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

[Black Admiral]

I will note here Series1Rx7 that I'll try to be civil, but it's really hard not to laugh at you.

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

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

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

Why? Comparing observed effects is always a good way of seeing what a universe is and isn't capable of.

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

Would it kill you to provide a reference? Seriously. SMs are tough, strong, and well armed, but twelve of them can't defeat an entire army (not directly anyway).

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

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

It still needs the basic mechanisms. Ork stuff is ramshackle, unreliable, and generally poorly designed, but it can still work without the WAAAGH field (for lack of a better term).

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

This is at least vaguely accurate. (the Imperium has some ships that are larger than the Executor). Though even one of the most heavily militarised planet in the Imperium, Cadia, 'only' has 71.5% of her population under arms at any one time.

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

Great. I'm not even going to mention what we think of people who use game mechanics as evidence.

Not some special Space Marine, but your most basic run of the mill SM. That Chaos Marine that was mentioned really is just a Chaos marine. Don't bring up some absolutely fanboy rubbish about them 'therefor being able to dissapate the same amount of energy because they are pyskers'. No. Sorry. Doesn't work that way. Heck, even according to Star Wars it doesn't work that way.

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

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

Wrong. It takes a fair bit of effort for an SM to remove a sealed tank hatch (Space Wolf), and Terminators are not orders of magnitude stronger.

Not to mention that a plasma rifle nearly penetrated Forrix's armour in STOI. So TacDread armour isn't as tough as you're making it out to be.

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

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

So? Given the punishment SMs have taken elsewhere (one word: Forrix) that isn't all that impressive.

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

Wrong. Orks get to about twice the size of a normal human at most. And their hides most certainly aren't bulletproof, or bolt-round proof.

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

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

No, they don't bombard everything because turning the real estate into a massive plain of radioactive glass is not considered a wise move. The Imperium believes in extreme solutions to extreme problems, it does not believe in slagging a world down to bedrock if .00000001% of the Imperium's Guard units have been wiped out trying to take it.

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

This is so bloody wrong I'm hardly sure where to start.

Tau: The Tau avoid close-combat like the plague. They aren't designed or trained for it.

Necrons: I'm reminded of Sgt. Learchus ripping a 'cron warrior apart in Nightbringer here.

Eldar: They're insanely fast and skilled in close-combat, certainly moreso than Tau or normal humans.

Chaos/Orks/Nids: Love and make good use of big guns as much as anyone else.

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

I prefer not making a total idiot of myself, thanks.

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

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

-

Series1Rx7

You don't seem to know that much about either.

[Black Admiral]

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

Except that Captains LeGuin and Viltry were probably in the way (LeGuin giving Viltry a run through of how the Exterminator's sighting arrays work).

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

*shrugs* The Ghosts heft around .30-cal and .50-cal LMG-type ACs pretty much as they like, and Ghostmaker includes a Bassie-mounted AC capable of destroying a Leman Russ (explicitly stated by the commander after he uses it to kill a World Eater).

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

The Earthshaker's only an assault gun. The Imperium has much larger arty (like Deathstrikes capable of shooting across the planet), but the Bassie represents the best weapon for close support of assault units.

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

-Gunhead

It's entirely possible that they have access to gravitic nullifiers for shifting the rounds about, like SM armour's fitted with. That said, this is entirely speculation on my part and I'll drop it.

[DocHorror]

It's entirely possible that they have access to gravitic nullifiers for shifting the rounds about, like SM armour's fitted with. That said, this is entirely speculation on my part and I'll drop it.

Its possible, but admittedly unsubstantiated. Suspensors are suprisingly prevelant in the Imperium. IIRC Marines use them on Heavy weapons to aid in their rapid redeployment.

[Black Admiral]

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

Similar to a Starfire force beam? Could be.

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

Well, capital sihps can get up to a base velocity of at least .75-c, but that isn't much use for figuring the velocity of a Nova Cannon round.

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

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

Well, it should be possible to estimate the fleet's size from current chapter fleet sizes, and comparing that to the size of the old Legions.

Okay, each chapter has 2-3 battle barges, and IIRC 10-11 strike cruisers. Assuming that fleet size scales up linearly with numerical increase (which is a sloppy way of doing things IMO, but all I've got to work from), the Night Lords would've had about 2-300 battle barges and 1000-1100 strike cruisers, assuming they were at the standard 100,000 combatants per legions.

The armour also makes things difficult.

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

[quoteI see.. I think.[/quote]

The Slaughtersong's teleporter thing was cool indeed, the guy just said "Armour" and it teleported onto his body.

"The guy" BTW is one Argulon Veq, who's got the reflexes and speed to stand a couple of feet from an Obiliterator that's morphed multiple autocannons and deflect each and every shell. I can get the quotes if needed.

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

That is I believe the intent behind their psychic resistance training to start with.

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

Presumably. Of course, 2.5-3 meter tall supersoldiers are a bit difficult to miss anyway.

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

Auspex'd show those up, I'm fairly certain, given the amount of power running through them.

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

Such is the situation normally for SMs.

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

It might be possible to interfere with the latter using their gravitic nullifiers, although there's minimal data on how those can be manipulated.

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

Those should do it.

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

Sounds about right. Plasma rifles (comparative range to a boltgun) have a range of ~1500m.

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

Hm, so ~several hundred MJ (thermal energy) is enough to blow open a light tank (pre-Imperial technology mind, and considered useless junk). Gives a decent ballpark I suppose.

Out of curiosity, how much does the Conqueror mass?

62 tonnes, or thereabouts, not including ammo, other expendables, ablative armour, etc.

[Lost Soal]

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

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

The predator cut away diagram places the standard bolt round at 0.75 cal. That should give a benchmark for an Autocannon round.

Wrong. It takes a fair bit of effort for an SM to remove a sealed tank hatch (Space Wolf), and Terminators are not orders of magnitude stronger.

True the Terminators themselves are no stronger, but I'm almost cirtain I've read a scene where someone with a power fist punched through the front armour of a tank, killing the driver in one punch....
And if I can ever find that quote again I'll post it, untill then please consider the strength boost needed to rip open a tank at least plausible.
NOTE: I am not defending HIM

Well, it should be possible to estimate the fleet's size from current chapter fleet sizes, and comparing that to the size of the old Legions.

Okay, each chapter has 2-3 battle barges, and IIRC 10-11 strike cruisers. Assuming that fleet size scales up linearly with numerical increase (which is a sloppy way of doing things IMO, but all I've got to work from), the

If it helps any the SM contribution to Armageddon 3 was 14 battle barges and 103 strike cruisers with a presence of 24 chapters, whle Gray Hunter states that the Space Wolves only have 15 ships, but each one is big enough to hold an entire Great Company.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

True the Terminators themselves are no stronger, but I'm almost cirtain I've read a scene where someone with a power fist punched through the front armour of a tank, killing the driver in one punch....
And if I can ever find that quote again I'll post it, untill then please consider the strength boost needed to rip open a tank at least plausible.

I'm pretty sure that's in Nightbringer when a traitor PDF officer attacks an Arbites Leman Russ.

And of course there's the scene in Angels of Darkness where the Dark Angels just tear through a ship's bulkhead to get at the bridge.

[Black Admiral]

True the Terminators themselves are no stronger, but I'm almost cirtain I've read a scene where someone with a power fist punched through the front armour of a tank, killing the driver in one punch....
And if I can ever find that quote again I'll post it, untill then please consider the strength boost needed to rip open a tank at least plausible.
NOTE: I am not defending HIM

I was more calling bullshit on the whole "lift up a tank and split it in two" idea. I know full well that a powerfist/claw can do a number on a tank.

[Lost Soal]

True the Terminators themselves are no stronger, but I'm almost cirtain I've read a scene where someone with a power fist punched through the front armour of a tank, killing the driver in one punch....
And if I can ever find that quote again I'll post it, untill then please consider the strength boost needed to rip open a tank at least plausible.
NOTE: I am not defending HIM

I was more calling bullshit on the whole "lift up a tank and split it in two" idea. I know full well that a powerfist/claw can do a number on a tank.

Nar man, I'm sure thats possible,

On a low G world.

If you have 10 of them together. 4.6 Tonnes each.

[Currald]

The Bombard siege artillary tank definately has a robotic arm autoloader, or at least the first Epic mini did. That thing had big shells! I'm at work, but I seem to recall that they were probably 5-6 feet long, and rather fat, too!

[Connor MacLeod]

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

Be my guest. Out of curiosity, what is this 'bastard son of the Emperor" bit about?

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

Well, I sort of figure the Empire becomes another "participant" in the overall scheme of things, not allied with one particular faction (or eveyone uniting against the Empire.) Aside from the fact it leaves the God Emperor in the picture (making the issues of Chaos god influence and whatnot less problematic) It makes for a less one sided debate and doesnt necceessitate crippling the Empire in any real way (like nullifying the Death Stars). For example, even presuming they have absolutely no protection against Chaos (like Space Marines do), the speed and lethality in the hands of the Empire certtainly compensate for this (and if you want to be pedantic, there *are* people, even planets, who are fanatically loyal to Palpatine and/or his New Order.. including at least one Grand Admiral. I plan to go into this later..)

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

Sure they can, but unless they know what they're digging into, this might be a chancy proposition at best (won't be good for them if they puncture the power feeds to a Heavy turbolaser, or one of the subsidiary reactors, would it?) Besides, such activity would probably slow their progress even more, giving the defenders time to react/surround them.

What I envisioned anyhow is establishing choke points along key corridors (like to the bridge and whatnot) anyhow. They don't really HAVE to go chasing the Marines in the ship, after all.

Alright.

However as I said, it depends on the kind of weapon. There definitely are blasters that have significant recoil, and they wouldn't neccesarily use those at long range.. but as I said, ,they have access to pretty diverse armaments - including weapons that can. That diversity is one of the real advantages the GE troops will have.

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

Assuming there is cover on the terrain, yeah (but then the Marines aren't gonna be advancing, nor being able to really fire back. And a blaster can carry ALOT of shots... ) But of course, this is also about the only way the GE has any real chance on the ground (especially if we disregard orbital or vehcile support.) unless they bring in Spacetroopers or the Darkside Darktroopers or something like that.

Either they're going to establish well fortified fixed positions (like on Hoth) and plaster them from long range (particularily with big weapons like E-webs), or they're going to use speeder bikes or some other sort of highly mobile transportation to allow them to keep the Marines at a distancec.

Frankly, I favor the former more, since it allows them access to better protection (portable shield generators.) and firepower (E-webs). Other tricks like mines (or buried thermal detonators) would be nasty tricks too.
(speaking of which, the Second Medstar novel rated 4 Thermal detonators as having a combined yield of half a kiloton.. so TD's can have an explosive yield of some 100 tons of TNT or more...)

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

Well, I'm sure there are. Insofar as the shielsd are going, I was thinking something along the lines of a "theatre" shield rather than personal shields (although they probably could do that too.)

I'm sort of neglecting the vehicle side because thats a bit more iffy. Aside from the issue of AT-ATs (which can unleash tens or hundreds of kilotons worht of firepower in a maximum firepower barrage), their Artillery can be pretty nasty (SPHA-Ts can down capital ships, as we see in AOTC, and there existed simliarly-sized repulsorlift artillery that had weapons comparable in output to a Star Destroyer turbolaser.)

And then there's REALLY scary stuff like the Viper Automadons (they carry some pretty substantial firepower (including reputedly some kind of capital-grrade weaponry..) but their molecular shielding also allows them to absorb enemy weapons fire (at least the energy.. not the momentum) and use it against their opponents.

[Connor MacLeod]

Whawhahwha?

My point is, is that its rather poitnless to discuss the "mystical" aspects of the debate without establishing some common benchmarks at least, ,if not some sort of qualitative values (easier for some like Telekinetic feats, but harder for others like mind control or mind resistance.)

For example, it would be rather meaningless for me to appeal to the Force as a sentient, godlike entity that might intervene for the GE side just because it reputedly can destrtoy planets Death-star style.. right? OTOH I might be wrong, but i'm not sure the God Emperor of Mankind could destroy a planet like the Death Star can...

[Connor MacLeod]

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

-Gunhead

Just because they aren't mentioned is not neccesarily evidence they don't exist. The fact that a 3 ton projectile should be impossible to lift or manually install can very well necessitate the existence of such aids (and teh technology to allow this does exist.)

There are a number of similar cases in Star Wars - things are not expressly stated in c anon or official sources, but they aren't expressly denied either, and certain logical neccessities may very well dictate their existence. (Hypermatter is a good example... its existence was necessitated by the stupendous power generation capabilities of Star Wars ships, but also by the apparent fact that fuel tanks do not take up a substantial portion of a vessel's internal volume.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Similar to a Starfire force beam? Could be.

Well, its the only conceivable damage mechanism I can think of for a gravitic weapon. Unless it makes mini black-holes at the point of impact or something.

Well, capital sihps can get up to a base velocity of at least .75-c, but that isn't much use for figuring the velocity of a Nova Cannon round.

Not really. In fact, it would be detrimental if "near-c" included the capital ship's own initial velocity (if the ship is already moving at say, .5c when it fires the projectile, the projectile would already have .5c velocity imparted to it, since it was inside the ship at the time of the acceleration and whatnot.)

That said, it might work as a lower limit on "near-c" - while the cannon could conceivably be designed to be used only on head-to head engagements and that projectile might be too slow to overtake a ship fleeing at .75c, I tend to doubt this. So logically, the projectile should be capable of overtaking a fleeing ship.. thus suggesting it has to be capable of moving faster than .75c.

(That's not airtight logic though.. since it neglects the time and rate of acceleration of a vessel to get up to .75c...)

Well, it should be possible to estimate the fleet's size from current chapter fleet sizes, and comparing that to the size of the old Legions.

Okay, each chapter has 2-3 battle barges, and IIRC 10-11 strike cruisers. Assuming that fleet size scales up linearly with numerical increase (which is a sloppy way of doing things IMO, but all I've got to work from), the Night Lords would've had about 2-300 battle barges and 1000-1100 strike cruisers, assuming they were at the standard 100,000 combatants per legions.

Okay. Now all you need is the energy quantification of the results, and the timeframe it was achieved in.

AS a benchmark - assuming an Earthlike planet:

standard "extinction level" events are around 4e23-4e24 joules of energy.

total sterilization (IIRC from mike's Planetkiller page) is generally the e25-e26 level. This is also the "crust cracking" level I believe.. (its what Mike rated the Eclipse superlaser at, IIRC.)

Causing the atmosphere of a planet to "dissipate" (which I define as causing the mass of the atmosphere to achieve escape velocity) is around e26 joules (I dnot reember exactly, but I did the math for one of the Covenant/Halo threads.) Boiling the oceans of an Earthlike planet (well assuming the planet had the same mass of water as the Earth is estimated to hve) is roughly at this level as well.

Vaporizing the oceans is around the e27-e28 level.

BDZ-style "melting the crust" is easy to figure out. Just take the standard 1/meter estimate Mike derived (2e24 joules) and multiply by the desired/estimated "depth." (IE, if the crust is melted to a depth of a kilometer, the energy output is 2e27 joules.. 10 km is 2e28 joules.. etc.)

Cratering: take the volume of the area effected (surface area of the planet.. 5e14 m^2 IIRC) multiply by depth (the radius of the crater, assuming a spherical explosion) to determine how many craters (assuming a pperfectly evenly-cratered surface.) and then multiply this by the energy value derived from Mike's asteroid destruction calculator (ie, a 1 km crater is about 1 megaton IIRC.. so take however many 1 km craters you might make on the crust of a planet and multiply it by 1 megaton... etc.)

It is possible some of these might be cumulative - IE you might melt the crust of the planet to say, several kilometers depth, factor in some partial vaporization... dissipate the atmosphere totally as well as boil/vaporize the oceans.. In fact, as the energy outp ut rises some of those results will be inevitable consequences.

The Slaughtersong's teleporter thing was cool indeed, the guy just said "Armour" and it teleported onto his body.

Sorta reminds me of the "batlte armor" from Tenchi muyo.

"The guy" BTW is one Argulon Veq, who's got the reflexes and speed to stand a couple of feet from an Obiliterator that's morphed multiple autocannons and deflect each and every shell. I can get the quotes if needed.

Sure, why not? I've been forthcoming so far haven't I?

That is I believe the intent behind their psychic resistance training to start with.

Well my point is is that mind control of millions of people isn't really within the scope of most Jedi/dark Jedi or Sith. Vader might be able to do it... Palpatine can.. Jerec probably could.

Some Jedi/Dark Jedi might be able to do it if they have a suitable "amplifier" (VAlley of the Jedi, the source under the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Massassi temples on Yavin IV, etc..)

Presumably. Of course, 2.5-3 meter tall supersoldiers are a bit difficult to miss anyway.

Indeed.

Auspex'd show those up, I'm fairly certain, given the amount of power running through them.

True. But its risky nonetheless, especailly since they presumably don't yet know the precise layout of the ship.

At the very least, its going to slow their travel through the ship - giving the defenders more time to prepare and react. And its quite possible the vital components (engines, reactor, etc.) are too heavily armored to bypass or get to by such means.)

Such is the situation normally for SMs.

I suppose. But thats precisely why I figure the Empire will try to use long range to as best advantage as they can. They need to offset the added durability by time (and at the same time, try to keep out of the reach out of the Space Marine's weapons.. its quite unlikely stormy armor is going to stop most hand energy weapons the Marines will have.)

It might be possible to interfere with the latter using their gravitic nullifiers, although there's minimal data on how those can be manipulated.

Thats a matter of force vs force.. or which can generate more.

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

Those should do it.

Those or some of the nastier battle droids (like the SD-9s or SD-10s.. or something like IG-88... or the Viper Automadon )

Sounds about right. Plasma rifles (comparative range to a boltgun) have a range of ~1500m.

Sorta what I figured.

Hm, so ~several hundred MJ (thermal energy) is enough to blow open a light tank (pre-Imperial technology mind, and considered useless junk). Gives a decent ballpark I suppose.

Was there something about a tank? I didn't see anything in the quote.. I thought it was about a person getting cremated.

62 tonnes, or thereabouts, not including ammo, other expendables, ablative armour, etc.

well, fi you impart 2 million newtons worth of force to a a 62 ton tank, you accelerate it by about 30 m/s^2 ... obviously the higher the force figure, the greater the acceleration becomes.

Interesting for two reasons: 1.) it suggests something is needed to anchor/brace the tank against its recoil, since I doub thte tanks fly 100 feet backwards with each shot. 2.) I'm wondering how much stress this might put on the turret mechanism , since the recoil is not going to be uniformly distributed across the entire mass of the tank (the turning mechanism is going to bear the most stress from it...) I'm pretty sure it would rip the turret off a modern tank, for example.

[Black Admiral]

Was there something about a tank? I didn't see anything in the quote.. I thought it was about a person getting cremated.

Oh, sorry, my bad. I was referring to a scene where Hark uses his plasma pistol to blast a light tank:

There was a chilling wail from behind Rawne's position. Part animal shriek, part pnuematic hiss, a sound that swooped from high pitch to low. The output of a powerful beam weapon ripped into the front of the SteG and a rush of pressurised flame blew out the side panels. It bounced to a halt, streaming smoke.

I'll answer the rest later

[Lost Soal]

Well, I'm sure there are. Insofar as the shielsd are going, I was thinking something along the lines of a "theatre" shield rather than personal shields (although they probably could do that too.)

Void shields have been used on ground installations. Some completely encompass the site others just prevent attacks from above or force an enemy to advance over land.

[Petrosjko]

My point is, is that its rather poitnless to discuss the "mystical" aspects of the debate without establishing some common benchmarks at least, ,if not some sort of qualitative values (easier for some like Telekinetic feats, but harder for others like mind control or mind resistance.)

For example, it would be rather meaningless for me to appeal to the Force as a sentient, godlike entity that might intervene for the GE side just because it reputedly can destrtoy planets Death-star style.. right? OTOH I might be wrong, but i'm not sure the God Emperor of Mankind could destroy a planet like the Death Star can...

Yeah, I understood what you were saying. I was just surprised to see a reply to my post in the midst of the blizzard of responses you'd put forward.

My abilities to quantify are limited by the fact that I'm mostly only familiar with the novels of the setting, which are not canon by GW policy.

In terms of establishing benchmarks for psyker power, NecronLord has the direct quote which establishes a vague guideline for the power of Alpha level psykers. Now the Emperor is vastly more powerful than any Alpha level psyker. But to what extent has never been properly quantified.

That's a problem this debate will butt up against many a time, I'm sad to say.

[Gunhead]

Now I feel stoopid. There is a powerloader made from the sentinel in IA, the hull is the same as regular sentinel but it has "Aliens" powerloader claws instead of guns. There's a picture of one loading a rocket to a manticore. There is also a recovery tank with a crane that can do heavy lifting.

Few more notes: Basilisk is the artillery platform IG has, alongside the hydra. The most common and widely used. Basilisk can be used in direct fire missions but not as an assault gun as someone here said. (Unless of course need is dire and there is nothing else left)

The pictures show at least two cases where a lone loader carries an Earth Shaker round in his hands.

These pictures were made using GW figures, but they are made to look like "in action" pictures, so from them it's clear the ES is in fact hand loaded.

Any info on these "let's shoot to the other side of the planet guns" would be nice.

-Gunhead

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Yeah, I understood what you were saying. I was just surprised to see a reply to my post in the midst of the blizzard of responses you'd put forward.

My abilities to quantify are limited by the fact that I'm mostly only familiar with the novels of the setting, which are not canon by GW policy.

Everything with "Warhammer 40,000" stamped on it goes through a brutal process with GW to ensure absolutely everything matches proper continuity and whatnot. The only exception would be Dawn of War which likely slipped through with all its minor flaws out of virtue of being a half-decent game.

[Gunhead]

Everything with "Warhammer 40,000" stamped on it goes through a brutal process with GW to ensure absolutely everything matches proper continuity and whatnot. The only exception would be Dawn of War which likely slipped through with all its minor flaws out of virtue of being a half-decent game.[/quote]

If the above is true, why the fuck we have loop holes the size of elephants between fluff and the novels? GW brutal process my ass.
One good example would be this three ton earth shaker round, which I pointed out according to GW material doesn't exist.
Or the the whole bolter clusterfuck.
There are just too many to list.

-Gunhead

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Be my guest. Out of curiosity, what is this 'bastard son of the Emperor" bit about?

I'll have the quotes up in awhile.

Of the nine Space Marine Legions that turned to Chaos and followed Horus, one was named the Emperor's Children. Unlike the Sons of Horus, they decided to keep that name out of spite for the last 10 millenia. Mandragore is a member of said Traitor Legion.

Well, I sort of figure the Empire becomes another "participant" in the overall scheme of things, not allied with one particular faction (or eveyone uniting against the Empire.) Aside from the fact it leaves the God Emperor in the picture (making the issues of Chaos god influence and whatnot less problematic) It makes for a less one sided debate and doesnt necceessitate crippling the Empire in any real way (like nullifying the Death Stars). For example, even presuming they have absolutely no protection against Chaos (like Space Marines do), the speed and lethality in the hands of the Empire certtainly compensate for this (and if you want to be pedantic, there *are* people, even planets, who are fanatically loyal to Palpatine and/or his New Order.. including at least one Grand Admiral. I plan to go into this later..)

Fanatical loyalty can be very important when dealing with Chaos, as it generally renders the potential target immune to more subtle direct manipulation (though like anything, the Chaos Gods find ways to work this to their advantage). And Space Marines' protection from Chaos is decidedly minimal, fully half of them turned traitor in the Heresy. Only the real upper echelons of the Imperium have any true protection, like the Inquisition, the Grey Knights, Officio Assassinorum, etc.

Sure they can, but unless they know what they're digging into, this might be a chancy proposition at best (won't be good for them if they puncture the power feeds to a Heavy turbolaser, or one of the subsidiary reactors, would it?) Besides, such activity would probably slow their progress even more, giving the defenders time to react/surround them.

What I envisioned anyhow is establishing choke points along key corridors (like to the bridge and whatnot) anyhow. They don't really HAVE to go chasing the Marines in the ship, after all.

Right, once the Empire gets the hang of it, it's probably not going to be easy for the Marines.

However as I said, it depends on the kind of weapon. There definitely are blasters that have significant recoil, and they wouldn't neccesarily use those at long range.. but as I said, ,they have access to pretty diverse armaments - including weapons that can. That diversity is one of the real advantages the GE troops will have.

Right. Though Marines are pretty diverse as well, particularly the more rational Chapters like the Raven Guard.

Assuming there is cover on the terrain, yeah (but then the Marines aren't gonna be advancing, nor being able to really fire back. And a blaster can carry ALOT of shots... ) But of course, this is also about the only way the GE has any real chance on the ground (especially if we disregard orbital or vehcile support.) unless they bring in Spacetroopers or the Darkside Darktroopers or something like that.

Either they're going to establish well fortified fixed positions (like on Hoth) and plaster them from long range (particularily with big weapons like E-webs), or they're going to use speeder bikes or some other sort of highly mobile transportation to allow them to keep the Marines at a distancec.

Frankly, I favor the former more, since it allows them access to better protection (portable shield generators.) and firepower (E-webs). Other tricks like mines (or buried thermal detonators) would be nasty tricks too.
(speaking of which, the Second Medstar novel rated 4 Thermal detonators as having a combined yield of half a kiloton.. so TD's can have an explosive yield of some 100 tons of TNT or more...)

How did we arrive here anyways? The Marines will be on the defensive protecting the Palace, not charging headlong across open ground.

Well, I'm sure there are. Insofar as the shielsd are going, I was thinking something along the lines of a "theatre" shield rather than personal shields (although they probably could do that too.)

I'm sort of neglecting the vehicle side because thats a bit more iffy. Aside from the issue of AT-ATs (which can unleash tens or hundreds of kilotons worht of firepower in a maximum firepower barrage), their Artillery can be pretty nasty (SPHA-Ts can down capital ships, as we see in AOTC, and there existed simliarly-sized repulsorlift artillery that had weapons comparable in output to a Star Destroyer turbolaser.)

And then there's REALLY scary stuff like the Viper Automadons (they carry some pretty substantial firepower (including reputedly some kind of capital-grrade weaponry..) but their molecular shielding also allows them to absorb enemy weapons fire (at least the energy.. not the momentum) and use it against their opponents.

As has been mentioned, portable void shields are sometimes employed to protect a small installation or whatever. (Guns of Tanith). Against AT-ATs, the Imperium has Titans, but I'm not an expert on those. Looks like the main vehicles are being hammered out right now, and there are also "superheavies", sort of equivalent to behemoths like the German Maus (the Baneblade carries two friggin main guns, each more powerful than a Russ's).

The Viper sounds like it could pose a rather nasty threat. Does its shields provide equal protection from "energy" weapons as well as physical ones? A good half of the Guards' weaponry fires solid projectiles (autocannons, missile launchers, battlecannons, etc, not to mention bolt weapons).

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

If the above is true, why the fuck we have loop holes the size of elephants between fluff and the novels? GW brutal process my ass.
One good example would be this three ton earth shaker round, which I pointed out according to GW material doesn't exist.
Or the the whole bolter clusterfuck.
There are just too many to list.

-Gunhead

Those aren't the size of elephants for one thing, the size and weight of an Earthshaker round is stupid minutiae no one save us would care about.

I'm unsure as to what you refer by "bolter clusterfuck."

[Gunhead]

Should have been more specific about that Neophyte. Bolter clusterfuck is the fact that there are about a dozen descriptions of a bolter that are not consistent with each other, and are not explained by there being different types of bolters. Shit like this annoys me to a great extent.

Overall there being huge fucking differences in equipment used in 40K is in conflict with the way they construct things. the STC. STC is the reason why a leman russ can use shells from another planet, and in the fluff bible it is stated that planets are required to maintain stockpiles for IG use.


Ok, maybe I was overboard with that elephant remark, but since my nick is Gunhead. You should be able to figure out why I'm so pissed about things like this.

-Gunhead

[white_rabbit]

the three tonne shell....

Probably isn't a basilisk shell. Could be a bombard shell, with its servo-arm autoloader firing platform.

The fact its described as a "macro-cannon" shell means its probably not a Basilisk shell, definately not actually.

Macro-cannon, sources put artillery macro-cannon ranges at about 40 miles.

The "fire across the otherside of the planet" weaponry is the Deathstrike missile, launched from either stationary batteries, or mobile platforms. payloads range from nukes and high power plasma warheads, to chem/biological.

During Armageddon Hives on the other side of the planet fired Deathstrikes in support of IIRC Hive...meh.

Or the the whole bolter clusterfuck

By bolter clusterfuck, do you mean the caseless ammo issue ?

*shrug* They have justified it with the statements, "it looks cool" and " there are lots of varients "

[Petrosjko]

Okay, to clarify. The forum that I used to lurk at, Portent... (which in a lot of ways is like SDNet lite in terms of poster quality... lot of smart board members over there) regularly referenced that in canon terms the only official fluff came from the sourcebooks and rulebooks, and that BL material was not canon.

I've Googled around and not found any official statements on the GW canon hierarchy as yet, so perhaps NecronLord or somebody else can resolve the matter for us.

[Lost Soal]

Okay, to clarify. The forum that I used to lurk at, Portent... (which in a lot of ways is like SDNet lite in terms of poster quality... lot of smart board members over there) regularly referenced that in canon terms the only official fluff came from the sourcebooks and rulebooks, and that BL material was not canon.

I've Googled around and not found any official statements on the GW canon hierarchy as yet, so perhaps NecronLord or somebody else can resolve the matter for us.

Don't know about any cannon statements, but a lot of codex's and such reference the black library novels, thus lending some authority to them, i.e. Codex Necrons references and quotes the Nightbringer novel as cannon.