Imperium of Man vs Galactic Empire.

[Serafina]

40k psykers aren't magic. Sure, they throw lightning and shit, but lots of times they've been depicted as being just as killable by raw firepower. Blow them to pieces and they're dead.

It really, REALLY depends on the psyker - what he specializes in and how powerfull he is.

A high-end telekine can even redirect laserweapons (lightspeed) and meltas (huge firepower) - and that's before you go into alpha-plus territory.
Likewise, a good biomancer can just absorb insane amounts of firepower (lascannon hit to the face, IIRC).
Those capabilities, along with squad-incerating attacks every few seconds, personal flight, hurling APC's around, granting jedi-like foresight to whole squads, teleportation, mindcontroll, the creation of stasis fields and other nifty stuff are all available to the better imperial battlepskers (certain astropaths, psionik inquisitors, primaris-psykers).

Of course, you will rarely find all these abilities in one psyker. Since you can not know what an enemy psyker is capable of, shooting him first is the best option.
Of course, psykers can look just like other soldiers (tought they often dress differently, there is no need to do so).
And you might just be shooting an illusion.

And yes, psykers ARE by definition magic
Anyway, it's not a war-deciding capability unless you are in a really, really tight spot.
It's kinda like on army fielding flamethrowers and grenade launchers while the other doesn't.

[Atlan]

For the record, the World Engine is probably a Tomb World (read, planet) they put a shield on and bolted an inertialess drive to, rather than a giant spherical space station. Any 40K vessel of such size would otherwise be world destroying.

This is very plausible. But it still requires that the Necrons be capable of at least rudimentary megascale construction: bolting engines onto a planet is probably not trivial. And they have an unknown number of extremely powerful, very mobile ships (as opposed to mobile planets).

It's not even closed to guaranteed that they could do it, but I would not be surprised to learn that the Necrons could take on the Death Star in a fleet action and destroy it by brute force.

The superlaser would probably swat Necron ships like flies if it scores a hit, but it's a single-target, relatively slow firing weapon, with a fixed traverse. Not suitable for a fleet action unless the enemy can be herded into a kill-zone. Whereas the Death Star's secondary batteries are, by all evidence, not more powerful than standard naval turbolasers and point defense. So it might not be able to repel a Necron fleet attack and prevent them from getting in close and crippling the ship with component strikes.

Then again, it might. I do not know, and much depends on the exact capabilities of Necron ships, which we don't have a good feel for.

By it's very size the DS might very well mount MILLIONS of "regular" Turbolasers. And it has a set of shields which allow it to sit close to a planet which is being violently blown up. You'll need a BIG Necron fleet to threaten it. A REALLY BIG fleet.

[Night_stalker]

DS 1 had 5,000 heavy turbo lasers, 7,500 laser cannons, 2,500 ion cannons, and numerous torpedo and missile banks.

DS 2 had 15,000 heavies, 15,000 lasers, 7,500 laser cannons, and 5,000 ion cannons.

[Stark]

Says who? The densities seen in ANH suggest far higher numbers.

[NecronLord]

Says who? The densities seen in ANH suggest far higher numbers.

Says inane WEG derived stats.

[Simon_Jester]

By it's very size the DS might very well mount MILLIONS of "regular" Turbolasers. And it has a set of shields which allow it to sit close to a planet which is being violently blown up. You'll need a BIG Necron fleet to threaten it. A REALLY BIG fleet.

Yes, I would. Definitely.

If it was to be done at all, if the requisite tonnage even exists:
Remember that Necron ship aren't just tough. They're hellishly agile. IF the Necrons can do this, it will be by getting in so close to the Death Star that the vast majority of its firepower is negated by terrain masking- much as the rebel X-Wings did. Without precise blueprints they won't manage to nail the reactor, obviously, but there are plenty of more obvious targets on the surface that can be engaged with firepower on that level.

Again, I'd like to underline that I don't assume this to be possible. But it strikes me as within the bounds of credibility, depending on just how much in the way of warships the Necrons really have, and how much they can mobilize in a crisis.

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, add in the fact that the Necrons seem to be able to regenerate parts of their ships, they should be a real danger. Add in also the fact that so far they seem to be waking up slowily, and are still probably holding back the HEAVY artillery which could mean that they are really a sleeping giant, literally.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

The problem with the Necrons isn't their fleet. It's their ability to infiltrate even the most suspicious of organizations and manipulate them like Puppets. We know that Necronlords have infiltrated the Inquisition (Xenology) and taken over whole worlds by posing as Governors (Codex: Necrons). Necronlords and/or C'Tan have infiltrated the Adeptus Mechanicus at some of the highest levels (Codex: Necrons, Let the Galaxy Burn) without anybody noticing in a society built around paranoia. Couple this with the Necrons' ability to teleport (Cain's Last Stand, various other sources) and walk through walls (Codex: Necrons, etc.), and they wouldn't really need a fleet to neutralize the Death Star. I'm sure the Deceiver could think of a dozen fun things to do with a Death Star.

Also, the Necrons are very capable of "mega" scale industry. They have a Dyson's Sphere, for Throne's sake.

[Oskuro]

Erm, how do inhuman Robot Skeletons of DOOMtm infiltrate other societies?!

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Erm, how do inhuman Robot Skeletons of DOOMtm infiltrate other societies?!

Some Necronlords are covered with with a poly-mimetic liquid metal alloy living metal. The C'Tan have "magical" Necrodermis bodies and the power of (sufficiently advanced) science. They must have other, more subtle methods as well because those sneaky fuckers are everywhere.

[Raxmei]

On your first point Shroom Man I have to give it to you. The FTL travel of the SW inverse is far safer than the warp, as well as exponentially faster. On the subject of communication though, I recall that obi-wan had to use Anakin to send a message to Corascant due to either distance or power. Astropaths can communicate instantly, anywhere, with some being able to do so as long as they are alive.

Astropaths do have limited range, sometimes requiring relays.

With the comparison of the two ships multiple people have cited the size of Star Destroyers and their weaponry, I would like to point out that most escort type ship of the IoM are as large if not larger. If it is true that the SD is about 1 mile long, most escort ships of the Imperium are that long, (2 kilometers,) with larger ships coming in at 4-8 miles. Still this is smaller than SSD, but only a few thousand of these were made, while there are an uncountable amount of Battle-ships and Grand-Cruisers, and at the least there are, 3000 Battle-Barges. Just as a SD is bristling with weaponry so are ships of the Imperium, with super powered Lancer batteries, nova cannons, torpedoes, and laser batteries. While I am pretty sure an Ion blast would do the same to a IoM ship as it would to a SW ship of the same size, I don’t think anything but a SSD would be able to take out one of the larger Imperium ships.

Unsubstantiated assertion alert. You really need more than "I don't think" for evidence. So far you've said, and nobody cares to contest, that Imperial ships are large. You haven't said a thing about their firepower. If any source has directly stated the firepower of of Imperial Navy starships that would be super cool. Next best thing would be educated guesses based on the effects of IN shooting at targets with known properties, such as large rocks and/or planets. Connor's done a bit of work on this subject and there should be links in the 40k sticky thread. A notable work on this subject on the Star Wars side was done by Mike Wong ages ago and I'm sure somebody with more familiarity with the subject would be happy to explain the details further. Oh, and remember that few thousand SSD thing for later.

On to manufacturing. If I am correct, then SD are manufactured at one of four different ship yards. The Imperium has entire worlds whose are only in existence to manufacture weapons of war, such as Mars. These Forge worlds have billions of people working day and night to turn out weapons on such a massive scale that their planets are more inhospitable than a Hive World. Entire other planets, the agri-worlds, are required to supply food to these worlds. Most forge worlds build thousands of Grand Cruisers a year.[citation needed]

The funny thing about those few thousand SSDs is that they were all built in a span of less than thirty years. The Imperial Navy is made up largely of ships that are centuries or even millennia old. Battlefleet Gothic actually lists every single major warship in the Gothic Sector at the time of the war. It consists of five battleships (all over a thousand years old), three battlecruisers, eighteen cruisers, six light cruisers, plus escorts. About as many major warships as you would have us believe a forgeworld produces in a week. If those forgeworlds are making thousands of Grand Cruisers a year, where are they all going?

There are so many regiments of the Imperial Guard that they are uncountable. Behind them are the combat forces of the Imperial Navy, various PDF forces, (basically a planets standing army,) the militant branches of the Ecclesiarchy, as well as 1 million Space Marines give or take a thousand. Suitably the Imperial Navy is also gigantic. There are five immense navies, one for each sector of space, with most worlds having their own fleets of thousands, war zones having entire fleets dedicated to them, and so do many important planets such as Mars or Earth. Most of the larger ships are crewed by 25,000 to 1 million men.

Wharrgarbl. A sector fleet responsible for numerous stars contains 50-75 warships. The word for the part of space that there are five of is Segmentum, btw.

[Rama]

On your first point Shroom Man I have to give it to you. The FTL travel of the SW inverse is far safer than the warp, as well as exponentially faster. On the subject of communication though, I recall that obi-wan had to use Anakin to send a message to Corascant due to either distance or power. Astropaths can communicate instantly, anywhere, with some being able to do so as long as they are alive.

Obi-Wan was using the transmitter on his tiny Delta-7 Aethersprite-class interceptor to re-route a signal from Geonosis, to Anakin on Naboo and then finally to the council at Coruscant in real-time. Geonosis is approximately 43,000 light years from the core, indicating a definite limit for the hyperwave transmission range for a smaller than average single man fighter craft. However he was communicating with Naboo in real-time, which is approximately 12,500 light years from Geonosis, even obtaining information on the absence of Anakin within seconds of connecting with Naboo's data banks. Galactic communication even with a weaker hyperwave transmitter appears to be as instantaneous as a modern cross-country phone call.

He then discover their whereabouts on Tatooine within moments, sending the message regarding the Separatist recruitment on Geonosis to Padme's H-type Nubian yacht, which Anakin then re-routes to Coruscant at a distance of 43,000 light years from the larger Yacht.

[Raxmei]

Something about the thousands of grand cruisers claim jumped out at me earlier and now I have the quote that addresses it. Battlefleet Gothic, page 119

The grand cruiser was a precursor to the battlecruisers which are now more prevalent among the Imperial fleets. Almost rivalling battleships in its ability to withstand damage and lay down a barrage of fire, the grand cruiser fell out of favor when the means of for constructing its engines was lost (more recently built engines were incapable of attaining a useful combat speed). A few ancient grand cruisers can still be found in reserve fleets of the Segmentum Obscurus and Segmentum Pacificus.

Forgeworlds no longer build grand cruisers at all, much less thousands a year. I suggest that you recheck your source.

[Shroom Man 777]

The problem with the Necrons isn't their fleet. It's their ability to infiltrate even the most suspicious of organizations and manipulate them like Puppets. We know that Necronlords have infiltrated the Inquisition (Xenology) and taken over whole worlds by posing as Governors (Codex: Necrons). Necronlords and/or C'Tan have infiltrated the Adeptus Mechanicus at some of the highest levels (Codex: Necrons, Let the Galaxy Burn) without anybody noticing in a society built around paranoia.

Societies rife with conspiracy, rife with internal fractures bordering on civil war, and rife with strange interdimensional powers that turn people into fucking batshit insane lunatics, and rife with religious fundamentalism that make Talibanis look outrigt tame in comparison.

So, yeah. Just because XYZ-40Kguys can infiltrate ABC-40Kguys doesn't mean that EFG-Star Wars guys will be just as susceptible.

Couple this with the Necrons' ability to teleport (Cain's Last Stand, various other sources) and walk through walls (Codex: Necrons, etc.), and they wouldn't really need a fleet to neutralize the Death Star. I'm sure the Deceiver could think of a dozen fun things to do with a Death Star.

Can they teleport and/or walk through walls that are shielded? Can they teleport and/or walk through walls that are shielded with Star Wars shielding tech, ala ray shields and particle shields, and not 40k void shields? Can they teleport and/or walk through neutronium-ingrained hulls?

Also, the Necrons are very capable of "mega" scale industry. They have a Dyson's Sphere, for Throne's sake.

They have also shown themselves to be not rather inactive in the 40k verse, aside from small-scale activities where they scare people and go woo-woo. Do we see Necrons engage in large scale activities in the present 40k timeline? Their activities are so few and far between that they're pretty much still unknown to a lot of people in 40k - with knowledge of their existence actually restricted to guys like the Inquisition and whatever.

With the comparison of the two ships multiple people have cited the size of Star Destroyers and their weaponry, I would like to point out that most escort type ship of the IoM are as large if not larger. If it is true that the SD is about 1 mile long, most escort ships of the Imperium are that long, (2 kilometers,) with larger ships coming in at 4-8 miles. Still this is smaller than SSD, but only a few thousand of these were made, while there are an uncountable amount of Battle-ships and Grand-Cruisers, and at the least there are, 3000 Battle-Barges. Just as a SD is bristling with weaponry so are ships of the Imperium, with super powered Lancer batteries, nova cannons, torpedoes, and laser batteries. While I am pretty sure an Ion blast would do the same to a IoM ship as it would to a SW ship of the same size, I don’t think anything but a SSD would be able to take out one of the larger Imperium ships.

If both vessels can inflict similar levels of damage, but one ship is way more massive than the other (while both ships are similar in damage-dealing capabilities)... then that massive ship is really just going to be a big target. So what if one battleship is "more massive", if a friggin tiny rubber boat is just as powerful as it?

You made the point that the GE has an entire galaxy worth of resources, though they also share them with Thrawn’s people and a few other groups, though I don’t think this adversely affect their resource gathering. The only military force in SW seems to be police to fight rebels, and they can’t even do that right.

The Empire lost to the Rebels because Palpatine got thrown down a hole. The Rebels never won a conventional up-front battle.

There are so many regiments of the Imperial Guard that they are uncountable. Behind them are the combat forces of the Imperial Navy, various PDF forces, (basically a planets standing army,) the militant branches of the Ecclesiarchy, as well as 1 million Space Marines give or take a thousand. Suitably the Imperial Navy is also gigantic. There are five immense navies, one for each sector of space, with most worlds having their own fleets of thousands, war zones having entire fleets dedicated to them, and so do many important planets such as Mars or Earth. Most of the larger ships are crewed by 25,000 to 1 million men.

Yet these fleets, as massive as they are, are as slow as hell. So while they're on par with SW in terms of firepower, in terms of mobility and speed they are inferior. This is like how Iraq had half a million men and a shitload of tanks in its army, yet the relatively numerically smaller forces of America and the Coalition were able to defeat them through SPEED and by dominating the skies.

So what if Imperium ships are crewed by a million people? That makes them more inefficient. Would you be bragging if some crappy tank is crewed by a hundred people, when comparing it to a tank that has only four people for crew? Would you be bragging if some car needed two dozen people to drive it, over a car that just needs one person to drive it? No you wouldn't.

All that means is that the Imperium will need more resources, and will need more SUPPLY SHIPS to feed all these excess manpower. Their supply ships are as slow as hell, compared to SW ships. SW ships are, on the other hand, far more efficient with droids and other cost-saving forms of automation.

" most worlds having their own fleets of thousands, war zones having entire fleets dedicated to them"

Wrong. A large portion of Imperium worlds are sub-standard, often with minimal defenses, with only a pair of defending warships (if that) and some PDF forces. A lot of those worlds featured in the Ciaphas Cain novels did not have the extreme degree of militarization you claim, despite them being near combat zones. A lot of those worlds are agriworlds, or worlds filled with anachronistic people with less-than-modern technologies, etc.

Another point about manpower. While the destruction of Alderaan was the most terrible thing the Empire could do, planet killing is a familiar occurrence to the Imperium. The death of one planet, such as Tanith, is not even given a second though by anybody except the guardsmen from there. Similarly, when chaos take over a planet, billions of people are slaughtered.

Star Was ships are capable of slagging planetary surfaces easily. What was so amazing about the Death Star was that it destroyed a planet with PLANETARY SHIELDS (designed to withstand orbital bombardment), and not only rendering it uninhabitable, but also BLOWING IT TO ITTY-BITTY PIECES.

Any Star Destroyer can kill the fuck out of an unshielded world from orbit and kill millions of billions of people.

Several people talked about SW owning at space warfare. I find it hard since the fleet around the second death star had about 40 SDs and 1 SSD. If this is the force the Empire can put around such an important target, then Terra’s fleet alone, (which has thousands of Battle-Ships and Grand-cruisers,) could destroy this fleet and any other one.

Umm... because the Deat Star 2 was BUILT IN SECRET? And was Palpatine's TRAP TO CATCH LUKE SKYWALKER AND AMBUSH THE REBELS?

As for the force the Empire can muster to defend a single planet... do I need to point out the Battle for Coruscant in Revenge of the Sith? All of space was full of battleships and whatever.

If we put the largest Imperium ship against a SSD the SSD would win. In a straight up navel engagement on a planet, the Imperium can just field more ships of a similar quality to a SD, and enough larger ships to spam the SSD

In a straight up naval engagement, the Imperium's ships would be like slugs trying to catch up to the Galactic Empire's ships as they use their hyperdrives to attack and maneuver around Imperium forces with impunity. The Imperium's ships are very big, thus making them very big targets. The Imperium's ships are very slow in FTL, making any Imperium attempt at backup or support or counter-attack also very slow and ineffective.

The Galactic Empire will be a Mongol horde with an army of Genghis Khans on horseback, compared to the Imperium's super slow snail sluggoths.

Onto ground combat, it would not be like Vietnam as some have said. Vietnam had an almost appalling lack of support, as well as a general hatred of the US soldier. Nobody ever blinks an eye when an entire IG unit is wiped out. In fact, IG doctrine is to win against enemies of superior quality by sending in so many men that the enemy just can’t slaughter enough of them. Against humans it break down into more conventional schools of war. This brings me back that there will be no protest when several billion guardsmen die, even if they couldn’t take out a comparable amount of the enemy with them.

And you think that Star Wars didn't do this in the Clone Wars?

Also, you do realize that Imperium troop ships will be much much MUCH slower than an equivalent Galactic Empire force? That the GE can invade a planet and overrun it, and it'll take WEEKS for the Imperium to respond and to deploy soldiers?

This brings me back that there will be no protest when several billion guardsmen will ARRIVE TOO LATE, even if they couldn't take out a comparable amount of the enemy with them.

Onto the lasgun vs blaster argument. A lasgun on its standard setting is basically a .50 round. It blows limbs of people, and has been known to gib people quite easily. This is ineffective against most enemies the IG goes up against, but against humans it is incredibly powerful. The blaster seems to be generally weaker in the force it generates, I haven’t ever seen a rebel gibbed by one, I do recall in ep IV that storm trooper bolts that missed the rebels were able to kill them with shrapnel from the impact. Which one is stronger I don’t know, as I don’t know the full powers of the blaster.

Blasters have been able to take down Super Battle Droids. Literature suggests that blasters were used in blowing up that door in the Tantative in A New Hope (that scene, you know, when the Stormtroopers entered the ship) and that blasters were used to skeletonize Luke Skywalker's family.

Either way, it will still kill the average Guardsman dead.

From a lot of the SW movies and cannon books I see a lot of Hollywood tactics, Endor being the most blatant example. The IG and SM are guilty of this to at an extent, but not as badly. For the SM it is their way of life. Charge upright with little cover is a way of life for them, and IG commanders are often forced to make bad calls to prevent worse ones and so on. If we look at the reputations without the flaws of SW authors or the movies then the Storm Trooper should be an elite force. Yet again, why in the hell are there walkers in a forest, nothing larger than a platoon guarding the damn shield, and why do they get killed by teddy bears using tactics that anybody with common sense could avoid. In the movies at least, I really am not afraid of Storm Troopers.

Even when the Stormtroopers/Clonetroopers are ruining the shit out of a horde of robot battle droid killing machines?

On that note, 40k depictions are also not that good. It depicts the Imperial Guard as a fucking retarded force that uses trench warfare tactics and uses commissars to execute its own soldiers to make the rest of the soldiers fight "better" or "boost morale"

At least, in the Prequels, we get to see that SW forces are very much capable of making rapid planetary assaults deploying CRAPLOADS of Clone/Stormtroopers in mere minutes along with air-dropped armor units and heavy artillery in Attack of the Clones.

[Simon_Jester]

Societies rife with conspiracy, rife with internal fractures bordering on civil war, and rife with strange interdimensional powers that turn people into fucking batshit insane lunatics, and rife with religious fundamentalism that make Talibanis look outrigt tame in comparison.

So, yeah. Just because XYZ-40Kguys can infiltrate ABC-40Kguys doesn't mean that EFG-Star Wars guys will be just as susceptible.

True, but I'd expect that if XYZ can infiltrate ABC, despite the whacked out paranoia in ABC, EFG may not be that hard a target.

Can they teleport and/or walk through walls that are shielded? Can they teleport and/or walk through walls that are shielded with Star Wars shielding tech, ala ray shields and particle shields, and not 40k void shields? Can they teleport and/or walk through neutronium-ingrained hulls?

I don't know. I wouldn't put it past them. The Necrons are no Star Trek: they are freaking insane. That's their schtick: ridiculously overpowered technology, to the point where you basically have to be the Culture to deal with them successfully.

If both vessels can inflict similar levels of damage, but one ship is way more massive than the other (while both ships are similar in damage-dealing capabilities)... then that massive ship is really just going to be a big target. So what if one battleship is "more massive", if a friggin tiny rubber boat is just as powerful as it?

The sheer bulk of the battleship can contribute to its defensive strength, especially if there's shielding commensurate with tonnage.

Yet these fleets, as massive as they are, are as slow as hell. So while they're on par with SW in terms of firepower, in terms of mobility and speed they are inferior. This is like how Iraq had half a million men and a shitload of tanks in its army, yet the relatively numerically smaller forces of America and the Coalition were able to defeat them through SPEED and by dominating the skies.

So what if Imperium ships are crewed by a million people? That makes them more inefficient. Would you be bragging if some crappy tank is crewed by a hundred people, when comparing it to a tank that has only four people for crew? Would you be bragging if some car needed two dozen people to drive it, over a car that just needs one person to drive it? No you wouldn't.

The catch is that the Empire will face large Imperial forces wherever it goes. And more of them will just keep pouring in slowly from all around them, wherever they stay.

The Empire can use its vastly greater mobility to can maneuver and concentrate to take down point targets, sure. But because the Imperium is so damn decentralized and militarized, even blowing its brains out still leaves you having to batter its shambling corpse into a pulp for the next few millenia.

Dying hard and slowly is the Imperium's speciality. That's what they've been doing for the past several thousand years, and adding the Galactic Empire to the list of people who want to kill them won't change that. They'll still probably lose in the end, but you're going to have to pay for every inch of your victory. Probably more than it was worth to fight the war to begin with.

[Shroom Man 777]

The catch is that the Empire will face large Imperial forces wherever it goes. And more of them will just keep pouring in slowly from all around them, wherever they stay.

Why? The Imperium does not have huge giant fleets everywhere, man. It takes them time to muster those huge fleets, and it takes more time for those huge fleets to move anywhere! Hell, a lot of their worlds do not have huge fleets or even small fleets, and a lot of the action in the Cain novels I've read do not have huge fleets defending Imperium worlds.

The Empire won't face large Imperium fleets precisely because the huge fleets will be too busy trying to catch the Galactic Empires forces - they're simply too mobile for the Imperium! If the Imperium concentrates its forces in one point, the Galactic Empire can either deploy an equivalent force to attack that huge fleet, or attack OTHER PLACES that are undefended because the Imperium has concentrated its ships to one point. If the Galactic Empire attacks OTHER PLACES, then the Imperium will not be able to react fast enough.

Or are you suggesting that the Imperium has HUEG FLEETS EVERYWHERERERERERES!!!!!...?

Because it doesn't.

The Empire can use its vastly greater mobility to can maneuver and concentrate to take down point targets, sure. But because the Imperium is so damn decentralized and militarized, even blowing its brains out still leaves you having to batter its shambling corpse into a pulp for the next few millenia.

An even more debilitated IoM will still play to the Galactic Empire's favor. It's not an overwhelming victory, but it still puts the GE at an advantage while the IoM is sent reeling and is forced to REACT to the GE's actions - thus losing the momentum of the war. If the IoM is forced to be constantly on the defensive, then the GE is doing good.

Dying hard and slowly is the Imperium's speciality. That's what they've been doing for the past several thousand years, and adding the Galactic Empire to the list of people who want to kill them won't change that. They'll still probably lose in the end, but you're going to have to pay for every inch of your victory. Probably more than it was worth to fight the war to begin with.

Do we need a victory? Won't a disadvantaged, debilitated, and constantly defensive Imperium be satisfactory enough for the GE? Because that's all what I'm arguing for.

[Serafina]

So, yeah. Just because XYZ-40Kguys can infiltrate ABC-40Kguys doesn't mean that EFG-Star Wars guys will be just as susceptible.

Actually, yes, it certainly DOES, since paranoia and superstition are beneficial for detecting infiltrators.

Can they teleport and/or walk through walls that are shielded? Can they teleport and/or walk through walls that are shielded with Star Wars shielding tech, ala ray shields and particle shields, and not 40k void shields? Can they teleport and/or walk through neutronium-ingrained hulls?

Well, given that void-shields block normal 40K-teleportation AND necron teleporation, it is fair to assume that the Death Sta would be shielded against those IF the shields are hull-hugging (which they are not on DS1+2).

However, the hulls should pose no problem, since teleporters can regulary teleport into imperial vessels, which have similary tough hulls.

They have also shown themselves to be not rather inactive in the 40k verse, aside from small-scale activities where they scare people and go woo-woo. Do we see Necrons engage in large scale activities in the present 40k timeline? Their activities are so few and far between that they're pretty much still unknown to a lot of people in 40k - with knowledge of their existence actually restricted to guys like the Inquisition and whatever.

We have seen large-scale activity whenever it was called for - i.e. destroying the Blackstone Fortresses.

Wrong. A large portion of Imperium worlds are sub-standard, often with minimal defenses, with only a pair of defending warships (if that) and some PDF forces. A lot of those worlds featured in the Ciaphas Cain novels did not have the extreme degree of militarization you claim, despite them being near combat zones. A lot of those worlds are agriworlds, or worlds filled with anachronistic people with less-than-modern technologies, etc.

SIGNIFICANT wordls are well-defended.
Sure, you can take out agricultural and mining worlds, that will inflict damage.
But if you want to counqer industrialized worlds, you will have to deal with at least some orbital defenses, ground-orbit defenses and a big army.

This brings me back that there will be no protest when several billion guardsmen will ARRIVE TOO LATE, even if they couldn't take out a comparable amount of the enemy with them.

Actually, that means that the GE has to leave behind significant garrisions if it wants to hold a planet, since they have no means to intercept these "billion guardsmen".
So unless they garrision their worlds, they can't be sure if they will loose them again.

Blasters have been able to take down Super Battle Droids. Literature suggests that blasters were used in blowing up that door in the Tantative in A New Hope (that scene, you know, when the Stormtroopers entered the ship) and that blasters were used to skeletonize Luke Skywalker's family.

True, but lasguns are capable of similar feats.
Really, they are both pretty close in firepower.

On that note, 40k depictions are also not that good. It depicts the Imperial Guard as a fucking retarded force that uses trench warfare tactics and uses commissars to execute its own soldiers to make the rest of the soldiers fight "better" or "boost morale"

At least, in the Prequels, we get to see that SW forces are very much capable of making rapid planetary assaults deploying CRAPLOADS of Clone/Stormtroopers in mere minutes along with air-dropped armor units and heavy artillery in Attack of the Clones.

And trench warfare is wrong because...?
A lot of enemies of the IG do not have the capability to punch trough a well-defended trench line (e.g. Orks, many chaos troops, demons, other armies under certain circumstances)with tanks, given the capabilities of AT-weapons (e.g. lascannons).
Really, when they have to defend a target, i see nothing wrong with that. Defensive lines still work with sufficient preparation (e.g. Battle of Kursk).

Also, you conveniently forget that the IG is also capable of combined-arms assaults and similar orbital drops as described above (Ghostmaker, Guns of Tanith).

The IG is has much better armor and simply more of it (unless there are some EU-sources i do not know about) than the GE. Most importantly, the tactics are just better.
The same goes for artillery, especially heavy artillery, which is still a prime factor on a modern battlefield.

Do we need a victory? Won't a disadvantaged, debilitated, and constantly defensive Imperium be satisfactory enough for the GE? Because that's all what I'm arguing for.

Unless all their opponents misterously dissappear, you already have that - why start a bloody war (pun inteded)?
The only conveivable reason for the GE to start an all-out war is conquest.
While it is relatively certain that they could beat the IoM in an war of annihilation by taking out terra, i am pretty certain that a war of conquest would be a pretty dissappointing thing for the GE due to the high costs.

[Srelex]

The IG is has much better armor and simply more of it (unless there are some EU-sources i do not know about) than the GE. Most importantly, the tactics are just better.
The same goes for artillery, especially heavy artillery, which is still a prime factor on a modern battlefield.

What's your basis for the IG having 'better' armor? The Empire makes use of repulsor tanks in the EU, and although I don't think there's any quantification for them per se, I'd imagine they're more versatile than clunky IG armor. And as I've already cited before, the Empire also possesses artillery.

I should also note that according to recent sources--namely, the new Rebellion era campaign guide--the Imperial army numbers 'tens of trillions' of regular troops, which puts it on the higher-end figures for the IG...and that's not even in 'total war' mode.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The IG is has much better armor and simply more of it (unless there are some EU-sources i do not know about) than the GE. Most importantly, the tactics are just better.
The same goes for artillery, especially heavy artillery, which is still a prime factor on a modern battlefield.

What's your basis for the IG having 'better' armor? The Empire makes use of repulsor tanks in the EU, and although I don't think there's any quantification for them per se, I'd imagine they're more versatile than clunky IG armor. And as I've already cited before, the Empire also possesses artillery.

I should also note that according to recent sources--namely, the new Rebellion era campaign guide--the Imperial army numbers 'tens of trillions' of regular troops, which puts it on the higher-end figures for the IG...and that's not even in 'total war' mode.

Stormtrooper armor can't stop blaster bolts. The upper end of IG armor if I am not wrong can. Big difference.

Also, not all the Imperium operates on Total War mode. Only some worlds dedicate themselves 100% to the war effort. And mind if you can quote the source? I wonder how the Empire can cart around that many regular troops.

[Serafina]

Besides, the Imperial Guard figures do not involve PFD-forces.
While those tend to be second-rate troops, they are generally pretty good at defending their worlds.

So you can easily double (if not more) the amount of troops.

[Srelex]

The IG is has much better armor and simply more of it (unless there are some EU-sources i do not know about) than the GE. Most importantly, the tactics are just better.
The same goes for artillery, especially heavy artillery, which is still a prime factor on a modern battlefield.

What's your basis for the IG having 'better' armor? The Empire makes use of repulsor tanks in the EU, and although I don't think there's any quantification for them per se, I'd imagine they're more versatile than clunky IG armor. And as I've already cited before, the Empire also possesses artillery.

I should also note that according to recent sources--namely, the new Rebellion era campaign guide--the Imperial army numbers 'tens of trillions' of regular troops, which puts it on the higher-end figures for the IG...and that's not even in 'total war' mode.

Stormtrooper armor can't stop blaster bolts. The upper end of IG armor if I am not wrong can. Big difference.

Also, not all the Imperium operates on Total War mode. Only some worlds dedicate themselves 100% to the war effort. And mind if you can quote the source? I wonder how the Empire can cart around that many regular troops.

I meant armor as in armored vehicles. As for the quote, from the Rebellion Era Sourcebook, Saga Edition:

The Imperial military is a massive organization, with tens of trillions of regular army soldiers, trillions of fleet crew, and a vast force of stormtroopers both cloned and conditioned. The sheer weight of numbers enables the Empire to simply overwhelm opponents in head-to-head battle.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

According to the sources Connor has quoted, there tend to be at least 10 times as many PDF troops as there are Imperial Guard troops, since the top ten percent of many PDFs comprise each world's tithe to the Imperial Guard, unless that world has other materiel to tithe, such as tanks, guns or foodstuffs.

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, at the very least. Not to mention, there must be some worlds whihc are Imperial, but are just research stations and can't produce any tithes.

[Serafina]

In either way, it's silly to assume that the GE would (or even could) bring all those troops to bear.

I still do not any reason why the GE should go into an all-out war, or even any kind of prolonged war for that matter.
What do they gain from it?

-Destroying a threat: The IoM is no actual threat to the GE, since they simply lack the strategic capability to attack them. Even if the GE does not know this, this would mean that they have so little information that attacking outright would be really stupid. Even if they attack, they should recognize that they are just wasting resources, since they have nothing to fear.

-Conquering territory: While they certainly can do it, conquering any important world would be awfully costly. You can't just use BDZ or even large-scale orbital bombardement after all, since you want to actually use that world.
Combine this with the necessity of large garrisions and all the other threats in the 40K-galaxy, and you have quite a doubtfull endeavour.

-Propaganda war: Now that's the one reason where the GE would actually clearly profit. Maintaining an outside threat to unite your own side is an old propaganda trick, and the GE certainly can do this. As long as they are willing to throw troops and shit at it, they can have pretty much infinte war in the 40K-galaxy.
Of course that means that the really decisive things are clearly out, since that would actually be detremential to their strategic goal.

If we look at two or three, it is easily imaginable that the IoM would just see it similar to the Tau-expansion - they loose a bit of territory, but there are much worse threats to care about. Local forces will resond, but the galaxy at large just won't care.

[Bloody Chaplain]

Something about the thousands of grand cruisers claim jumped out at me earlier and now I have the quote that addresses it. Battlefleet Gothic, page 119

The grand cruiser was a precursor to the battlecruisers which are now more prevalent among the Imperial fleets. Almost rivalling battleships in its ability to withstand damage and lay down a barrage of fire, the grand cruiser fell out of favor when the means of for constructing its engines was lost (more recently built engines were incapable of attaining a useful combat speed). A few ancient grand cruisers can still be found in reserve fleets of the Segmentum Obscurus and Segmentum Pacificus.

Forgeworlds no longer build grand cruisers at all, much less thousands a year. I suggest that you recheck your source.

Gotcha. I'm not pulling these figures out of my ass, I assure you. However, seeing as many of my sources for hard numbers are wiki's they are not the most reliable. Thank you for clearing that up for me, though I don't really think I should seeing as how you are hurting my argument.

Still, If I am not mistaken, most warzones have sizable fleets, and so do important planets and systems. If you have the Terran navies fleet numbers I'd be very appreciative.

Also someone was asking what enemies each had and their time for mobilization. I was thinking that each had all their resources and attention to attend to one another.

A lot of the points people are making are above anything I had thought of at first. Guess I was on the wrong boards. Though I am still unconvinced I think the Empire has a lot more power than I gave them credit for.