[40K]Titanicus question

[wautd]

Regarding 40K ground combat, I've only read the first Gaunts Ghost ombnibus and am now busy with Titanicus. If there is something that I came to notice is that scouting seems to happen mostly by ground forces. Hell, it even appears that fighting the enormous titans is a game of hide & seek. Why don't they simply use their ships or satellites to scout from orbit?

PS. I'm only at 25% of the book, so no spoilers about the novel please.

[Darksider]

Weren't the Chaos forces pulling some kind of warp voodoo that negated orbital scans during Titanicus?

[Purple]

IIRC Many of the heavier titans actually carry weapons that can shoot down satellites and starships. So perhaps going in close to find them might not be such a smart move.

[Aaron]

Weren't the Chaos forces pulling some kind of warp voodoo that negated orbital scans during Titanicus?

Yes.

[Black Admiral]

Weren't the Chaos forces pulling some kind of warp voodoo that negated orbital scans during Titanicus?

Partly; there was also Spoiler

the theatre shield blanking out orbital scans, as well as coms and solar power across a big chunk of Orestes

Regarding 40K ground combat, I've only read the first Gaunts Ghost ombnibus and am now busy with Titanicus. If there is something that I came to notice is that scouting seems to happen mostly by ground forces. Hell, it even appears that fighting the enormous titans is a game of hide & seek. Why don't they simply use their ships or satellites to scout from orbit?

PS. I'm only at 25% of the book, so no spoilers about the novel please.

The main thing is that the Chaos Titans are largely deployed in areas where they can, in effect, blend in - where their thermal, radar, magnetic etc. tracks can get lost in the background clutter. Thus, the only way to figure out if a particular track is actually a Titan waiting in ambush and not, say, thermal scatter from burning buildings or whatever, is to send someone in to look.

[Chris OFarrell]

Its also better if you don't think of Titans in terms of hiding on some place like Earth, where the very idea is absurd. They generally try to hide out in 40K type Hives and Industrial facilities, which ARE oten massive enough to easily hide even the biggest TItans from straight up, and emmit enough sensor interfearence that trying to detect their power emmisions from the other machines all around them can be downright impossible.

[IvanTih]

IIRC Many of the heavier titans actually carry weapons that can shoot down satellites and starships. So perhaps going in close to find them might not be such a smart move.

Execution Hour says otherwise.Titans would "barely scratch the surface of the hull".

[Zinegata]

Orbital scouting is actually done fairly often by the Imperium in 40K. If you read the second Gaunt's Ghost novel it will make mention of orbital units scanning the surface and detecting a massive Chaos force hiding in the jungle.

The problem, as with the present day, is that forces on the ground have learned to develop ways of fooling orbital scanning - i.e. by hiding in the terrain. This is particularly true in battles where there is a paucity of spaceborne assets - the Imperial space fleet involved in this particular campaign consisted mainly of a couple of transports.

Moreover, as you'll soon see, the Mechanicus does actually have an extremely sophisticated data-sharing network, albeit one that is always at risk of "corruption" (but more properly described as hacking)

[Simon_Jester]

"Paucity of spaceborne assets" probably describes a lot of campaigns. The Imperium has a large fleet, but the sheer age of the fleet should tip you off that their military shipyard capacity isn't very impressive. Granted that a ship five thousand years old was better when it was built than a ship that just rolled out of the yard yesterday in 40k, but that doesn't mean one ancient ship is better than two modern ships.

So a lot of Imperium ground campaigns, including ones large enough to involve superheavy Titan-scale ground units, cannot rely on a dedicated Imperial Navy presence to support the ground operations. Warships may be available for reconaissance, or they may not.

Naturally, the cases where orbital recon can't be done tend to be more challenging for the ground troops... which, in turn, makes for a more interesting story that's more likely to be told by Black Library authors. There's not much market for 40k stories that summarize as "well, that was easy and we all went home in a hurry."

[someone_else]

The main thing is that the Chaos Titans are largely deployed in areas where they can, in effect, blend in - where their thermal, radar, magnetic etc. tracks can get lost in the background clutter. Thus, the only way to figure out if a particular track is actually a Titan waiting in ambush and not, say, thermal scatter from burning buildings or whatever, is to send someone in to look.

Well, the "blend in" effect works for somewhat smaller sizes without active systems.
Troops, tanks, anything of realistic sizes can hide.
But I have my doubts that even a ("puny") warhound titan with an onboard fusion generator can "blend in" the background in any significant way without active magic cloaking/ECM devices. Unless you have 15 friggin meter tall natural warm-blooded fauna or dozens of burning buildings and fabs and stuffs and battles and explosions going on in that area at the same time, of course.
(or the cities described by Chris OFarrell)

That means, they may be a pain to target with orbital guns in a battle where they are engaged, but it's rather likely you will know they are around if they just "walk softly with a big gun".

Hell, you can easily use dozens of cheap seismometers and roughly triangulate their position from the vibration of their steps.

Reavers, Warlords and Emperors are far bigger, well into the Homongous Mecha size. The last two kinds may even be a threat to spacecrafts orbiting by.

Warships may be available for reconaissance, or they may not.

Carve it on stone. Warships and frigates and whatever, aren't there to support ground units.

Although air reconnissance (aircrafts mostly) would be a half-good idea.

[Black Admiral]

The main thing is that the Chaos Titans are largely deployed in areas where they can, in effect, blend in - where their thermal, radar, magnetic etc. tracks can get lost in the background clutter. Thus, the only way to figure out if a particular track is actually a Titan waiting in ambush and not, say, thermal scatter from burning buildings or whatever, is to send someone in to look.

Well, the "blend in" effect works for somewhat smaller sizes without active systems.
Troops, tanks, anything of realistic sizes can hide.
But I have my doubts that even a ("puny") warhound titan with an onboard fusion generator can "blend in" the background in any significant way without active magic cloaking/ECM devices. Unless you have 15 friggin meter tall natural warm-blooded fauna or dozens of burning buildings and fabs and stuffs and battles and explosions going on in that area at the same time, of course.
(or the cities described by Chris OFarrell)

That means, they may be a pain to target with orbital guns in a battle where they are engaged, but it's rather likely you will know they are around if they just "walk softly with a big gun".

Hell, you can easily use dozens of cheap seismometers and roughly triangulate their position from the vibration of their steps.

Reavers, Warlords and Emperors are far bigger, well into the Homongous Mecha size. The last two kinds may even be a threat to spacecrafts orbiting by.

Taking the specific circumstances in Titanicus, the Legios Tempestus and Invicta are fighting on a Forge World (Orestes), but they're dealing with Chaos Titans waiting in ambush in areas specifically chosen because the environment has factors (high metal/mineral content, abandoned urban or factory districts, local firestorms, etc.) which make them harder to detect while lurking; while the Chaos forces were on the offensive until Invicta's arrival, the Orestean forces didn't have any orbital support, or remotely adequate aerial reconnaissance assets (hardly surprising, as Orestes had been stripped virtually naked to reinforce the Sabbat Worlds Crusade).

And, no, Warlords and Imperators aren't a threat to anything larger than a dropship. The disparity in scale between them and any actual warship (even an SDF sublight-only monitor) is utterly enormous.

[PainRack]

Hell, in the first Gaunt Omnibus, its also mentioned in all 3 novels that explicit jamming or Chaos voodoo was preventing Imperium scanning or comns. The first book opened up with an artillery bombardment which shattered comns. There's that whole pyschic storm which prevented both pyschic comns as well as physical sensors.

[Connor MacLeod]

"Paucity of spaceborne assets" probably describes a lot of campaigns. The Imperium has a large fleet, but the sheer age of the fleet should tip you off that their military shipyard capacity isn't very impressive. Granted that a ship five thousand years old was better when it was built than a ship that just rolled out of the yard yesterday in 40k, but that doesn't mean one ancient ship is better than two modern ships.

actually one of the reasons they tend to use older vessels is precisely because they tend to have better tech. That may in fact be the only reason why they keep some stuff around but not others (BFG established the mothballed reserve fleets, where outdated vessels go to wait.) Grand cruisers, for example, are no longer built but they use battlecruisers instead. This tends to make "age" a rather bad benchmark for establishing shipbuilding capacity, especially since we know numbers exist: a couple of years or less for escort types (up to 1.5-2 km or so), a decade or so (or less in some cases, but can grow to decades or even centuires for others.) for cruiser sized vessels (which depending on your source could be as small as 3 km or as large as 8 km, even for the supposed same "class"). Battleships can range from decades to millenia, and also range in sizes from as little as 5-6 km long to tens of kilometers (upwards of 60+km) for Battleships and the big stuff.

The actual reasons for "paucity" if there is one is that they may not have the infrastructure at any given point to sustain as large a fleet as they wish, and that their requirements also tend to vary over time. The 40K galaxy is not a static one in so many ways, that there is always a good chance that shisp may be called away or detached for other duties. With needs to escort convoys, invasion fleets, defend important planets, etc. and the vast majority of ships either not being warp capable or lacking navigators, there is always a demand.

By the way, that distinction between "Navigator piloted, warp capable" is an important one, since those are the only truly pracitcal interstellar ships they have. everything else is limited to sector level (non navigator warp travel, and even then fairly slow) or sub-light (in-system) travel.

So a lot of Imperium ground campaigns, including ones large enough to involve superheavy Titan-scale ground units, cannot rely on a dedicated Imperial Navy presence to support the ground operations. Warships may be available for reconaissance, or they may not.

You don't *need* warships for orbital surveillance. They can and have deployed satellites and used fighters for such roles (some of those fighters get up to 100+ meters long remember) as well as using military transports to provide orbital recon (not always as good as a warship, but it works and you don't need sophisitcation to hunt down a freaking titan.)

It also can depend on the nature of the war. If its a defensive war (fending off an invasion) odds are good that the defending planet will already have its own warships (sublight ones at least) and orbital assets (battlestations, starships, etc.) that can fufill those sorts of roles. In offensive, if for some reason warships cannot be retained around the planet, they may use sublight warships (parasites), or set up space stations, defence platforms, or battlestations in or around orbit. Some of which may even be dedicated ground-bombardment platforms. (The most famous example of this are the warp capable Ramilies class Star forts, but there are less sophisticated options they use as well.)

Naturally, the cases where orbital recon can't be done tend to be more challenging for the ground troops... which, in turn, makes for a more interesting story that's more likely to be told by Black Library authors. There's not much market for 40k stories that summarize as "well, that was easy and we all went home in a hurry."

there are more than a few occasions where they simply blast a target from orbit rather than waste time landing troops. It's largely one of inclination of the commanding officers and the nature of the target (some may be shielded or otherwise protected. OR they may wish to limit collateral damage)

[Chris OFarrell]

They may also need to take a specific target intact, ruling out the big guns. And its not entirely possible that a lot of Guard units are just not suited or equipped for calling in organic fire support, dito the ships.

The fact that the Space Marines have their Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges specifically outfitted with their bombardment cannons suggests that many normal warship weapons may well lack the versatility needed to provide orbital fire support, at least in any level short of 'chop that ridge in half will you?'. Hell, Space Marines appear to be the only force who are trained in and routinely use orbital fire support in an offensive operation, part of their 'rapid hit shock and awe' nature, to provide the punch to backup their limited numbers.

[Darth Hoth]

IIRC Many of the heavier titans actually carry weapons that can shoot down satellites and starships. So perhaps going in close to find them might not be such a smart move.

I would rather doubt that. Given the firepower figures proposed by certain posters on this board, which seem to be generally accepted, it would presumably be somewhat unwise to fire such weapons inside the atmosphere of an inhabitable, Earth-like planet. And the recoil/momentum imparted on that hypothetical heavy titan would probably also be problematic, if the higher ranges were used.

[Black Admiral]

Hell, Space Marines appear to be the only force who are trained in and routinely use orbital fire support in an offensive operation, part of their 'rapid hit shock and awe' nature, to provide the punch to backup their limited numbers.

It's a doctrinal issue, yes, but on the Navy side - as explained in Ghostmaker, Navy doctrine is that orbital bombardment is, under normal circumstances, to be used solely for striking surface targets before troop deployment. Once the boots are on the ground, defence suppression & CAS become the responsibility of the fleet aerospace wing.

Of course, when the bomber squadrons are locked out of action by a psyker storm, and you've got to kill the daemon generating it ...

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

This has actually changed over the years, with the changing editions of the game; going back to the late-eighties/early nineties, first large-box-set editions of Epic- I mean, we're talking Eclipses and Nightgaunts here, almost- Titans had variable loadouts that could be swapped out one for another, and the heaviest weapons (which a Goth-variant Reaver could carry one of, a Deathbringer-variant Warlord two, and a Nemesis- variant Warlord four) explicitly included macrocannon and defence lasers.

These may or may not actually be the same macrocannon that form the main broadside armament of Imperial warships nowadays, and the same defence lasers that Gothic describes a lance battery as being composed as 'several' of, but these aren't the supermonsters like Imperators, this is the regular line of battle carrying what could well be intended as starship- class weaponry. Small amounts of it, maybe, but starship weapons nonetheless.

The modern version of Epic has moved away from that whole model, Titans have got a lot more linear in the way they take damage as well incidentally, but nowadays they use an odd variety of special weapons that are probably of lesser grade, defence lasers appearing only on the super-giant class.


Now I am actually inclined to treat this as an in- universe thing, ten thousand years of grimdark having an effect- considering the Epic box sets were originally set during the time of the Horus Heresy. In other words, a Heresy-era and pattern Titan in full operational condition could and did carry what was essentially space weaponry, but by the forty-first millennium only the very largest are still capable of it. The fact that they are no longer strategically on the attack may have something to do with this too.


Oh, and in Gothic, bombardment cannon are vicious- they are actually more destructive, at least against ship targets, than conventional macrocannon fire; and at least on the resolution Gothic is played at, they have no targeting advantages at all. Whatever advantages of precision it may have belong more to the hand at the targeting controls, I reckon.

[IvanTih]

IIRC Many of the heavier titans actually carry weapons that can shoot down satellites and starships. So perhaps going in close to find them might not be such a smart move.

I would rather doubt that. Given the firepower figures proposed by certain posters on this board, which seem to be generally accepted, it would presumably be somewhat unwise to fire such weapons inside the atmosphere of an inhabitable, Earth-like planet. And the recoil/momentum imparted on that hypothetical heavy titan would probably also be problematic, if the higher ranges were used.

Keep in mind,the Titans have been toned down from the earlier fluff.

[Connor MacLeod]

Keep in mind,the Titans have been toned down from the earlier fluff.

It would still have been silly even in earlier fluff. The problem is the whole "shooting down starships" idea was predicated on the fact some titans carry defence lasers. Some people jumped to the conclusion that "ALL DEFENCE LASERS ARE THE SAME" even though this is patently untrue. Defence lasers run the gamut of small, turreted point defense types that are used to shoot down fighters, drop pods, or drop shuttles, to the massive, fixed-axis and buried laser silos (such as those that defended MAcragge.) and are meant to attack large ships.

Also "starship" is not a precise term. That can refer to anything betwene a Battleship and a shuttle/fighter/bomber. Some 40K fighters after all are nearly the size of Titans themselves (certain Marauder variants, STarhawk and Fury starfighters, etc.) Its not unreasonable to expect a Titan to be able to shoot down a starfighter (hell many fighters, as per 40k apocalypse supplement can double as titan kilelrs themselves.) Also you dont need much firepower to actually shoot down a satellite.

[Srelex]

I vaguely remember something about Titans shooting down Tau starships during the Damocles Crusade. Is that correct, or did I pick up some crap a random internet poster peddled?

[Darksider]

Doesn't the Manta technically qualify as a Tau starship? A titan would certainly be able to shoot down one of those.

[DrStrangelove]

Doesn't the Manta technically qualify as a Tau starship? A titan would certainly be able to shoot down one of those.

A bomber

[Black Admiral]

I vaguely remember something about Titans shooting down Tau starships during the Damocles Crusade. Is that correct, or did I pick up some crap a random internet poster peddled?

Unless it was in reference to Mantas (not impossible), then I think someone may've played you for a silly bugger, mate. As unimpressive as Tau ships are overall, they can still put up a fight against Imperial ones and even outmatch them in some engagement types; as noted in Execution Hour, starships are rather bigger game than a Titan's the guns for.

[white_rabbit]

Keep in mind,the Titans have been toned down from the earlier fluff.

Keep in mind that Ivantih has utterly shit-all idea of what he is talking about.