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

[Connor MacLeod]

They were aboard the Arc Hammer when it was blown up. Presumably, General Mohc did not have an off site backup of his research, given that the Emperor wrote the project off as a total failure.

Or maybe he got bored with darktroopers and tried something else. As I already said, its not as if Darktroopers were the only form of battle droid to exist or anything. (The SD series for example from Dark Empire.)

And this doesn't explain why they wouldn't have the "research" - presumably the design specs have to get shown to the Emperor like hte Death Star did (Darksaber) - and we know from other examples (again, the Death Star) that just because something is lost does not mean the plans themselves are lost. (which is why you must presume they "were" lost, even though stopping a project does not prove loss of the design. In fact, the SW.com entry makes it rather explici that they *could* have 'researched' further into it, but they didn't because of the Emperor's irrational reaction to Mohc's failure, not because they couldn't.)

[qupte]
I dislike the erroneous use of the term Dark Troopers. The Empire doesn't have Dark Troopers, except possibly the force-enhanced clones intended to go in the Type Three as described (breifly) in Star Wars Rebellion.

There are also the Darktroopers from Dark Empire as well, which are basically Force-sensitive stormtroopers.

But thats beside the point, since you could substitute other known battle droid examples for the Darktroopers and the original point would be valid. (If not moreso, since some of those designs are going to prove more effective and nastier than Darktroopers could ever be.)

[Connor MacLeod]

What possible difference is that going to make? Even allowing for "thousands" to be interpreted as upwards of a million ships, giving them decades to concentrate their forces, and assuming the Empire does not strike in unprotected sectors while they concentrate in certain locales... We're still left with the rather PRODIGIOUS construction rates of the Empire (which I have yet to see evidence of being matched yet in this argument) and the firepower issue (which seems to be in the Empire's favor by orders of magnitude easily) Aside from the fact that the Empire still holds anywhere form a 10:1 advantage in ships to 1000:1 advantage in fleet size.

Oh sure, I'm not arguing that the Empire can't maintain dominance in space, and I'm certainly not claiming the Imperium can manufacture ships at anywhere near that rate. Uraniun wanted a bodycount, however. The Imperium of Man is molasses when it comes to mobilization and deployment, and some time to prepare makes a world of difference. As many have pointed out, the Empire can simply lay waste to the system except for Terra itself and in a state of relative unpreparedness (the entire system is essentially always on alert, see Black Admiral's quote a few pages back) a lot of assets will be on the ground. The Grey Knights' base of operations is Titan, and while ridiculously fortified, would be unlikely to survive sustained bombardment from SW capital-ship grade firepower.

Frankly, I don't see how state of preparation makes much of a differencee, or why Terra itself is going to be an exception. Not only does the Empire have superior ship numbers and production rates (which means that they can easily win a battle of attrition with the Imperium) as well as su perior offensive and defensive capabilities, but they have far superior tactical mobility and coordination - FTL sensors and communications (the former measuring at least in light hours/days if not light years, and the latter definitely in tens or hundreds of light years, not even factoring in hyperwave/holonet capability) and superior FTL drives (both in terms of absolute speed and in tactical flexibility)

In other words, they can dictate both when and where they attack, as well as how they do it. They can afford to spend time studying and planning attacks from long range via FTL sensors (supported if neccessary by probe droids and stasis probes and other remote sensing platforms if need be.) and then make their attacks based on that information. If you don't believe they can do the multi-AU (or even multi-million km) turbolaser bombardments (even though there is ample evidence for it), they still have missiles (try hyperdrive-equipped missiles - or barring that, something as simple as cramming a shuttle full of explosives adn then sending it in-system via hyperdrive. The Empire has access to a wide variety of warhead yields - up to if not including planet killing and planet-destroying varieites.) They can conduct precision strikes - jump in, attack, and jump out in under a minute over random locations across the entire system, so on and so forth. Maybe even fling a few asteroids in-system at relatavistic speeds.

In such a way, they can easily (and likely with minimal losses) decimate the space/orbital forces of the Imperium, no matter how strtong it is. And once they gain the high ground, they definitely have no chance in a ground battle, even disregarding BDZs (capital ships can definitely help execute precision strikes against ground targets, after all.) And while your average Space Marine might be vastly tougher, stronger, etc than a stormtrooper, I don't know if your marine has acess to rifles that can hit targets from miles away, and delivers tens of megajoules of firepower per shot (To say nothing fo something heavier, like an E-web, or rockets, or whatnot.)

About the only possible advantage the Imperium might have is that it has a greater number of individually more powerful "magic user" types (alhtough this is still somewhat up in the air depending on calcs), and this isn't really enough to grant them a win.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Blasters and lasguns are about on par with each other in terms of firepower, based on previous estimates, for one thing. Bolters are significantly more powerful than a lasgun. And yes, Astartes have access to big shiny guns too, missile launchers, lascannons, heavy bolters (the already fearsome bolter turned into a machine gun), not to mention plasma weaponry. Hell, that stuff is readily available to even Guard and PDF units.

In terms of preparation, it would make a noticeable difference. With Marine units space-borne, they can respond to the Empire's strikes with boarding. I don't know if we have evidence or not of 40k shielding preventing teleportation, but even if shields do block it, Star Destroyers are not impervious to return fire simply out of virtue of having superior mobility. And given the obvious location of the bridge, any boarded SD can be written off pretty much automatically. I doubt naval security troopers employ anti-tank weapons on board a starship.

[Connor MacLeod]

True. Of course, this is only for the direct psychic attacks, not including stuff like The Hell or telepathic attacks.

It shouldn't matter much quantitatively since we're still talking in terms of either force, energy, or both (telepathic attacks aren't really quantifiable anyhow, except in terms of say how many people can be mind clouded, mind controled, mind blasted at any given instant.)

The way 40K starships are built isn't gone into AFAIK, mainly because the Adeptus Mechanicus (aka. the coggies) are the only ones who know and they aren't exactly open to discussion.

That said, 20cm of Imperium armour grade steel's sufficient to withstand a penetrator round capable of shoving a 62-ton Leman Russ Conqueror several meters sideways.

The momentum of such a round is somewhere between that of an MBT cannon and a battleship cannon, and materials science has allowed us to (a certain extent) protect against that (IIRC for example, the armor on Iowa-class battleships tended to be as thick as 30-40 cm in key places, so that might not be as good an indicator (certainly it would not seem to exceed the "order of magnitude" range I mentioned.)

Density figures (either stated or derived from known vechile dimensions and masses) might provide another hint at their "materials science"

I can't recall any examples of 40k ships firing on inert objects offhand. There's a possible one in Shadow Point, but that includes the destruction of a shielded fortress into the bargain.

I seem to recall something about huundreds of gigatons worth of torpedoes or something being commonly cited.

That said, there is some sort of WH40K site I have browsed from time to time that has various (presumably official) info.. and it includes stuff on capital ships and had a few examples of quantifible damage - creating craters "hundreds of meters deep", destroying cities, or reducing mountain ranges to rubble.. or some such..

I also vaguely remember comparisons of energy outputs to stars on same site - although I'm not sure if that was hyperbole or not.

For reference, the bunker being targetted is big enough to contain several leman Russ pattern MBTs. Exactly how big that makes it I'm trying to find a decent reference for.

Before the echoes had died, the Iron Warrior with the multi-melta rose from his concealment and charged forwards to fire. The guns' discharge built to a deafening screech before erupting from the barrels in a searing hiss. The warrior's aim was true and the air inside the bunker ignited with atomic fury, spurts of vaporised flesh and superheated oxygen blasting from the weapons slits.
[...]
He [Honsou] leapt over the Marauder's fuselage and sprinted towards the molten hell of the destroyed bunker, its walls now flowing like wax across the ground.
[...]
Honsou leapt onto the remains of the bunker, his ironshod boot sinking into the molten rock.
[...]
Scorched and blackened limbs lay strewn about, all that remained of those stationed too close to the bunker; the backwash of the melta impact had burned flesh and bone to cinders in an instant.

Offhand guess.. maybe mid to high megajoule/gigajoule at least based on incineration.. terajoule probably. This is definitely some sort of projectile incendairy device (little evidence of a blast wave.. momentum of a terajoule-range energy burst would be dangerous to a person, and direct-fire weapons generally aren't as "extensive" in damage wise to completely melt a structure, unless we're talking a wide-beam effect.)

hypothetically assuming a structure oh, 20 meters square, ,and maybe 5 meters tall.. assuming the space is about 90% air (ie empty) and a composition of iron... about 2 terajoules to melt totally.

There're some calcable scenes for lasguns in Gaunt's Ghosts, just have to find them.

okay.

[Connor MacLeod]

Blasters and lasguns are about on par with each other in terms of firepower, based on previous estimates, for one thing. Bolters are significantly more powerful than a lasgun. And yes, Astartes have access to big shiny guns too, missile launchers, lascannons, heavy bolters (the already fearsome bolter turned into a machine gun), not to mention plasma weaponry. Hell, that stuff is readily available to even Guard and PDF units.

Yes, but do they have the range of say.. the sort of rifle a clonetrooper has? Or what we saw Rebel troopers in TESB using? Not much good if your opponent can hit you from kilometers away and you can't.

I'm also willing to bet that the Empire's combined-arms warfare principles when coupled with their general technological superiority (not just firepower - but also command and control) will be a huge asset especially when the Empire has control of space.

In terms of preparation, it would make a noticeable difference. With Marine units space-borne, they can respond to the Empire's strikes with boarding.

How are they going to get close enough to board Imperial warships, much less through shielding? And thats assuming the Empire simply has not blasted the Imperium ships before they can even close.

I don't know if we have evidence or not of 40k shielding preventing teleportation, but even if shields do block it, Star Destroyers are not impervious to return fire simply out of virtue of having superior mobility.

True, although this begs the question of whether the Imperium ships have the firepower to actually knock down shields.

And whats this about teleportation?

And given the obvious location of the bridge, any boarded SD can be written off pretty much automatically. I doubt naval security troopers employ anti-tank weapons on board a starship.

Last I recall, most anti-tank missiles generally release energy in the low-megajoule range (to say nothing of MBT rounds) , so by definition most blasters are going to qualify as anti-tank weapons.

All it would take is some portable shield generators (like from Tyrants test) and a couple E-webs to help counter the threat of boarders (assuming they don't start using things like gravity traps, and whatnot) even if standard blasters proved useless) And failing all that, there are always thermal detonators. Its not as if ISDs don't have secondary bridges.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Last I recall, most anti-tank missiles generally release energy in the low-megajoule range (to say nothing of MBT rounds) , so by definition most blasters are going to qualify as anti-tank weapons.

I mean in-universe anti-tank; Marine power-armor is more than capable of shrugging off said low MJ firepower (see the quotes I posted earlier in this thread). What's the yield on a thermal detonator? Are there any examples of using firepower greater than that of small arms onboard a starship? Seems rather dangerous to me.

As for teleportation, it's commonly used by a Chapter's Terminators, and it's a long-standing specialization of the Grey Knights Chapter as a whole, who are in-system.

Yes, but do they have the range of say.. the sort of rifle a clonetrooper has? Or what we saw Rebel troopers in TESB using? Not much good if your opponent can hit you from kilometers away and you can't.

I'm also willing to bet that the Empire's combined-arms warfare principles when coupled with their general technological superiority (not just firepower - but also command and control) will be a huge asset especially when the Empire has control of space.

How is an infantryman supposed to fight effectively beyond 500m? Without aided optics of some sort, even 300m is difficult.

The Imperium employs combined-arms tactics as well. Perhaps not as integrated among lesser Guard and PDF units, but those aren't in the picture here at the heart of the Imperium. Well-off Chapters such as the Imperial Fists (who are present - and come to think, also specialize in teleport attacks, for what it's worth) have their own spacecraft, air support, and vehicles.

I'll concede that the Guard is probably beat out in terms of command and control, communications, logistics, etc., but the Marines have no trouble in that department.

[Lost Soal]

All it would take is some portable shield generators (like from Tyrants test) and a couple E-webs to help counter the threat of boarders (assuming they don't start using things like gravity traps, and whatnot) even if standard blasters proved useless) And failing all that, there are always thermal detonators. Its not as if ISDs don't have secondary bridges.

And their going to have this equipment on hand and ready because boarders materialising on the bridge or engine room is a common occurence in the Star Wars universe, When?

[Ghost Rider]

All it would take is some portable shield generators (like from Tyrants test) and a couple E-webs to help counter the threat of boarders (assuming they don't start using things like gravity traps, and whatnot) even if standard blasters proved useless) And failing all that, there are always thermal detonators. Its not as if ISDs don't have secondary bridges.

And their going to have this equipment on hand and ready because boarders materialising on the bridge or engine room is a common occurence in the Star Wars universe, When?

Oh, I'm glad the 40K have detailed blueprints on an ISD.

Since when this happened?

[NecronLord]

Oh, I'm glad the 40K have detailed blueprints on an ISD.

Since when this happened?

They did pull it off in Fire Warrior with an alien ship they hadn't encountered before.

[Ghost Rider]

Oh, I'm glad the 40K have detailed blueprints on an ISD.

Since when this happened?

They did pull it off in Fire Warrior with an alien ship they hadn't encountered before.

That's still the problem. They have it, but to leap this is a common act is where I would like a bit more then one point. Plus what were the circumstances in Firewarrior?

[Lost Soal]

The bridge is readily identifyable, the engine room may be a stretch without further info but my point stands. Which is that the Empire has not had to deat with this tactic before so to expect them be set-up ready is crossing the boundries between what is common knowledge on this forum and what is common knowledge to the Empire, or any normal person for that matter.

[DocHorror]

Well while I won't blindly agree that the Imperium would be able to instantly and magically find out where the bridge, engine room, swimming pool and porn theater of an ISD are, there is a prescedent of Space Marines being able to scan vessels and determine the best points of attack based, I presume, on energy distribution or even plain common sense. They would usually use this when boarding space-hulks.

[White Haven]

And as has been mentioned, an ISD's bridge is hardly a difficult target.

[PeZook]

Boarding would be nice if shields didn't block Imperium teleporters, but they do.

Horus was first among the fallen, with the power of a god and the cunning of a daemon. He resolved to try one final desperate gambit. He could still kill the Emperor. He ordered all comm-net communications blocked so that the defenders would get no word from their rescuers and then he used his psychic powers to the full to prevent the Emperor becoming aware of this. Finally he dropped the shields of his command ship. It was an invitation and a personal challenge that he knew the Emperor could not resist. He was being offered a chance finally to smite the foe who had harried him for so long.

The bolded quote is quite clear. Horus dropped the shields of his battle barge, since otherwise boarding it would have been impossible.

So, there are shields. Then there's the Empire's widespread use of electronic warfare, which I think would make it somewhat more difficult to just readily scan ISD's - I shall grant, however, that I don't know anything about how electronic warfare looks (if at all) in 40K verse.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'm no expert on the battle for Terra, how did the Emperor board Horus's ship? Void shields block psychic attacks, this I know, so with the shield up he could not have teleported psychically and perhaps conventional means were unavailable to him? Anyone more knowledgeable about the battle?

[PainRack]

The Imperium employs combined-arms tactics as well. Perhaps not as integrated among lesser Guard and PDF units, but those aren't in the picture here at the heart of the Imperium. Well-off Chapters such as the Imperial Fists (who are present - and come to think, also specialize in teleport attacks, for what it's worth) have their own spacecraft, air support, and vehicles.

I'll concede that the Guard is probably beat out in terms of command and control, communications, logistics, etc., but the Marines have no trouble in that department.

Can you list out some doctrines or instances of combined arms so that it can be compared? The Imperials appear to practice a form of network centric warfare and infomation dominance, as is apparent from the truce at Bakura sourcebook which state that Imperial navy are accustomed to working in a coordinated manner, the use of probe droids and hacking of communications at the battle of Hoth and DFR.

[Mutant Headcrab]

I'm no expert on the battle for Terra, how did the Emperor board Horus's ship? Void shields block psychic attacks, this I know, so with the shield up he could not have teleported psychically and perhaps conventional means were unavailable to him? Anyone more knowledgeable about the battle?

Apparently Horus' ship was protected by his own psychic powers. When he saw the battle going his way, he relaxed on the field he was projecting. This gave Sanguinus the chance to sneak in and confront Horus. When Horus focused on Sanguinus to slaughter him, his field dropped even further, allowing the Emporer to teleport onto the ship. At least, that's how I've heard it.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'm no expert on the battle for Terra, how did the Emperor board Horus's ship? Void shields block psychic attacks, this I know, so with the shield up he could not have teleported psychically and perhaps conventional means were unavailable to him? Anyone more knowledgeable about the battle?

Apparently Horus' ship was protected by his own psychic powers. When he saw the battle going his way, he relaxed on the field he was projecting. This gave Sanguinus the chance to sneak in and confront Horus. When Horus focused on Sanguinus to slaughter him, his field dropped even further, allowing the Emporer to teleport onto the ship. At least, that's how I've heard it.

So it was not a void shield, rather a unique psychic one?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Can you list out some doctrines or instances of combined arms so that it can be compared? The Imperials appear to practice a form of network centric warfare and infomation dominance, as is apparent from the truce at Bakura sourcebook which state that Imperial navy are accustomed to working in a coordinated manner, the use of probe droids and hacking of communications at the battle of Hoth and DFR.

A quick 'n' dirty Inquisitorial cleansing:

Two hours before sunrise the next day, five hundred Imperial Guard from the Fifty-First Thracian moved in towards Ferell Sidor - Site A - from covert forward assembly points in the surrounding hills where they had been dropped by troop ships the day before. They advanced, silently, in three prongs, the first securing the single trackway that gave land-vehicle access to the table mountain. When all three were in position, we woke Ferell Sidor up.
The frigates Zhikov and Fury of Spatian bombarded the mountain for six minutes, raising a ball of fire that lit the landscape as if the sun had come up early. In its afterglow, thirty Marauder bombers overflew Site A at low level and delivered thirty thousand kilos of high explosives.
Another false dawn.
Despite this punishing overture, when the ground troops went in eight minutes after the last bomb, resistance was furious. Madorthene had feared that the best part of Quixos's strength lay underground, wormed inside the mountain, resistant to the worst aerial assaults.
In the blazing ruins of the excavation township, the Thracian troops found themselves engaging fanatical and well-armed cultists. Most wore the insignia and colours of the Mystic Path. Many were mutants. Initial reports estimated over eight hundred enemy warriors. Madorthene committed the taskforce reserve: another seven hundred Thracian assault soldiers.

There's a similar assault in the first book of the series, Xenos, but it's not the greatest example for a lot of reasons. I can dig it up if you want, though.

[Lost Soal]

[quote="JediNeophyte"][quote="Mutant Headcrab"][quote="JediNeophyte"]I'm no expert on the battle for Terra, how did the Emperor board Horus's ship? Void shields block psychic attacks, this I know, so with the shield up he could not have teleported [i]psychically[/i] and perhaps conventional means were unavailable to him? Anyone more knowledgeable about the battle?[/quote]

Apparently Horus' ship was protected by his own psychic powers. When he saw the battle going his way, he relaxed on the field he was projecting. This gave Sanguinus the chance to sneak in and confront Horus. When Horus focused on Sanguinus to slaughter him, his field dropped even further, allowing the Emporer to teleport onto the ship. At least, that's how I've heard it.[/quote]

So it was not a void shield, rather a unique psychic one?[/quote]

I don't know what type of shield it was but they teleported by conventional means. The Emperor, Sanguinius, Rogal Dorn and a bodyguard of marines all teleported up together but Horus used his own powers to seperate them and placed Sanguinius closest to him thinking that he could convert him.

[quote]
Quote:

The way 40K starships are built isn't gone into AFAIK, mainly because the Adeptus Mechanicus (aka. the coggies) are the only ones who know and they aren't exactly open to discussion.

That said, 20cm of Imperium armour grade steel's sufficient to withstand a penetrator round capable of shoving a 62-ton Leman Russ Conqueror several meters sideways.


The momentum of such a round is somewhere between that of an MBT cannon and a battleship cannon, and materials science has allowed us to (a certain extent) protect against that (IIRC for example, the armor on Iowa-class battleships tended to be as thick as 30-40 cm in key places, so that might not be as good an indicator (certainly it would not seem to exceed the "order of magnitude" range I mentioned.)[/quote]

The armour of a Predator is a composite structure of Reinforcing thermoplas layer featuring sub-dermal energy dissipation fibre mesh and bonded ceremite/adamantium alloy armour. The highlighted section is side armour which is 55mm thick and equivalent to 200mm base steel plate.

[DocHorror]

Apparently Horus' ship was protected by his own psychic powers. When he saw the battle going his way, he relaxed on the field he was projecting. This gave Sanguinus the chance to sneak in and confront Horus. When Horus focused on Sanguinus to slaughter him, his field dropped even further, allowing the Emporer to teleport onto the ship. At least, that's how I've heard it.

Ummm, thats wrong. Horus lowered his shields, be they created by psychic means or by the Void/Geller shields of Horus's own Battle Barge, to lure the Emperor into one on one combat because he couldn't break the siege before the Dark Angels and Space Wolves arrived to re-inforce the Loyalists. The Emperor sensed the lowering of the sheilds and ordered as many troops as he could spare to teleport immediatly. The story by Bill King in WD 161 has the Emperor dictating the co-ordinates of the Barge so its likely they used technological means, not psychic power to get to the Barge.

The Emperor took a load of Marines and Terminators with him as well as some of his Custodes. He also took Rogal Dorn and Sanguinius with him (two primarchs). Horus scattered the teleport beam and brought Sanguinius to him and offered to let him live if he joined Horus. Sanguinius, being enternally cool, told him to go fuck himself was promptly slaughtered by his more powerful and not-been-fighting-on-the-front-lines-for days/weeks-fresher brother.

The story also states that the Emperor was stunned that Horus was powerful enough to scatter a teleport beam.

[Black Admiral]

It shouldn't matter much quantitatively since we're still talking in terms of either force, energy, or both (telepathic attacks aren't really quantifiable anyhow, except in terms of say how many people can be mind clouded, mind controled, mind blasted at any given instant.)

I was mainly thinking about it because 40K telepathic attacks tend to have a lot of feedback (when Ravenor and Kinsky were duelling telepathically in Ravenor, they were tearing up chunks of the enviroment).

The momentum of such a round is somewhere between that of an MBT cannon and a battleship cannon, and materials science has allowed us to (a certain extent) protect against that (IIRC for example, the armor on Iowa-class battleships tended to be as thick as 30-40 cm in key places, so that might not be as good an indicator (certainly it would not seem to exceed the "order of magnitude" range I mentioned.)

Density figures (either stated or derived from known vechile dimensions and masses) might provide another hint at their "materials science"

True. I'll see what I can find there.

I seem to recall something about huundreds of gigatons worth of torpedoes or something being commonly cited.

Yep. Anti-space hulk torpedoes, 122 5GT submunitions per warhead. However their power relative to the standard torpedoes isn't stated AFAIK.

That said, there is some sort of WH40K site I have browsed from time to time that has various (presumably official) info.. and it includes stuff on capital ships and had a few examples of quantifible damage - creating craters "hundreds of meters deep", destroying cities, or reducing mountain ranges to rubble.. or some such..

Sounds about right. Execution Hour has shots from several ships digging out craters hundreds of meters deep, and Ghostmaker refers to the frigate Navarre as being capable of incinerating cities. IIRC there's a mention of turning cities into "vast plains of radioactive glass" somewhere, and man-portable ordinance has produced blasts easily visible in high orbit (Lone Wolves).

I also vaguely remember comparisons of energy outputs to stars on same site - although I'm not sure if that was hyperbole or not.

I'd put it in the same league as Hekate describing Imperius Dictatio as capable of destroying planets, ie. overstatement.

For reference, the bunker being targetted is big enough to contain several leman Russ pattern MBTs. Exactly how big that makes it I'm trying to find a decent reference for.

Offhand guess.. maybe mid to high megajoule/gigajoule at least based on incineration.. terajoule probably. This is definitely some sort of projectile incendairy device (little evidence of a blast wave.. momentum of a terajoule-range energy burst would be dangerous to a person, and direct-fire weapons generally aren't as "extensive" in damage wise to completely melt a structure, unless we're talking a wide-beam effect.)

Meltas are flamethrowers, of a sort, however they seem to be closer to energy weapons than flamers. They can BTW be set to wide-beam (Eye of Terror).

hypothetically assuming a structure oh, 20 meters square, ,and maybe 5 meters tall.. assuming the space is about 90% air (ie empty) and a composition of iron... about 2 terajoules to melt totally.

okay.

The older man smiled at Gaunt. He began to say something.

The wall behind him exploded in a firestorm of light and vaporising bricks. Two fierce blue beams of las fire punched into the room and sliced the man into three distinct sections before he could move.

Tarrian was dead, his rib-cage blasted open like a burned-out ship's hull.

That's from a hellgun round. Slightly more powerful than a standard las, but not by orders of magnitude.

Trygg made a sound like a scalded cat and fell, severed at the waist.

Trooper Fanck dropped, his chest gone.

That last one might have been a boltround, not lasfire, since Corbec mentioned that his platoon was being hit with las and bolts.

[DocHorror]

Oh yeah I forgot that Sanguinius had some limited ability to see into the future and knew he would die at Horus's hands but went anyway. How cool is that?

[Black Admiral]

Could a mod delete the above post?

It shouldn't matter much quantitatively since we're still talking in terms of either force, energy, or both (telepathic attacks aren't really quantifiable anyhow, except in terms of say how many people can be mind clouded, mind controled, mind blasted at any given instant.)

I was mainly thinking about it because 40K telepathic attacks tend to have a lot of feedback (when Ravenor and Kinsky were duelling telepathically in Ravenor, they were tearing up chunks of the enviroment).

The momentum of such a round is somewhere between that of an MBT cannon and a battleship cannon, and materials science has allowed us to (a certain extent) protect against that (IIRC for example, the armor on Iowa-class battleships tended to be as thick as 30-40 cm in key places, so that might not be as good an indicator (certainly it would not seem to exceed the "order of magnitude" range I mentioned.)

Density figures (either stated or derived from known vechile dimensions and masses) might provide another hint at their "materials science"

True. I'll see what I can find there.

I seem to recall something about huundreds of gigatons worth of torpedoes or something being commonly cited.

Yep. Anti-space hulk torpedoes, 122 5GT submunitions per warhead. However their power relative to the standard torpedoes isn't stated AFAIK.

That said, there is some sort of WH40K site I have browsed from time to time that has various (presumably official) info.. and it includes stuff on capital ships and had a few examples of quantifible damage - creating craters "hundreds of meters deep", destroying cities, or reducing mountain ranges to rubble.. or some such..

Sounds about right. Execution Hour has shots from several ships digging out craters hundreds of meters deep, and Ghostmaker refers to the frigate Navarre as being capable of incinerating cities. IIRC there's a mention of turning cities into "vast plains of radioactive glass" somewhere, and man-portable ordinance has produced blasts easily visible in high orbit (Lone Wolves).

I also vaguely remember comparisons of energy outputs to stars on same site - although I'm not sure if that was hyperbole or not.

I'd put it in the same league as Hekate describing Imperius Dictatio as capable of destroying planets, ie. overstatement.

Offhand guess.. maybe mid to high megajoule/gigajoule at least based on incineration.. terajoule probably. This is definitely some sort of projectile incendairy device (little evidence of a blast wave.. momentum of a terajoule-range energy burst would be dangerous to a person, and direct-fire weapons generally aren't as "extensive" in damage wise to completely melt a structure, unless we're talking a wide-beam effect.)

Meltas are flamethrowers, of a sort, however they seem to be closer to energy weapons than flamers. They can BTW be set to wide-beam (Eye of Terror).

hypothetically assuming a structure oh, 20 meters square, ,and maybe 5 meters tall.. assuming the space is about 90% air (ie empty) and a composition of iron... about 2 terajoules to melt totally.

okay.

The older man smiled at Gaunt. He began to say something.

The wall behind him exploded in a firestorm of light and vaporising bricks. Two fierce blue beams of las fire punched into the room and sliced the man into three distinct sections before he could move.

Tarrian was dead, his rib-cage blasted open like a burned-out ship's hull.

That's from a hellgun round. Slightly more powerful than a standard las, but not by orders of magnitude.

Trygg made a sound like a scalded cat and fell, severed at the waist.

Trooper Fanck dropped, his chest gone.

That last one might have been a boltround, not lasfire, since Corbec mentioned that his platoon was being hit with las and bolts.

[Enforcer Talen]

I admit I haven’t read every page of this debate so I might have a few things wrong but lets begin.
From what I’ve read there is a lot of mention of the Empire taking out strategic targets, like Cadia, and sending agents out to gather information. There’s also mention of cutting off the Astronomican to prevent warp travel and reinforcements. But there seems to be some major assumptions going on here.
Starting with how are they going to get this information. Sending agents off to planets really isn’t going to help as the Imperium is a vast organisation and your expecting them to be able to just go straight to the right place and talk to the right people. The fact is your average citizen isn’t going to be able to tell you anything useful. The common perception of the eye of terror is as an unnavigable place and evil omen that is off limits. Of the warp itself, people know it exists and that’s about it.

From Dark Millennium.

The Warp – Only the most senior functionaries of the Imperium are aware of the true nature of the warp.

Agents will be able to gather general information but I doubt they could gather enough detailed and reliable intel to be able to accurately predict fleet response times. And again choosing the correct place to ask these questions is a problem.

Destroying their strategic sights is interesting. Assuming the Empire actually knows the significance of Cadia and they decide to destroy it, the influence of the Pylons would therefore have been removed and so you’ve probably initiated the spread of the eye and put your own mission in Jeopardy. Well Done.
The existence of the Gray Knights is known to only a few outside the Inquisition so it’s a bit much to suggest they will jump into the system and destroy a force they don’t know exists.
Mars I grant you is common knowledge.

You can’t just cut off the astronomicon. You have to destroy it to accomplish that which means actually getting to Earth through the defences and then finding them. If the astronomicon is located inside the palace then you can’t destroy it without risking the prize.
On a related note concerning the palace defences, during the Horus Heresy the palace had an defence shield which was still standing when the Emperor boarded Horus’ battle barge. Its safe to say the palace will still have a shield.
WRT reinforcements, Earth already has a battle fleet before anymore are called in as it is the base of Battlefleet Solar

Dark Troopers. Considering the Empire has been using Storm Troopers successfully for so long why are they now suddenly going to decide that their not good enough and go into full scale production of these exotic troopers and equipment.

I don’t know if allies have been mentioned in this yet, but if there is a high probability that the IoM would lose the Emperor, you can probably bet on some unexpected help from the Eldar as they would know that the loss of the Emperor would result in total victory for Chaos. Dito on help from the Necrons, the C’Tan do not want warp space flooding the Galaxy.

Quote:

Traitor General says that SMs weigh 533 of an unknown unit fully armoured, but Uexhull cuts off the ordinal doing the measuring before he gives units. I'd guess that the ordinal was going to say either kilograms or pounds, since the Imperium uses mainly modern units of measurement (with some alterations after 40 millenia).


Probably. 500 kg (or pounds) or so would affect my calcs by around 2 -5 times (2.2 pounds in a kilogram, btw)

7ft tall WWE wrestler wrestler weighs 470lb, a resonable min for a Marine, and Codex Angels of Death states that Power armour weighs over 250lb, so a bare minimum for the total weight of a Marine would be 730lb or 331Kg. Incedently the ordinal doesn't state wheather he's counting the armour or not.

getting a map of cadia was stated in my first post, probe droids.
the *goal* is to kill the pylons and spread the warp. I dunno if probe droids candiscern they are there, but its an added bonus - my fleet is well away from cadia.let the iom worry about it.
as for gray knights, my mission objective isnt picky. every ship, station, and planet outside terra in the sol system gets the zap.
its been stated that astronimicon is powered by imported psychers. Im stopping that, and destroying local systems. terra isnt getting releived for a while.
Im not worried about hitting fortress europe with bdz, just therest of earth. its not really needed, now, is it?
I dont know much about elder or necrons - how long would it take for them to arrive, and why would they carE? Im taking the emperor, not killing him.