A 40K chaos infested hive on modern earth

[andrewgpaul]

There's also the Phaeton pattern AA emplacement, which appears to use twin autocannon instead of the Hydra's four, and the Marines use Whirlwind Hyperios and Hunter AA missile variants of the Rhino (as well as a remote turret mounting the Hyperios launcher on a Tarantula body).

[white_rabbit]

No love for the Icarus pattern lascannons ?

[Gunhead]

No love for the Icarus pattern lascannons ?

Well, no unless it's a dedicated AA platform armed with lasers. I'm sure sabre and phaeton emplacements could be used in an anti-air role, but without dedicated radar they'd be of little use against fast moving aircraft and of limited use against helicopters. There must be a limiting factor why lascannons are not employed in an AA role, considering how in abundance they are and the obvious benefits for having a laser as a anti-aircraft weapon. Then again, these are lascannons, so built in limitation could be range, targeting or that they just do not work like lasers we know. Like I said, I don't know of any and don't remember such a weapon ever been mentioned anywhere.

Oh, a multilaser also shines in this absent category and like the lascannon makes an appearance as a fighter based weapon.

-Gunhead

[white_rabbit]

Well, no unless it's a dedicated AA platform armed with lasers.

As it happens, it is.

Automated lascannon, "supercharged" for hitting targets at long range. Supercharged being the equivalent of "long barreled" for laser weapons used for AA work. Found in Planetstrike, alongside another set of automated quad autocannons, and anti-air guided missile batteries.

I'm sure sabre and phaeton emplacements could be used in an anti-air role, but without dedicated radar they'd be of little use against fast moving aircraft and of limited use against helicopters.

Um, Sabre platforms I can understand, they were introduced in the Anphelion project (Nids) and are clearly influenced by the .50 cal tower guns from starship troopers, so aren't much cop for AA work, but the Phaeton guns are again, automated AA guns, integrated into a base defence network.

Why are you talking about things not having radar ?

There must be a limiting factor why lascannons are not employed in an AA role, considering how in abundance they are and the obvious benefits for having a laser as a anti-aircraft weapon. Then again, these are lascannons, so built in limitation could be range, targeting or that they just do not work like lasers we know. Like I said, I don't know of any and don't remember such a weapon ever been mentioned anywhere.

Well, firstly I expect its cheaper to use autocannons and missiles, but you are actually wrong about the lascannons anyway. I'd point out that the term "defence laser" isn't limited to grotesquely huge death rays either, plenty of smaller such installations exist in the background.


I'm not entirely sure why the absence of lasers would be a problem anyway. 40k defensive AA is perfectly capable of shooting down supersonic fighters.

As I understand AA-missile weaponry is prioritized to guard units leaving PDF with extremely limited ground based anti-air coverage.

Zoica Hive built whatever they damn well wanted, Heritor Asphodel was crazy, and wanted giant death robots but the "norms" of what weaponry is available to Zoica are difficult to apply beyond "Imperial Guard kit".


The debate itself is silly, but lets not go too far the other way please.

[PainRack]

Third: Let's not over-rate the Zoican troops there. YEs, they have a hive. Yes, they have 40K tech. But they're fucking CHAOS CULTISTS. They're not sane. They're not well trained, and they aren't likely to be well organized or supplied (relative to modern troops). As I recall from Necropolis pretty much the entire population of Zoica was mobilized into the war, so there's a distinct possibility that the Zoicans have at best a limited (or no) logistics/supply line to speak of. Even if their industry is still intact and maintained, they need resources with which to build things, and that means they'll have to find that somewhere.

The big problem, however, is a complete lack of ability to transport large numbers of troops and equipment across oceans, and the complete absence of anything resembling air power or air transport. This puts them at an incredible disadvantage, since air power and sea power are quite dominant in modern militaries.

Regarding logistics, considering the sustained artillery/tank bombardment of Verun Hive along with no noted ammunition shortage for their infantrymen despite a constant "whine" of lasguns, they must have a sizeable logistic train capable of at least limited resupply.

Considering the ability to launch a sustained bombardment against the shields before it was dropped, suggesting 24hrs or more of artillery bombardment, this represents a significant logistic train that most forces don't have nowadays.

[Gunhead]

Then icarus is the first dedicated laser based AA-platform I've seen mentioned here that's all, I'd expect them to have more and a higher variety of models. Specially ones that are mobile.
I made a mistake, I meant land based direct fire weapons can be used in an anti-air role, but need a radar directing them to be of any use. Phaeton should have a targeting radar as it is a dedicated AA-platform. The radar should be placed on a vehicle or at least as a separate emplacement.
Cost argument for lack of laser AAA weapons doesn't really hold water considering how widely IoM already deploys laser weapons on vehicles and support weaponry for infantry, adding to this the obvious advantages laser weaponry would provide vs. autocannons, there must be some other reason.
Autocannons are inherently limited in range and are a threat to fast moving aircraft only if the plane is unlucky enough to fly into one. Their main utility is force planes to fly higher making them vulnerable to SAMs. This only works if the attacker has to physically penetrate into SAM range.

Defense lasers are varied bunch sure, but as I understand it are fixed placement weapons and as such would only be a factor if the hive itself came under attack.
Speaking of fixed placements, IG still employs AA-assets on fixed placements which is not a good idea no matter how well armored it is. Once it's located it's just needs a bigger hammer to crack, not to mention the built in problems of armoring an AA-placement. They also cannot deploy quickly to patch holes in the AA-cover.

-Gunhead

[Todeswind]

Well yes and no, there are numerous examples of rapid deployment of fixed weaponry in the 40k world, not the least of which is the drop pod mounted fixed weaponry. Within the fluff there is a wide range of weaponry of all types fulfilling virtually any role you could imagine. GW fluff is guided more or less by the rule of cool, would it be cool for them to have a special fist that can rip through walls? Sure, give it to them. How about a spider walker robot with giant cannons? Why not. If memory serves the first gaunt's ghosts even made reference to the use of small and larger scale atomics (though I suppose when you have space ships that's simply assumed).

When it comes to the actual GW product lines they end up being more limited in the variation that they can realistically produce and sell and thus more conservative in what they produce. GW isn't going to sell every variation of every weapon logistically practical or necessary for a military campaign on either Forge World or GW's main product lines.

[white_rabbit]

Then icarus is the first dedicated laser based AA-platform I've seen mentioned here that's all, I'd expect them to have more and a higher variety of models.

*shrug* They probably do, in fact, just thinking about it, AA lascannon installations shoot down a Thunderhawk in Angels of Darkness. I don't believe the Icarus is a dedicated AA platform either, similarly the Phaeton, they can shoot ground targets as well, they are just optimised for AA.

Cost argument for lack of laser AAA weapons doesn't really hold water considering how widely IoM already deploys laser weapons on vehicles and support weaponry for infantry, adding to this the obvious advantages laser weaponry would provide vs. autocannons, there must be some other reason.

The Icarus lascannon is much larger and described as "supercharged", clearly "standard" vehicle based lascannons don't cut it, so the widely deployed weapons don't help your argument much.

Autocannons are inherently limited in range and are a threat to fast moving aircraft only if the plane is unlucky enough to fly into one. Their main utility is force planes to fly higher making them vulnerable to SAMs. This only works if the attacker has to physically penetrate into SAM range.

I'm going to assume you mean that autocannons are a threat only if a fast moving aircraft is unlucky enough to fly into their range.

I imagine one of the concepts involved in competent design of AA defences is you place your guns to cover the area where Mr Airplane is likely to fly, or has to fly.

The missile silo's in planet strike, despite being tiny things that also shoot at incoming aerial targets, are also described as striking at orbital targets, so penetrating into SAM range could in theory be a necessary part of any assault. Similarly stationary defence lasers could offer AA support across their line of sight. Being on top of a giant Hive structure could help with that as well.

That said, Asphodel is crazy, so he's probably left a wind sock as AA defence around Zoica.

Defense lasers are varied bunch sure, but as I understand it are fixed placement weapons and as such would only be a factor if the hive itself came under attack.
Speaking of fixed placements, IG still employs AA-assets on fixed placements which is not a good idea no matter how well armored it is. Once it's located it's just needs a bigger hammer to crack, not to mention the built in problems of armoring an AA-placement. They also cannot deploy quickly to patch holes in the AA-cover.

But they also include mobile AA-assets....? The primary AA asset of the IG is always the Imperial Navy anyway.

[Connor MacLeod]

About airpower, 40K attack planes have a lopsided tendency to use direct fire and unguided weapons for both air combat and ground attack, and as far as I know they're not really stealthy at all relying on armor instead. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Depends on who is fielding the planes and the tech levels involved, like in all cases. There are cases where you are undoubtably right and planes are not "stealthy" at all. But on the other hand i can recall at least a few cases where they are (Emperor's Mercy, where a stealthed naval fighter was used for atmospheric insertion of an Inquisitor's band.)

I'm sure someone like White Rabbit or Black Admiral or one of the other 40Kers could think of other cases, but that's the one that comes most immediately to mind.

This would mean they're almost always operating within reach of both SAM, AAA and jet based missile weapons, with limited capability to counter the range these systems provide. I don't know any air based 40K weapon that could standoff against modern anti-aircraft missiles, specially from attacks coming behind the horizon.

Well, modern anti-aircraft lasers (The ABL laser) has demonstrated an effective range in the tens or hundreds of kilometers against other airborne targets as I recall, and its only 150 kw. 40K lascannon are at least in the megawatt range easily, so I would expect they can achieve potentially similar performance, given similar targeting capability (which again is a big question mark, as tech levels can vary. Some fighters have machine-spirit/targeter assisted lasers, other's don't.) And as I mentioned they do have Air to air missiles (mentioned I believe in Aeronautica Imperialis, and shown in novels like Rynn's World) but that that depends on the tech level and logistics of the world in question.

If the "normal" fighters have any atmospheric capability compared to space based fighters (from what I remember of Rogue TRader's latest supplement where they list fighters and missiles including atmospheric capability) then (at least against 40K targets) 40K missiles could in theory target anything at least as well as short and/or medium range missiles (70 km or so is what I remember, but I'd have to dig the book out.)

None of this, however, really matters against Zoica, as they're at best PDF level and that can mean anything. Given their observed level of sophistication (EG Narmenian tanks vs Zoican) I'm guessing they're quite a bit below IG level, except for the outlier stuff like Asphodel's crazy-ass Woe Machines.

It's even possible our modern stealth based planes would be virtually invisible to their planes, which would make the air battles extremely lopsided. Even if they can detect any aircraft we have, we would still maintain total numerical superiority, in all categories. We have more planes, pilots, munitions and capability to produce more.

Depends entirely on how 40K detecton systems work. They at least (probably) rely on radar and/or lidar at least, but we've had crazy shit (both psychic and non) mentioned before as detection systems, like modar (mentioned in Double Eagle, Guns of Tanith, etc.) Again, this is largely a moot point, since its entirely hypothetical whether the Zoicans even have the ability to field a competing air force to begin with.

This would mean we can maintain constant air superiority over any ground battle and rain bombs on them at every opportunity. This combined with modern ground rocket artillery weapons that can reach easily 70+ km would make waging any ground campaign hell for them. Their problems would be worsened that their land based army is mostly leg infantry with portions of it motorized and just some of it mechanized. Their main hard hitting tanks are slower than ours, meaning we could easily dictate how and where the fighting occurs, meaning we can attack their supply, which is already limited and wear them out before committing any land based units to battle.

Which weapons? The only ones I can recall are extended range munitions and 70km would be an uusual capability as far as I know (links?) Unless we're talking about guided missiles or something. Again I'm pointing out we dont know much about how or why or even how accurate Zoican's artillery can reach that range (it could be rockets or missiles or artillery shells or a combination, and a hive is a big target regardless.) Artillery would be some use, but the problem is that transporting it across oceans is going to be time consuming and run into supply issues too. That's one reason I favor air powre as being more decisive. As destructive, if not more so, and considerably longer ranged, with only cruise missiles coming close to matching that performance.

Oh, and their main opponent would be fucking Russia, who doesn't flinch at the face of military casualties. They also pack more of everything our cultists brought with them.

-Gunhead

Russia has giant titan-sized attack machiens that can have death ray lasers, be crab shaped and fire bigass quasi-nuclear munitions, or climb up walls?

[Connor MacLeod]

Speaking of which, I noticed IG doesn't seem to have laser based anti-air weapon placements or vehicles. I only found auto-cannon / missile based placements and vehicles. They do place lasers on fighters. I found this odd and puts serious limitations on AA capabilities of our cultists. As I understand AA-missile weaponry is prioritized to guard units leaving PDF with extremely limited ground based anti-air coverage.

-Gunhead

In addition ot the examples others have mentioned, there's the rapier laser destroyer (which gets resurrected from time to time but appears to be semi-rare still depending on who you ask), and there were some multi-laser/lascannon tracked platforms IIRC amongst a guard arty unit in "His Last Command". I believe that in the fifth or sixth Cain novel Chimera multi-lasers were jury-rigged into an anti-air capability as well. Again those are examples I can merely recall offhand.

Cost argument for lack of laser AAA weapons doesn't really hold water considering how widely IoM already deploys laser weapons on vehicles and support weaponry for infantry, adding to this the obvious advantages laser weaponry would provide vs. autocannons, there must be some other reason.

Autocannons are inherently limited in range and are a threat to fast moving aircraft only if the plane is unlucky enough to fly into one. Their main utility is force planes to fly higher making them vulnerable to SAMs. This only works if the attacker has to physically penetrate into SAM range.

And how are you measuring cost? Short, or long term? Time or money? Maintenance and training? etc. Lasers do have other drawbacks. For one thing you can use a tracer with projectiles and adjust aim. Also you have a larger "hit area" relative to a laser (lasers focus on TINY areas typically if they are to be effective without melting the target.. millimeters to centimeters ideally with only big anti-ship lasers projected to get into meter-square intensities. Projectiles can increase this through various means, least of which including explosive ammo.) Lasers can also be adversely affected by weather conditions (fog? smoke?) etc.) And let's not forget that there are lots of aliens who can show high resistance to energy weapons (EG the 'Nids), which may very well necessitate the use of projectile weapons.

That again is just off the top of my head, but the point remains that laser is not always going to = better just because its higher tech. I get tired of this argument.

[Sea Skimmer]

40K fighters aren't THAT heavily armored, and warhead size depends on the size of the missile. Furthermore, even if they ARE armored unlike modern fighters (someone with a military bent like Sea Skimmer will have to comment here, I can't claim knowlege of that) that doesn't mean the entire damnt hing is. The rudders and flaps cannot be completely armored without compromising their function (either too heavy, or too rigid) so they are vulnerable. The Jet engines too can only be armored so much without comrpomising function (intake or exhaust), and the same applies with the cockpit. And even if they ARE tougher that just means needing more hits to bring them down. Again, numbers will help here, as will stuff like coordination and AWACS/communications.

If you had a plane made of half inch thick steel it would be highly resistant to any air to air missile warhead, but you’d need pure anti gravity to make something fly that can resist larger medium and heavy SAM warheads or a contact hit from an AMRAAM. Armor would need to be more like 75mm steel equivalence for certain protection, 50mm would stop the vast majority of fragments even when they are going 7,000fps. But even this isn’t certain survive because in the face of a close range explosion a plane stands a fair chance of simply being thrown out of control through the sky by the blast. This effect alone can make a completely undamaged aircraft crash, if it doesn’t have significant altitude for recovery or has bad stall characteristics.

Also the key thing is most air to air warheads are modular, particularly in the case of the US AMRAAM. New warheads with shaped charges could be fielded in a timescale of a few months so the world isn’t stuck with its existing warheads for the years that completely new missile designs would take. Many existing warheads already have some fairly exotic and classified controlled fragmentation effects which would make the more effective on hard targets then a simple blast-frag warhead. Modern planes don’t have a lot of armor, but they are built VERY strong to be able to maneuver and fight the way they do so target hardness has been a major concern for warhead designers.

Of course all this presumes that 40K aircraft operate at speeds and heights compatible with existing anti aircraft weaponry; which seems to be the case from anything I’ve ever seen on the 40K planes. Most of them look like achieving mach 1 would be utterly impossible with a turbine engine. You’d need something that can just make arbitrary levels of thrust like a rocket or anti gravity propulsion. If the 40K planes can’t break mach 1 then the only real hope they’d have is either near immunity to missiles or vastly superior numbers. Few planes can supercruise compared to the total world fighter fleet; but enough of them can to matter and plenty of the others have a very useful range of supersonic performance.

[Serafina]

Some 40K-planes can certainly supercruise. If we are bringing out the nasty stuff (which Zoika is very unlikely to have), then we can deploy their space-based fighters. Those can obviously go into orbit and are easily capable of cruising at hypersonic speeds. They are also (at least according to Rogue Trader) about as armored as a 40K-APC, so they would get close to total immunity to missiles. However, they are also about 70m long

Or we look at the Land Speeder Tempest - the Space Marine equivalant to a fighter yet. It features heavier armor than a standard Land Speeder (about as good as a Rhino) and is, again, capable of supercruising. It also operates largely due to antigrav, altough the forward propulsion is provided by a jet turbine. It features an assault cannon (think of the A10 Thunderbolt) and two missile launchers with a variety of missiles, both guided and unguided.

Again, Zoica is unlikely to have that. They might be able to field the equivalent of Thunderbolt-fighters. Those have armor comparable to a Rhino APC and are capable to cruise at about 1600 kph, with max speeds of about 2200 kph and a range of 12000 km. They sport 4 autocannons and two lascannons and can be armed with a variety of bombs and missiles in addition to that. Forgeworld lists their armor as about 45mm, tough how effective that armor is depends on the materials used.

It's more likely that they could build Hell Blades, Chaos Interceptors. Those are faster than Thunderbolts (2800 kph) but have shorter range, only 4 autocannons and generally weaker armor.

The best imperial anti-fighter aircraft meant to be deployed in an atmosphere is the Lightning Interceptor. It has a cruising speed of about 1800 kph, a max speed of 2400 kph and (if equipped with additional boosters) a maximum operational ceiling of 36 km. It has one long-range autocannon with advanced anti-aircraft guidance (effective range is several kilometers), two lascannons which are meant for shorter ranges, anti-ground action or against superheavy fliers. It always carries 4 anti-air missiles with significant range. It's armor is somewhat weaker - some parts still have the same 45mm armor as the Thunderbolt, but the rest only sports 30mm armor.


The information above is mostly taken from Forge World and some Apocalypse-releases.

[Gunhead]

I measured cost by the only viable way you can in 40K since we don't really have a measure how expensive a piece of equipment is, I looked at proliferation. If a lascannon is routinely employed as a platoon level support weapon and is commonly placed on armored vehicles, makes it in my books easily affordable as a dedicated AA-weapon, if it had the capability to perform in this role. It does seem more likely laser AAA assets are built for that role. I'm not saying there should only be laser AAA in the IG arsenal, hell no. In terms of from detection to action to effect, autocannons haven't got shit on lasers, meaning lasers would be immensely valuable addition to anyone. Even if employed just to provide cover against missiles / rockets.

-Gunhead

[madd0ct0r]

Thinking about this a little more.

all I really know of asphodel is this thread (He's crazy and likes big vehicles). assuming he has no other chaos tricks to pull out (warp rift, nurgle's rot, the plague of unbelief, silver towers ect) then he might be a bit nonplussed by being so very far away from anywhere.

This might result in the entire hive being stripped down to motorize everything in his army - think dozens of his command center, dozens more of the woe machines. The remains of the hive become a shrine for chaos, with possible effects there.

I don't know if he'd strike out west towards Europe, or south to China and India. Heck, even West if he makes enough Woe machines sea worthy (possibly looting a Russian Sub graveyard to do so). He'd easily get a few months of construction time while world powers argue about what to do and who to blame, and russia cannot get troops there particularly quickly.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Thinking about this a little more.

all I really know of asphodel is this thread (He's crazy and likes big vehicles). assuming he has no other chaos tricks to pull out (warp rift, nurgle's rot, the plague of unbelief, silver towers ect) then he might be a bit nonplussed by being so very far away from anywhere.
.

? (To the bolded).


The warp craft he did display was great personal combat ability (irrelevant, unless someone's stupid enough to meet him for diplomacy), great corruptive abilities (but unknown, and certainly not on the scale shown by the Chaos corrupter in the most recent Ciaphas Cain books (Who converted anyone within earshot en masse pretty much), good enough to completely control someone who heard too much of just the radio chatter (not even personally) (The Hive governor, who was corrupted by Chaos com chatter due to having access to the com systems 24/7, causing him to drop the shields and turn traitor, despite not even being offered anything. He just went insane/despaired.)

[Todeswind]

The sliver towers of Tzeench are Baneblade mounted sorcery weapons

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Chaos_Vehicles

I think he means Destroyer Plague as the plauge of unbelief refers to a historical period in 40k.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plague_of_Unbelief

Warp powers are, for all intents and purposes, magic. That means that one can do damn near anything with it. Trying to pin down the tactical applications of magic seems like a wasted effort as 40k has shown psychic powers to be capable of anything from mind-reading to the destruction of entire star systems ala. Storm of the Emperor's Wrath. It's well established that entire planetary population enslaving powers like those demonstrated in the Caifus Cain series are uncommon the presence of psychers for long range (interplanetary) communications are damn near essential to the functioning of even non-heretical governments and it would be foolish to assume that followers of chaos don't have a decent number of warp gifted soldiers doing that daemon summoning Mojo.

[Connor MacLeod]

I measured cost by the only viable way you can in 40K since we don't really have a measure how expensive a piece of equipment is, I looked at proliferation. If a lascannon is routinely employed as a platoon level support weapon and is commonly placed on armored vehicles, makes it in my books easily affordable as a dedicated AA-weapon, if it had the capability to perform in this role. It does seem more likely laser AAA assets are built for that role. I'm not saying there should only be laser AAA in the IG arsenal, hell no. In terms of from detection to action to effect, autocannons haven't got shit on lasers, meaning lasers would be immensely valuable addition to anyone. Even if employed just to provide cover against missiles / rockets.

Except that can be misleading because it doesn't factor in rational/irrational approaches, both fo which apply. The AdMech's peculiar views on technology seem to influence things (EG some refuse to do things a certain away because it is not "STC" while other AdMech are more flexible, at least when an emergency demands it.) whilst others may be more practical (the souped up engines of Salamanders and some Russes, the numerous times the Space Marines have designed or modified craft without AdMech approval, etc.) It also doesn't account for variations due to tech level and the general inconsistent standardization of tech in the Imperium in general - not all lascannon are precisely identical in all respects, for example (Some might have better targeting than others, etc.) or they may not. And then some pieces of equipment may be more common on some planets but not on others for various reasons (Tech level again - hive worlds are more likely to have high tech gear than agri or mining worlds for example, and tech sharing is not done automatically, esp among the AdMech.)

[Connor MacLeod]

If you had a plane made of half inch thick steel it would be highly resistant to any air to air missile warhead, but you’d need pure anti gravity to make something fly that can resist larger medium and heavy SAM warheads or a contact hit from an AMRAAM. Armor would need to be more like 75mm steel equivalence for certain protection, 50mm would stop the vast majority of fragments even when they are going 7,000fps. But even this isn’t certain survive because in the face of a close range explosion a plane stands a fair chance of simply being thrown out of control through the sky by the blast. This effect alone can make a completely undamaged aircraft crash, if it doesn’t have significant altitude for recovery or has bad stall characteristics.

Also the key thing is most air to air warheads are modular, particularly in the case of the US AMRAAM. New warheads with shaped charges could be fielded in a timescale of a few months so the world isn’t stuck with its existing warheads for the years that completely new missile designs would take. Many existing warheads already have some fairly exotic and classified controlled fragmentation effects which would make the more effective on hard targets then a simple blast-frag warhead. Modern planes don’t have a lot of armor, but they are built VERY strong to be able to maneuver and fight the way they do so target hardness has been a major concern for warhead designers.

Another thing it occured to me to point out is that lascannon won't neccesarily tell us much about durability vs missiles because of differing damage mechanisms. A 40K plane needs good thermal resistance to resist laser fire, and this could be built into the design of the plane due to the need to reach orbital velocity and perform reentry multiple times. But they wouldn't neccesarily need dramatically greater mechanical resistance than modern planes (at least I don't think so) to be resistant to those things, and so could in theory be harmed by missiles.

Autocannon might be more of a comparison, if we had more data (but evne without, for the reasons I outlined above, the difference between modern and Zoica is not likely to be insurmountable in this case, assuming Zoicans can put anything like an air force together to begin with.)

Of course all this presumes that 40K aircraft operate at speeds and heights compatible with existing anti aircraft weaponry; which seems to be the case from anything I’ve ever seen on the 40K planes. Most of them look like achieving mach 1 would be utterly impossible with a turbine engine. You’d need something that can just make arbitrary levels of thrust like a rocket or anti gravity propulsion. If the 40K planes can’t break mach 1 then the only real hope they’d have is either near immunity to missiles or vastly superior numbers. Few planes can supercruise compared to the total world fighter fleet; but enough of them can to matter and plenty of the others have a very useful range of supersonic performance.

Again it depends. Some planes (especialyl those modified for space use or hybrid space/atmosphere use) do seem to have rocket engines or plasma engines. Anti-grav is something I have considered (although officially that is supposed to be "rare/unused" tech in the Imperium, but to make the plane works we'd have to make allowances and it is still possible.) Of course, some planes might very well just use a turbine and be subsonic - that is quite possible as well (although the same stats make them supersonic.. so go figure.) I HAVE wondered just how un-aerodynamic that design was, so that answers one of my questions

Anyways, against modern planes I was less concerned about speed than I was about numbers or engagement ranges. I'm pretty sure the combined air forces of the world could throw out a truly immense number of fighters - hell the US and Russia and China alone I bet could field a huge number by themselves.

[Connor MacLeod]

Warp powers are, for all intents and purposes, magic. That means that one can do damn near anything with it. Trying to pin down the tactical applications of magic seems like a wasted effort as 40k has shown psychic powers to be capable of anything from mind-reading to the destruction of entire star systems ala. Storm of the Emperor's Wrath. It's well established that entire planetary population enslaving powers like those demonstrated in the Caifus Cain series are uncommon the presence of psychers for long range (interplanetary) communications are damn near essential to the functioning of even non-heretical governments and it would be foolish to assume that followers of chaos don't have a decent number of warp gifted soldiers doing that daemon summoning Mojo.

If Apshodel had shown an inclination or ability with the more direct and nastier forms of warp magic (or a predilection towards one Chgaos God over others) I might agree that Chaos magic might be a valuable asset on his side. As it is, his chaos magic was fairly limited in Necropolis. Some super-powerful soldier bodyguards and a CSM-like body for himself, extremely good persuasive/hypontic powers and mind influencing abilities (At least through auditory means) and a tendency to build fucking bizarre vehicles. I don't think those demonstrated abilities will be effective or useful enough against someone who is both more numerous and generally from a less warp-oriented universe (hell Asphodel's access to the Warp is bound to be more limited anyhow)

[Serafina]

Actually, antigrav-technology is not that rare. Compact, high-performance anti-grav engines (such as in the Land Speeder) are rare, but antigrav-technology in general isn't.
In one of the Gaunts Ghosts novels, they are using gravchutes instead of parachutes. IIRC, those are essentially large backpacks that essentially allow a human to "hover" - they can go upwards at a slow speed and are not all that maneuverable, but they can completely lift a soldier and his equipment. More importantly, they are more-or-less standard equipment for such operations.
Grav chutes are also widely used by Storm Troopers for aerial insertion and can allow safe landings from very small heights.

Given the heavy armor and high weight of imperial planes, it would make sense for them to incorporate some small anti-grav generators to support their weight. That would also explain some of the good VTOL-capabilities observed in them, even when their engine layout would not permit such a feat.

[Connor MacLeod]

Actually, antigrav-technology is not that rare. Compact, high-performance anti-grav engines (such as in the Land Speeder) are rare, but antigrav-technology in general isn't.
In one of the Gaunts Ghosts novels, they are using gravchutes instead of parachutes. IIRC, those are essentially large backpacks that essentially allow a human to "hover" - they can go upwards at a slow speed and are not all that maneuverable, but they can completely lift a soldier and his equipment. More importantly, they are more-or-less standard equipment for such operations.

It isn't in some parts of the Imperium, but its usage is not consistent, its implementation is likewise inconsistent (EG LAND SPEEDERS ONLY FOR SPACE MARINES, but not using suspensors to amke a gravtank for anyone even though they should be able to, except by implication.) For that matter I'm doubtful one can simply "scale up" from suspensors in certain applications (small scale ones) to large scale (EG tank or fighter) so that may very well be an issue too (Engineering not being a strong point of mine.)

Grav chutes are also widely used by Storm Troopers for aerial insertion and can allow safe landings from very small heights.

Most drop tropos and Storm Trooper regiments are also arguably on the "high end" scale of the Guard forces, as they often use Valkyries as well (and in the Storm troopers case, carapace, hellguns, and targeters.) This isn't really helping the argument that "anti-grav is common.")

Given the heavy armor and high weight of imperial planes, it would make sense for them to incorporate some small anti-grav generators to support their weight. That would also explain some of the good VTOL-capabilities observed in them, even when their engine layout would not permit such a feat.

40K planes aren't all that massive compared to modern ones. The F-15 Eagle is nearly as massive as a Thunderbolt, and the F-14 Tomcat is actually a bit heavier. As far as "armor thickness" goes" we don't exactly know how thick the airframe on a modern fighter is, but given roughly equal masses greater thickness might not be a good thing (more thickness means more volume, and less density for a given tonnage of vehicle. Of course the armor/durability issue is alot more complicated than that, but since we're talking Zoicans there is a limit to how "sophisticated" the plane armor is likely to get anyhow.)

[Sea Skimmer]

Another thing it occured to me to point out is that lascannon won't neccesarily tell us much about durability vs missiles because of differing damage mechanisms. A 40K plane needs good thermal resistance to resist laser fire, and this could be built into the design of the plane due to the need to reach orbital velocity and perform reentry multiple times. But they wouldn't neccesarily need dramatically greater mechanical resistance than modern planes (at least I don't think so) to be resistant to those things, and so could in theory be harmed by missiles.

Lots of ways you might do cooling/thermal resistance of the skin would in fact make the plane easier to damage with other weapons; though some materials like Molybdenum have high strength and high thermal tolerances.

Again it depends. Some planes (especialyl those modified for space use or hybrid space/atmosphere use) do seem to have rocket engines or plasma engines. Anti-grav is something I have considered (although officially that is supposed to be "rare/unused" tech in the Imperium, but to make the plane works we'd have to make allowances and it is still possible.) Of course, some planes might very well just use a turbine and be subsonic - that is quite possible as well (although the same stats make them supersonic.. so go figure.) I HAVE wondered just how un-aerodynamic that design was, so that answers one of my questions

Most of the 40K plane I've seen looked like they would start running into problems at anything much above helicopter speeds, without anti gravity or a completely insane say 32 axis multi port thrust vector control systems on some of them flying at all would be very hard to accomplish. That's totally ignoring if the wings would even make lift too. The area rule is kind of important for transonic flight; and while you can go over mach 1 without it, some 40K aircraft are basically designed in the complete opposite way with flat surfaces pointing forwards... this isn't gonna work.

Anyways, against modern planes I was less concerned about speed than I was about numbers or engagement ranges. I'm pretty sure the combined air forces of the world could throw out a truly immense number of fighters - hell the US and Russia and China alone I bet could field a huge number by themselves.

Speed lets you dictate the terms of the engagement, and accept or decline at will. That can outweigh major disadvantages in numbers or starting position, and it makes a big difference in how far your missiles can fly.

[madd0ct0r]

[quote="The Grim Squeaker"

great corruptive abilities (but unknown, and certainly not on the scale shown by the Chaos corrupter in the most recent Ciaphas Cain books (Who converted anyone within earshot en masse pretty much), good enough to completely control someone who heard too much of just the radio chatter (not even personally) (The Hive governor, who was corrupted by Chaos com chatter due to having access to the com systems 24/7, causing him to drop the shields and turn traitor, despite not even being offered anything. He just went insane/despaired.)[/quote]


I think this really should be taken into consideration - how many army units, code breakers or translators are going to start turning up to work with an 8 pointed star carved into their forehead?

It doesn't even need to be controlled, just enough to cause chaos (hah), fragmenting the opposition and setting them against each other.