nBSG Cylons vs 40K Space Marines (Non-Chaos)

[Serafina]

You fail to recognize that it isn't just tech that wins wars. It's the soldiers using the tech they way they've been taught. The Space Marines have all of the above, of course. That much is given.

All things considered, I was hoping some people would look past the tech and start discussing the tactics...numbers alone don't win wars, after all...

Yes, yes - tactics etc. matter. YaddaYaddaYadda

But only if the combatans are roughly equal.
Take a look at my example above - if i have a F22 and you have a biplane, you could be the greatest pilot ever - you would still loose. Your tactics are simply irrelevant at that point.

So far, it looks like we have a pretty uneven fight here.
From all i gather, NBSG-ships would be nearly incabable of even harming a Thunderhawk, while the weapons of the Tunderhawk could tear them to tiny shreads of junk with a few hits.
Furthermore, the Thunderhawk could outmaneuver their fighters or simply use it's vastly superior speed to disengage at will.

Show that your plane is in the same league as my plane. THEN we can talk tactics.

[remus2]

Thunderhawks are also a transport/dropship, though they can engage in air-to-air combat that is not there primary function. Really he ought to be talking about Lightings, Thunderbolts and the various space fighters. But I get the feeling he's just regurgitating stuff.

Well, to be fair, Space Marines rarely use these.
Mostly because the Thunderhawk can take insane amounts of punishment and has very decent AA-turrets on his own.

And small, surgical strikeforces are not that vulnerable to airpower once they are on the ground - and Thunderhawks get that job done just fine. If there is truly overwhelming AA-fire, there is still the good old airburst orbital bombardemnt followed by droppods seconds later.

But to get up on Lightnings (Thunderbolts are really more multipurpose aircraft) - they regulary dogfight at hypersonic speed. They have enough armor to take autocannon hits and still fight on. AA-missiles carry warheads that can take out 40K-tanks.
Compared to what i know about nBSG-fighters, that's like a F22 fighting against the WWI-fightercraft.
Your "intelligent fighter-craft" can be as intelligent as it wants - no tactic is going to win that battle.
Or do you think the Red Baron could shoot down an F22?

You fail to recognize that it isn't just tech that wins wars. It's the soldiers using the tech they way they've been taught. The Space Marines have all of the above, of course. That much is given.

All things considered, I was hoping some people would look past the tech and start discussing the tactics...numbers alone don't win wars, after all...

The only advantage the Cylons have is that their FTL doesn't rely on the Warp.

The Cylons could use their FTL to their advantage, yes. Probably jump some reinforcements in before the Space Marines can call for help. Then again, it would all come down to logistics.


Of course, no one's brought up the damage a Dreadnought could do to a squad of Centurions...I'd imagine that those caught under the righteous fury would have a nasty image imprinted on them when they download into a new body. Nightmarish, to say the least.

Space marines have hundreds of years of xp fighting various enemies and persevering to my dismay against changing battlefields and various exotic enemies, while the cyons have been free for 40 years.
You are aware that cyolons did a first strike genocide with a 40 years delay, and are quite unimaginative throughout the series, whereas the Sphess Mhareenes have helped sustain the worst autocratic regime devised by man for 10000 years over half a galaxy. So .. tactics…. Who has more advanced tactics? Because this is to small a place no number them.

I know where my money are in the tactics department.

[Night_stalker]

On the Cylons learning the Imperium's definition of genocide?

[remus2]

Sooo...we know nothing about their ground forces. We don't know how much damage they can take or dish out, we know nothing about their tactics and stragies, their numbers, support forces and so on...
Thanks for proving my point.

My pleasure, mademoiselle

Proove it. Do some calculations.

To beat 40K-vessels, they have to dish out AT LEAST low gigaton levels of firepower.
You can establish those by calculating the effect of their weapons against something like an asteroid, or a planetary bombardment.
Ships don't count, because those might be shielded, have superconcucting armor or insanely tough alloys. Therefore, they can have virtually ever resistance to damage - which means that you can't get good numbers out of it.

I shall scrounge the trackers for the novels and relentless hunt for such scenes!
Right after I get to finish with the exams….
At any rate I’ll try to find some ‘physical’ firepower demonstration of the Eve empires, and I’ll post it here somewhere for a competent mathsmagician to crunch, as stardestroyer.net has provided me with the very best “vs.” arguments so far.


While I cannot yet indicate to any firepower level except pointing out nuclear based munitions, plasma torpedoes, antimatter blasts and huge LAZOR beams IN SPACE.
Therefore I yield in this battle of the endless “vs” crossovers for firepower

While Eve holds the advantage in tactical ftl and strategic ftl (only in home galaxy unfortunately),
As well as reaction time
(players are capsuleers, one with the ship- the hull is their skin, the sensors the eyes… yada yada ya. Literally the AdMech wet dream)


The battles between ship are over in lighting fast timeframes

(for Warhammer... I took the liberty to take a space battle out of an Imperial Armor volume, forgot the number… the imperial commander has few ships and two monitors I guess… and impounds some merchants and converts them into flying bombs; the chaos fleet arrives the fight for about a week or so. A chaos battleship or transporter crashes into the planet, the troop survive! – I always had problems with that- Imperial fleet is defeated one chaos battleship runs and another is to damaged and lurks around, blowing up imperial reinforcements …yadda yadda ya)

So I put a reward for anybody who can find some fire level proof for eve: Five! Pats on the Head
Please take this one serious, as it would make me sleep a little better knowing if wh40k screws the eve galaxy or vice versa

Well, see above - games are simply not reliable enough to establish numbers.
Otherwise, i could pull out StarCraft and "proove" that a Terran Marine can take down Battleships with his Assault Rifle!

I’d love that
Think about it.. they very well may be technologically superior to the metal treshkeren from Legacy of the Aldenata capable with adecvate sensors to shoot down with gravitic rifles Spaceships out of orbit! =))

[Simon_Jester]

Well, we have ... culture, supreme commander, Honor Harrington, Star wars, ahhh the At 43 setting, but it isn’t so popular yet...

Honor Harrington isn't nearly good enough. They have massed missile attacks, but 40k ships mount very large energy batteries that can be used as point defense, and the individual missiles just don't have the firepower to take on ships that could, in principle, duke it out on reasonably even terms with Imperial Star Destroyers. And aside from the Manticore Missile Massacre, there's nothing in the Honorverse that poses a really significant threat to a 40k force.

Now, against other SF universes where the high end of ship firepower is down in the megaton/low gigaton range, the Honorverse will make a fairly good showing. But not against 40k.

I think that, while weapons do play a role in this situation, what you're basically saying is that the toasters are frakked because the fleshbags have bigger guns than they do, when really there's more to it than that. The Cylons are facing thousands of years of genetic engineering, built and bred for war, indoctrinated and trained for battle; not just superior firepower and technologies.

Besides, it's not just the Centurions the Marines are facing, either. You forgot to take into account the humanoid-Cylons, the Raiders, the Hybrids, the Heavy Raiders...basically, a military occupation force.

Conversely, the Marines have their own support weapons. The Marines have the Cylons outclassed in all ways, not just in one or two. Better weapons and better defenses and greater numbers and better tactics and nearly endless reinforcements compared to the forces the Cylons can field. There's simply no asset the Cylons have that allows them to make a credible fight of it. The only thing they have that the Imperium can't match is the jump drive, and that only does them so much good by itself.

Of course, a Battle Barge vs Basestar fight would be totally awesome to see...

Battle Barge wins very quickly. Basestars use nuclear-range firepower, Battle Barges are well above that. Battle Barges are also shielded against own-grade firepower, extensively so; Basestars are not. So yes, awesome, but only because we get to hear the Space Marine theme from Dawn of War as the barge's mass drivers chop Basestar into confetti.

Because this foe has the capacity to learn. In the series, it was noted that the Cylons had a few "fighter aces" (more infamously, Scar) since they could learn and use counter-tactics against the Colonials. So, since the Raider could learn and get a good idea of what it's up against while trying to figure out a way to counter it, the Thunderhawk pilots will have to become...unpredictable, shall we say (that is, go against the teachings they've received regarding dogfighting) in order to outwit the Raiders.

...So they're up against a foe that is uniquely dangerous because... they learn from their mistakes after getting their asses kicked? How is that not what everybody normally does anyway in real life?

Honor Harrington has quite the feats to fight the Wh40k in space. The wedge could be well used as a point blank weapon to mission kill various vessels, and the missiles are a godsend.

The missiles are like throwing spitballs. Granted, a LOT of spitballs, but still spitballs compared to the firepower of the lance battery hits that large 40k warships are designed to handle. The wedge... well, wedges are tricky. There has to be some upper bound on just how much damage an impeller wedge can dissipate, and some upper limit on how much damage one can inflict on a shielded target. So I wouldn't be so confident that the wedge is an effective close range weapon. Especially since the sheer firepower of a 40k ship means that any Honorverse vessel that tries to get that close is going to be torn to shreds by fire coming down its throat.

[remus2]

Honor Harrington isn't nearly good enough. They have massed missile attacks, but 40k ships mount very large energy batteries that can be used as point defense, and the individual missiles just don't have the firepower to take on ships that could, in principle, duke it out on reasonably even terms with Imperial Star Destroyers. And aside from the Manticore Missile Massacre, there's nothing in the Honorverse that poses a really significant threat to a 40k force.

Now, against other SF universes where the high end of ship firepower is down in the megaton/low gigaton range, the Honorverse will make a fairly good showing. But not against 40k.
.

The missiles are like throwing spitballs. Granted, a LOT of spitballs, but still spitballs compared to the firepower of the lance battery hits that large 40k warships are designed to handle. The wedge... well, wedges are tricky. There has to be some upper bound on just how much damage an impeller wedge can dissipate, and some upper limit on how much damage one can inflict on a shielded target. So I wouldn't be so confident that the wedge is an effective close range weapon. Especially since the sheer firepower of a 40k ship means that any Honorverse vessel that tries to get that close is going to be torn to shreds by fire coming down its throat.

The most common weapons of the 20th Century PD were impeller drive missiles. They came in varying sizes: a typical capital ship missile massed 80 tons and could accelerate at 46,000 G for perhaps 180 seconds.

Can someone calculate the kinetic energy output for this baby?
I think it can reach a serious fraction of C and as Wh40k das no sidewalls or impeller wedges I think large salvos of them would tax Void shields and Battleship structure.
This would provide a lower resistance for impeller wedges and a respective firepower for honorverse, should they take a more “direct approach” and go for kinetic murder. Plus letting the warhead at hope and donning more engine power would make it gather a bigger punch.

If only the solarian league would see the wisdom of its border patrols and start modernizing at manticore levels
Then all this debate of spitballs would be pointless, for are not las shots spitballs? And an army firing spitballs has held the imperium for 10 millennia! Now imagine the IG analogue in space!

[Black Admiral]

They drop a sizable recon force (consisting of about 5-7 Scout Squads, with 2-4 Land Speeder Storms running CAP and transport duties, along with a few jump-pack equipped Assault Squads, say 2 or 3, armed with the standard bolt pistol and chainsword layout) to scout one of the planets

The Astartes force is ... rather bizarrely set up, to say the least, with a wildly out of proportion number of Scouts (considering they're usually attached on a one 4-man team per deployed company basis) and no Tactical, Devastator or Veteran squads to back them up, and almost no vehicular, Dreadnought or Thunderhawk support. I'm curious as to why this particular setup.

[Dark Hellion]

Very quick calc for that projectile is on the order of 100 gigatons (62 but I was a bit haphazard). So it takes ~8-10 of them to reach the firepower of an Imperial cluster missile designed to break up unshielded space hulks. Compared to battleship shields which shrug of TT level bombardments for several minutes at a time not really that threatening. It doesn't really count as a victory if you have to shoot 100,000 tons of missiles to kill an escort, logistics is going to wreck you.

Of course, the dismissal you give to the lasgun shows your ability to actually discuss such matters. The lasgun is mediocre by 40K terms but it would make a legitimate anti-tank rifle in the modern day. Frankly, any gun that shoots through a meter of concrete and can still blow your head off isn't a spitball.

[remus2]

The lasgun is mediocre by 40K terms .

So, in wh40k terms, it is a spitball
- Admittedly I am biased for I hate the that gun. Since I got the codices I am searching for a loophole to get hotshots instead of las for a IG army. Spiballs, spitballs, But they have AP 3! Beat that bolt gun!

Very quick calc for that projectile is on the order of 100 gigatons (62 but I was a bit haphazard). So it takes ~8-10 of them to reach the firepower of an Imperial cluster missile designed to break up unshielded space hulks. Compared to battleship shields which shrug of TT level bombardments for several minutes at a time not really that threatening. It doesn't really count as a victory if you have to shoot 100,000 tons of missiles to kill an escort, logistics is going to wreck you.

So range is not going to save pod dreads...
Ah well, at least they can kill it.
Another theoretical victory for the Empharra

[Serafina]

While I cannot yet indicate to any firepower level except pointing out nuclear based munitions, plasma torpedoes, antimatter blasts and huge LAZOR beams IN SPACE.
Therefore I yield in this battle of the endless “vs” crossovers for firepower

Well, that's a classical style-over-substance fallacy.
Indeed, it doesn't matter HOW the weapons work, all that matters is how well they work.
Look at Star Trek torpedoes - they are based on antimatter, and yet do not even reatch the KT-level.

While Eve holds the advantage in tactical ftl and strategic ftl (only in home galaxy unfortunately),
As well as reaction time
(players are capsuleers, one with the ship- the hull is their skin, the sensors the eyes… yada yada ya. Literally the AdMech wet dream)

Um...excuse me?
The Adeptus Mechanicus ships have EXACTLY that - their captains are linked with the ship in exactly the same way. (second or third Gaunts Ghosts novel describes it).
They do, of course, still have a crew - after all, a single brain can only do so much, and that doesn't include doing repairs, recalibrating weapons manually, fighting off boarders etc.
Besides, reaction time isn't that important in space - you still can't dodge lightspeed weapons etc.

Can someone calculate the kinetic energy output for this baby?

Doesn't really matter, because it's not used as a kinetic impactor.
And hey, if you want to use it, you do the calculation.

Oh, wait, i see it has already been done. And HH still looses, even if they use their missiles as kinetic impactors.

[white_rabbit]

Because this foe has the capacity to learn. In the series, it was noted that the Cylons had a few "fighter aces" (more infamously, Scar) since they could learn and use counter-tactics against the Colonials. So, since the Raider could learn and get a good idea of what it's up against while trying to figure out a way to counter it, the Thunderhawk pilots will have to become...unpredictable, shall we say (that is, go against the teachings they've received regarding dogfighting) in order to outwit the Raiders.

What the fuck ?

How on earth is this any different to literally any other sentient opponent ?

Besides, it's not just the Centurions the Marines are facing, either. You forgot to take into account the humanoid-Cylons, the Raiders, the Hybrids, the Heavy Raiders...basically, a military occupation force.

A military occupation force of targets. The basic sidearm of a marine will fucking annihilate a Centurion, who we've seen get cracked by non-explosive, low calibre rounds from SMG's, despite the requirement for explosive rounds sometimes described, it seems what you could charitable assume to be armour piercing rounds suffice.

Their tiny little machine guns will do fuck all to a Marine, they wade through large calibre machine gun fire with impunity.

the Hybrids

This is ludicrous, the Hybrids are starships, if the marines are forced to engage a starship from BSG with their own, they'll blow it out of space so effortlessly I can't quite find the words to describe it.

Oh yes, C-fractional linear accelerators.

[Black Admiral]

While Eve holds the advantage in tactical ftl and strategic ftl (only in home galaxy unfortunately),
As well as reaction time
(players are capsuleers, one with the ship- the hull is their skin, the sensors the eyes… yada yada ya. Literally the AdMech wet dream)

Um...excuse me?
The Adeptus Mechanicus ships have EXACTLY that - their captains are linked with the ship in exactly the same way. (second or third Gaunts Ghosts novel describes it).

It was the first, actually (First And Only), and it's shown up on a number of occasions since - for the Captain of a battleship in Sabbat Martyr, a Blood Angels fleet officer in Deus Encarmine & Deus Sanguinius, and the commander of Battlefleet Crythe in Soul Hunter.

[remus2]

While Eve holds the advantage in tactical ftl and strategic ftl (only in home galaxy unfortunately),
As well as reaction time
(players are capsuleers, one with the ship- the hull is their skin, the sensors the eyes… yada yada ya. Literally the AdMech wet dream)

Um...excuse me?
The Adeptus Mechanicus ships have EXACTLY that - their captains are linked with the ship in exactly the same way. (second or third Gaunts Ghosts novel describes it).

It was the first, actually (First And Only), and it's shown up on a number of occasions since - for the Captain of a battleship in Sabbat Martyr, a Blood Angels fleet officer in Deus Encarmine & Deus Sanguinius, and the commander of Battlefleet Crythe in Soul Hunter.

I knew that the AdMech had something like like it, as it featured in Relentless. But it seemed to me that it was of a far lesser scope, as the Resident Mechanicus didn't control all the turrets, guns, engines, shields, sensors etc. And the ship still had a captain, a XO and a full army of officers.

Most probably that was not the average ship, and

The Adeptus Mechanicus ships have EXACTLY that - their captains are linked with the ship in exactly the same way. (second or third Gaunts Ghosts novel describes it).

is the rule, as I have not read Gaunt’s Ghost.
I’d still like to hold superior reaction time for Eve as each capsuleer ship has the Aura voiced A.I., and I am belive that non-capsuleer ships may have more, if not one for each system to counteract the capsuleer’s battlefield awareness, and suspect that drones are A.I.’s who are given directions by the captain/pilot, as the Vampire drone is depicted.
I am not suggesting that they can outrun lightspeed weaponry, but they will chance tactics, heading targets and other parameters faster than wh40k and may have far better target coordination, as communiqués between Wh40k starships are sent via vox caster.

[Serafina]

I knew that the AdMech had something like like it, as it featured in Relentless. But it seemed to me that it was of a far lesser scope, as the Resident Mechanicus didn't control all the turrets, guns, engines, shields, sensors etc. And the ship still had a captain, a XO and a full army of officers.

Why the heck should he?

Targeting algorithms etc. in space combat would be far to complex for a single individual to handle for at whole ship at once.
So EVE either uses computers for that (or still has a crew), or the pilot will simply be overtaxed with all the miniscule details that he has to attend to.

An Adeptus Mechanicus captain does pretty much just what EVE-capsulers presumable do - he gives rough commands, and someone else attends to the details. The only difference is that EVE apparently uses computers where 40K uses a crew.

I’d still like to hold superior reaction time for Eve as each capsuleer ship has the Aura voiced A.I., and I am belive that non-capsuleer ships may have more, if not one for each system to counteract the capsuleer’s battlefield awareness, and suspect that drones are A.I.’s who are given directions by the captain/pilot, as the Vampire drone is depicted.
I am not suggesting that they can outrun lightspeed weaponry, but they will chance tactics, heading targets and other parameters faster than wh40k and may have far better target coordination, as communiqués between Wh40k starships are sent via vox caster.

So your answer to the fact that 40K has the exact same capability as EVE is...."it's still better".
Without demonstrating any further evidence.


Look, you are still new, so i will go easy on you and be nice:
When you make a claim, you have to back it up.

Your claim was "EVE has superior reaction speeds to 40K". You backed that up with "the pilot IS the ship".
That's fine - while you presented no evidence that their reaction speed is indeed faster, it can be reasonably inferred from the neural pilot/ship connection. It's no solid evidence, but at least it's something.
But since it was pointed out that 40K has the exact same capability, you need stronger evidence than that.

So far, you have not presented that solid evidence. All you have done is repeat your claim.
That's simply not acceptable.
You have three options:
-retract your claim
-back it up with solid evidence
-get mocked for your stupidity

Your choice.

[Simon_Jester]

Can someone calculate the kinetic energy output for the [impeller drive missile]?

The problem with this is that these missiles were never used for their kinetic energy output. For crying out loud, back in the day (shortly before the series began) you had these missiles being used to deliver contact nukes. This despite the fact that a nuclear warhead is a bad joke compared to the kinetic energy of these missiles.

Honorverse powers have never used their missiles as kinetic-kill weapons, even in situations where they have every reason to do so: given realistic collision physics, a missile at those velocities should always try to ram if it can attack against the target's bow or stern aspect, and the idea of point defense energy weapons actually stopping them instead of just converting them into an oncoming jet of plasma is laughable.

Therefore, for you to suddenly invoke impeller drive missiles as kinetic-kill weapons strikes me as a good example of wanking. "Oh, yes, they have this devastating tactic in reserve that they... never use... ah, for some reason."

Then all this debate of spitballs would be pointless, for are not las shots spitballs? And an army firing spitballs has held the imperium for 10 millennia! Now imagine the IG analogue in space!

Don't be foolish. Lasguns are not spitballs, they are anti-personnel firearms that are quite capable of killing or crippling an unarmored human with one shot, and an armored human with a short burst. Against tanks and giant monsters they are not particularly effective; so what? Neither are machine guns; does that mean we arm every soldier with an AT-4?

The lasgun is mediocre by 40K terms .

So, in wh40k terms, it is a spitball
- Admittedly I am biased for I hate the that gun. Since I got the codices I am searching for a loophole to get hotshots instead of las for a IG army. Spiballs, spitballs, But they have AP 3! Beat that bolt gun!

You're an idiot.

The tabletop routinely pits Guard rifle units against heavy power armor, tanks, and monstrosities with the size and armor of a tank. Is it any wonder that their infantry rifles aren't adequate to deal with those threats? That they have to rely on their support weapons, like any and all modern armies do?

Besides, reaction time isn't that important in space - you still can't dodge lightspeed weapons etc.

Well... it depends what you mean by "dodge," what the maneuver envelope of the ship looks like, and what the range is.

Oh, wait, i see it has already been done. And HH still looses, even if they use their missiles as kinetic impactors.

Though at that point they're at least within shouting distance. What's damning is the fact that this kinetic impact capacity is never used, even though a single hit from a kinetic-impact impeller drive missile would gut any Honorverse ship with a fraction of the missile capacity it takes to bring the thing down with laser heads. They don't even try, not even when they don't have to worry about the wedge getting in the way. I don't think this is a coincidence.

[harbringer]

Ok there is a problem with the whole "they die and get reborn smarter" you need to show cylon industrial base is up to the task of replacing thousands of drones in a time frame that matters. Once you have proven they can replace the losses you need to show they can get them there in time. What is to stop the Imperium simply killing the factories?, You haven't even decided how many marines (though being close to the Imperium lots would be one answer) are present. I am assuming there are for once no guard or legio's with the marines, that other races won't be interested in what is attracting the interest of a marine chapter. There is no equality or good in this V's you have kiloton hand weapons against what hand grenades and rifles of a modern standard (no the mortar wasn't impressive) so what kilograms level yield??.

In space it doesn't get better it gets worse light speed weapons mean that raiders don't even get to shoot, They only have guns and missiles........


As for the HH stuff there is something I remember from not long ago and that won't work out that well either...

[Sarevok]

40K ground combat occurs at ranges a 18th century army would consider as being too short. How does that happen if their ships spit out teraton level firepower from extreme ranges ? Planetary shielding technology is not exactly ubiquitous beyond very vogue references in 40K to best of my knowledge....

[Bakustra]

40K ground combat occurs at ranges a 18th century army would consider as being too short. How does that happen if their ships spit out teraton level firepower from extreme ranges ? Planetary shielding technology is not exactly ubiquitous beyond very vogue references in 40K to best of my knowledge....

No it doesn't. Combat occurs at a variety of ranges, and the tabletop game is not a simulation of the typical battlefield. The larger-scale Epic 40k game shows that armies regularly fight at far longer ranges than the base 40k game can simulate.

Meanwhile, orbital bombardment is used regularly against large clusters of enemy forces and heavily fortified areas. However, most of the time, the people involved want to conquer the planet, not destroy it. Planets also tend to have defensive space stations and ground-to-space artillery as well.

[Serafina]

40K ground combat occurs at ranges a 18th century army would consider as being too short. How does that happen if their ships spit out teraton level firepower from extreme ranges ? Planetary shielding technology is not exactly ubiquitous beyond very vogue references in 40K to best of my knowledge....

This is why we don't use the tabletop as evidence.

If anything, the tabletop represents assaults on settlements or fortifications, where ranges are naturally short.
Armies that favor close-combat generally have good reasons for it - it negates enemy heavy weapons fire, which can be very usefull if your armor is impenetrable against small arms. Or the army just prefers it for psychological reasons.

Either way, ranges from the tabletop aren't really representative.
Read the novels and stories and you should see that they are very well capable of fighting at the same ranges as modern armies.

[Black Admiral]

40K ground combat occurs at ranges a 18th century army would consider as being too short.

You will, of course, prove this - and I can tell you right now, you'll have an awfully difficult job of it. Actual ranges for 40K ground weapons vary but are comparable or superior to modern ones, at least on the small arms level; effective range of bolters vs. area targets is at least 600m (per Salamander, pg. 329; shooting at Ork bikers, which is admittedly different to shooting at infantry, but it establishes a minimum).

[Manus Celer Dei]

Also, I think the Thunderhawk pilots may have a bit of trouble dealing with a craft that is sentient.

Why would they? The merely human Colonials are able to kill them in droves with small craft armed with autocannons and missiles. 40K craft are capable of accelerations measured in tens or hundreds of Gs, use megaton level explosions as antifighter flak, and use super tough materials as armour. They're prepared to fly against Eldar with superior technology and reflexes. Why would raiders be particularly difficult for Astartes?

Because this foe has the capacity to learn. In the series, it was noted that the Cylons had a few "fighter aces" (more infamously, Scar) since they could learn and use counter-tactics against the Colonials. So, since the Raider could learn and get a good idea of what it's up against while trying to figure out a way to counter it, the Thunderhawk pilots will have to become...unpredictable, shall we say (that is, go against the teachings they've received regarding dogfighting) in order to outwit the Raiders.

Sorry, what? Are you claiming that Raiders will have an advantage compared to other enemies when fighting the space marines because they can learn? IE that normally the Space Marines fight people who can't learn?

Because that is a really fucking bizarre statement. Unless you're "just" claiming that BSG raiders have a greater capacity to learn compared to most SM foes, in which case I would love to see your reasoning to back that up.

[remus2]

You're an idiot.

Is it a bad sign if I would not disagree?
Because I sincerely think you may be right.

Your claim was "EVE has superior reaction speeds to 40K". You backed that up with "the pilot IS the ship".
That's fine - while you presented no evidence that their reaction speed is indeed faster, it can be reasonably inferred from the neural pilot/ship connection. It's no solid evidence, but at least it's something.
But since it was pointed out that 40K has the exact same capability, you need stronger evidence than that.

-retract your claim

Yes, please

----EVE now is not claimed to have superior reaction speeds to 40k----

-get mocked for your stupidity

Please have mercy




New department:
What range do Warhammer sensors have?
Now I’m searching for sensor ranges to determine who sees who first.
Onboard ship sensors in EVE have at least a 12 AU range
Observator Deep Space Probe I - 1000 au range, 1 point sensor strength
Ferret Scanner Probe I - 40 au range, 2.5 points sensor strength.
Spook Scanner Probe I - 20 au range, 5 points sensor strength.

Anyway …
Found this with some help, from the murky depths of early news reels:
http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=sin ... 1258&tid=5
That is from when the Judgment was a spherical area of effect weapon.
Now it is a coherent directed energy beam.
I do not know how to calculate the energy output so ... I am at a loss if it can waste a warhammer ship, but it may help provide some level of comparative firepower

The tabletop routinely pits Guard rifle units against heavy power armor, tanks, and monstrosities with the size and armor of a tank. Is it any wonder that their infantry rifles aren't adequate to deal with those threats? That they have to rely on their support weapons, like any and all modern armies do?
.

So, except in a setting especially created by the author (Dan Abnett), they remain the spitballs on the battlefield of the 41st millennium

If the enemy uses slug throwers then the Guard is policing for they are usualy the local population, aren't they?
I would consider this more of a insurgency/police action. So … on the battlefield , as on the table top they remain …

[fgalkin]

Huh? Just how are lasguns "spitballs on the battlefield" in Abnett's work, when they do things like penetrate Chaos marine armor in the Ghosts novels?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Aaron]

What a bunch of fucking horseshit, lasguns=spitballs.

Go read:

The Last Chancers
Any of the Cain books
Flesh and Iron
The Imperial Guard Omnibus:Volume One

They all feature the "spitballs" blowing holes in people, armoured and unarmoured, 'Nids, Orks, Tau, you name it.

[remus2]

Huh? Just how are lasguns "spitballs on the battlefield" in Abnett's work, when they do things like penetrate Chaos marine armor in the Ghosts novels?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Alas it seems I can not belittle the omnipresent lasgun ...
'ts an uphill battle but in this I shall never flinch!
(They are of the same level of a frigging grot handgun. In rogue trader I think there was an option of buying boltguns for guardsmen. Why? Why are the Old Ones so cruel to take my chance away of fielding the largest possible infantry army with the most heavy hitting guns before I even started?)