Mobile Infantry (novel) versus 40K Space Marines

[Gil Hamilton]

In their own setting it is necessary. They spend so much time at close quarters with beings of superhuman durability that the ability to just chop the damn thing in half with a diamond-coated chainsaw is actually useful.

Bulloney they are necessary. Aim your gun at the supernatural horror and shoot, which is bound to be more effective than dropping your gun and trying to cut them with a chainsaw. By your logic, our infantry should still carry around cavalry sabres because they MIGHT have to fight hand to hand. In the odd event that they might have to, is that not what bayonets are for? After all, those still let you fight hand to hand and, you know, still has your primary mode of harming things at the ready.

No, the actual reason they have chainsword BS is because it's Warhammer and Games Workshop likes its gothy grimdark baloney, not because they make sense. Besides, do you know what happens when a chainsaw encounters something metal that it can't readily cut through? Look up "tree spiking". The result is that the chain snaps and it will likely harm or ever kill the user. A chainsaw is not a sensible weapon by any measure, merely one that nerds have latched on to after watching the Evil Dead movies too often and some jerkoff went "Chainsaw! Try chainsword! SO KEWL!" It's pretty amazing that you are actually defending that nonsense.

I don't think we know how much damage the Y-rack bombs do; it's substantial, but just how big? And how well-aimed? A weapon physically bolted to the user's back isn't going to have good targeting. It may be better suited for indiscriminate blasting of targets in the general vicinity (which is how Rico uses it) than for blowing up actual armored vehicles.

It's certainly plausible that the MI carry antitank weapons suitable for beating Space Marines, but I'm not sure how much evidence we have about them.

Rico specifically mentions rocket weaponry as their primary not-close quarters weapons. I fail to see why that would be any less powerful than any of the other explosives they truck around.

Besides, the bombs from the Y-racks probably have some target seeking capability, but even if they only just blast an area, that's still pretty damn good. Rico did blow up some buildings with those things to start with and was expected to. Remember, the plan in the opening chapter was that each trooper would be a shade under two kilometers apart and level the entire area they were in. Given the scale of their nukes, chances are they aren't going to be firing them off close up when they are that close together.

Since Space Marines generally hose things down with bolters before charging... yes.

See, you're just pointing at 40k and going "LOL chainswords." There's a lot more to the setting than that, and without taking it into account, your assessment is going to be trivially wrong.

Do you honestly believe what you are typing? If they are hosing things down with their guns first... why would they ever charge with their melee weapons? They have guns, they can keep shooting! Does this sound reasonable to you: "Well, shooting at them didn't work, so I'm going to run at them with an axe that I've been humping around instead of something dangerous to things outside of arm's reach!"

Seriously, I want you to state that you sincerely believe that melee weapons really have a compelling place in a world of guns, rockets, and tanks. No mealy mouthed BS about game setting; that you actually think Space Marines in a technological society carrying goddamn battleaxes is reasonable and smart, and not on the same plane of idiocy as Klingon Bat'leths. Note: Trekkies defending bat'leths make the EXACT same excuse you do, that they claim they make sense in context, even going so fair to point to that silly marital arts school in Korea that actually made a fighting style using Klingon hand weapons. If you don't honestly think that, you MUST concede.

Or are you next going to follow this up with talking about how realistic humanoid mechas are, maybe? Battletech needs some apologist love too, Simon.

[Lord Relvenous]

Hey Gil, just to interject a little. Space Marines use close combat so often due to their combat doctrine. They like to strike into the ranks of the enemy (i.e. get up close) with drop pods and whatnot because by doing so, they can try to counteract the vastly superior numbers of their enemies. Due to Space Marines' strength, speed, armor, and durability, they have the advantage in close combat over most of their enemies and by closing ranks, they remove the capability of enemies other than those they are fighting to meaningfully contribute to the fight. Fighting at range with 3 squads against Imperial Guard is just going to get the Marines shot by heavy weapons. 3 squads of Space Marine in amongst the lines of the Imperial Guard can kill everything in front of them while using the Guardsmen around them as shields against fire.

While the emphasis of melee overall is more than a little silly, Space Marines do have a somewhat justifiable reason that does not have parallels in real-world combat or in relation to Klingons. Space Marines are significantly superior on a by-soldier basis, but are heavily outnumbered. By closing and fighting in close combat, their lower numbers are less important. Doesn't seem too crazy to me.

[Sarevok]

How fast do Space Marines move ? As in meters second not some vogue quote about faster than eye can see ? How many lasgun rounds to put down a mook space marine ? All these questions will answer if Space Marine closer quarter doctrine is stupid or not

[Simon_Jester]

Sneers aside, the MI have the advantage at artillery-support range, because of their nukes. However, if the MI can locate the Marine force and fire their nukes from concealed positions at long range, they could very well win this, probably decisively and with little or no loss to their own forces.

If they instead close to shorter combat ranges, where they can be effectively targeted by the Marines' heavy weapons (which will probably break MI armor) and their bolters (which might or might not, I don't know)... then things get more difficult. Much would depend on the MI's non-nuclear weapons, which we generally don't know as much about.

In extremely tight quarters, the MI run into major problems. They are not well optimized for close-in fighting, as experience against the Bugs has demonstrated, and against Space Marines they will have the added disadvantage of not being able to exploit individually superior armor and weaponry, since the Space Marines are armed with short-ranged weapons (such as powerful machine guns and flamethrowers) that are broadly comparable to the MI's own short-ranged weapons.

Bulloney they are necessary. Aim your gun at the supernatural horror and shoot, which is bound to be more effective than dropping your gun and trying to cut them with a chainsaw. By your logic, our infantry should still carry around cavalry sabres because they MIGHT have to fight hand to hand. In the odd event that they might have to, is that not what bayonets are for? After all, those still let you fight hand to hand and, you know, still has your primary mode of harming things at the ready.

Yes, of course they're all idiots and their weapons suck. And when I talk about them being good at "close combat" I must necessarily mean drawing swords, not, say, riddling someone with bullets at point blank range (as Space Marines are routinely described as doing in almost every book I've ever heard of that features them). And yes. They're all idiots. That's why they're all dead. Oh wait, they're not.

Perhaps instead of reasoning "their weapons are a shitty joke therefore they're idiots and they die easily," you should turn that around. If they can survive the experience of being on a battlefield where people with machine guns and bazookas and tanks are fighting... maybe they actually have some tactics that work, instead of just being mindless idiots whose response to every situation is to charge with their improbably large swords. You know, like they're routinely described as doing all the time?

Maybe they actually carry guns, and use them a lot? You know, the ones they're routinely described as using all the time? Maybe they have heavy weapons troops? You know, the ones they're routinely described as using all the time? Maybe they actually have the full complement of weapons found in modern armies, including armor, air support, artillery, and so on? You know, the ones they're routinely described as using all the time?

Maybe the swords are, believe it or not, not their primary weapon, and are instead used in situations where the combination of armor that can take anything short of an antitank missile and very short combat ranges (urban warfare, fighting aboard ships as one might expect Marines to do now and then) make fighting with a sword against many of their plausible opponents roughly as survivable as fighting with a typical ranged weapon?

No, the actual reason they have chainsword BS is because it's Warhammer and Games Workshop likes its gothy grimdark baloney, not because they make sense. Besides, do you know what happens when a chainsaw encounters something metal that it can't readily cut through? ... It's pretty amazing that you are actually defending that nonsense.

What I'm defending is that somehow, God help them, they manage to survive while owning melee weapons. Perhaps because they are that well armored- unlikely. More likely, perhaps because they don't rely on them exclusively like you seem to believe. But somehow I doubt it's because they're not getting into fights, or because no one ever thinks to shoot at them. That seems to happen to Space Marines a lot, for some reason; they tend to get into fights and get shot at, and yet they don't all die.

Fuck the grimdark baloney; they're not all dead yet. That should prove something about their tactics, since they routinely go up against opponents that you think would slaughter them all because those opponents have firearms.

Rico specifically mentions rocket weaponry as their primary not-close quarters weapons. I fail to see why that would be any less powerful than any of the other explosives they truck around.

I don't know. Perhaps so. Have we seen the rockets in action?

Besides, the bombs from the Y-racks probably have some target seeking capability, but even if they only just blast an area, that's still pretty damn good. Rico did blow up some buildings with those things to start with and was expected to.

That's effective for shelling buildings and causing chaos and damage in urban areas. It might be effective as a "crap we need to lay down a mortar barrage on troops in the open" weapon. It will not be effective at killing tanks, not unless the Y-rack bombs are guided. I am not convinced that they are.

Since Space Marines generally hose things down with bolters before charging... yes.

See, you're just pointing at 40k and going "LOL chainswords." There's a lot more to the setting than that, and without taking it into account, your assessment is going to be trivially wrong.

Do you honestly believe what you are typing? If they are hosing things down with their guns first... why would they ever charge with their melee weapons? They have guns, they can keep shooting!

Generally, in the descriptions I've read, because they ran out of bullets. Or they didn't charge at all, and the enemy came to them. Or because they have to clear a structure room to room, which means closing to distances where suddenly having a sword in your off hand becomes more appealing.

Seriously, I want you to state that you sincerely believe that melee weapons really have a compelling place in a world of guns, rockets, and tanks. No mealy mouthed BS about game setting; that you actually think Space Marines in a technological society carrying goddamn battleaxes is reasonable and smart, and not on the same plane of idiocy as Klingon Bat'leths.

Note: Trekkies defending bat'leths make the EXACT same excuse you do, that they claim they make sense in context, even going so fair to point to that silly marital arts school in Korea that actually made a fighting style using Klingon hand weapons. If you don't honestly think that, you MUST concede.

Must concede what? If Klingons survive in Star Trek, it's because their enemies are incapable of killing unprotected men charging in the open with melee weapons. That says damning things about the opposition, not good things about the Klingons.

If Space Marines survive in 40k, it must be because of one of the following:
-Somehow, they are well enough protected to survive charging in the open with melee weapons. Unlikely.
-MORE LIKELY, THEY DO NOT CHARGE IN THE OPEN WITH MELEE WEAPONS NORMALLY. Perhaps they normally rely on their wide arsenal of automatic rocket-propelled grenade launchers, autocannon, laser cannons, bazookas, flamethrowers, plasma rifles, armored vehicles, aerial gunships, and so forth. You know, all the shit Klingons don't have?

Perhaps they only rely on melee weapons in unusual or desperate situations, or when fighting at point blank range in any case, where the advantage of range is minimized by the fact that you're so close to the enemy that they can reach out and stab you before you shoot them all in any case. But no, LOL chainswords therefore Space Marines must necessarily be incompetent because they own them. Forget all the other more normal weapons they use, unlike Klingons who seem to rely on their big honking knives in all circumstances. LOL chainswords therefore Space Marines must be incompetent and easy prey for someone who carries... basically all the same weapons Space Marines do, only without carrying the melee weapons that would seldom be of use anyway.

Riight.

So no, I will not be railroaded into misrepresenting my own argument for your amusement, nor will I be railroaded into "conceding" that my actual argument is wrong because a misrepresentation of my argument built on bad analogies and little or no understanding of what I'm talking about is wrong.

[Serafina]

Heck, let's take a look at the dedicated melee combatants that Space Marines have, shall we?

-Assault Marines: Specialist troops that can be airdropped right into the middle of a battle. Typically used against non-superhuman enemies where they can destroy their heavy weapons which are actually dangerous to Space Marines. They do NOT charge into battle in a straight line.
-Vanguard Squad: Same, just better.
-Assault (and normal) Terminators: They are generally teleported into battle. If they aren't, they are deployed in very heavily armored vehicles in order to take specific strategic and tactical points. They do NOT charge into melee in a straight line.
-Dreadnoughts: Rarely used for close-combat alone. Are armore vehicles and often deployed by droppod anyway.

That's it. That's the close-combat specialists Space Marines have. It starts with specialists, goes into veteran specialists and ends with even rarer specialists. It's NOT a large part of their forces.
Just for comparision, here are the ranged units:
Tactical Squads, Devastor Squads, Sternguard squads, Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Scouts, Bikes, Land Speeders, Land Raiders, Predators, Whirlwinds, Vindicators.
Or by function: Standard infantry soldiers, heavy weapon specialists, elite soldiers, elite soldiers in heavier armor, combat walker, stealthy scouts, fast scouts, fast scout vehicle with heavy weapons/helicopter analogue, heavy MBT/IFV, MBT, short-range artillery, siege artillery

Yes, all Space Marines are trained in close combat and all Space Marines are equipped with a close-combat weapon - which happens to be a longer knife. We also train our modern soldiers in close combat - and our forces that are more likely to need it more so.
Space Marines encounter close-combat situations far more often. This is due to factos like overwhelming enemy numbers, very resilient enemies or high speed due to jetpacks or fast vehicles.



As far as i can see it, nukes might win the day for the MI, but they will loose without them. Thus, the outcome is highly dependent on the tactical situation - if they can't risk to destroy infrastructure, are too close to use them or just don't have enough of them, then they will most likely loose to the Space Marines.

[Tiwaz]

One issue on MI vs SM is their physical attributes.
To my recollection MI were very much normal humans, while SM are radically altered superhumans.

MI has slower reactions and other unfortunate squishiness associated with us mere mortals.

[Black Admiral]

How fast do Space Marines move ? As in meters second not some vogue quote about faster than eye can see ?

Per Emperor's Mercy they can run at at least 40kph, and can march conventional troops into the ground (capable of, per Storm of Iron, 50km/day in terrain where a conventional human in pretty close to peak physical condition (Gdsmn. Julius Hawke, 383rd Jouran) had a hard time managing 8km/day).

How many lasgun rounds to put down a mook space marine ?

Assuming you mean a Tactical Marine, a lot. Lasgun bolts are described as "nuisances" to fully armoured Astartes repeatedly; they're only viable jacked up to full output and aimed at weak points in their armour. And against Terminators, pissing on them would probably be more effective than lasrifle fire.

-Assault Marines: Specialist troops that can be airdropped right into the middle of a battle. Typically used against non-superhuman enemies where they can destroy their heavy weapons which are actually dangerous to Space Marines. They do NOT charge into battle in a straight line.
-Vanguard Squad: Same, just better.
-Assault (and normal) Terminators: They are generally teleported into battle. If they aren't, they are deployed in very heavily armored vehicles in order to take specific strategic and tactical points. They do NOT charge into melee in a straight line.
-Dreadnoughts: Rarely used for close-combat alone. Are armore vehicles and often deployed by droppod anyway.

And all of these carry ranged weapons as well, which they're not shy about using (as an unlucky Word Bearers Terminator found out when he was on the receiving end of a point-blank burst from a Venerable Brother's assault cannon in Dark Creed).

[Kuja]

In their own setting it is necessary. They spend so much time at close quarters with beings of superhuman durability that the ability to just chop the damn thing in half with a diamond-coated chainsaw is actually useful.

Bulloney they are necessary. Aim your gun at the supernatural horror and shoot, which is bound to be more effective than dropping your gun and trying to cut them with a chainsaw.

And what are you going to do when said supernatural horror catches your rounds out of the air and tosses them aside, or worse yet, throws them back at you?

Alternatively, what do you do when you're matched up against an enemy force that depletes all of your ammunition and ordinance - all of it, from small-arms all the way up to artillery?

Because yes, both of these situations do happen in 40K. And often.

40K Space Marines carry chainblades and power swords for the same reason Jedi carry lightsabers: under the right circumstances, and against certain enemies, they are more effective than ranged weapons.

[Gil Hamilton]

Yes, of course they're all idiots and their weapons suck. And when I talk about them being good at "close combat" I must necessarily mean drawing swords, not, say, riddling someone with bullets at point blank range (as Space Marines are routinely described as doing in almost every book I've ever heard of that features them). And yes. They're all idiots. That's why they're all dead. Oh wait, they're not.

Bad logic, Simon, shame on you. You can't say that demonstratably bad tactics are good simply because the people that use them continue to exist. Frankly, they SHOULD be dead when you combine descriptions of how much time and effort it takes to MAKE a single Space Marine alongs them thinking chainsaws are great weapons worthy of being carried into combat. For pete's sake, Simon, I've seen plenty of models where the Marines aren't carrying guns AT ALL including one where the guy is carrying a sword and shield and no gun. But I suppose you think that a sword and shield must be effective because the guy isn't dead yet, right?

Seriously, where are you in Battletech threads, defending silly ass robots because everyone uses them as vehicles? After all, they can't be poorly designed, because people have used those designs for centuries in the story (literally, they don't know how to make them differently). You see how poor the reasoning is there?

Perhaps instead of reasoning "their weapons are a shitty joke therefore they're idiots and they die easily," you should turn that around. If they can survive the experience of being on a battlefield where people with machine guns and bazookas and tanks are fighting... maybe they actually have some tactics that work, instead of just being mindless idiots whose response to every situation is to charge with their improbably large swords. You know, like they're routinely described as doing all the time?

I'm not going to use your logic, because it's really poor. Author fiat declaring something WICKED AWESUM! is never an excuse in these debates. As stated above, there are plenty of Marine figures where the Marines simply aren't carrying any guns at all, but lugging around actual swords and shields.

Maybe they actually carry guns, and use them a lot? You know, the ones they're routinely described as using all the time? Maybe they have heavy weapons troops? You know, the ones they're routinely described as using all the time? Maybe they actually have the full complement of weapons found in modern armies, including armor, air support, artillery, and so on? You know, the ones they're routinely described as using all the time?

Goody, so why do more than half the models of them have them with giant freakin' melee weapons? Why do these melee weapons exist at all if they have that stuff?

Maybe the swords are, believe it or not, not their primary weapon, and are instead used in situations where the combination of armor that can take anything short of an antitank missile and very short combat ranges (urban warfare, fighting aboard ships as one might expect Marines to do now and then) make fighting with a sword against many of their plausible opponents roughly as survivable as fighting with a typical ranged weapon?

Soldiers in real life do alot of that stuff too. I bet you wonder why we don't issue all soldiers in the Middle East cavalry sabres, then, huh? After all, they do urban comban, clearing buildings, et cetera and the silly fools only bring more guns including guns designed for those situations, like shotguns. The idiots, they should be using chainsaws!

Hey, and the guys in Iraq have support that includes armor, air support, artillery, and so on! Therefore, the time is right for the Marine Corp Chainaxe!

What I'm defending is that somehow, God help them, they manage to survive while owning melee weapons. Perhaps because they are that well armored- unlikely. More likely, perhaps because they don't rely on them exclusively like you seem to believe. But somehow I doubt it's because they're not getting into fights, or because no one ever thinks to shoot at them. That seems to happen to Space Marines a lot, for some reason; they tend to get into fights and get shot at, and yet they don't all die.

Author fiat and you're using bad logic. We covered this. Surviving a stupid thing doesn't make it smart.

Fuck the grimdark baloney; they're not all dead yet. That should prove something about their tactics, since they routinely go up against opponents that you think would slaughter them all because those opponents have firearms.

Only author fiat stops it. After all, by your logic, the fact that they use silly humanoid mechas in Battletech and have for centuries proves that silly humanoid mechas must not be so bad after all. Considerably better than tanks, which they routinely trounce in the setting, right?

That's effective for shelling buildings and causing chaos and damage in urban areas. It might be effective as a "crap we need to lay down a mortar barrage on troops in the open" weapon. It will not be effective at killing tanks, not unless the Y-rack bombs are guided. I am not convinced that they are.

The MI made tanks obsolete in universe, because any trained private could destroy a dozen of them without braking a sweat... according to Rico. You can bandy whether or not this is boasting or what Heinlein was thinking when he made guys in power armor supercede armored vehicles, but they clearly do have firepower that can easily target and destroy a tank or a dozen tanks.

Generally, in the descriptions I've read, because they ran out of bullets. Or they didn't charge at all, and the enemy came to them. Or because they have to clear a structure room to room, which means closing to distances where suddenly having a sword in your off hand becomes more appealing.

Ah, right, the solution to ammo problems is not to bring more ammo, but to lug around a sword that is as big as you. Just leave the gun behind and ONLY bring the sword! Wow, so awesome and gothic! So kewllllll!

Must concede what? If Klingons survive in Star Trek, it's because their enemies are incapable of killing unprotected men charging in the open with melee weapons. That says damning things about the opposition, not good things about the Klingons.

It still reflects poorly on the Klingons as well. After all, if they can manage while half of them invade a space station with the crappiest designed swords ever, imagine what they could do if they all brought distruptors instead of wasting space lugging around Bat'leths. It's exactly the same with Space Marines, who will bring swords into battle for no other reason than Games Workshop grimdark baloney. Only difference is that we've got no problem calling Klingons idiots, yet here somehow the practice becomes acceptable!

If Space Marines survive in 40k, it must be because of one of the following:
-Somehow, they are well enough protected to survive charging in the open with melee weapons. Unlikely.
-MORE LIKELY, THEY DO NOT CHARGE IN THE OPEN WITH MELEE WEAPONS NORMALLY. Perhaps they normally rely on their wide arsenal of automatic rocket-propelled grenade launchers, autocannon, laser cannons, bazookas, flamethrowers, plasma rifles, armored vehicles, aerial gunships, and so forth. You know, all the shit Klingons don't have?

If they have all that shit, why do they bring the swords at all?

Perhaps they only rely on melee weapons in unusual or desperate situations, or when fighting at point blank range in any case, where the advantage of range is minimized by the fact that you're so close to the enemy that they can reach out and stab you before you shoot them all in any case. But no, LOL chainswords therefore Space Marines must necessarily be incompetent because they own them. Forget all the other more normal weapons they use, unlike Klingons who seem to rely on their big honking knives in all circumstances. LOL chainswords therefore Space Marines must be incompetent and easy prey for someone who carries... basically all the same weapons Space Marines do, only without carrying the melee weapons that would seldom be of use anyway.

Riight.

Again, by your logic, all soldiers in our armies should have swords, because they get into situations where they might be in arms reach of something routinely. Because lord knows giant hulking swords and axes take less time to swing than it takes to aim your gun in the same motion! Are you high, Simon? Do you think that aiming a rifle is slower in "in any case" than pulling out a chainsaw and swing it?

Besides, if they require antitank weapons to fight, who the fuck is going to stab them? If they are fighting some eldritch horror that can actually stab them through armored plates, the solution is not bringing a goddamn battleaxe along and wading into combat with it.

So no, I will not be railroaded into misrepresenting my own argument for your amusement, nor will I be railroaded into "conceding" that my actual argument is wrong because a misrepresentation of my argument built on bad analogies and little or no understanding of what I'm talking about is wrong.

You probably should have taken the out, since now you're making retarded arguments just to avoid conceding.

[Gil Hamilton]

And what are you going to do when said supernatural horror catches your rounds out of the air and tosses them aside, or worse yet, throws them back at you?

If the supernatural horror can catch bullets, it can also catch their chainaxe or catch their head. They are dead no matter what, so they might as well try and shoot the horror to death. After all, if they've got awesome psyker powers that can do that, then a melee weapon isn't going to help.

Alternatively, what do you do when you're matched up against an enemy force that depletes all of your ammunition and ordinance - all of it, from small-arms all the way up to artillery?

The solution of which is to lug around a sword that is as big as you are instead of more ammunition. That's brilliant.

Because yes, both of these situations do happen in 40K. And often.

If they do, this seriously calls into question the sanity of the Space Marines, that they'd sacrifice firepower and supplies so they can carry a damn chainsaw.

40K Space Marines carry chainblades and power swords for the same reason Jedi carry lightsabers: under the right circumstances, and against certain enemies, they are more effective than ranged weapons.

I think you have it right for the wrong reasons. Melee weapons are not more effective than guns. Our own history has conclusively proven than, to an enormous extent that even if the person is carrying a knife, it's their last resort total back up and also doubles as a tool, not something they may EXCLUSIVELY bring into battle. But 40K Space Marines do carry that garbage for the same reason Jedi carry lightsabres; because the creators of the series think it is cool and the fans of the series do too. George Lucas wanted his laser swords because he wanted science fiction-y knights in space and the designers of WH40K latched on to the notion that chainsaws are awesome melee weapons (again, probably from the Evil Dead movies in the same way some people grabbed the notion of gattling guns being used handheld by individuals probably feel out of Jesse Ventura's character in "Predator"*). Neither reasons are because the weapons actually make practical sense.

(*apparently, the military actually tried the handheld minigun idea once and discarded it when it became clear that it was hopeless impractical and very likely as dangerous to the user and everything around him, including his own comrades)

[Serafina]

Hey, idot:
Normal Space Marines do NOT carry a chainsword. They carry what is essentially (in relation to their size) a combat knife. That's it. They do not sacrifice anything for that.
They keep specalized troops for situations where CCQ comes up, which happens more often due to their doctrine. Because it happens if you start hi&run attacks on numerically superior forces, or when you fight in confined areas such as cities or spaceships. But their normal tactics and troops are designed for ranged-combat. Anyone who knows at least a bit about Space Marines should know that.

[Black Admiral]

Not to mention that the models are not exactly an accurate rep of normal SM procedure (what with the various helmet-less Sergeants, officers and specialists; when it's actually considered extremely unusual for any SM to remove their helmet in combat).

[Simon_Jester]

Bad logic, Simon, shame on you. You can't say that demonstratably bad tactics are good simply because the people that use them continue to exist. Frankly, they SHOULD be dead when you combine descriptions of how much time and effort it takes to MAKE a single Space Marine alongs them thinking chainsaws are great weapons worthy of being carried into combat. For pete's sake, Simon, I've seen plenty of models where the Marines aren't carrying guns AT ALL including one where the guy is carrying a sword and shield and no gun. But I suppose you think that a sword and shield must be effective because the guy isn't dead yet, right?

And the models trump the descriptions in the novels of how the Marines fight? By that standard we could equally well use the tabletop weapon ranges to say that artillery pieces (range up to 120 tabletop inches) can only shoot fifteen times farther than flamethrowers (range up to eight tabletop inches). And, of course, that the heights of all the models are to scale...

Doesn't work like that. The tabletop game is explicitly set up to impose better balance, and the tabletop models are explicitly designed to look cool, often at the expense of combat effectiveness. This is why you read about Space Marines fighting with their helmets on even though there are a bunch of Space Marine models with the helmets off in fight. It's not because the guys in power armor are foreign to the concept of "wear protection."

Seriously, where are you in Battletech threads, defending silly ass robots because everyone uses them as vehicles? After all, they can't be poorly designed, because people have used those designs for centuries in the story (literally, they don't know how to make them differently). You see how poor the reasoning is there?

If all I fight in a silly giant ass robot is other equally silly giant ass robots, I can last a long time. The survivability of a bad tactic is determined by two factors: whether or not I use it often enough for it to kill me (sometimes, that may be "once"), and whether I face opposition capable of exploiting my bad tactics to kill me.

In Battletech, the answer is "no:" if my enemies use giant walking robots instead of tanks, then I can get away with doing the same. Not because it's a good idea, but because it's a survivable idea: it does not place me at a disadvantage against my actual opponents.

In 40k, both factors come into play: when Space Marines use melee weapons at all, it's against opposition that either lacks heavy weapons to kill them with (cannot exploit their reliance on melee weapons), or in unusual circumstances where their choice of weapons does not place them at a crippling disadvantage.

Perhaps instead of reasoning "their weapons are a shitty joke therefore they're idiots and they die easily," you should turn that around. If they can survive the experience of being on a battlefield where people with machine guns and bazookas and tanks are fighting... maybe they actually have some tactics that work, instead of just being mindless idiots whose response to every situation is to charge with their improbably large swords. You know, like they're routinely described as doing all the time?

I'm not going to use your logic, because it's really poor. Author fiat declaring something WICKED AWESUM! is never an excuse in these debates. As stated above, there are plenty of Marine figures where the Marines simply aren't carrying any guns at all, but lugging around actual swords and shields.

So, in favor of assuming the heroically-posed Space Marine toy soldier models are an accurate representation of how they're supposed to fight in the fluff... you will ignore both the published novels and other written descriptions of how they fight AND the mere fact that they are more survivable than you pretend them to be.

It doesn't matter how they fight, only how you say they fight?

Goody, so why do more than half the models of them have them with giant freakin' melee weapons? Why do these melee weapons exist at all if they have that stuff?

So that they have something other than their bare hands to fight with when dealing with screaming human-wave opponents that keep charging them until they run out of bullets, thus permitting them to die marginally harder. So that they have something other than their bare hands to fight with when some giant freaking demon teleports into their midst. So that they have something other than their bare hands to fight with when they're clearing a large structure room to room and predictably start running short of ammunition.

Soldiers in real life do alot of that stuff too. I bet you wonder why we don't issue all soldiers in the Middle East cavalry sabres, then, huh? After all, they do urban comban, clearing buildings, et cetera and the silly fools only bring more guns including guns designed for those situations, like shotguns. The idiots, they should be using chainsaws!

And do we send them in to clear arcology-sized buildings when outnumbered five, ten or more to one?

That's not an unusual combat scenario for Space Marines; they are often sent in at those odds. It is not a surprise that they find themselves running out of ammunition more often than our guys with M-16s, especially when they use large-caliber weaponry that limits their potential ammo loadout compared to, say, a bunch of guys with M-16s. Or would not be a surprise if you weren't taking this to truly absurd levels of "I am too busy mocking this to bother to take a minute to check and make sure I know what it is."

That's effective for shelling buildings and causing chaos and damage in urban areas. It might be effective as a "crap we need to lay down a mortar barrage on troops in the open" weapon. It will not be effective at killing tanks, not unless the Y-rack bombs are guided. I am not convinced that they are.

The MI made tanks obsolete in universe, because any trained private could destroy a dozen of them without braking a sweat... according to Rico. You can bandy whether or not this is boasting or what Heinlein was thinking when he made guys in power armor supercede armored vehicles, but they clearly do have firepower that can easily target and destroy a tank or a dozen tanks.

Yeah. The nukes. I don't know what else they have, though. I wouldn't be surprised to find ATGMs at the individual level on MI, but I'm not sure what to make of them because we've never seen one used in combat.

Again, by your logic, all soldiers in our armies should have swords, because they get into situations where they might be in arms reach of something routinely. Because lord knows giant hulking swords and axes take less time to swing than it takes to aim your gun in the same motion! Are you high, Simon? Do you think that aiming a rifle is slower in "in any case" than pulling out a chainsaw and swing it?

Did I say they did? You seem to be arguing with a fake person.

You will note, perhaps, what Serafina pointed out: that the majority of the Space Marines' arsenal consists of units that have no specialized melee weapons and do not close to melee range as a matter of doctrine, such as heavy weapons fireteams. Of the minority of Marine units that are intended to close to melee, all of them have such unusual means of getting into range, such as teleporting or use of jetpacks... AND all of them carry liberal supplies of ranged weapons such as machine pistols, hardpoint-mounted machine guns, and the like. And, over and above this, are normally sent in against opponents that aren't going to be shooting back effectively in any case.

But no, LOL chainswords, therefore it doesn't matter what weapons the MI have or anything else because 40k Space Marines must fall over when you tap them because LOL chainswords.

[Serafina]

And hey, let's be fair here:
WE don't send our soldiers into melee because their opponents are equally good at it. We don't gain an advantage by doing so.
Space Marines, however, often DO gain an advantage by doing so - they have better stamina, reflexes, strenght, armor, weapons etc. than many of their opponents. All of those are less important in ranged combat. Add in their inferior numbers, and going into melee can actually make sense if you have the opportunity to do so.
They often have that opportunity due to the shape of their battlefield or their specialised equipment. They use it when it get's them an tactical advantage, and they don't when it doesn't.

[Kuja]

If the supernatural horror can catch bullets, it can also catch their chainaxe or catch their head. They are dead no matter what, so they might as well try and shoot the horror to death. After all, if they've got awesome psyker powers that can do that, then a melee weapon isn't going to help.

Actually, yes it will:

Malleus, pg 177:

The thing, Prophaniti, was stepping towards me. I shot at it with my storm-gun, watching in horried fascination as it caught the white-hot rounds out of the air in its outstretched hands, like a man idly catching slow-tossed raquet-balls.

The bolts dulled to an ember-red in its palms, and it tossed them aside.

Prophaniti the daemonhost catches the rounds from Eisenhorn's gun and tosses them away.

Malleus, pg 310:

"At Kasr Geth, you told me to make my weapons sounder next time, monster!" I howled, and impaled its charging form on the steel pole of the runestaff. "Is this sound enough?"

Prophaniti screamed and exploded, blowing me off my feet. I don't think I banished it. I think I obliterated its essence forever.

Eisenhorn kills Prophaniti using a runestaff.

Malleus, pg 312:

Grumman pushed me out of the way as the devastating blur turned again, and fired his laspistol at it three times. Snapping round faster than my eyes could follow, the long, dark blade the blue was wielding deflected each crackling shot.

Grumman's head left his shoulders.

Quixos the heretic deflects three close-range shots from a laspistol with his sword, then kills the guy holding it.

Malleus, pg 314:

Barbarisater felt him move before I did. It lurched in my hands. In the time it takes to draw a breath, we had exchanged a flurry of twenty or more blows. The talon-edged blade of Kharnager rang dully off the Carthaen steel. Barbarisater's pentagrammic runes flashed and flared with discharging energy. Kharnager groaned softly.

Eisenhorn engages Quixos with his runesword. He later kills Quixos with it.

That's two examples from one book where an enhanced human using melee weapons was able to defeat creatures that could block or even catch fired projectiles.

I think you have it right for the wrong reasons. Melee weapons are not more effective than guns.

In 40K, they can be. You've just seen two examples.

[Uraniun235]

Only works because 40K is explicitly a magical fantasy setting. Your puny secular guns with their superior energy delivered won't do shit, but my bad-ass semi-living gothsword with magic carvings in it will carry the day!

[Kuja]

Only works because 40K is explicitly a magical fantasy setting. Your puny secular guns with their superior energy delivered won't do shit, but my bad-ass semi-living gothsword with magic carvings in it will carry the day!

So?

[fgalkin]

For pete's sake, Simon, I've seen plenty of models where the Marines aren't carrying guns AT ALL including one where the guy is carrying a sword and shield and no gun. But I suppose you think that a sword and shield must be effective because the guy isn't dead yet, right?

You keep harping on how Space Marines place an unnecessary emphasis on chainswords and use them instead of guns. You will now prove this assertion that Codex Space Marines use chainswords extensively in anything other than dedicated close-quarters teams.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Uraniun235]

Only works because 40K is explicitly a magical fantasy setting. Your puny secular guns with their superior energy delivered won't do shit, but my bad-ass semi-living gothsword with magic carvings in it will carry the day!

So?

So maybe you need to get used to having to spell out in every 40K thread that 40K works on its own magical fantasy rules instead of the normal "more energy = greater damage" principle that's typically assumed on first approach.

Here's how it usually seems to go:

"Axes Super-chainaxes actually work better than mere guns."
"That doesn't make any sense, blades have been obsolete since we invented repeating rifles and machine guns."
"Well the Adeptes Astartes (that's the formal name of the Space Marines, you understand ) are masters of melee combat, they'll totally rip anyone apart in close combat."
"But machine guns means people don't get close enough to do melee combat, and even in close quarters we have smaller guns that still do damage more reliably."
"Yes but you see demons and runeswords" *lists a few examples of magical fantasy battles*
"Oh well shit if you'd just said that 40k melees are magically contrived to always be better than guns from the beginning we could have come to an understanding much more quickly."


Maybe add it to a sticky thread or something? Alls I know is this won't be the last time it comes up, it could be productive to keep a prewritten blurb handy next time someone wants to argue about "some dudes vs. SPACE MARINES" to just throw out so that you don't have to rehash "but guns > blades" "nuh uh" every time.

[Lord Relvenous]

And hey, let's be fair here:
WE don't send our soldiers into melee because their opponents are equally good at it. We don't gain an advantage by doing so.
Space Marines, however, often DO gain an advantage by doing so - they have better stamina, reflexes, strenght, armor, weapons etc. than many of their opponents. All of those are less important in ranged combat. Add in their inferior numbers, and going into melee can actually make sense if you have the opportunity to do so.
They often have that opportunity due to the shape of their battlefield or their specialised equipment. They use it when it get's them an tactical advantage, and they don't when it doesn't.

Yeah I mentioned this as well earlier in the thread, but it got glossed over by Gil (who doesn't seem to respond to anyone other than Simon). It' an important point to make.

[Darth Hoth]

Warhammer 40,000 is a "space fantasy" setting if ever there was one, although I am personally rather hostile to the term as such, seeing as how many people seem to use it to disparage sci-fi settings they do not like. But in the Warhammer case, it really is one: It has demons and mechas fighting politruks with chainsaws and supersoldiers wielding what is basically autocannon in one hand. Apparently hand-to-hand weapons are made feasible by some funky technology that is effectively "mass-reduction" but still conserves the momentum of the strikes (which sounds highly internally contradicting, if you ask me), if what I remember some guys talking about earlier is true. (But do not take this for granted, I never saw any quote.)

The universe is based entirely on the Rule of Cool. The problem is made worse by the fact that there is little apparent harmony between depictions in various novels/sourcebooks/whatever in many cases, so a weapon that works one way in one novel can be completely different in the next. (GW apparently does not have very much continuity oversight for tech details.)

In such a universe, it makes sense that elite troopers use chainsaws.

(Which is not to say that I do not like the setting, of course. I do, and precisely because of its "GRIMDARK future with Age-of-Sail starships with press-ganged crews, pseudo-Catholic Nazi-Communism as state ideology and chainsword charges!!" atmosphere. )

That said, Gil is unnecessarily polarising the debate. Yes, Space Marines tend to use Hollywood tactics. No, they do not always charge forward with chainsaws raised. Like everything in Warhammer, their competence varies with the author, but the actual fluff examples of those tactics are few.

[Gunhead]

Well back in the day of the original Rogue Trader, knives and other melee weapons pierced demonic and other supernatural fields and such. Meaning a joe average could stab a demon even if his lasgun had no chance of hurting one. This was because melee weapons are psychosomatic or something.

Maybe someone should split this thread so the debate whether 40K melee is stupid is or not can continue there.

-Gunhead

[Simon_Jester]

"Axes Super-chainaxes actually work better than mere guns."
"That doesn't make any sense, blades have been obsolete since we invented repeating rifles and machine guns."
"Well the... Space Marines, you understand, are masters of melee combat, they'll totally rip anyone apart in close combat."
"But machine guns means people don't get close enough to do melee combat, and even in close quarters we have smaller guns that still do damage more reliably."

Then it is perhaps not a surprise that the great majority of Marines use said guns (ever heard of the setting's "bolt pistol?" almost exclusively, with a relative handful of specialists who are typically sent into situations equivalent to trench warfare or urban combat where the typical engagement range is no more than a few meters.

Or that backup melee weapons in the novels generally only come out when Marines are fighting "screaming horde" opponents so numerous that they can overrun the Marines' position and starting hammering on them at close quarters, often because said opponents are crazy or animals.

[Kuja]

Only works because 40K is explicitly a magical fantasy setting. Your puny secular guns with their superior energy delivered won't do shit, but my bad-ass semi-living gothsword with magic carvings in it will carry the day!

So?

So maybe you need to get used to having to spell out in every 40K thread that 40K works on its own magical fantasy rules instead of the normal "more energy = greater damage" principle that's typically assumed on first approach.

Or maybe people could be bothered to do five minutes of research before charging into a thread with appeals to incredulity and "OMG BUT THE PLASTIC MODELS."

Maybe add it to a sticky thread or something? Alls I know is this won't be the last time it comes up, it could be productive to keep a prewritten blurb handy next time someone wants to argue about "some dudes vs. SPACE MARINES" to just throw out so that you don't have to rehash "but guns > blades" "nuh uh" every time.

There's already a sticky thread at the top of this forum with links to a couple dozen threads. I'm pretty sure melee combat is the theme of at least one or two.

Again. A couple minutes of research. Not that hard.

[RecklessPrudence]

Or that backup melee weapons in the novels generally only come out when Marines are fighting "screaming horde" opponents so numerous that they can overrun the Marines' position and starting hammering on them at close quarters, often because said opponents are crazy or animals.

Or that almost every faction's materials tech is far in advance of their weapons tech (at the high end, at least), and therefore armour is a feasible means of defeating guns using mass-producible materials, whilst swords, bayonets, etc. made of the same high-end materials have a shot.

Gil, here's a bit of background for you. Almost every faction had a (much) higher tech level at one point, and have fallen through catastrophe. To take Humans as an example, before everything went to shit, every colony had a computer/factory that had designs for everything necessary, from cars and tractors to F-22 and nuclear carrier-analogues. When everything was going to shit, most colonies weren't self-sufficient, they were cut off, the computers were breaking down, and there was a massive scramble to save what they could, usually by hand-copying.

Understandably perhaps, a colony that needed farm equipment and water-filtering gear didn't laboriously copy by hand every detail of the schematics of the space-SR71. Or if someone did on their own time, they neglected to copy down every bit of technology necessary to build what you need to build what you need to build it. The closest to military weapons tech that was generally saved was that necessary to kill the sometimes ridiculously dangerous indigenous wildlife.

However, whilst you wouldn't copy down how to make a nuke, or even an Abrams' armour, you would copy down how to build a tractor. And the materials tech necessary to build a modern tractor is a lot closer to primitive WW1 tanks than a musket is to a GAU-8. By the time anyone realised what was happening, it was too late, and when they wanted to kill each other, they had to make do.

Almost every other race had some other means of fall from on high, the Eldar's Rag-Tag Fleet being one example. Everybody is fighting in the equivalent of Space Technicals - Bulldozers with armour welded on. The Tau and Tyranids being exceptions, where the Tau haven't hit the apex of their particular curve, and the Tyranids being shitty biotech.

Two things that are important to note are one, that they can make some of the higher-end materials, just not cheaply or in great amounts - that's what Marine armour and tanks usually have - they can't make bullets out of it, because they wouldn't be able to make enough; and two, that whenever anyone finds anything left over from Pre-Fall times, it's orders of magnitude better than anything anyone can make 'now'. Doesn't matter whether it's armour that can ignore anti-tank weapons easily, or a gun that can cut through that armour like it was nothing. In fact, whenever military gear from Pre-Fall times is found, it's the gun that holds supremacy, like you would expect.

The Grimdark is not that they use swords. It's that they HAVE to use swords, since they can't make good enough guns anymore.