
Map display inside chimera, showing positions of Imperial forces.
Page 296
Entire regiments of tanks rolled aside any opposition they encountered, though only the heavy battle suits even dared make a concerted stand against such forces. Dragoon regiments moved forward rapidly, armoured fist squads using their Chimera transports as mobile bunkers and fire support bases as they dismounted and cleared enemy-held positions with bayonets fixed. While the Rakarshans rode forwards on the backs of the 2nd Armoured’s tanks, other light infantry units followed on foot, using their skills in fieldcraft to move rapidly through the urban terrain.
Deployment of Imperial forces... most of the "foot" troopers seem to be light infantry, which suggests the others are either armoured or mechanized (DRagoon regiments, eg the Brimlock.) We dont know ratios or anything, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Page 296
Tau stealth suits launched desperate and often suicidal attacks
against the Titans, leaping from high structures in an effort to board the mighty war machines.
Using fusion blasters, the stealthers attempted to cut through the Titans’ ceramite armoured shells and disable the systems within.
tau response to titans. They did disable a Reaver's external weapons (or at least the missile launcher) up until the Reaver crashed thorugh a building to brush them off.
Page 297
Soon after, the Warlord Battle Titan was assaulted by at least sixty tau stealth suits deployed from the bowels of an armoured transport that soared high overhead.
...
Instead, the princeps ordered three nearby Warhound Scout Titans to turn their Vulcan mega-bolters on him.
...
The three Warhounds opened fire, and the Warlord’s entire upper body was stitched with thousands upon thousands of rapid-firing, mass-reactive explosive shells. Though the Warlord suffered multiple minor systems damage, the enemy attackers were utterly wiped out.
Apparently shields aren't active in all this, but the Warhound mega bolters don't seem to do much physical harm to the Warlord.
Page 298-299
...something was awry with the tau’s command and control systems. While many individual tau units mounted a competent and disciplined retreat in the face of their enemy, a feat considered amongst the hardest of manoeuvres to accomplish, coordination between the tau units became notably
degraded.
...
Fleet intelligence turned its efforts to uncovering the roots of the degradation, and the elite Codes and Ciphers division under Tacticae-Primaris Kilindini reported that command and control signals between the tau ground forces and off-world contacts had become garbled and weak.
It was soon discerned that the tau defending Gel’bryn had been coordinated by a higher command echelon in space nearby. It appeared that the tau’s much vaunted and feared technology was turning against them, though none amongst the Tacticae could offer a plausible explanation as to the cause.
Brielle damaged the flagship's communications system whilst escaping, and apparently they lost all ability to coordinate troops on the ground. It shows perhaps how the Tau can stay so mobile, but it also highlights some key limitations ot the system - efficiency can depend on both who is in charge, where they are, and the importance of keeping a central (isolated) command that cannot be disrupted. The Tau (at least as per Damocles Gulf) had no experience of operating individually.. and I'm not sure if they solved this at all or not.
Page 301
My division has traced the enemy’s command and control net to
a node in high orbit on the far side of Dal’yth Prime. My staff conclude that enemy ground forces are being coordinated via a tight-beam conduit from a high command element off world. Back-trace cogitation reveals that this node has been controlling enemy ground forces for at least twelve hours, but the signal has been steadily degrading. At zero-nine-nine, the signal cut out entirely. My conclusion: enemy operational command and control capacity has been severed and is at this time defunct. Recommend this intelligence be acted upon as best you see fit.
Once again, tau command and control at Damocles Gulf seemed incredibly centralized. Part of me wonders if perhaps this was Ethereal control, which explained the sudden breakdwon, but we don't really know. It could have just been the Fire Warrior commander too. As we saw with Taros (from the tau side) - having things go the tau's way depends on having the right commander (luckily) in charge.
Page 303
The Assault Marines bounded
alongside the column, ensuring that no tau spotters waited to call in the lethal,
indirect-firing missiles that had accounted for so many armoured vehicles...
Assault marines can keep up with the pace of the Astartes armoured forces, and are deployed to keep markerligts off the vehicles.
Page 304
[quote..a grav dampener that both cushioned an incoming craft’s final approach and aided the launching of outgoing ones. The crusade’s Adeptus Mechanicus greatly coveted those generators, for while their construction was known to them, they were eager to learn how the tau had come about knowledge of a technology considered arcane by their order.[/quote]
Starport landing platforms. Note the admech wanting to get hold of it.
Page 308
The round had been of a type the Space Marines had not yet encountered, some kind of solid projectile encased in the seething blue energies fired by many of the tau’s weapons.
Kroot heavy weapon firing modified ammo.
Page 310
It was engulfed in seething arcs of raw plasma, its beak gaping wide as it
threw its arms out as if in denial of its imminent death, roiling energies spilling
across its muscular form.
Then it exploded. The beast was torn apart as the raging power of the heart of a
sun transformed the solid matter of its body into another state entirely. Sarik and
Qaja were blasted by a wave-front of black ash, all that remained after the hideous transformation. The air was filled with the flash-stink of body fluids turned to superheated steam and the blast wave scoured away the smoke of battle.
Krootox hit by plasma cannon. I don't think we know how large they are, so I don't think we ca calc this. ASide from that it would take many many times the energy needed to blow apart a person, not even including the possibility of vaporization/cremation.
Page 325
While still incredibly thin, the air was still dense
enough to cause friction on the pod’s outer hull, though the energy shield projected below was absorbing the majority of it. The Imperium’s military drop-pods and emergency saviour pods were only rarely fitted with such a feature, the utilitarian planners regarding it as a luxury in most cases. By all accounts, planetfall in one of those junk buckets was almost as dangerous as taking your chances on a burning assault ship.
Despite the energy shield protecting the pod from the worst of the turbulence, thewhole interior was shaking.
Tau vs Imperium drop pods.
PAge 326-327
According to Imperial Navy doctrine, as well as sound military principle, a fleet undertaking offensive operations should maintain an extensive counter-penetration defence screen. A network of picket vessels, of every displacement from interceptor to frigate, should provide three hundred and sixty degree, three-dimensional surveillance before, during and after any engagement. The fleet of the Damocles Gulf Crusade was not particularly large by naval standards, especially given its losses at Pra’yen, and its carrier capacity was woefully short, but nonetheless, no enemy vessel should have been able to get within five thousand kilometres of its flagship, the Blade of Woe.
Thus, it was something of a surprise when Admiral Jellaqua’s vessel was hailed
by an unknown vessel from less than a thousand kilometres away, and well within its picket screen.
The size of the DG naval fleet relative to other fleets and Naval doctrine.
Page 333
Raising the tube to his shoulder, Lucian realised that he would not be able to sight using the weapon’s onboard system, for it could not penetrate the smoke. Steadying the tube with his right hand, he used his left to pull a cord from his goggles, which he jacked into a port on the side of the launcher’s sighting unit. Lucian prayed that the war spirits within the two devices would achieve communion, and not reject one another as often happened. A moment later the vision through his goggles was overlaid with the launcher’s targeting reticule, the two devices operating as one.
Ig missile launcher scopes don't seem to penetrate smoke or obsucrement by default, but they can be linked to devices that can (like Lucian's preysense goggles) and allow that ability.
PAge 342
Where the energy rounds struck, they produced a dull wallop and gouged out a lump of armour the size of a clenched fist, but none could penetrate the tanks’ forward plates.
Predator armor vs tau burst cannon (computer controlled bunker defense guns)
Page 343
Every armoured vehicle that was armed with a lascannon opened fire on its prearranged target. Searing white lances of focussed energy speared the air,
slamming into the bunkers and blowing three to atoms within seconds.
We dont quite know how many vehicles there are, but there were 300-500 Space Marines, which means no more than 30-50 Rhinos. I'd guess 1/3 or 1/4 of that will be Predators and other vehicles, but only some of those will be annihilators. Assuming 10 cm thick walls and about 3 meters per side and silicon we're asusming 11-12 ton mass. we get between 14-24 GJ for vaporizing. 40-100 or so lascannon bursts.. single or double digit MJ per shot easily, if not triple digit.
Even if its just explosion, we're prboably talking at leats each lascannon being equal to several kg of TNT ignoring any thermal effects (comparable to the Inferno lascannon lower limit for the Demolisher.)
Page 345
A dozen energy bolts slammed into the Ultramarine’s helmet, the
first handful destroying the armour, the remainder vaporising the head.
Burst cannon type weapon again Assuming a Space Marine has a 8-10 kg head we're talking 20-25 MJ roughly to vaporize.. call it 1.5-2 MJ per shot.
Page 350
another mine sprang from the ground and exploded directly above an Iron Hands tactical squad further down the line. The explosion sounded like a sonic boom, the rapidly expanding ball of energy casting a luminous blast wave in a wide circle.
Tau mines.
PAge 351
With a flick of his thumb he set his weapon’s shot selector to full auto, and squeezed off a rapid-fire burst at the three tau warriors.
The bolts hammered through hard shell armour and detonated in soft flesh. The
first tau was blown backwards into the warrior behind by the impact, then exploded as the bolt-rounds detonated inside his chest, showering his companion with purple gore. The second tau took a round to the throat between helmet and chest armour, his hands grasping the wound instinctively. When the round exploded the warrior’s head was torn right off, and sent spinning across the hardpan..
The third tau tried to fall back, firing as he went, but the last of Sarik’s burst
stitched across his shoulder armour and down his right arm, the detonations blowing the limb away in a shower of vaporised blood, and the weapon it had carried clattered to the ground.
Full auto bolter vs Fire warriors.
Page 352
The entire front section of the flyer erupted in pinpoint explosions as the
Dreadnought opened up with its assault cannon. So heavy was the fusillade that the craft’s forward momentum was arrested, a thousand solid rounds hammering into it in seconds. The armoured nosecone splintered under the relentless assault and was eaten away in an instant.
Assault cannon vs Tau flyer of some kind. Flyer shot down in seconds easily. Rate of fire of tens to hundreds of rounds a second. Assuming the flyer is about 1-2 tonnes at a few metres per second we're talking 2000-6000 kg*m/s. Assuming 20-200 rounds a second.. momentum of indivudla raounds is 10 to 300 kg*m/s 5 kj to 225 kj per bullet (assuming 1-1.5 km/s velocity for the rounds) 1-4.5 MJ of KE roughly.
Page 360
“When the tau were first encountered, by Lucian and other rogue traders, they were deemed a low-level threat. They were found only in small groups, coreward of the gulf, and usually acting as mercenaries or advisors to planetary governors who had… strayed, to a greater or lesser extent, from the rule of the Imperium. But that was uncovered as a ruse. They were acting as fifth columnists, infiltrating system after system in an effort to expand their sphere of influence. The crusade was raised to put that threat down. Every shred of intelligence and analysis available to us indicated they could hold no more than a handful of
worlds. When they were first catalogued, millennia ago, they were no more than
over-evolved dromedaries with no technology more advanced than sharp sticks.”
...
“Yet here they are, in control of an entire star cluster, possessed of a substantial fleet capable of interstellar travel, unheard-of tech, and weaponry that, frankly, outguns most of our own.”
Assessement of Tau and the degree by which the Imperium continued to under-estimate them. They have at least 50-100 worlds at this point, and outnumber the
Page 363
Ostensibly, the adepts of the Machine-God were tasked with fathoming the operation of the star port’s anti-grav cradles, which would speed up the landing and liftoff of the hundreds of troop transports that would soon be in operation immeasurably. It took the tech-priests less than an hour to master the anti-grav generators, and another for them to begin disassembling at least one of the devices for later study.
Well the Techpriests made
their objective.
PAge 365
His power armour lent him some strength at least, though not much more than it took to bear its own weight.
I'm not sure whether this means Lucian's power armor has minimal strength-bolstering properties and it was only meant to allow him to carry greater protection without strain, or if it means his armor is worn out and running out of power.
Page 368
What little of the inquisitor’s flesh was visible was covered in a chaotic mass of scar tissue, the result of the flamer attack unleashed by Korvane’s sister months before.
Again flamer left severe burns on Grand's body.
PAge 371
Mere days had passed since the astropathic communication informing the council that Kryptman’s envoy would be joining them. None had expected the envoy to arrive so quickly, for the crusade itself had taken long weeks to cross the Damocles Gulf.
Korvane had heard the whispered spacer’s tales of the archeotech vessels the highest servants of the Inquisition had access to—perhaps they were not mere tales at all.
The Damocles gulf is at least dozens of Light years across (as per Star of Damocles) but they also mention they are thousands of light years from home.. that implies perhaps days to cross tens or hundreds of light years (Where it took the Crusade weeks) - the Inquisition ship is at least an Order of magnitude faster, but this may also suggest high end fwarp is hundreds (thousands) of light years in days, while common is hundreds/thousands of light years in weeks.
Page 373
“All commands receiving this message are hereby ordered, by the authority of
the Senatorum Imperialis, to cease all military operations and set course for the
Macragge system in the Realm of Ultramar. Every possible asset is to be mustered and no resource expended except in the execution of this order.”
Everyone, including the Damocles gulf force, is ordered to Utlramar (hundreds perhaps thousands of light years away)
Page 374
Korvane knew that the cardinal, as an officer of the Ministorum, could claim to be outside of Kryptman’s authority. But then again, the lords of the Inquisition relied not on rulebooks to impose their will, but on influence, and Gurney was well outranked in that regard.
Apparently a Cardinal is outside Inquisitoiral control "officially" (odd that), but unofficially can out-influence them (or at least, be out-influenced by an Inquisitor Lord.)
Page 375
“Already, they are classed xenos terminus, but serious
consideration is being given to creating a new threat rating, just for them.”
Apparently the 'Nids warranted a whole new threat rating even before LEviathan and Kraken.
Pge 376
"At the Explorator base at Tyran Primus, he found evidence of a xenos
abomination so virile and ravenous its organisms can strip an entire world of its
biomass in days.”
...
"“Certainly to feed, presumably to
reproduce, but we do not yet understand why they need so much biomass or to what use they put it."
They don't know what the 'Nids need all the biomass for (suggesting ulterior motives). Also they can strip a planet (of biomass at least) in "days".
Page 377
"They are a billion billion ravening organisms bred for one purpose and one purposealone: to kill. Each organism is but a single cell in a mass that is spread across light years of space."
..
"Astropaths caught in that ‘shadow in the warp’ would rather scratch their brains out than endure the chittering of a trillion voices that all speak as one.”
Scope of the 'Nid threat, apparently. Whether this is in total or what, we don't know, but given the "trillion" bit we might figure its total numbers at most.
Page 378-379
“If these tyranids are the threat they appear, then the tau are more use to us alive than exterminated.”
...
“If the incursion is dire enough to imperil the entire segmentum, then the tau will likely have to face it too. It is not unheard of for humanity to stand side by side with xenos against a mutual foe. Have our forces not taken to the field alongside the eldar, against the arch-enemy?”
...
“And if the tau will not cooperate in this, they will face the
tyranid swarm alone. Either way,” she reiterated Gauge’s words, “they are more use to us alive.”
“As a backstop,” said the Tacticae-Primaris, nodding. “Better the invaders
expend their energies against the tau’s worlds than against our own.”
The real reason the DGC was called off.
Page 385
The stencil told him that he was amidships, eighty-three decks below the
secondary mycoprotein vats that turned the crew’s waste solids into edible tack.
...
..would be the vast cryo-chambers in which slain crewmen awaited reconstitution..
What the crew are reconstituted into (servitors or food) we don't know. I assume the mycoprotein to grow makeshift vegetarian products from fungus. It might even have something simialr to creating
beef from shit for all we know, but I'm banking at least on the vegetarian angle.
Page 392
A sheet of liquid fuel surged out from the miniature flamer unit disguised as a
ring on Brielle’s index finger. The jet speared through the cold air and ploughed into Grand’s chest, but truly the fates mocked Brielle as the chemical failed to ignite.
...
He fired, the bolt plunging into Grand’s form and finally igniting the flamer’s fuel.
In an instant, the inquisitor was completely engulfed in flames, the promethium
fuel clinging to his body as it burned through his flesh. The robes were seared away, their remains smouldering on the deck at his feet. Grand had become a naked torch, his limbs wreathed in dancing fire, yet somehow, he was still alive.
Well the ring was full of promethium, but I'm still puzzled why they have two shots rather than one. Either way its doing full body third degree (or more) burns and igniting cloth (50-125 J per sq cm) hundreds of kj to a MJ easily (for one side at that)
Page 393
By sheer force of will,
Grand was defying death even as the raging flames consumed his flesh...
...
..his body was disintegrating in the heart of the conflagration that still engulfed him. Slivers of smoking, charred meat were sloughing from his bones with his every step, yet still, his bitter, indomitable will drove him on well beyond the point of death.
...
...his charred face a black coal in the heart of a furnace. His eyes, mouth and nostrils were lit from within, the fire so consuming him that he was no more than a hollow skeleton of blackened bone.
Oddly, Grand seems to be cremating now. Honestly, I'm not sure this is from the promethium.. I suspect it self-ignited the guy somehow and other things (body fat content) contributed. I've speculated before that flamers may cremate by a combination of promethium fuel being highly energetic as well as the fuel designed to make the body internally combust easier to add to the reaction. This may be what is happening here (it echoes the clingfire stuff from Inquisition War at least.)
Alternately, since Grand is a super-psyker, he might be manipulating or fuelling the fire.
Page 399
A
million details had to be thrashed out, from the embarkation of thousands of ground troops to the distribution of millions of tons of capital munitions.
I assume this means capital ship munitions between the cruisers and destroyer.. at least 15-16 ships then, each carrying on average several hundred thousand tonnes of shells. Some are going to argue that it should include the escorts despite being
capital munitions, but eh. We know there was nine squadrons of escorts plus however many for the astartes.. call it a hundred warships all told. That's still at least 20,000 tonnes of munitions on average.
Either way we could say at least tens of thousands of tonnes if not hundreds of thousands of tonnes minimum for escorts, and hundreds of thousands, perahps millions of tons for capital ships (it could be less than a billion tonnes, remember.)
Page 400
Master Karzello, the crusade fleet’s senior astropath, came before
the council and told of the alien snarls and screeches resounding through the minds of the astropathic choirs, driving some insane and others to take their own lives.
Interrogator Rayne confirmed the phenomenon as the gestalt echo of a trillion xenos minds, howling their hunger into the void.
This may be an attempt to explain the warp wackiness for the astropaths and such from "Star of Damocles" which might also help explan the turbulence of the region to the warp.
Page 401
The initial discussions had been stilted and difficult, with the tau envoy making all manner of veiled threats.
...
..Lucian had imparted something of the coming tyranid swarm, though he had twisted the truth to suggest that the tau were actually in more danger than the Imperium.
...
...the tau had not only agreed to allow the fleet to disengage, but the
seeds of future cooperation had been sown.
A cease fire, despite Tau efforts to threaten the Imperium (hah) seems to succeed, although the idea of unifying against the 'Nids is rather an interesting one (if probably unlikely... much less the 'seeds of future cooperation.)
Page 401
Most importantly, from Lucian’s own perspective, he had forged a number of highly lucrative, exclusive contact treaties with the tau, securing the fortunes of the Clan Arcadius for decades to come.
And Lucian makes his ends. He's cheerfuly traded openly with xenos for profit and his personal gain, and this matters more to him than the possible obliteration of Macragge. Still it shows that the Imperium is pragmatic/inconsistent enough to deal with the tau.
Now the caveat there is that this isn't a very efficient lasweapon as is - little to no explosive effect, no bleeding.. steam explosions seem possible interanlly (collapsing the lung) but that's it. On the other hand, the bolt would have to be highly penetrating (particle beam or x-ray/gamma ray penetrating) to do most of its damage internally with just some surface burning.
As well as pathetically weak next to teh almighty Space Marines, but then all the SM-centric novels tend to do that to everyone else, so no surprises there.