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

[Connor MacLeod]

The quote refers to the astronomicon though. It's a seperate system from what feeds the Emporer. It gives us a quantifier for the astronomicon, but we are still somewhat clueless as to what feeds him.

As I mentioned before, it seems likely that since the Emperor's "immortality" is connected to his access to the Warp, his body is too frail to endure much if any contact with the Warp, and thus he has to "tap" it indirectly through proxies.. who cannot survive the level of power he draws through them.

However, its still evident fact of what he can control or direct, since it is indeed the Emperor who is in charge of what this energy does (same with wht feeds him, really.)

Thus, if we know how many "sacrifices" the Emperor gets in a given time frame, we can tell what he is generally expected to tap/control.

Note that this suggests a rather interesting and peculiar limitation if what I am speculating is true - that without the sustenance of the psykers, the Emperor at the very least could not do nearly as much as he is capable of, and might quite possibly die.

[Currald]

As I mentioned before, it seems likely that since the Emperor's "immortality" is connected to his access to the Warp, his body is too frail to endure much if any contact with the Warp, and thus he has to "tap" it indirectly through proxies.. who cannot survive the level of power he draws through them.

The Emperor is in contact with little but the warp. He busy in the warp, keeping the various gods from gaining too much influence. The most activity he manifests in the material universe is through the Imperial Tarot, which is usually enough to deploy his armies where they are needed. Occasionally he intercedes in a more obvious way, a la Storm of the Emperor's Wrath.

The Astronomicon, IIRC, was under construction during the later parts of the Great Crusade, before the Emperor was mortally wounded. The Astronomicon was to have utility even when the Emperor was hale and hearty.

Note that this suggests a rather interesting and peculiar limitation if what I am speculating is true - that without the sustenance of the psykers, the Emperor at the very least could not do nearly as much as he is capable of, and might quite possibly die.

Oh, he would die all right. Not only does he require a lot of psykers every day, but also the occasional human body, which he presumably injests somehow with the aid of the Golden Throne.

[Petrosjko]

This is a history provided in another thread. Stormy and the others said it was mostly accurate to the canon... can anybody back this particular section as accurate?

The Adeptus Astra telepathica was established to train and sanction psykers in the ways of the warp. A massive underground base was built in the Himalayas range, containing the psychic conduit necessary to project the Astronomicon. This was a psychic beacon, maintained by a choir of a thousand psykers, which would emit a psychic beacon in to the warp, to allow navigators a site of reference for safe and accrate warp travel.

In the link, this is the run-up to the Crusade, as the Sol system is being prepped for the Crusade.

Connor- Okay, how do we quantify just how much Palpatine can affect in the Sol system?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Sorry about the lateness of the reply, getting sick here so I might be out of it for a few days.

However, would a "reckless and impetuous" stormtrooper stand out, and therefore betray his corruption? It might very well do so.

Probably. But this is ultimately more relevant to the other debate, the timeframe the Empire is looking at here probably means corruption won't be much more than a thorn in their side.

YEah.. I suspect that if and when the "Weak willed" officers become a problem, he will simply eliminate or replace them. In the meantime, he should have enough "fanatics" under his command to fend off most of what the 40K universe could throw at him, especially if he's bolstering their abilities with the Force. And if worse comes to worse, there are still battle droids.

And as I pointed out, the Chaos Gods might be wary of overtly attempting to corrupt the Empire because it might bring said Empire's wrath down upon their own worlds and such - I imagine that the Chaos forcecs are not going to ber much better at defeating the Empire's warships than the Imperium would be. Hundreds or thousands of Star Destroyers dispatched to BDZ Chaos worlds would definitely hurt Chaos, I imagine.

Much of Chaos's holdings are in the Eye of Terror, a region where the warp and realspace co-exist simultaeneously. Needless to say, physics are just another plaything of the Chaos Gods within the warp.

To an extent, yeah. But they can afford to be methodical and use overkill in their search for him. They could blast apart the palace section by section looking for him, using sensors, probes, possibly even Dark jedi to help scout things out before making a move.

Sort of like with Space marines on an ISD, actually.

Ok.

OTOH they're about 5-10 meters tall and maybe 8-15 meters long.. not humanoid in shape.. more buglike really.. they do have pincer arms (powerful enough to grapple and down repulsorlift vehicles, IIRC) in addition to their guns.

Melee might be better for the SM, but besides blasting them as they approach, the pincers mean the Vipers aren't exactly ill-equipped for close-range combat either.

Sounds kind of like a Chaos Defiler.

[Enforcer Talen]

This is a history provided in another thread. Stormy and the others said it was mostly accurate to the canon... can anybody back this particular section as accurate?

The Adeptus Astra telepathica was established to train and sanction psykers in the ways of the warp. A massive underground base was built in the Himalayas range, containing the psychic conduit necessary to project the Astronomicon. This was a psychic beacon, maintained by a choir of a thousand psykers, which would emit a psychic beacon in to the warp, to allow navigators a site of reference for safe and accrate warp travel.

In the link, this is the run-up to the Crusade, as the Sol system is being prepped for the Crusade.

Connor- Okay, how do we quantify just how much Palpatine can affect in the Sol system?

so bdzing that area would be a Bad Thing (tm) ?

[Connor MacLeod]

The Emperor is in contact with little but the warp. He busy in the warp, keeping the various gods from gaining too much influence. The most activity he manifests in the material universe is through the Imperial Tarot, which is usually enough to deploy his armies where they are needed. Occasionally he intercedes in a more obvious way, a la Storm of the Emperor's Wrath.

Being in contact with it is one thing, being able to tap or channel it physically is another. scanning/detection can take very little energy.. but something more physical (telekinetic or energy attacks) are another story.

The Astronomicon, IIRC, was under construction during the later parts of the Great Crusade, before the Emperor was mortally wounded. The Astronomicon was to have utility even when the Emperor was hale and hearty.

I don't dispute that.. but what I question is whether or not the psychics would still have to be "sacrificed" to it was he in a better condition than he is now.

Oh, he would die all right. Not only does he require a lot of psykers every day, but also the occasional human body, which he presumably injests somehow with the aid of the Golden Throne.

He may not need to ingest the body. Its possible that his condition is such now that no "normal" body is capable of containing him (his old body conceivably was weakened sufficiently that it was no longer as "durable" as it was.) - a new "vessel" to contain his essence and maintain the link to the physical realm, so to speak. (Or, you could think of it as a source for new organs, blood, brain, whatnot..) Palpatine has a similar need - extended high-end Dark Side usage tends to cause him to decay more rapidly.

[Connor MacLeod]

Connor- Okay, how do we quantify just how much Palpatine can affect in the Sol system?

Well we know that within a planetary scale (tens of thousands of km in radius) he can affect the minds of millions/billions/trillions for extended periods.

Joruus C'baoth (nowhere near on Palpy's scale) was able to affect 15-20 Star Destroyers and scores of other vessels over multiple light years. (say maybe hundreds of thousands to a couple million)

Now, the Sol system is some (IIRC) 5e9 kilometers in diameter, IIRC - a couple light-hours (3-4?).. several ordrs of magnitude less range than what C'baoth needed. Now, hypothetically speaking, we can infer that he probably could affect some millions of individuals towards the far reaches of the system, and billions/trillions the closer to the "center" (most likely whatever planet he's on.)

Also keep in mind the absolute "limit" - billions/trillions probably.. Now, to make a comparison we need to know:

1.) the probable total populations of the sol system

2.) the approximate distributions (how many per planet, system, bases, whatnot.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Sorry about the lateness of the reply, getting sick here so I might be out of it for a few days.

No biggie.

Probably. But this is ultimately more relevant to the other debate, the timeframe the Empire is looking at here probably means corruption won't be much more than a thorn in their side.

Well, it might be a reason for rushing things, if nothing else I suppose.

Much of Chaos's holdings are in the Eye of Terror, a region where the warp and realspace co-exist simultaeneously. Needless to say, physics are just another plaything of the Chaos Gods within the warp.

Perhaps, but that just means the Empire can't send ships in to fuck with their holdings. There are other methods, though.

Sounds kind of like a Chaos Defiler.

I don't even know what that is.

[Black Admiral]

That could be a problem, then. Is thre any way to guess at or estimate it? Based on another similar event perhaps?

I don't think so. Blowing up planets isn't something that's done often - Exterminatus is a lot easier, not to mention that you can still use the resources after an Exterminatus.

Since as I said its unlikely to be a "mass scattering" e vent, it would inevtiably reform due to the planet's own gravity. It just might take awhile if the bombardment was violent enough.

Nostramo was destroyed about 10k years before the current timeframe in 40K if that's any help.

Its not as bad a problem as with visuals (IE TDIC) - text isn't always as inclusive of detail as visuals are, so you can sometimes "ignore" such problems (unless the results shoudl be so blindingly obvious to anyone watching, which a large-scale bombardment should.)

*shrugs* Like I said, there's only one description I know of to go on, and I posted that.

well, as I said, that might not mean anything. Concentrate enough energy on a small enough area, and you can probably cut through it

True. Though AFAICT it was in appearance a normal sword. Disregarding the field of cuttiness going for it.

Would you midn if I asked what this is based on? I didnt think the quote was that specific.

It's outright stated later, when Veq comments that he's been letting his reaction times slip after taking a hit.

And I still need the other information (range, bullet velocity, etc.) in order to make calcs, if it can be derived or is provided.

Range I'd guess at being several hundred meters for the sniper round, less for Vrox's ACs. The bridges on Imperium (and similar) starships tend to be fairly big, and the Slaughtersong's is similiarly size (IIRC the Lord Solar Macharius's bridge was something like 200 meters across).

As for velocity, supersonic's about the best I can give.

I see. "Force enhancement" probably means surrounding it or reinforcing it with some sort of telekinesis giving it a "sharper' edge, or making it "harder" to break or damage.. or whatnot.

Force weapons have a psy-field around them, which allows for increased cutting ability, as well as psy-nastiness to any unfortunate hit by one and parrying power weapons.

Thats okay. I'm not precisely clear on just how much of a boost Palpy (or any other Dark jedi) might derive from any sort of boosters - I generally propose it more as a way of "levelling the field" so to speak.

The one side effect he's going to have to watch in all this is that massive Dark Side usage is going to cause massive bodily deterioration, so he needs to have ready access to his cloning facilities. (Ideally it might mean there would be periodic "windows" of opportunity when Palpy would not be active.)

Same deal with daemonhosts. The more powerful the daemon, the quicker the host gets burned out.

Okay.

No statement as to the thickness (Boreas just blew up the wall, he didn't bother analysing it first).

Well I've generally figured (due to effects and somewhat due to logical extrapolation) that most Marine projectile weapons are going to be equivalent to a heavy macvhine gun (.50 BMG grade) or an AMR.. which means momentum in the tens of kg*m/s range. Like I said, not likely to do much more against stormy armor except knock them down and maybe break or bruise some bones unless they make a head shot or something.

Seems much simpler for them to use energy weapons.

Energy weapons are less common in SM units than boltguns, probably because plasma weapons tend to explode (with overuse/discharge on the higher power settings), and lasguns just plain suck against power armoured troops. LasCANNONS on the other hand can vaporise an SM's torso with minimal effect on the beam's trajectory, but they're bulky (powerpacks and coolant rig taken into account).

Well, the only thing I can tell otoh is that his head isn't exploding into a fountain of red mist.. (which I think is wht an AMR round to the head would do.. AMRs are designed to penetrate armored vehicles after all..)

Here's another example:

"You are an incompetent weakling," Uexkull said, and shot Daresh through the head with his bolt pistol. The single shot made an almost deafening boom in the close confines of the chamber. Daresh's almost headless corpse cannoned backwards from the end of the table, knocking over the chair.

My math wont be very precise (My brain isnt up to much math tonight,) but I suspect that the repulsors would provide at least a couple hundred to a couple thousand newtons worth of compensatory force to sustain a 3 meter/second stride (slightly better than average human running or jogging speed I think.) Lets say about half a ton of "gear" total.

Sounds about right.

Oh well I wasn't strictly referring to boarding actions. unless they enter a hangar, viper automadons are gonna be too big. I figured they would be used in the field.

Well, that gives the SMs their own armour, and the ImpGuard's Leviathans might come into play as well (and a shot from one of their macrocannons should do in a Viper) The guns in question:

From all along the Volscani line the Leviathans opened fire. The huge forward macro-cannons were heard in Kasr Valtoss some fifty miles away. Each Leviathan was rocked back on its treads by the recoil and the swarms of infantry surrounding them fell to the ground, unable to stand this close to the discharge. The ten-yard long cannon shells could scarcely miss the Leviathans of the Cadian command barely a mile from them.[...]It is a fact that Leviathan armament is primarily devised to destroy infantry. Once another Leviathan has its shields raised gunnery will not conclude the issue.

Boarding actions woudl probably be devoted to battle droids or spacetrooper armor. (though SD-10s have heaveier blasters than conventional troops, shielding, and self-repairing armor.. The Yuuzhan-Vong killer driods the NR used in the NJO are even nastier-- they could take a single starfighter-scale shot and still survive, albiet with damage.)

The YVHs aren't pleasant, at all. I'd lay odds that a TacDread armoured SM could rip one apart in close, but at range the YVH wins, no question.

Well thats basically what you're doing. When its braced against the recoil, you probably can't move it around. (SPHA-Ts and the heavy TL turrets on an ISD probably have similar issues.)

That's probably why Leman Russes have targetting computers in addition to everything else: when you've locked the gun, it bloody well better be pointing the right way.

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't think so. Blowing up planets isn't something that's done often - Exterminatus is a lot easier, not to mention that you can still use the resources after an Exterminatus.

I was referring to what was apparently a violent BDZ event.. The mass scattering-style planet destruction (DS style) generally has to occur very quickly for it to be effective, so timeframe isn't as crucial (though technically I suppose one could take hours or days to "scatter" the mass of a planet, so long as you blasted the chunks outwards at least at escape velocity...)

Nostramo was destroyed about 10k years before the current timeframe in 40K if that's any help.

Not unless it took 10,000 years for the fleet to destroy the planet

*shrugs* Like I said, there's only one description I know of to go on, and I posted that.

Oh well. So much for that idea I suppose. I guess one might infer that a day or so timeframe for the planet-killing event is reasonable (8 hours maybe is reasonable, if one accounts for human necceessities like food or sleep, but that is not hard and fast due to crew shifts.)

True. Though AFAICT it was in appearance a normal sword. Disregarding the field of cuttiness going for it.

Well the principle applies whether you're talking about energy or force/momentum. The smaller the area "contacting" the target is, the easier it is to cut through (thats why knives cut like they do after all - you're concentrating the strength of the blow onto a very small area on the blade.)

It's outright stated later, when Veq comments that he's been letting his reaction times slip after taking a hit.

Ah. I see.

Range I'd guess at being several hundred meters for the sniper round, less for Vrox's ACs.

How much less? like 100 meters? 50? 10?

The bridges on Imperium (and similar) starships tend to be fairly big, and the Slaughtersong's is similiarly size (IIRC the Lord Solar Macharius's bridge was something like 200 meters across).

Okay.

As for velocity, supersonic's about the best I can give.

Supersonic at least.. possibly as high as hypersonic (estimate based on probable projectile mass and probable recoil/momentum.)

Lets assume 1 km/s (about 3 times the speed of sound), with a distance of oh.. 50 meters.

for reaction time, its just the distance traveled divided by the bullet's velocity. In other words, it takes .05 seconds (1/20th of a second) for a bullet moving at 1 km/s to cross 50 meters.

As for acceleration: assuming that the person has to move bodily half a meter to one side to dodge in .05 seconds.. requires an acceleration of at least 400 m/s^2.. or 400 gees if I did my math right.

Generally speaking, we're talking acceleration in the tens or hundreds of gees, depending on the specific range and velocity combinations you use.. a fairly long range with a fairly low velocity is goign to result in a lower acceleration value - a short range plus a high velocity results in much higher accelerations.

There is one possible flaw in this as "bullet dodging" - moving that fast rqeuires some sort of "force field/telekinetic" acceleration, but generally any sort of TK would also allow the person to deflect the bullet out of the air (or nudge the gun aside.. either a feat easier than physically "dodging")

"catching" or "blocking" bullets is a slightly different matter (might require slightly less motion... say maybe a foot or half a foot) and it only involves moving part of the body, not the whole thing.

Force weapons have a psy-field around them, which allows for increased cutting ability, as well as psy-nastiness to any unfortunate hit by one and parrying power weapons.

I see.

[quote
Same deal with daemonhosts. The more powerful the daemon, the quicker the host gets burned out.
[/quote]

I see.

No statement as to the thickness (Boreas just blew up the wall, he didn't bother analysing it first).

Not much help then I'm afraid

Energy weapons are less common in SM units than boltguns, probably because plasma weapons tend to explode (with overuse/discharge on the higher power settings), and lasguns just plain suck against power armoured troops. LasCANNONS on the other hand can vaporise an SM's torso with minimal effect on the beam's trajectory, but they're bulky (powerpacks and coolant rig taken into account).

That might not bode as well for the marines then, unless they get their hands on some pretty hefty or "heavy" cannons..

Here's another example:

"You are an incompetent weakling," Uexkull said, and shot Daresh through the head with his bolt pistol. The single shot made an almost deafening boom in the close confines of the chamber. Daresh's almost headless corpse cannoned backwards from the end of the table, knocking over the chair.

About the same as what I mentioned before.. blowing the head up like that should be on the AMR-rifle/heavy machine gun scale (.50 cal)

Well, that gives the SMs their own armour, and the ImpGuard's Leviathans might come into play as well (and a shot from one of their macrocannons should do in a Viper) The guns in question:

Leviathans?

From all along the Volscani line the Leviathans opened fire. The huge forward macro-cannons were heard in Kasr Valtoss some fifty miles away. Each Leviathan was rocked back on its treads by the recoil and the swarms of infantry surrounding them fell to the ground, unable to stand this close to the discharge. The ten-yard long cannon shells could scarcely miss the Leviathans of the Cadian command barely a mile from them.[...]It is a fact that Leviathan armament is primarily devised to destroy infantry. Once another Leviathan has its shields raised gunnery will not conclude the issue.

10 meter long cannon shell?

The YVHs aren't pleasant, at all. I'd lay odds that a TacDread armoured SM could rip one apart in close, but at range the YVH wins, no question.

Maybe.. but its more probable you'd face an SD-9/SD-10.. which are shielded IIRC (the latter also has "self-healing metals" incorporated into it...) Hand to HAnd shields are going to doubtless inflict damage as well (Gungan-sized theatre shiedls can incinerate an unarmoed human)

That's probably why Leman Russes have targetting computers in addition to everything else: when you've locked the gun, it bloody well better be pointing the right way.

Probably, although accuracy might suffer if it takes a noticable length of time to "lock down' before firing (once you're "locked in" you can't do much if the target changes position.)

[Petrosjko]

1.) the probable total populations of the sol system

2.) the approximate distributions (how many per planet, system, bases, whatnot.)

Quite likely the Imperium has no idea how many people actually live on Earth. As is typical of such hiveworld structures, there are literally billions of people living in the underlevels that go uncounted.

But we can safely set one trillion as a lower limit, because it's not unheard of for a population to exceed that level on other hive worlds, and Terra is the grandaddy of all hive worlds.

Moving on to the rest of the system, and it's damned hard to say. Of the worlds themselves, Mars is the Imperium's single largest forgeworld (in production terms), and I haven't seen any canonical descriptions. I would assume at least a similar hive structure as Terra's, if not similar population figures.* Luna is also heavily occupied, as is Titan. Furthermore, the occupants of the defense network would easily run into the millions...

(Anybody want to dig up the Wolfblade descrip of Terra's defenses again, or pop out another source?)

Of course, the defense force population would decline sharply upon the arrival of the GE.

Again I throw open the floor, this time to anybody who can provide population information on the other planets and moons of the Sol system in this setting.

* Mars population figures may be lowered somewhat by the Adeptus Mechanicus' reliance on automated systems and disdain for normal humans.

[Lord Zentei]

Sounds kind of like a Chaos Defiler.

I don't even know what that is.

One of these (Linky):

Crab-centaur shaped dreadnaught with a main battletank class cannon.

Crew: bound daemon.

[white_rabbit]

Might add something here.

The Emperor originally produced the astronomican on his own, however prior/during the heresy, Magnus the Red broke the Imperial Palaces psychic wards and shields to send a message to the Emperor, This indirectly led to the emperor having to divert his power towards protecting the palace and his undefined "great work" involving a fuckload of psychic engines and so forth, because Magnus had revealed the Emperors plans to the powers of the warp. the Sigellite suggested using lesser psykers to take some of the load, as the Astronomican was weakened, as a stop gap measure. (Visions of the Heresy volume two.)

The Emperor was also grievously injured, both " physically and psychically" by Horus.

[Currald]

* Mars population figures may be lowered somewhat by the Adeptus Mechanicus' reliance on automated systems and disdain for normal humans.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Mars's population is the largest in the Imperium. Perhaps it was in Titan Legions: Codex Titanicus?

[Petrosjko]

* Mars population figures may be lowered somewhat by the Adeptus Mechanicus' reliance on automated systems and disdain for normal humans.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Mars's population is the largest in the Imperium. Perhaps it was in Titan Legions: Codex Titanicus?

Jesus. If that's the case, then we're probably over three trillion between Terra and Mars alone...

Any references to anything being done with Venus? Venus is cool.

[Currald]

Not that I recall. I did come up with a random data point, though. Armies of the Imperium puts the mass of a Shadowsword superheavy tank at "upwards of 100 tons" and at "100 tons." I don't have anything useful to do with this data, but I thought I'd put it in this thread in case anyone needs it to do a calc with later. Cheers.

[Gunhead]

I'm assuming combat weight (Fully crewed, loaded, fueled)


Leman Russ: 60t
Vanquisher: 63t
Exterminator: 58t
Conqueror: 62t

Here it gets ridiculous

Baneblade: 316t
Shadowsword: 316t
Stormblade: 310t
Stormsword: 302t

These are "Light" tanks / scouts

Chimera: 38t
Salamander: 33t

One could think that a vehicle like Baneblade would be massively more well amoured than say the leman russ. Not so, Baneblade has a frontal armor of 220mm and the leman russ 180mm.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

One could think that a vehicle like Baneblade would be massively more well amoured than say the leman russ. Not so, Baneblade has a frontal armor of 220mm and the leman russ 180mm.

-Gunhead

And yet a Baneblade can shrug off hits that'd damage a Russ pretty heavily, if not destroy it outright (Honour Guard). That says that the Baneblade's using higher grade armour materials.

[Gunhead]

I'd would like an exact quote if all possible, since superheavies do have more frontal armor than the leman russ. This to see if the baneblade is consistenly more durable than the Russ.

Granted, the Imp armor manual doesn't say what superheavies use for armour. Then again there is no indication to any special materials being used either.

300+ tonnes is still way over the top for a vehicle that is tracked. It would sink to the ground rather than move. No, the supers don't have treads wide enough to disperse the weight.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

I'd would like an exact quote if all possible, since superheavies do have more frontal armor than the leman russ. This to see if the baneblade is consistenly more durable than the Russ.

Right. The Death Jester BTW is a Leman Russ Destroyer:

"Baneblade! Enemy Baneblade at 61.78!" Gaunt yelled into his vox. Captain Woll, commanding the Old Strontium, couldn't believe his ears.

His auspex picked up the Behemoth a second before it fired and obiliterated the Conqueror Tread Softly.

Woll layed in and fired, but his tank round barely made a dent in the massive machine's hull.
[...]
Soric's and Bray's sections hurled anti-tank missiles at the looming giant, to no great avail. Death Jester hit it with two blinding shots and still it rolled on.
[...]
The Wrath of Pardua came at the enemy Baneblade in the open space of the depot field. Sensing the Wrath by auspex, the Baneblade had begun to turn.

Sirius loaded augur shells, armour busters, into his breech, and punched two penetrating holes in the massive enemy tank's manlet. Few Pardus tank commanders carried augur shells as a matter of course, because few ever expected to meet anything genuinely tougher than themselves.

Granted, the Imp armor manual doesn't say what superheavies use for armour. Then again there is no indication to any special materials being used either.

There are such materials as Titan-grade armorplas (Deus Ex Mechanicus by Andy Chambers) so it's hardly unlikely.

300+ tonnes is still way over the top for a vehicle that is tracked. It would sink to the ground rather than move. No, the supers don't have treads wide enough to disperse the weight.

-Gunhead

I feel I ought to point (again) the fact that gravitic nullifiers and suspensor fields can deal with this, and it's not like they haven't been used in a similar application before.

[Gunhead]

It really bugs me. If such fields are used, specially in supers, there should be a mention of them in the cutaway. There isn't. On the shadowsword almost all parts are named and the rest don't look like nullifiers or suspensors. It's not stated as being a part of the engine either. Being a bit critical to the tanks function me thinks it should be mentioned. Stupid GW.

Here's a rough estimate on the engine output of the shadowsword. It was based on the hp/ton ratio of a T72 which is about 18,5hp/ton. This gives the T72 a max roadspeed of 50km/h. Shadowsword has ½ of that so it would be around 9,25hp/ton or 2923Hp (2179681.1 W). Now if someone could provide me with the info how long it has to stationary to fire it's main weapon, I'd have a pretty good idea how much damage a titan can take.

-Gunhead

[Black Admiral]

It really bugs me. If such fields are used, specially in supers, there should be a mention of them in the cutaway. There isn't. On the shadowsword almost all parts are named and the rest don't look like nullifiers or suspensors. It's not stated as being a part of the engine either. Being a bit critical to the tanks function me thinks it should be mentioned. Stupid GW.

*shrugs* These things happen. Hell, I'm not sure if the gravitic nullifiers are labelled on the SM armour diagrams, but they're definitely there.

Here's a rough estimate on the engine output of the shadowsword. It was based on the hp/ton ratio of a T72 which is about 18,5hp/ton. This gives the T72 a max roadspeed of 50km/h. Shadowsword has ½ of that so it would be around 9,25hp/ton or 2923Hp (2179681.1 W). Now if someone could provide me with the info how long it has to stationary to fire it's main weapon, I'd have a pretty good idea how much damage a titan can take.

-Gunhead

Well I can't help with that, but a Warhound chassis survived at near-ground zero of a nuclear explosion that dug out a crater described as "a gently curving glass-smooth, concave bowl two kilometers wide." The crew however, were less resilient.

[Lost Soal]

300+ tonnes is still way over the top for a vehicle that is tracked. It would sink to the ground rather than move. No, the supers don't have treads wide enough to disperse the weight.

-Gunhead

Games Workshop contracted a company called Mark 1 Tank to build a 1/6th Scale radio controlled Baneblade. http://www.mark-1-tank.co.uk/games-work ... blade.html
When finished the model was 6' long, 4'10" wide and nearly 3" tall. Converting and scaling up makes a full size Baneblade 10.8m long, 8.1m wide and ~5.4m tall. If we assume each track is one meter wide this gives the tracks a serface area of 21.6m^2.
316 tonnes = 316000kg
So weight distribution is 14629kg/m^2 or 1.46kg/cm^2. By comparison a Challenger 2 has a weight distribution of 0.9kg/cm^2.
So no, its not over the top for a tracked vehicle.

[Gunhead]

1.46kg/cm^2 is a bit excessive when you think this should be a vehicle that operates off road. Add an underpowered engine, that spells trouble. Only thing really going for it is it's ground clearance of 1.2m.

Imp armor puts the baneblade at 13.5m in lenght, with tracks running about 60% of it's lenght against the ground. But the tracks are bit wider than 1m (1.2-1.3m approx) so 1.46kg/cm^2 is good enough for me.

-Gunhead

[Lost Soal]

Unless its been stated somewhere else, I think your HP estimates are a little under. A SM Predator can generate 2,800HP with a fully laden weight of between 42 and 46 tonnes. It seems rather strange that the engines for a 316 tonne tank can only generate an extra 126HP.