I think your point is greater standardization is a better asset, rather than "simpler logistics" (After all you can simplify logistics just by not equipping your troops with grenade or rocket launchers or autocannons too and running your tanks on bark.. -but I take your meaning.) Speed matters too, but speed is going to depend on context (EG SW hyperdrive speeds aren't fixed any more than 40K is. SW has arguably MORE reliable and consistent FTL, and has a potential speed advantage, but the point to which they exploit it is one of those "depends on" things. Likewise, 40K warp travel will "depend on" various situations - least of which being the condition of the warp. This can be especially true in an offensive sense - is the Warp in STar Wars as turbulent as 40K? Likewise, how does Star Wars deal with navigating in the 40K galaxy? What about other groups like Eldar, Necrons, etc? It's quite possible the Imperium can cooperate with them if SW represents a serious enough threat. They have before. up to and including sharing webway access during the Gothic war.)Gunhead wrote:How much of an advantage depends the exact nature how and where they're fighting. It's an advantage, not necessarily a war winning or even a major one. Long endurance wasn't what I was going for but how consistently can you supply your troops and what can you do to simplify it. But if you can get by with say fuel, blaster gas, artillery shells, missiles (of all types) and lets throw in some other energy pack for the blasters too. That's five types of stuff you need to haul to your troops. This is logistically better than, lasgun packs, fuel, Heavy Stubber shells, Bolt rounds (of any type), artillery shells, mortar shells, plasma canisters, autocannon rounds (of different types), tank shells, quite possibly vehicular bombard and mortar rounds, missiles (of all types). Simpler logistics = better, and SW in it's own universe can build a far more reliable logistics train because their speed is fast and above all else it's reliable which is a big point when you design logistics and they have a reliable and fast way of communicating which means they can divert their resources very quickly to where they're needed.
It's better to say "the potential is there" but that's true of alot of things WRT Star Wars - "the potential is there." I mean fuck, they can "simplify logistics" just by spamming a massive droid and starship army equipped entirely with energy weapons. Or just sending droid tanks and droid battleships to crush the enemy. They don't even need to worry about resupply if they make them deliberately expendable, do they? Or dont' even bother with warships. Pull a Galaxy gun (hyperdrive equipped doom missiles spammed over every systme in the galaxy.) What its basically coming down to is "how intelligently does one think SW is capable of fighting at, and/or how long it takes them to figure this out" vs "how intelligently will 40K fight, and how likely are they to figure it out.)
You may actually be over-estimating the standardization. Who knows if there is a "munitorum approved" fuel, or if it's even consistent from sector to sector? It can get that much muddled. What about nutritional requirement sof Gaurdsmen? It's been stated in the Munitorum manual, for xample, that if dietary and ration requirements aren't carfully watched, you can hurt or even kill guardsmen by giving them the wrong food IIRC. Hell Promethium runs the gamut from "fossil fuel with a fancy name" analogue to "implied to be hydrogen like stuff" in other sources, to "Promethium fusion reactors" - yes some sources actually have indicated promethium is a starship fuel source.) I don't think that's arguing they have "nuclear powereD" tanks as a rule (but who knows, there's like thousands of sectors out there) but fuel cell or battery powered vehicles isn't impossible (a good example of the latter is the Tauros Venator, and I know fuel cells have been mentioned for tanks before somewhere, but the source eludes me.)I'm not saying every IG army has all the above mentioned stuff in their inventory, it's just each inventory item the IG has means someone somewhere has to figure out how to supply them or swap their weapons / equipment to something else. This complicates logistics. Yes I know IG vehicles can run on variety of fuels, but basically the big issue is the drop in performance so no sane commander would plan on using anything other than munitorum approved fuel for his vehicles for his operations. The other thing would be the probable increase in breakdowns and maintenance which again would put more demands on the logistics.
The closest to a consistent logisitcs line is perhaps from the HH novels and the Great Crusade, when you had Mars basically shouldering the burden for much (although its implied in some source to be ALL) the supply and outfitting of the Expedtionary fleets (including building the starships and presumably food.)
Offensively, yes I can see this being a problem, depending on how they organize or deploy the forces (EG from where, etc.) Defensively.. less so. Especially for garrison regiments (which I suspect, are most of them. At least for the tithed regiments from the PDF. Conscripts are another story.)
Well what I had in mind when I said that was something along these lines: There are probably 3 categories when it comes to attrition warfare: Probably works, might work, and never works.How often attrition warfare happens? I don't really assume anything about the frequency, just noting that these grind matches are very often depicted in IG fluff. You just shouldn't try it against a foe that has the luxury to fight closer to his supply lines than you and can outmatch you materially and manpower wise which shouldn't really be hard for a world with a significant population base and manufacturing capability to match. Basically anytime IG invades a major population center it can be drawn into a war of attrition and this is a bad idea since your supply even from a nearby world can be disrupted by conditions beyond your control in addition to any enemy activity that can halt your supply. On planet resources in your control are closer and you can do a lot to protect those.
The first category are those its most likely to work against. I consider these to be isolated Imperial worlds mainly, or worlds under assault by rebels or Chaos bands. Basically the Evil version of the Imperium - they may be trained soldiers or cultists/madmen. They may also be normal humans not mutated much by Chaos (but worshipping it) or they could be flat out mutant superhuman loons (or not just superhuman, they may be so crazy that pain/injury matters not a whit to them, and they'll kill themselves to take the enemy down.) I say "probably" works, because I suspect that if your enemy is as trained as you are (EG traitor guardsmen or blood pact) then trying to grind them down is likely to be very bloody and costly (compared to taking down untrained terrorists.) We might throw Genestealer cults into this category and random xenos-inspired/controlled rebels as well.
The "never work" category is pretty simple: Basically it includes the Nids and the Orks. I set them apart because the Imperium has to know that they are both outnumbered by both species, but by the fact that both orks and 'nids can basically outbreed them (it takes far less time to create a new 'nid or Ork, whereas a human takes a decade or two to grow to maturity.) Attrition *might* work against Orks in the short term, but the WAAAGH effect is quite likely to just draw more forces there sooner or later to start up, assuming feral orks don't start trouble on their own (Armageddon being a good example here.) and the 'Nids can never be out-attritioned by conventional warfare, period. "limitless might" in context of these races is both propoganda and a joke.
The "might work" category includes basically everyone else: The Eldar, the Tau, the Necrons. As of the recent codex, the 'Crons have some millions of tomb worlds, with potentially trillions of troops, each of which is superior to a Guardsmen. And who can self-repair. I'm actually inclined to say they can't be out-attritioned by the self-repair capability and durability alone, but its not impossible to defeat them (although Krieg tried attrition in Dead Men Walking - I dont think it worked too well there as I recall.) The Eldar and tau in theory *could* be out attritioned, but I suspect that the Tau and Eldar way of fighting make that exceedingly bloody to do. Moreso against Eldar than against Tau (they tried it in Path of the Eldar series against Altaioc., it isn't going too well so far..). The Tau might be more vulnerable if it came down to an assault on Sept Worlds, but the Imperium has never been able to bring enough troops ever to bear. The largest assaults I know of were both tAros and Damocles gulf, which involved fewer than 100 starships and tens of thousands of troops. Not exactly major incursions. Also the Tau have gotten into the habit of throwing their (human) auxiliaries at IG troops to "fight fire with fire" as Deathwatch Achilus assault puts it in Jericho reach, which is pretty messy...
If its chaos or someone rebelling? I think you have a point. However, I think it's quite as likely, if not more, that they face some random xenos threat. There's thousands, perhaps millions of smaller, "local" (to a sector or subsector) xenos threats that crop up constantly - from the Saruthi in Eisenhorn to any of the threats mentioned in the FFG materials, to groups like the Tau. That can be a huge problem to cope with from the intel/preparation standpoint (something mentioned in John Scalzi's "OLd Man's War" series I always thought was interesting.)Now this is something I am assuming and it's IG most often fights another IG army or something very close to it. If asked I'd say you could put an army on transports and keep them going for 30 days at a time. Anything above that and I say it's stupid.
If we're talking a major crusade, then yeah, some of this happens. Although it's also mentioned at some point they expect the Crusade to make inroads and conquests and start to rely more on "local" forces providing resources and supplies (EG places like Verghast in the Sabbat World's Crusade or places in the Jericho Reach crusade.) rather than relying on the Imperium itself to do so.) Drawing resources from within a sector of space can simplify logistics greatly in those cases, if it can be pulled off. Again though this is a "depends on variables" type situation.. I'm not sure how much you can really generalize about that, beyond "Star Wars has potentially faster and more standardized logistics than 40K does." Though to be fair I can think of some interesting logistical issues on the Empire side. The Imperial Sourcebook, for example, mentions that they have something like 1.5 million troops per sector, yet they havne't been able to fully outfit squads with a light repeating blaster (SW equivalent of a LMG/SAW, I guess) - every sector has at least some squads outfitted, but they havne't been completely outfitted in those same sectors (less than half of squads in a given sector, IIRC.) From other sources I recall, army units also tend to have something of a lotto match when it comes to body armor, long rifles (something other than an E-11) camo, and support weapons like rocket/missile launchers. They did come with grenades, NVG/anti flash protection, and comlink sin the helmets though, which gives them some advantages ove rthe Guard (esp in the NVG department.)To summarize, all what I've said here means that when IG goes to war against another planet it foremost tries to haul with it a significant portion of the supplies it projects it needs to complete the job at hand which should guarantee they have enough to wait for additional supplies to arrive and aims first to occupy on planet resources that can be used to guarantee the continuation of the campaign if it gets protracted and that IG should not seek to start a war of attrition when attacking as a general rule and on defence only if they feel confident they have enough resources to make it work. Well thats what I think anyway.
-Gunhead
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- PeZook
