Unarmored Space Marine vs. MCU Captain America

[Simon_Jester]

Okay, to be fair, it may take a beating well below Hulk's level.

There aren't a lot of things in the mainstream MCU that are, in terms of raw physical strength, obviously a LOT stronger than Cap, but still a lot weaker than the Hulk. Iron Man suits are the one thing that may fall into this category; note that Stark's suit had taken significant cumulative damage before that final fistfight between him and Cap. There may be more examples in, say, Agents of SHIELD. I don't know.

Also, I'm talking about the amount of beating required to put Loki down, to completely disable him such that he is simply no longer a threat and will not recover in a tactically significant amount of time. I get the feeling that Asgardians (and Jotun) have remarkable endurance- we've seen Loki get hit with bombs and powerful energy weapons and they barely seem to inconvenience him.

[Kojiro]

note that Stark's suit had taken significant cumulative damage before that final fistfight between him and Cap.

Just to get back to the actual topic, it's worth noting that Cap was able to bring the shield down hard enough to actually embed it (cracking the arc reactor) in Stark's suit. Granted a two handed, overhead smash but still, Iron Man suits are supposed to be incredibly durable. Even the MK3 from IM1 was able to withstand- without appreciable damage- a direct hit to the chest by a tank round of some sort. This.. MK 47+ presumably provides at least that level of protection (though for the life of me I can't see how something made of so many moving, interlocking parts and joints is as durable as solid pieces).

[Simon_Jester]

The breastplate is a single solid piece so far as I know, isn't it? So that should be comparable, at least.

Honestly, the shield seems to be... well, I think Spidey nailed it, it doesn't obey the laws of physics at all. Sometimes the edge acts as though it's a hypersharp weapon; sometimes it acts like a blunt instrument (for purposes of denting things rather than slicing them open).

[Kojiro]

The breastplate is a single solid piece so far as I know, isn't it? So that should be comparable, at least.

I think the last 'solid piece' chest piece we saw was the MKVII. Since IM3, they've given the suits a 'step in/out' mechanism that let's Stark, literally, step into or out of a suit. Certainly up to the MKVIII they were single pieces that were directly attached or folded down over Stark's head.

Literally the whole suit has to have a seam that splits. Realistically of course having such joints would massively weaken any sort of armour (in addition to the complexity of actuating such a split) but it's a comic book movie so... eh. The IM suits are stupidly advanced now. Not only are they articulated enough to fully open up but they have their own power sources and repulsor flight systems in each individual piece. Could be such suits are weaker but trading safety for convenience seems like a poor move.

[Simon_Jester]

We haven't seen anything capable of penetrating Stark's armor material, even in limited thicknesses, that isn't also capable of penetrating the heaviest suits Stark can reasonably wear.

The Hulk can drive a piece of metal bar hard enough to punch through a Hulkbuster arm- but that would presumably impale a normal suit. Extremis supersoldiers can cut through with their superheated bodies- but they cut through solidly built suits too. And so it goes.

The biggest danger with the articulated chest plate might well be sheer blunt impact force smashing the joint in and crushing Stark's ribcage; I can think of a few counters to that (say, reinforcing bars that slide into place across the joint)

[Kojiro]

We haven't seen anything capable of penetrating Stark's armor material, even in limited thicknesses, that isn't also capable of penetrating the heaviest suits Stark can reasonably wear.

The Hulk can drive a piece of metal bar hard enough to punch through a Hulkbuster arm- but that would presumably impale a normal suit. Extremis supersoldiers can cut through with their superheated bodies- but they cut through solidly built suits too. And so it goes.

The biggest danger with the articulated chest plate might well be sheer blunt impact force smashing the joint in and crushing Stark's ribcage; I can think of a few counters to that (say, reinforcing bars that slide into place across the joint)

I had a long answer to this all but my browser ate it

Short versions:
1) Venko's whips destroy parts of the lighter MKV armour but his heavier ones fail to destroy parts of the MKVII, heavily implying armour quantity matters.

2) Most IM suits are only a few cm to inches thick. Think about what it must take for something like a gauntlet to fly to Tony's hand on command. First it needs some sort of signal to realise it's being called. Now it needs to ascertain where it is in relation to Tony. Next it needs to power up it's thrusters- concealed thrusters- and fly to Tony at high speed to precisely latch onto his arm. That latching on- without breaking his fingers or wrist- is going to require some sort of processor and sensors to guide the thing in. All this in a package that is at best a few cm thick, and that thickness includes armour, to say nothing of the weapon systems in there or the servos and motors that drive the actual armour (remember it's still power armour granting great strength). On top of that the whole system splits apart at the drop of a hat, requiring more servos and motors for that function.

In short, there's gotta be an upper limit on how much you can pack into an IM suit. If you want the chest to split open sure, you can do that. But you're gonna have to either a) make the suit bigger or b) clear something out to make way for the servos and linkages. Or in this case flight systems, thrusters, CPUs, sensors and power sources.

[Zor]

Remember that space marines can be euthanized under battlefield conditions using a captive bolt gun to the temple.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

A captive bolt gun hits really really hard; it is designed to literally be powerful enough to instantly stun an ox by inflicting so much blunt damage that significant parts of their brain are crushed and destroyed. And to do so very, very reliably.

If Captain America can reliably knock out an ox with one punch to the forehead, then he hits about as hard as a captive bolt gun.

[NecronLord]

Remember that space marines can be euthanized under battlefield conditions using a captive bolt gun to the temple.

Zor

Source. Because I'm 100% sure you're confusing a 40K bolt gun with the IRL thing. The Emperor's Mercy is done using sidearms.

[Kojiro]

Those are from pages 27 and 28 of the Compendium. Granted there may be other (newer) sources that detail the act done with a sidearm (the scale of conflict alone would make such an inevitability) but I'm not aware of anything contradicting the old stuff.

[Simon_Jester]

It would hardly surprise me if a Space Marine's skull were NOT tougher than that of an ox. Although there are reasons to assume it might be (e.g. cerametal reinforcement)

[NecronLord]

So a source from when space marines were six (6) foot tall and the measure of every weapon was how many marines it killed per trigger pull?

And even then it's a dedicated device made for task and cranked by other marines.

[NecronLord]

I should note that a large amount - possibly including the sections you quote, I'd have to look at the girlfriend's copy which isn't available to me at the moment - of early space marine lore was recently republished as 'Apocrypha' and the book very much doesn't treat Rogue Trader marines as canonical.

Index Astartes: Apocrypha

There's no real merit in comparing Rogue Trader period marines to an actual, factual Super Hero. The modern interpretations of marines, sure, they're much more comparable. Rogue Trader ones were far less super. Rogue Trader-era writers would have looked at wank like a single marine fighting an entire planet of orks for years on end and just laughed at it and maybe called it Imperial propaganda.

[Kojiro]

I should note that a large amount - possibly including the sections you quote, I'd have to look at the girlfriend's copy which isn't available to me at the moment - of early space marine lore was recently republished as 'Apocrypha' and the book very much doesn't treat Rogue Trader marines as canonical.

It's mix and match. The Compendium contains the 'making of a space marine' which remains largely unchanged to this day. But it also contains Squats... so. If there's a newer source that contradicts the old fluff then consider that current canon. But GW has a... ramshackle, to say the least, canon policy. As I said, could be they've stated otherwise but I'm inclined to let the old fluff persist until actively replaced. I don't see any reason why a medic couldn't carry a suitably powerful mercy tool for a marine- it's not like penetrating a marine's temple is insurmountable for their tech.

There's no real merit in comparing Rogue Trader period marines to an actual, factual Super Hero. The modern interpretations of marines, sure, they're much more comparable. Rogue Trader ones were far less super. Rogue Trader-era writers would have looked at wank like a single marine fighting an entire planet of orks for years on end and just laughed at it and maybe called it Imperial propaganda.

No argument here. There's been a fluff creep as well as tabletop power creep.