What SW infantry weapons could bring down a Space Marine?

[NecronLord]

Ah yes, my mistake. A newton equates to acceleration,

Not quite. Force is what puts something into motion, while acceleration is the rate of change.

KE is the big factor when it comes to KE weaponry, right?

Momentum is also really important, it's hard to explain, to be honest.

Forgive my mistake, it was foolish, but please acknowledge the rest of the argument before making any serious accusations.

I'm not really here to talk about blasters, beyond noting that lasguns are also in the multimegajoule range.

BTW is Gallifrey Chronicles a book or another Doctor Who media? I'd like to give it a read/watch/listen.

It's a book (there's two with that title, this is the novel) the quote comes from Marnal, a Time Lord Castellan centuries (maybe) before the Doctor's time, who he's found, explaining Time Lords to his de facto Companion. Marnal is, incidentally the original owner of the Doctor's Type 40. If you want to read it, it's worth reading a synopsis of 'The Ancestor Cell' which is a lame book, but which sets this one up, with Gallifrey being destroyed (pre Time War).


As for the topic, I suppose I'll be drawn. Marines are resilient, certainly, but there's no reason heavy SW infantry weapons wouldn't be able to take them down. However, the problem is force multipliers - on their own, IG units can kill them, when you factor in their rapid deployment and advanced weapons, heavy starships in support, and so on, they become a much more dangerous force. Their various other advantages are also useful in enhancing them; a SW shoulder rocket launcher or heavy blaster could injure or kill one, but without a contrived situation, a clonetrooper ordinary droid, etc, is going to be shot first by the marine, thanks to their far superior speed. SW weapons could hurt them easily, but the real danger a SW force would pose to marines is some of their aircraft. HMPs would be a terrifying danger to Space Marines, being essentially Land Speeders but much cheaper and more numerous.

[Balrog]

The thing is is that the spear would have to be moving quite fast to equal the penetration power of a bullet, this is part of the reason they went out of style with they advent of the gun (aside from training and range). The point is, a life from probably can't throw a spear hard enough to equate a bullet, units of measurement and minutiae aside, that's the major limiting factor to spears and what I find so irritating about this 'noble savage thrashing an accomplished intergalactic empire' trope that seems so common nowadays!
And while the battle at Maridun was supposed to be an analogy to the Zulu wars the British fought, it's safe to say what worked against and industrial revolution era army would not survive a conflict against GE level army.

Again, you do not have to throw it particularly fast to match, or even exceed, what is possible with a bullet. For an (admittedly simplistic) demonstration of the difference, here for example is your typical 5.56mm NATO round:
Mass: 4 grams
Muzzle Velocity: ~940 meters per second
.004 * 930 = 3.76 kg*m/s

Now that's the momentum of the round. And let's say you want to throw a spear that weighs 8kg (which is somewhat heavy for a throwing spear, but then these Amanin are big strong bastards). How fast would Mr. Amani have to throw his spear to achieve a similar result?

3.76 kg*m/s / 8kg = .47 m/s, or about one mile per hour. I think it's pretty safe to say that Mr. Amani's spear is going to be traveling a lot faster than that when he throws it at Mr. Stormtrooper.

Another weapon that should work against Space Marines would be disruptors, although their short range would make it a very risky proposition.

[takemeout_totheblack]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the spear is 8 kgs and that the Amanin is chucking it at roughly 80mph or 35m/s
putting that through a calculator what end up with is 4.9 kilojoules. While this is almost 4x as powerful as a single round from a 5.56x45mm round, the point is is that ST armor is supposedly capable of rendering slugthrowers obsolete, and as you know a modern assault rifle can put 15 rounds into a target in the time it takes for one Amanin spear to hit home. Only if you double the speed is the KE transfer equal. So I'm willing to accept that ST armor is tough and can withstand a point blank blast from a modern assault rifle but not much more, to me that would justify the armor succumbing to the spear.

Disruptors, one of the Fetts had those didn't they, they disintegrate things right? Yeah, that could work, is there anything like a M32 MGL but for thermal detonators?

[Srelex]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the spear is 8 kgs and that the Amanin is chucking it at roughly 80mph or 35m/s
putting that through a calculator what end up with is 4.9 kilojoules. While this is almost 4x as powerful as a single round from a 5.56x45mm round, the point is is that ST armor is supposedly capable of rendering slugthrowers obsolete, and as you know a modern assault rifle can put 15 rounds into a target in the time it takes for one Amanin spear to hit home. Only if you double the speed is the KE transfer equal. So I'm willing to accept that ST armor is tough and can withstand a point blank blast from a modern assault rifle but not much more, to me that would justify the armor succumbing to the spear.

According to the NEGWT, very large or dedicated AP slugs can harm stormtrooper armor anyway.

[Batman]

the point is is that ST armor is supposedly capable of rendering slugthrowers obsolete,

It does, or at least at the modern day slugthrower level. You may kill the WEARER with a lucky hit but the ARMOUR is going to just plain ignore it

and as you know a modern assault rifle can put 15 rounds into a target in the time it takes for one Amanin spear to hit home.

Really. DO elaborate. Especially as 14 of those 15 rounds are likely to land in a circle about a foot across (for a capable firer) from the the point you initially aimed at (for a 5.56) at minuscule ranges.

Only if you double the speed is the KE transfer equal. So I'm willing to accept that ST armor is tough and can withstand a point blank blast from a modern assault rifle but not much more, to me that would justify the armor succumbing to the spear.

We have LITERARY EVIDENCE for Stormtrooper armour shrugging off mechanical damage that would make a 30 mm cannon commit suicide due to embarressment. We have a few pictures from a medium that is by definition inaccurate as hell with NO quantifications given whatsoever saying that in this particular instance, that particular batch of Stormtrooper armour MIGHT have sucked. Get lost.

[takemeout_totheblack]

We have LITERARY EVIDENCE for Stormtrooper armour shrugging off mechanical damage that would make a 30 mm cannon commit suicide due to embarressment. We have a few pictures from a medium that is by definition inaccurate as hell with NO quantifications given whatsoever saying that in this particular instance, that particular batch of Stormtrooper armour MIGHT have sucked. Get lost.

Oh, hi sweetheart! Haven't changed your MO I see!
Look, I've been over this before. It wasn't the armor, the spears were wooden, the Amanin don't seem to have any super powers beyond greater strength due to larger size.
Stormtrooper armor's capabilities vary as much as anything else in Star Wars! Sometimes a Star Destroyer is a formidable enemy, sometimes Rogue Squadron shoots them down like flies; sometime all it takes is a few Mandalorians to obliterate a platoon, sometimes all it takes is Han Solo on a junk planet; sometimes a stick or arrow will penetrate ST armor, and sometimes they withstand enough energy to 'make a 30mm cannon commit suicide from embarrassment'! Some authors wank, and some underplay!
I said before The writer was going for the bullshit 'primitives beat the Imperials' thing like at Endor, it was an allegory to the Zulu campaign from Britain's colonial era. But then, you don't read posts do you? You just skim them and argue points no one made. You get lost, this was a non-issue a page ago, people just keep bringing it up.

Now, this is a thread on Warhammer 40k vs Star Wars, do you have any information on Imperium armor and it's abilities, or did you just come here to disagree?

[white_rabbit]

Eleventh Century Remnant
What's the usual line about genestealers and terminator armour- ripping through it like paper, is it not? Marine armour doesn't have a metaphorical leg to stand on when it comes to close combat and vulnerability.

I'm slightly bemused, are you actually bringing this up to contrast marine armour with the stuff on the Amanin skewering stormies with wooden spears, in some sort of denigrating fashion ?

Because thats fucking nonsense, in their varying incarnations, genestealer claws are psychic energy sheathed spikes made from some bullshit superchitin, with superhuman muscle behind them to boot.

The correct example would have been the Ben Counter Special, chunks of concrete wielded by panicked crowds, or coral wielded by zombies/plague beasties caving marine armour. Its contradicted by other stuff he writes, sometimes on the same page IIRC, but then this is the guy who likes to write plasma guns as glorified supersoakers, spraying hot fluid at their targets.

[Eviscerator]

Stormtrooper armor's capabilities vary as much as anything else in Star Wars! Sometimes a Star Destroyer is a formidable enemy, sometimes Rogue Squadron shoots them down like flies;

Now, this is a thread on Warhammer 40k vs Star Wars, do you have any information on Imperium armor and it's abilities, or did you just come here to disagree?

Since when do Rogue SQN vape Impstars like flies? They must have been issued supersecret transphasic torpedoes that blow up Impstars in one hit Rogue Squadron is an squadron of starfighters which is 12 and throughout their entire history they always operate in concert with other assets. The one time Rogue Squadron became ROGUE squadron, they were almost Madz Pwnt by an Victory-II SD at Alderaan. Suggesting at anytime Wedge and gang could have taken their 12 fighters to Thyferra and vape the Lusankya is asinine in the extreme.

There's also this http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stormtrooper_effect
A simpler explanation provided by Mike Wong of Stardestroyer.net[1] is that in most scenes where the stormtroopers' accuracy is notably poor, they are actually under orders to not kill the main characters. I'd sure like to be the Stormie to report to Darth Vader: Lord Vader, we accidentally set our blasters to full and we've killed off Leia.

ANd back to the issue of effectiveness of SM Armor, in novels its reputed to take multiple bolt hits or close-combat hits by a CSM to penetrate/ crack.

[takemeout_totheblack]

ANd back to the issue of effectiveness of SM Armor, in novels its reputed to take multiple bolt hits or close-combat hits by a CSM to penetrate/ crack.

And yet they are, on two separate occasions, defeated by spears, arrows, and rocks. That, and in the Young Jedi Knights book Shadow Academy Jacen jokes that Stormtrooper armor 'couldn't stop a water blaster'. Hyperbole or no, this implies that they are at least somewhat derided the galaxy over. AND LET ME STRESS AGAIN, it all depends on the writer; sometimes the armor it nigh-impenetrable to anything short of a blaster rifle, and sometimes it's pierced by a stick. As stated before, it all comes down to how much the writer wants to wank or underplay their source material.

Now, can we please focus on the WH4K aspect of this argument? This particular subject was a non-issue pages ago!

[Eviscerator]

Several pages back i suggested that Man-portable weapons such as rocket launchers etc have the best chance of stopping Mr SPeesh MuhReen from getting in your teacup. Which was refuted by cartoon evidence of a rocket blowing up a tank utterly *musta been a real big rocket*

Realistically SM armor is known to withstand quite a lot before it cracks or is defeated and that is with Wh40K specific anti-armor weapons firing at said armor. Thus, if you really wanted to stop Mr SM fast, you'd fire an target designator beacon at him, call for saturation artillery bombardment, and watch the boom.

[takemeout_totheblack]

That's true, if you're facing an army of walking psychotic religious fundamentalist tanks, the best thing to do is take off and nuke the site from orbit! Or call in beam artillery strikes (never quite understood how a line-of-sight weapon fires in an arc, but oh well) However I think the implied hypothetical scenario here is 'SM advancing, STs must engage in protracted mid-range to close quarters combat for the reason of (insert plot device here)' And we're trying to figure out is how fucked the STs are in terms of available firepower and how much of it is needed to down the Imperium's finest.

[NecronLord]

That, and in the Young Jedi Knights book Shadow Academy Jacen jokes that Stormtrooper armor 'couldn't stop a water blaster'.

Given that it's the same writers there that wrote Qorl's super spear, yeah. Of course it's likely that Anderson and Motesa had no concept of how momentum works, and thought that a spear that picks you up and throws you isn't all that unusual.

And I think taking that as serious evidence, given that they're trying to taunt the troopers, has about as much value as their telling jokes about how many troopers are needed to change a light panel.

And if you want general quantification of 40K weapons, go read some of Connor's various 40K reviews. They're quite comprehensive.

[takemeout_totheblack]

Given that it's the same writers there that wrote Qorl's super spear, yeah. Of course it's likely that Anderson and Motesa had no concept of how momentum works, and thought that a spear that picks you up and throws you isn't all that unusual.

And I think taking that as serious evidence, given that they're trying to taunt the troopers, has about as much value as their telling jokes about how many troopers are needed to change a light panel.[/quote]

That's a very good point, most writers have an 'arts major science degree'. As for goading them, yeah, that's a good point too. Oh well, depends on the writer more than anything.

[Sinewmire]

That's true, if you're facing an army of walking psychotic religious fundamentalist tanks, the best thing to do is take off and nuke the site from orbit! Or call in beam artillery strikes (never quite understood how a line-of-sight weapon fires in an arc, but oh well)

Well, yes, the same argument can be applied to practically any combat. How does an Imperial Guardsman beat AT-ATs? Orbital bombardment! How do federation crewmen beat stormtroopers? Orbital bombardment! I think there's a minimum of infantry who can take that kind of punishment.

However I think the implied hypothetical scenario here is 'SM advancing, STs must engage in protracted mid-range to close quarters combat for the reason of (insert plot device here)' And we're trying to figure out is how fucked the STs are in terms of available firepower and how much of it is needed to down the Imperium's finest.

Exactly, The topic asks about infantry specifically.

Problem with artillery etc. of course, is hitting them, as they're a fast-moving strikeforce.

As to the spear/arrow incident, could it be that the stormtroopers were issued with armour specifically designed to protect against blasters and energy weapons to the point where they're weak against mundane projectiles? After all, they were expecting fo fight relatively well-armed Rebels, not troglodytes, and nobody* uses slug throwers. If it seems strong against one thing and seems weak against another, maybe it is. Maybe that's how the armour works.

The clone wars cartoons canon level is in debate what with the cgi series and all.

Would the summary reached so far be "Maybe regular heavy blasters, definately heavier but man portable blasters, but either would depend on number and accuracy of hits"?

[Eviscerator]

SM Armor was designed to deal with threats in an 40k environ , where bio-acid, melta weapons and all that are commonplace.
Stormtrooper armor was designed to deal with threats in a SW environ where the threat level is correspondingly lower.

In an modern day context, bodyguards and other such troops do not go about dressed in EOD suits dont they? They do not expect to handle IEDs or other explosives but their armor is expected to deal with pistol to rifle caliber threats.

To further put it in an modern day analog, imagine an WW2 tank transported to an WW1 battlefield. They would have to employ correspondingly larger amounts of ordnace to make it sit up and take notice.

The fact still remains, to deal with SPessh Muhreens who in 40k uni are referred to "as possesing the armor/firepower of a tank", an SW trooper would have to make extensive use of crew-served weapons to make the Marine sit up and take notice.

[DrStrangelove]

WOOD. The spears were made of WOOD.
Does Unobtainium have a grain from when it was growing as a tree branch? The very same trees that were being clear cut by the massacred colonists the ST company was sent to retrieve.
And the people throwing them: slugs, a planarian species with long spindly arms and a somewhat tube shaped body. Not Rancors, not Krayte Dragons, not Wookies, but slug people. 3 meter tall slug people, but slug people nonetheless.

They have some strange wood in starwars. You dont see 1000m tall wooden skyscrapers IRL, wroshyr trees grow kilometers tall

[takemeout_totheblack]

They have some strange wood in starwars. You dont see 1000m tall wooden skyscrapers IRL, wroshyr trees grow kilometers tall

Yes, but these weren't wroshyr trees, they were just trees. Why am I even answering these anymore? The issue was resolved ages ago!
Please. Please, stop trying to rationalize lazy writing, it's depressing.

WH40K stuff? Anything?

[Thanas]

They have some strange wood in starwars. You dont see 1000m tall wooden skyscrapers IRL, wroshyr trees grow kilometers tall

Yes, but these weren't wroshyr trees, they were just trees. Why am I even answering these anymore? The issue was resolved ages ago!

To you, maybe, since you seem determined to chuck out every other explanation besides "lazy writing makes stormies suck".

[takemeout_totheblack]

No, that's not what I'm saying at all! I'm saying that, upon further reading of source material and other stories, that the writer will make stormtroopers suck to get their story to work, even if this runs counter to other sources. As showcased in other sources, ST armor is impressive in it's protective capabilities, withstanding all sorts of stuff, but in sources like the battle of Endor and the battle of Maridun it is defeated by sticks and stones. It's that sort of creative license that drives me up the wall and makes it difficult for some people to take STs seriously.
I fully accept that ST armor can be a legitimate protective element in the hands of a canon-savvy author, and that is why I say that the issue is resolved. It's just that people keep trying to rationalize the creative decisions of a writer who clearly wanted the Stormies to vulnerable to the Amanin for dramatic effect with asspull stuff like 'unobtainium wood' or super-freaky alien powers or defective armor! It's not that there was any material or explained reason the armor failed like it did, it's just that the writer needed to fail, so it failed!
Can we move on to thread relevant discussion now?

[Thanas]

No, that's not what I'm saying at all! I'm saying that, upon further reading of source material and other stories, that the writer will make stormtroopers suck to get their story to work, even if this runs counter to other sources. As showcased in other sources, ST armor is impressive in it's protective capabilities, withstanding all sorts of stuff, but in sources like the battle of Endor and the battle of Maridun it is defeated by sticks and stones. It's that sort of creative license that drives me up the wall and makes it difficult for some people to take STs seriously.

Yes, but that is an out-of-universe reason, though IMO a valid one. Nevertheless, this is not how it works when analyzing a fictional universe. You have to suspend your disbelief and only when you find no in-universe explanation, you start discarding things.

[takemeout_totheblack]

Yes, but that is an out-of-universe reason, though IMO a valid one. Nevertheless, this is not how it works when analyzing a fictional universe. You have to suspend your disbelief and only when you find no in-universe explanation, you start discarding things.

Am I supposed to accept that the reason ST armor there failed because the wooden looking spears were actually a super metal; a metal strong enough to pierce ST armor, but is also easily smelted and cast by a bunch of neolithic slugs? Or that the spears were merely thrown at extremely high speeds even though an unarmored officer is hit during a barrage where many armored STs are killed via armor penetration and he only suffers a minor shoulder wound? Or that the armor was defective in that particular case, even though at the end the battle is examined by a court of Imperial officials who grimly list the losses, of both men and machinery, and somehow don't mention a huge factor like defective armor?
I'm not even alt-interpreting this, these arguments and rationalizations are countered with the simplest application of logic and observation! That is why I have chosen to forgo in-universe rationalization and just say that the author wanted a Zulu Campaign allegory story.
May this thread move forward now? This is seriously going in circles.

[Connor MacLeod]

First off your bloody problem is that you obviously haven't read the fucking website, or the forum rules otherwise you might understand what other people are talking about rather than just going on and on and on complaining. The fact you keep going on about KE alone shows you haven't read it, because Mike's dealt with force and momentum and all those other matters in various pages (the shield page, teh IXJac hate mail page, general science, etc.) but you apparently didn't waste any time doing that. The fact that you persist in arguing in the obvious fact you don't understand what you are discussing, nevermind analysis in general, further shows you haven't read the rules or understand how the board works. Keep up in this and you're apt to get banned.

Secondly, go read up on "lignum vitae" - despite what oyu may think about wood it has in fact been used historically as an engineering component in certain respects for a LONG time. That Wroshyr trees exist, or the "high metal content" trees of Mrykr that fucked with sensors, (nevermind generally bizarre technobabble organic stuff like giant space slugs that can take bites out of starships) in Star wars is all we really need to know. Having seen the comic, its rather obvious that if they are wood, they are an unusual sort of wood - the spears go through the armor cleanly without any splintering or shattering or deformation of any kind (bullets can fragment or deform on impact, you know, with body armor or even when hitting tissue.) they don't even appear to be really sharpened - the sharpened points if anything appear to be "natural" or "organic" in most cases, part of the curve of grain of the wood (if it is wood - we could be dealing with some magicla alien bone or spine or quill or something - its not like giant animals also don't exist in SW.) and they certainly aren't fire hardened (which would what you would want to use with a wooden spear)

If we add to the fact the known detail from many sources (WEG books, DK visual dictionary references, novels like Tattooine Ghost where we see gunfire hitting stormtrooper armor with little effect unless it hits weak pionts) and we reach the obvious conclusion that this is not normal wood, no matter what option we choose to explain it by. we could explain it in a number of ways, but the same point (which you fail to accept, in addition to your blatant ignorance of basic science) - that this is not a normal situation - remains true. That also means you can stop ranting, since thus far you simply seem to be interestedin just bitching.

I'll deal with the SM armor stuff later.

[takemeout_totheblack]

Very well, I understand. I relent. I don't want to argue anymore. If I came of as ranting or bitchy, I didn't intend to, I would just like to get on with the thread issue.

If I rubbed any of you the wrong way, I apologize.

With that over with, what are common tactics in relation to mid-range and close quarters combat used on both sides and how would a victory be achieved using them?
For instance: medium sized force of Space Marines assault a dug in position held by and equal or greater number of Stormtroopers; defending weapons are standard to large sized blaster rifles, E-webs, thermal detonators (there's probably more stuff that could be there, feel free to add) Terrain is something like Hamburger Hill i.e entrenched gun placements and difficult uphill fighting. I don't know too much about WH4K, so what would be an appropriate force for this scenario?
This is of course just a scenario I plucked out of the air, so feel free to come up with more easily debated scenarios if this one is lacking in some regard.

[Batman]

Yes, but that is an out-of-universe reason, though IMO a valid one. Nevertheless, this is not how it works when analyzing a fictional universe. You have to suspend your disbelief and only when you find no in-universe explanation, you start discarding things.

Am I supposed to accept

You are supposed to accept that since you have no fucking clue about the makeup of those spears nor the velocity they were thrown with nor the nature or condition of the armour they hit while there IS quantifiable evidence for the KE/momentum resilience of ST armour, you have no case. Especially as you seem to think that Stormies being taken out via rocks on Endor has anything to do with he quality of the armour.

[takemeout_totheblack]

I've been over this with Connor Macleod, I admit defeat.