Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that the world we live on is not in fact the homeworld of humanity but a lost colony from the Dark Age of technology. Human arrived 20,000 years ago, killed off the native neandrathols and here we are.

And now, the year 2008 (our calendar) the White Lion Space Marine Chapter (standard codex chapter) has been sent to bring us the Emperor's light.

They have 1000 battle brothers (plus servitors and thralls to crew vehicles), a battle barge or two, a couple of strike cruisers, drop pods, thunderhawks and all the normal marine vehicles and weapons.

We have 190 or so nation states, several million people under arms, 8 or 9 nuclear powers, with at least 3 of them having ICBMs that can reach orbit.

Although it is never really spelled out in the fluff (that I can see) let's also assume the Marines are not total fools. They have anthropolgists, linguists and sociologists who can monitor our transmissions and will know how our world works. At least as much as anyone could find out from publicly available information. We of course would know nothing about them.

Assume also they can be a bit practical and ally themselves with Earth nations willing to accept their terms.

Assume also marines and Earth forces perform more or less according to the game mechanics. Most earth troops are like IG, but without plasma, melta or las weapons. Our tanks have nothing more powerful than an autocannon. Nothing short of a LAW or TOW is going to penetrate marine armor.

They have faith in the Emperor.
We have faith in lots of stuff.

What constitutes winning for the Marines? Assume that there is a follow-up force of missionaries, arbites, Inquisitors and colonizing officials to handle the occupation. The Marines are there to force the capitulation or collapse of the major world governments and organized resistance. they don't have to worry about converting us or teaching us Imperial Gothic. However they would also want to take us more or less intact, say with at least 4 billion people (out of 5+ billion) our industry and natural resources usable.

So with all this in mind who'd win?

As Chapter Master of the White Lions what would your first move be?

I see two ways to do it.

1. Unsupported space marines don't take and hold planets, they just take them. I believe that Imperial forces would see our culturally and socially fragmented planet, identify our political breakdowns on a global scale, and then provide training and armament for one significant group (example: China, continent of Africa, etc) to take forcible dominion over all neighboring countries. Earthlings would provide the brute manpower for asserting Imperial rule over Earth, Marines would be used as the surgical strike force that they are to disable Industrialized command centers, ICBM launchers, and weapons manufacture.

2. Imperial Guard elements land on Earth and smash the living bejeezus out of everything. The M1 Abrams, I think, is significantly better than a Leman Russ in both armor and armament. This allows the U.S. to hold out against guard armored elements until Space Marines wipe out the bunkers and command centers that support our vehicle infrastructure. Again, surgical strike force, not take-and-hold.

If the purpose of the thinking exercise is to wonder how well Earth would stand up to a full chapter of marines, we'd lose any pitched battle. I mean, they have space ships. Marines, on the other hand, would be forced into a policing role, with perhaps as few as one Marine governing an entire country. This would allow life to continue almost as-is, except under the watchful eye of benevolent overlords. Free countries would lose freedoms, developing countries would gain stability. Overall win-win for the Earth Collective until the mechanicus shows up.

Correction, world population is 6.7 billion.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html#Military

I can't seem to find a worldwide figure for how many soldiers there are, I guess I could add them up for all 194 nations plus 70 dependencies but... yuk.

Heckva lot more than a 1000 though.

Well, as a practical imperial commander I'd yelp for backup. Clearly the earth is far more difficult to overcome than the typical lost colony, in particular in terms of its size and ICBMs. I'd want a far larger and more impressive fleet. I'd get the Admech's interest with the offer of Earth's obvious archeotech. We'd want to roll up in such ludicrous majesty that it would completely obliterate all notions of resistance. Make it clear that it's the galaxy vs. one world, and surrender is the only viable choice.

Sadly, it is unlikely that the Imperium would be able to spare the battlefleet necessary for this plan.

As a practical imperial commander with no backup I'd resign myself to a more protracted process than ordinarily necessary. I'd communicate with the Earth, demanding its surrender, and demonstrate my power via the obliteration of an asteroid or so. Presumably the natives would be belligerent, but I'm at the top of the gravity hill, and they have no defense lasers. I'd use targeted bombardment to obliterate several cities, shoot down their missiles and in general bombard them into submission. In the likely case that they continued to resist after bombardment I'd establish a quarantine zone around the world and flag it for conquest as soon as a sufficiently large IG force could be detailed, then head back and initiative political struggles to be given a place in that force.

Sadly, it is unlikely that a Space Marine commander would be terribly practical.

As a Space Marine commander I'd communicate to the world at large that they should prepare for a return to the Emperor's light, and congratulate them on their return to the fold. I'd promise rewards for those who complied, and imply that those who did not would miss out. The nations of earth would probably wish to talk, and I'd indulge them in this. I'd make the case for integration into the galactic whole persuasively and forcefulely, letting the obvious power of my battle barges and the obvious benefits of living forever as a larger than life super-soldier speak for themselves. Presumably earth would ultimately fracture into a portion which supported me and a portion which opposed me. The fault line would most likely be along previously existing conflict lines. Once the battle lines began to be clear I'd pick the least impressive member state of the opposition and absolutely obliterate them. Drop Pod assault following up a barrage from the battle barges, a thousand Adeptus Astartes kicking trash. We'd lay waste to their military in instants, and fade back to our orbital strongholds, leaving naught but desolated ruins. If this was insufficient as a deterrent to scare the dissenters into line, or backfired horribly and lost me most of my allies I'd be stuck in a protracted war. As a Space Marine commander possessed of complete orbital superiority I'd ultimately be able to get my side to win this, but it would take years and I wouldn't enjoy it.

That's my general take on the situation. Ironically, I think humanity would be far more fortunate if a non-Space Marine force had arrived.

I say we go down, say "Hello", watch a couple of our guys get shot and then take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

After the first engagements that leave most of the surface of the Earth in ruins, only the remnants of the United Space Forces remain capable of fighting in earnest against the Space Marine threat with captured alien technology.

Gradually, Space marines would become enamored by our 'culture'. Min M... ahem, American Idol contestant #74 sings songs that would chill them out and make them forget the Emperor. We would make some 'de-space-marine-ing' vats that could turn Space Marines back into normal humans if they so desired, while IG and basic humans are allowed into Earth society through a formal re-education process.

Remaining space marine and IG forces would join the UN Spacey to defend against the inevitable crusades to follow.

Epilogue: American Idol transmissions are broadcast wide-beam to the entire galaxy with the following effects.

Not possessing sufficient technology to receive the transmissions, the Imperium of Man is largely deaf to the assault. Occasional crusades are sent out to Earth but are lost in the warp due to clerical errors.

Eldar craftworlds all set course for Earth hoping to join in the competition. Wraithbone sales up %200.

Tyranids take the transmissions as a challenge and develop some wicked singing and dancing biomorphs. Attempts at dancing the next world into submission are a complete failure and the hive fleet onslaught is halted.

Slaanesh declares herself lord of all demons, while Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeench disappear into the void. Tzeench's last words are "Just as plann.... <poof>"

40k Enthusiast pretty much pegged what I was thinking.

My thought is the Marines would have to be in and out of a site pretty fast or numbers would take the toll.

Their big advantage is they can hit anywhere on Earth, the White House, a nuclear missile silo, Tiananmen Square before the local government can mobilize much in the way of resistance.

But once they raise the flag and start buidling bunkers they're screwed.

So they can nuke cities, they can do surgical strikes, they can take hostages (the Pope, the President of the US, Bono) but cannot take and hold territory. They have to convince nations to join them.

One potential spoiler is nuclear subs, which can stay at sea for years and can't be hunted from orbit (unless Imperial survelance tech is much, much better than the fluff has shown). They can't really threaten the orbiting fleet but can by the ultimate spoiler for any country that joins the Imperium.

Another spoiler is air power, a few fighter bombers can be on the scene a lot faster than infantry and can hit a lot harder. They can hit the Thunderhawks on the ground and prevent extraction, or (if they're not too shy about hitting their own) just raze the entire battle field, hostages and friendly forces be damned.

Because of the nature of 40k the marines have not been shown as having much in the way of anti-aircraft weapons or air support. Is all of that handled by laser barrages from orbit? Hand-held heavy weapons? Whirlwinds? Land speeders?

Lasers from orbit make the most sense.

Anyway point is Marines will either have to nuke us from orbit or get in and out real fast.

Moz wrote:After the first engagements that leave most of the surface of the Earth in ruins, only the remnants of the United Space Forces remain capable of fighting in earnest against the Space Marine threat with captured alien technology.

Gradually, Space marines would become enamored by our 'culture'. Min M... ahem, American Idol contestant #74 sings songs that would chill them out and make them forget the Emperor. We would make some 'de-space-marine-ing' vats that could turn Space Marines back into normal humans if they so desired, while IG and basic humans are allowed into Earth society through a formal re-education process.

Remaining space marine and IG forces would join the UN Spacey to defend against the inevitable crusades to follow.

Epilogue: American Idol transmissions are broadcast wide-beam to the entire galaxy with the following effects.

Can a de-space-marined-marine love? Does the female de-space-marined-marine ace Transformable Dreadnought pilot fall in love with a lowly earthborn F-14 ace? His characteristic blue plane dancing in the sky with her crimson sarcophagus would become the stuff of legend.

You're all wrong.

Chuck Norris, Sho Kosugi, Clint Eastwood, and the frozen capsule containing Elvis immediately sense the Marines translating out of warp space. When the marines land, they are waiting. The last call heard from the White Lions is “Send reinforcements STATIC falling ba STATIC regroup at STATIC SO MUCH BLOOD! Static”


Hail to the King Baby…

Keep it simple. Exterminatus and start over.

Here is how it would go down. A small combat team of Space Marines would drop pod on top of every world leader, and a team of terminators would teleport into the United Nations. The command centers are hit next, things like the Pentagon, NORAD and various war departments around the world. The defense infrastructure comes apart immediately, ICBMs and atomic weapons are lost to the remnants of government. Over the next twenty years, Space Marine forces pretty much run rampage wherever they want to go. Our primitive communication system is tapped and Imperial Propaganda plays constantly. Predator tank squadrons destroy whole battalions of T-19 and M1 tanks, their plasteel armour barely dented while their lascannons and auto-cannons punch holes through our armour. Space Marine squads launch attacks on our forces and bases, killing hundreds of soldiers using small combat teams. The world economy immediately crumbles, and the world is thrown into a major depression. Manufacturing companies and service industry cease to exist as areas drop off the radar into Imperial hands, causing our scattered manufacturing base to grind to a halt. Thunderhawks shoot down a few air liners, and air travel ceases, while highways and railways are shattered and constantly bombed, preventing intercity travel by regular people. Resupply is never an issue, as the Marines simply use our own fuel supplies and make their own ammunition, but the expensive vehicles and especially aircraft of the modern army become irreplaceable. Aircraft Carriers are sunk by orbital bombardment, and airports are subsequently targeted and cratered. Over time, governments and groups surrender to the Space Marines and eventually supply soldiers to the Imperial Cause. Once some men get armed with lasguns and wearing flak armour, the remaining resistance crumbles within six months.

I place the Space Marine casualties at around a dozen, likely taken while fighting in the less civilized nations from lucky hits with RPG-7s or megasized IEDs.

Based on how most games of 40k play out, the marines will lose at least half their force at each engagement.

40ke has the same ideas that I do. I think the Marinez! Hurr! would teleport and drop pod onto important strategic assets, command and control, missile silos, etc. take them out, and then just wait for the IG to show up and build bunkers and monuments to the Emperor. And, by the fluff, one or two squads could take out at least an infantry company by themselves. Faith in the Emperor FTW!

Nah, my 9 year old would pwon a marine chapter. They are only 1 inch tall-they don't have a chance.


By the way OS, where would the marines get the coordinates for the teleporting? Without proper coordinates the marines would teleport into a rock.
Besides, by Abnett fluff all I need is some TNT and every marine on the planet is a potential dead duck, not to mention the power of Norris.

Tabletop is not an accurate portrayal of the Space Marines, it's a balanced one.

As for Abnett, with the exception of the unfortunately incident with crossbows and a chaos marine, high powered lasguns or better are needed to kill a marine. By the way, 40k explosives are at a density pretty much unheard of in modern times. Short of shooting a marine directly with an anti-tank rocket, nothing our infantry are going to carry will even concern a marine.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Because of the nature of 40k the marines have not been shown as having much in the way of anti-aircraft weapons or air support. Is all of that handled by laser barrages from orbit? Hand-held heavy weapons? Whirlwinds? Land speeders?

Most Marine AA is dealt with by Hyperios class Whirlwinds(AA Whirlwinds that mount HK-esque missiles), Land Speeder Tempests(which are classed as flyers fluff-wise, but aren't rules-wise and ticks me off), Thunderhawks themselves, and Hyperios Air Defence platforms(although their need for a command platform is a weak link).

And besides, a boltgun will kill a copter hands-down (hell, and AK-47 will kill a copter) and jets need an insane amount of support material and personal to function, which won't be around long.

jfrazell wrote:You're all wrong.

Chuck Norris, Sho Kosugi, Clint Eastwood, and the frozen capsule containing Elvis immediately sense the Marines translating out of warp space. When the marines land, they are waiting. The last call heard from the White Lions is “Send reinforcements STATIC falling ba STATIC regroup at STATIC SO MUCH BLOOD! Static”


Hail to the King Baby…

I'm guessing those 4 would end up as some sort of weird analog to the Chaos Gods...

Analog? THEY ARE THE CHAOS GODS BABY!

The space marines would teleport some Vanguard down and assault the United Nations on turn 2.

'WTF the nu books are 2 broken!' the Earth would reply.

'No dude, they are expensive, it balances out.'

Then Poland would, much like they did in WW2, deploy rough riders. They would actually manage to kill a single squad of marines.

'WTF Marines should not be able to die!' the Marines would moan.

'Whatevs, our book is like 15000 years old, GW updates you dickheads every other month. Plus we converted them with cold ones,' the Earth would retort.

'I still think they're lame.' The Marines would moan.

Then there'd be a price hike and the whole war would end in a draw because noone could afford to buy all the new stuff.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:...they can take hostages (the Pope, the President of the US, Bono...

With some sort of 'surrender or we'll give them back' deal, right?

We would want them back?

open_sketchbook wrote:Tabletop is not an accurate portrayal of the Space Marines, it's a balanced one.

As for Abnett, with the exception of the unfortunately incident with crossbows and a chaos marine, high powered lasguns or better are needed to kill a marine. By the way, 40k explosives are at a density pretty much unheard of in modern times. Short of shooting a marine directly with an anti-tank rocket, nothing our infantry are going to carry will even concern a marine.

Yeah but the OP is about a tabletop chapter.

My prediction is that everything you said would come to pass up to half way. Then the SMs would get picked off in a series of ambushes by Somali tribesmen armed with RPGs.

One thing about controlling the Earth is there's no way 1,000 guys could do it. They have to rely on local persuaders and enforces, who will be totally vulnerable to the population.

Destroy any and all satellites not needed for SM to communicate with Earthlings, if none are required, destroy all of them.

Have Terminators 'port in, take whichever world leaders they felt they needed, 'port back (I don't know how many Telporters SM have on the barges, might be able to do this strike all at once if they have enough). Make sure you grab whatever leaders you want quickly so we can't set up some kind of boobytrap on potential targets to come (example: plant explosives on all Presidents/Kings after the first few get taken, since Teleporters don't work well if blown up). Give them an offer to ally with SM or face consequences. Give us minimal time to agree/disagree with offer, make sure Earthlings understand that the SM are just the vanguard of our new master and are only here to keep us in line until the real masters of our new destiny arrive. Best to have all leaders together when offer is made in a featureless room with no visible SM presence. Make sure all such talks are broadcast to the Earthlings.

Broadcast the Orbital Bombardments of the capitol cities of of any that disagree with whatever terms they were offered (include some other choice targets like vacation resorts, such as the Las Vegas Strip, Disney World, Paris, etc. to demoralize those that defy SM rule). Then shoot all of the leaders that refuse the offer after bombardments are finished, teleport bodies to wherever it thought best to demoralize enemies. Also Bombard any areas that give hints of Chaos infestation, possibly any major Religious areas like Rome, Mecca, or Jerusalem.

Warn Earthlings that any attempt to launch nukes and similar weapons will do more long term damage to the Earth's population the higher up they get before being destroyed and so will be destroyed as close to the ground as possible. If they persist in firing them, allow a few to get up high first to make the point. Cease the broadcast, destroy any satellites no longer needed, if any left.

Return all allied leaders with instructions on how to combat their neighboring enemies of the SM. Use allies to quell any that resist but do not arm the allies with any wargear nor help them to make their own versions of SM tech, just minimally support them as needed. Do not use any SM forces unless absolutely have to (anything left on the battlefield could be taken by us to possibly learn how to make it or somehow defend against it). Minimalize any conflicts between allies, destroy any that might be best sacrificed to quell possible allied rebellion.

Make sure no Earthlings EVER have any access to SM tech, shoot on sight/rend with power weapons/teleport into space any one that does/tries to or you suspect might try to. Make sure no more contact is allowed to any SM besides whatever is needed to finish whatever tasks are assigned the SM. Quarantine or terminate any SM that oversteps this rule or somehow become friendly with any Earthlings. Do not become overly friendly with any Earthlings, they are too expendable and unimportant for the greater work the SM are performing and WILL cloud judgment.

Depending on how long the SM must hold, offer the resistance a chance to surrender once a month. Remember to check up on allies to make sure they are actually doing what is asked of them. Consider any that are not as enemies and inform them of their new status. Bombard some of their more important cities to demoralize them and any other resistors.

Other options depend on how long they must hold us before being relieved.

If they haven't obliterated the earth in the 3 months then they've lost.

timeline
1. Within 3 months one of our skilled thieves has procured a plasma or melta pistol.

2. Within 3 months they are selling it in the Asian underground.

3. Within 6 months the Borg, er Microsoft will have a copy.

4. Massed armies of kids with mass produced plasmas will eliminate all marines with ease. Enter cool speeder races as captured landspeeders become the new must have.

5. Within 2 years, fleets of ships based on reverse engineered technology will be sent out. The Imperium doesn't stand a chance against the power of the Borg er Microsoft.

I think smashotron hit the nail right on the head. They would nuke us from orbit...because it's the only way to be sure.

Hate to say it, better bring a whole lot of nukes or all you did was tick off Elvis. And you don't tick off Elvis. Look what happened to Alec Baldwin's career...

Jive Professor wrote:The space marines would teleport some Vanguard down and assault the United Nations on turn 2.

'WTF the nu books are 2 broken!' the Earth would reply.

'No dude, they are expensive, it balances out.'

Then Poland would, much like they did in WW2, deploy rough riders. They would actually manage to kill a single squad of marines.

'WTF Marines should not be able to die!' the Marines would moan.

'Whatevs, our book is like 15000 years old, GW updates you dickheads every other month. Plus we converted them with cold ones,' the Earth would retort.

'I still think they're lame.' The Marines would moan.

Then there'd be a price hike and the whole war would end in a draw because noone could afford to buy all the new stuff.

Hmm if they knew how completely ineffectual, corrupt and useless the UN is they wouldn't bother touching it with a 10' pole.

What would really happen is they would map the planet from orbit. Once completed they would determine the most industrialized and advanced areas and nuke or heavily bombard those from orbit. When you have the high ground it's just a matter of laying siege. Heck they could cause a nuclear winter(not with nukes but big asteroids impacting the surface. After awhile the communication, transportation, and power networks of the major powers will be in ruin. The industrial and agricultural base of most nations will no longer exist. People will starve and freeze etc. Eventually they would begin negotiations and many nations would surrender. Those that they could get to join the Imperium would be armed and equipped to help conquer the rest.

jfrazell , the challenge was to have the SM take and hold, not see how fast the could destroy us.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Snip!

And now, the year 2008 (our calendar) the White Lion Space Marine Chapter (standard codex chapter) has been sent to bring us the Emperor's light.

Snip 2!

However they would also want to take us more or less intact, say with at least 4 billion people (out of 5+ billion) our industry and natural resources usable.

So with all this in mind who'd win?

As Chapter Master of the White Lions what would your first move be?

If the SM were just here to destroy us, they would auto-win against us unless they were really stupid about it. Heck, they just show up, when we try to nuke them, they just pop the missiles in our atmosphere, then we are are toast. If we don't try and nuke them, they just bombard whatever parts they need to to cause our ecosphere to be come unstable and can call it a day. "The Earth" only wins against far superior tech in "bad sci-fi".

To be honest, I would expose the earthlings to some of the galaxy's horrors first then save the day. Being their saviors would surely get the Emperor's message across the population. I think... Orks. Those are tough and persistant. Offer to join the empire for protection, those who refuse... Give em to the orks.

Space marines are actually good guys if they like you, and chances are that many people will have no problem with a new god that requires no more of them than their current one. Hence, if you like the emperor, and you can convince the marines that "these vile unbelievers are trying to suppress the light of the emperor!" you would have lots of friendly, 7 foot tall neighbors with guns that would make the guys from Men in black cry for shame

Obviously the added bonus of... y'know, living will help to convince some of those who are tentative about converting, and there would be many who figured that living is better than dying... period. The world would erupt into civil war, and like all good novels, every single uninvited race out there would start to show up.

Civil war would bring chaos, chaos would bring eldar, the overall cluster feth for all would bring orks, "cause we likes to stomp da umies" and tryanids because they're always hungry.

In the meantime there would be some sort of space marine or last chancer kill team sent to save the world from destruction, and blah blah blah.

In the end, the earth would become a dead planet, with refugees fleeing earth and being assimilated into the imperium, warp, or the belly of some great big flying space beasty.

I love a happy ending

I don't see much fighting at all. The world leaders would all cut a deal with the marines to be local administrators, governors etc and then disolve their nations for the good of the emperor. All it would take would be for a few blasts from orbit and a display of the destructive powers of the astartes for the world's leaders to realise they have no chance of winning.

Some nations which are more religious than others would rise up to defend their belief in allah, buddha, god etc but they are quickly put down while the mostly athiest/ secular nations of the West and the far east attempt mediation on behalf of their misguided neighbours.
Eventually such religions are forced underground while many others commit mass suicide rather than accept the new reality. Several religious leaders with the help of the chapter librarians urge their followers to admit they were wrong and join the new order.
Underground groups proliferate but have no real power and the bulk of the population enjoy the new technology.
Renegade military units attempt some resistance, a nuclear submarine launches several missiles at various targets before it's destroyed and several assassination attempts are carried out on the new order including marines. One marine is killed by a sniper while out of armour, another is killed by a sniper with a 50 cal rifle while in armour - the shot went through the eye lens.
Eventually the active rebels die out and are not replaced by a new generation.

A space marine chapter doesn't have the numbers to bring down a force like the combined might of all the worlds militaries. They would hit some important targets, take few losses, but then a battle of attrition would start that they couldn't possibly win.

They would likely just virus bomb us.

The marines, being big bad SM, would land overconfident of their scare factor. Once they are here we would wipe them out due to mass. Then somebody would call exterminatus and we all die on the next go. It´s a lose lose scenario.

BTW teletransporting termies sounds cool but as far as I know the Imperium doesn´t have onmi-everything scaners and the termies don´t fight very well encased by rock because a tech drone teleported a few meters away inside Cheyenne Mt or similar places.

M.

The fluff is pretty dodgy on just what kind of scanning tech they have. They can, after all teleport into the center of a ship thats several kilometers wide. So a few hundred feet of rock wouldn't be a problem in theory.

Two words: Vortex Grenade.

Wait ... actually, I think we would be fethed. Either that or everything would be going down the gakker until they got to Mexico, and the Mexi-CANs kicked the gak out of the Spase Marinezzzz!!!!!! Also, I think they would start to assimilate after taking advantage of opportunities in professional sport and being impressed with the bosummy-ness of our women.

Also, their blood would cure AIDS after being infected and we would capture one or two and try to figure out the acid spitting. That, and the snipers would get them. There is only 1000.

Eventually, after one or two ... wait ... 20 ... wait ... 20 + 1 really good one defect, they would live on for generations, giving eventual birth to a great empire that would span the stars and last for untold millenia. Wait ....

quite frankly, I don't see any small arms we can currently manufacture would do much if anything to power armor. Even something massive like a .50 cal would, I imagine, be rather ineffective. Whereas a single boltgun shell would kill any human, and most likely seriously damage any non-armored vehicle (boltgun round to the engine block of a humvee is still probably good night). If the standard issue IG armor is useless in the face of bolters, we wouldn't stand a chance. Our only chance would be the application of nuclear arms on a grand scale, thus crippling our own ecosystem.



Oh, and space superiority makes the entire point moot, as a single Strike Cruiser (let alone any sizable contingent of the imperial navy) could take it's time knocking off any missile sites even capable of attacking it, then focussing on infrastructure.

I think people are really underestimating current earth technology.

We have more air assets then the Space Marines. I can see whole squadrons of predator drones. armed with cruise missiles or Tow Anti Tank Missiles.

I also have a hard time believing that an Thunderbolt Fairchild II with a full payload couldn't smoke a tactical squad of Space Marines.

Daisy Cutters, Bunker Busters, 16 in (406 mm) guns, plus what ever else R&D has waiting in the wings.

All that tech can't take out guys with AK-47s hiding in the hills of Afghanistan (or hasn't yet, if it can). Given that most of our advanced assets require planning and a good bit of run-up time, a well-coordinated Space Marine force could drop, take out a target, and be gone before our forces could get there. The problem with defense is that you can't be strong everywhere at once; if your opponent can analyze your positions and determine the places you absolutely MUST hold, he can use those to make you weaken other areas. For example, there is no way that the American military could afford to leave the president and Congress unprotected, and initially would have to protect DC, until they could relocate them. Until then, a number of military installations would have to be undermanned and vulnerable.

Also, when someone controls the orbitals, they control most of the planet. Yes, there ARE missiles we can fire that can reach orbit... but unless there's some substantial upgrades in the works (for which we'd have no reason to have been working on), they wouldn't be able to target objects in orbit effectively. So, basicly the Space Marine ships can sit in orbit, hacking down anything that flies, and dropping torpedoes, bombardment salvos, and kinetic strikes unharassed in general.

Overall, all they have to do is decapitate the sophisticated C&C modern militaries depend on for proper functioning, and the battle is half won. Of course, if they took out the civilian controllers in the process, our militaries might have a better chance.

Another advantage marines would have is targeting sea traffic.

Once the initial 'join us we're nice guys' stage was over and the mask came off Chapter Master Kyoto's first move would be to announce that any ships headed for a non-compliant nation will be sunk by orbital barrage.

No container ships, NO OIL TANKERS, all the things that depend on a global supply chain get shut down. The military will be able to function, the US at least has a strategic oil reserve for just this purpose but a lot of countries would be hurting.

As others have noted, the Marines will have to be in and out real fast. Land engagements will be contests to see if the Marines can achieve their goals before air support/cruise missiles/nukes can arrive.

Here's another question, why would the Marines need to land? Other than taking hostages what would they need ground troops for?

We wouldn't stand a chance.

Orbital Barrage, Drop Assaults, Teleport Assaults. Those in any position of power would be knackered in a matter of hours, if not minutes (no, really). Strategic sights, such as major military bases and what have you would be pounded into dust.

Shock and Awe? Marines it.

And how well do you think the average grunt would deal with having a 7' or more lunatic in inches thick armour running at him, firing a gun which makes the Grunts mates *explode* in a shower of gore?

M1 Abrahams, better than a Russ? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Question is, how man do you have. £10 says an Imperial Guard regiment sent in to pacify the earth after the Marines will have a lot, lot more.

And frankly, I defy *Any* Tank crew not to poop themselves at the first sight of a Titan.

It depends on why the Imperium wants to take over Earth.

They are not after the Psykers as there aren't any.

Earth does not have spare agricultural capability.

It's industrial base is of some value but not once the economy has been wrecked by destroying the major cities and nations.

Kilkrazy wrote:It depends on why the Imperium wants to take over Earth.

They are not after the Psykers as there aren't any.

Earth does not have spare agricultural capability.

It's industrial base is of some value but not once the economy has been wrecked by destroying the major cities and nations.

Hive Planet OR just level the cities (take the people to a hive planet if they're valuable, otherwise who cares) and convert everything into usable farmland, including forests, jungles, mountains and deserts.

In a straight up fight, Space Marines lose against an actual, current RL technology army. Look at it this way, while it's not easy to get past the toughness, and the armor, a IG guardsman can still club a SM to death or poke his bayonette through his armor. The lasgun is deadlier than the CC attack of the guard as it isn't opposed by the targets skill in hand to hand. Modern military weapons are similarly capable, at least. There are only a thousand of them, and it takes time to make more. The vehicles they bring aren't going to be significantly better than anything we have, and if you look at the ranges the weapons they are using are effective at, US military small arms have greater range than most things mounted on a SM tank. A lascannon has a range of 48", the base a infantry takes up is 1", figure this will give a (being generous for various ability to move slightly and be comfortable) area of 4 feet per person, that is 192 feet, for their large anti-tank weapons. I'm not going to guess the range of our anti-tank weapons, but I'm pretty sure it's much greater, and I know (3 military bases around, lots of friends in the military, plenty of time at the range), that hitting a 3" target at 200 feet isn't that hard if you got a moment to aim, and if your not, well, SM's aren't 3" tall, and with armor piercing rounds, well...

The thing that SM's have going for them is spaced based position, a fractured as opposed to unified planetary government, rapid deployment against a potentially large number of static possible targets, and the threat of large scale planetary bombardment. These are handy, but unless they can bring things under control fairly rapidly, or are able to sway a major nuclear power to their help, in relatively short order, they wouldn't stand a chance.

So it comes down to, are they willing to bribe the locals to fight each other, or are they too proud, thinking that they are sufficiently superior?

Actually, I think that we would win by default.


is probably what your thinking, right? But seriously, who the feth would want earth? As a people (earthlings) we are so jacked up, that I think that even Tyranids would pass us by for fear that we would give the swarm indigestion,


Oh wait...

They already did.... has no one heard of Roswell? Here's what happened, the White lions came to earth, because of the reports of a Tyranid swarm incoming, they then realized that there was less than no reason to save our sorry hides, and left us be, in the hopes that our crazy planet could poison the Hive-mind, the Tyranid sent a few genesteelers to investigate, they captured some rednecks, and were convinced that there was no reason to eat filth such as us, to make things worse, the stealers got captured themselves, and were probed in all sorts of nasty ways.

The Hive-mind moved on.

GO EARTH!!!!

There would never be a pitched battle for us to bring our military assets to bare. The marines would simply engage in hit and run decapitation strikes while the fleet eliminated all critical infrastructure with cyclonics and lance batteries. Without leadership or infrastructure it would be an easy enough proposition to install a series of imperial regents to administer the day to day matters with the marines remaining in orbit and brutally crushing any uprising.

Brice

Marines would assault from orbit and lay waste to most of the millitary force of the planet in ambush strikes.
Major concentrations of force would be bombarded from orbit.
We only have one thing that can hit stuff in orbit; anti-sattelite missiles. ICBMs can reach, but then drop down to hit points on earth.

Thunderhawks and low-orbit ships would attain air superiority.

In a pitched battle, Marines would quickly be reduced to walking or land raiders. Modern militaries are VERY good at taking out tanks, and the Predator is a light tank by our standards. The rhino can't even stand up to autocannons.
However, space marine armour would win through, and needing anti-tank munitions to get through power armour, and yet bigger stuff to go through Terminators, we would lose exponentially as supplies are lanced from orbit or hit by ambushes.

After destroying our military strength and destabilising major governments, they'd up and leave before we could chip away at their numbers through geurilla warfare and send in the Guard to get down to pacifying the planet in the name of the Emperor.

Score would be a win for the Marines, but at heavy cost in lives and equipment. The destroyed Marine equipment would be salvaged and adapted to use against the occupying forces, causing an endless war until we give up and surrender or someone high up gets pissed off and frags the planet.

Earth vs. an Imperial crusade fleet would be a straight war of attrition. Our tech is sophisticated, but the Imperial stuff is scarily high-tech and rugged. Remember that the Leman Russ looks crude, but is an excellent infantry support tank and can run on anything combustible.

So, Battlebarge appears in orbit.

World Leaders assemble to discuss what to do. Battlebarge ascertains the positions (probes, Psykers etc) single Terminator, armed with Heavy Flamer, teleports in. Jobs a good'un, and we have no Leadership.

From there, further surgical strikes (not like we can stop their teleportation) remove the heads of Military, and then we are royally stuffed.

Citizens of the earth suddenly realise that the greedy swines who had been ruining our lives by running our Countries for the benefits of their Bank Balance are dead, and don't really care.

Why would they assemble? They never have before? More likely the marines would mistakenly think the UN is the central power. They would destroy it then mistakenly parade down Main Street thinking they had won, only to be defeated by a small child and pack of fluffy bunnies. They would return to the Imperium with tales of killer bunnies with BIG SHARP POINTY TEETH!

A common fallacy here seems to be that the Space Marines are in the habit of doing surgical strikes.
They aren't. According to the fluff, they're more like a hammer.
There's even an extended quote about a Codex chapter attacking a world and destroying it's millitary and defenses to root out heresy in the leadership.

The space marines themselves wouldn't do much to anything. Its at most 1000 guys on a planet of nearly 7 billion. Thats about 7 million people per space marine. Hell, we have more NUKES then they have soldiers. This isn't about the space marines. They would look cool for a while and do little if anything. It's about the 14 kilometer long space ship floating over the planet raining ultradeath on anything that the space marines can't do alone (I.E. everything.)

Space marines don't take planets. It's physically impossible. They just supplement the giant guard armada behind them by taking out hard targets and striking at the enemies command and infrastructure at strategic times.

Don't bother trying to scale anything up for a realistic idea of weapon ranges, it's all a terribly inconsistent abstraction so that we don't have to play games on ten foot boards.

But I think the Marines would wipe the floor with us. They don't fight protracted battles of attrition when they don't need to. They port in, kill everything that needs killing in a few minutes, and get evac. They'd be done before most militaries even know that they are under attack. Then those militaries would have to assemble in staging areas( orbital strike targets) to even be able to act in force. Don't bother with military bases, they aren't fortresses. Basically big stock yards that can be easily pasted by thunderhawk strikes. Space Marines have the strategic mobility to strike in whichever theatre they want, when they want. If we fortress up somewhere, if they even allow such a thing to happen, they would either orbital strike it, or teleport Terminators into the thick of it and thoroughly step in our cornflakes.

And while we have 6.5 billion people, we certainly don't have that many soldiers. The vast majority of people would cow in terror at real marines, tearing people limb from limb with their hands and shooting assault rifles that turn people into chunky salsa.

In todays political climate? Ha, most of the world would probably immediately surrender out of anti-war sentiment.

Nukes V Guard.

Nuclear Weapons are pointless, as the Guard have the physical numbers to liberally drape their soldiers over your explosives to muffle the blast, and still have thousands more wondering where the fight is......

I don't think the fight would happen.

Step 1. Imperial envoys land on the planet and announce themselves as the saviors of humanity.

Step 2. We willingly join the imperium as fast as they will take us.

Game over.

Think about it. Landing craft drop down on us with humans that are just like us. They offer proof that we are not alone and are part of a much larger race. They offer knowledge that we would give anything for. They offer us the chance to travel the galaxy. They can cure all of our global problems. They can cure most any disease. They debunk all of our religions and instead offer the divinity of the Imperial cult.
Who is gonna say no to that? BTW, we wisely realize that saying no will probably lead to the destruction of everything we know anyway.

Sign me up for imperial citizenship card.

Parts of Earth wouldn't go along, purely on the religious angle... the Middle East would probably see more Space Marines than most rebel worlds.

The Imperium would not improve our quality of life, not to any real degree. Things would simply get more GrimDark than they already are. Why should we get any special treatment when the rest of the galaxy operates on a culturally feudal level most of the time?

"the secret of war lies in the communications"
- Napoleon Bonaparte

There are about a million satalites around Earth. If the SM want to get close to earth with there ships they have to destroy some. So almost no communication between country's, no scanners to launch Nuce's. Country's will think they are attacked by some other country and start attacking randomly.

So I think we will be dead before the SM have even landed. If we can't comunicate we are lost, no teamwork, nothing...

Much the same as I was going to point out Voron!

Take out all our Satellites, and we are deaf, dumb and pretty much blind. Also known as Lambs to the Slaughter. Add in that they Imperium would be able to 'White Noise' the airwaves, and not even hand radios would work.

They have a giant space death machine. The could easily win by never leaving it.

This whole discussion is kind of hindered by that one fact.

ShumaGorath wrote:They have a giant space death machine. The could easily win by never leaving it.

This whole discussion is kind of hindered by that one fact.

Marines: "we have a giant space death machine. Surrender or die."

Earth "THIS...IS...CANADA!"

Marines: "alright, prepare for exterminatus."

(Admech): "Ixne on the exteriminatise. We need their stuff."

Marines: "er, uh...send in the Guard...yea thats it. They'll do anything. Er...whats that! Look over there!" Flees the scene

We'd be Doomed.
1. Space marines arive in orbit.
2. Space marines intercept on transmision of "Paris Hilton needs a new BFF".
3.Virus bombing comences immediately.

I would have thought that the Imperium would have arrived when we discovered and used the atomic bomb and nuclear power.
But anyways, yeah i agree with jfrazell someone would probably be able to steal weapons from the marines.
And I don't think thunderhawk transports will work too well against anti air or fighters, unless marines have some type of airplane I haven't heard of, which is quite possible.

Reverse engineering plasma weapons or bolters might not be an option.

Consider an F-22 Raptor sent back in time to WWII, just 60 years ago.

Sure scientists could more or less figure out what it is and how it works but their material science is no where near up to the task of copying the engines and airframe.

And the electronics would be a complete mystery.

They might get some ideas from it but copying it is just out of the question.

Now for a plasma pistol...

"OK Mr Tech Priest talk or we turn it back on!"
"No! please! Emperor's mercy do not again subject me to the singing of the one you call Celene!"
"How do we make these plasma guns?"
"Well you'll need a supply of Monopole Duraluminum Dilithium alloy to make the gun itself."
"Mono what?"
"Oh it's a common alloy in any binary star system, you just have to harvest it from asteroids trapped between the two stars."
"Um... right."
"For the fuel you'll need hydrogen 4 isotopes, fortunately it's pretty common in the upper atmosphere of the world you call Neptune."
"Um..."
"Then you need to hook the weapon up to your plasma reactor to intitialize the reaction..."

You get the idea...

Hold on, that Tech Priest would surely reply with either.....

Option A ) First, thou shalt sacrifice to the Omnissiah three Jars of Sacred unguent etc....

or

Option B ) Buggered if I know mate.

And to be honest, Option B is the more likely!

Turn 1:
SM's land. Due to deepstrike rules, they cannot assault. Spend their turn shooting or preparing to shoot.
In retribution, we attack.

Turn 2:
SM's annihilate anyone in HtH with them. Consolidate d6" into terrain.
We shoot but launch no assaults.

Turn 3:
SM's give us the opportunity to surrender.
We ask them to wait while we "vote on it."

Turn 4:
We get our last warning; Surrender or die!
We send our "representatives" to "negotiate the world's surrender."

Turn 5:
Unbeknownst to the SM's, we sent Jehovah's Witnesses. They are all converted and spend their days trying to convert other Space Marine chapters.
We do not need to take our turn. They have been tabled.

Game over.

and what alot of you have forgot, a space marine chapter never gathers in one place. ussually they only send about 2 companies. no space marine chapter would bother with a back water world like earth.

Not all space marine chapters are like that. Some actually do gather in large numbers frequently, and besides, it is irrelevant. That's like saying "Well, Space Marines can't travel 38,000 years back in time, so it's moot!". In vs debates, we refer to such things as "by act of Q".

Determining our dependence on fossil fuels....

First is the offer of join the imperium of Man or suffer the consequences. Give them a few weeks to talk when they refuse...

1. Destroy or incapacitate every satellite in orbit. You just shut down all but land line traffic.
2. Detonate 4 or so nuclear warheads in upper atmosphere to generate EMP and shut down any non-hardened electronics.
3. Destroy any tankers currently en route around the globe stopping flow of fuel.
3. Pull back into outer solar system and maintain observations.
4. Send Thunderhawks to destroy any attempts to launch replacement comm satellites.

As world markets collapse, loss of communications and we go back to a turn of the century (19th to 20th) tech as we try to recover despite failed transportation network (no fuel), starvation (no delivery of goods), anarchy (no mass communications)....

Repeat the offer to all the world leaders still trying to maintain a grip... are you ready to see the Emporer's Light?

Most should concede at this point, some may resist but without any infrastructure or limited fuel... their military forces are going to be reduced to Imperial Guardsmen with nothing but their current supply of dragons and milans to deal with the marines. I should think a few examples would break this resistance.

The marines should be able to form an effective shield to any and all who follow them and provide basic assistance in restoring the norm.

Meanwhile a call goes to the Imperium to send an inquisitorial detail and a contingent of battle sisters to determine the extent of the heresy that is here and eliminate it.

50/50 that every clergyman and politician is imprisoned, killed, turned into arco-flagellants or penitent engines. Upon seeing this, Barack Obama delivers a world wide address calling for celebration declaring that the Imperium stands for the kind of change that he promised to bring us as his wife states in the background this is the first time she is proud to be a part of the human race. Bill Clinton quickly makes a background deal to become the first Governor of Earth but is assassinated for heresy by the Callidus assassin that sheds her Hillary Clinton disguise. Finally peace reigns as Kim Ill Sung is announced as the first Governor of Earth.

"50/50 that every clergyman and politician is imprisoned, killed, turned into arco-flagellants or penitent engines. Upon seeing this, Barack Obama delivers a world wide address calling for celebration declaring that the Imperium stands for the kind of change that he promised to bring us as his wife states in the background this is the first time she is proud to be a part of the human race. Bill Clinton quickly makes a background deal to become the first Governor of Earth but is assassinated for heresy by the Callidus assassin that sheds her Hillary Clinton disguise. Finally peace reigns as Kim Ill Sung is announced as the first Governor of Earth."

Now now, let's keep politics out of it.

Besides Kim Ill Sung is dead, you're thinking of his son Kim Jong Il (who may also be dead but that's another issue).

DAaddict wrote:50/50 that every clergyman and politician is imprisoned, killed, turned into arco-flagellants or penitent engines. Upon seeing this, Barack Obama delivers a world wide address calling for celebration declaring that the Imperium stands for the kind of change that he promised to bring us as his wife states in the background this is the first time she is proud to be a part of the human race. Bill Clinton quickly makes a background deal to become the first Governor of Earth but is assassinated for heresy by the Callidus assassin that sheds her Hillary Clinton disguise. Finally peace reigns as Kim Ill Sung is announced as the first Governor of Earth.

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton are all politicians. The wouldn't be making worldwide addresses or making bids for governor, unless they were made into the most charismatic arcoflagellants ever.

DAaddict wrote:Determining our dependence on fossil fuels....

First is the offer of join the imperium of Man or suffer the consequences. Give them a few weeks to talk when they refuse...

1. Destroy or incapacitate every satellite in orbit. You just shut down all but land line traffic.
2. Detonate 4 or so nuclear warheads in upper atmosphere to generate EMP and shut down any non-hardened electronics.
3. Destroy any tankers currently en route around the globe stopping flow of fuel.
3. Pull back into outer solar system and maintain observations.
4. Send Thunderhawks to destroy any attempts to launch replacement comm satellites.

As world markets collapse, loss of communications and we go back to a turn of the century (19th to 20th) tech as we try to recover despite failed transportation network (no fuel), starvation (no delivery of goods), anarchy (no mass communications)....

Ah HA!
You forgot our HAM Radios!
We'll use those to coordinate a worldwide effort.

We'll commandeer one of their space ships and have a rap star and hack actor fly it up there and implant a virus into their system. It'll shut everything down, thus removing their Invulnerable save.
At that precise moment, all the armies of the world, coordinating their attacks via radio waves, will strike out at the SM battle cruisers, destroying them.
That's a no-brainer there.

Eric

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Much the same as I was going to point out Voron!

Take out all our Satellites, and we are deaf, dumb and pretty much blind. Also known as Lambs to the Slaughter. Add in that they Imperium would be able to 'White Noise' the airwaves, and not even hand radios would work.

This is why map reading should not be removed from the national curriculum.

Fun thread.

Here's my take:

When the marine battle barge arrives, they are announcing themselves as the envoy of a galaxy-spanning human empire.

We barely have missiles that can hit a satelite traveling along a fixed trajectory, there is no way we could use our Nukes against an orbital target that is able to reposition itself and that can theoretically shoot down incoming missiles and has shields that can theoretically withstand a nuclear blast anyway.

This ship has the ability to cause massive human casualties anywhere on the globe at will, and they have no problems doing just that as many times as needed in order to force capitulation.

This is a situation very similar to the end of WWII where the US had a destructive technology that no one else had and was willing to use it in order to dominate others.

There is no way any world leader can advocate 'fighting' when to do so means that *BLAM* another several thousand people are dead as the battlebarge lances NY city.

This is especially true because the 'invaders' are human and are asking us to join them (in servitude) and in response they promise us many wonderous things. Although in reality our fate will likely be worse, the promise of a brighter future would almost certainly be enough to get us to surrender especially since they have the ability to inflict massive damage to us and we have no way of preventing it.

I think the greatest impact of actual marines would be as a representative of what the Imperium can achieve (beyond the obvious sign of their spacecraft). Anyone witnessing a marine in person would clearly know that this is an Empire that surely has many more devestating weapons to bring to bear on us should we try to fight back.


I mean, sure if we knew that there was only a 1,000 of them and that they didn't understand their technology and stuff we could maybe think about fighting them. But in reality we would assume there was plenty more where they come from and we have nothing that can hurt them in space so we simply have to capitulate.


End of story, no fighting to be had.


The only fighting would probably occur once the true nature of Imperial reign started to sink in. Then we'd almost certainly have insurgent forces fighting for their freedom, but the government troops (now PDF) would now be tasked with keeping these insurrections down.

To be honest, i would willing go to the emperors light without question. and kill for there cause without a second thought. even if they were just to torture or kill me afterwards. I dont know why exactly but i would.

jfrazell wrote:If they haven't obliterated the earth in the 3 months then they've lost.

timeline
1. Within 3 months one of our skilled thieves has procured a plasma or melta pistol.

2. Within 3 months they are selling it in the Asian underground.

3. Within 6 months the Borg, er Microsoft will have a copy.

4. Massed armies of kids with mass produced plasmas will eliminate all marines with ease. Enter cool speeder races as captured landspeeders become the new must have.

5. Within 2 years, fleets of ships based on reverse engineered technology will be sent out. The Imperium doesn't stand a chance against the power of the Borg er Microsoft.

6. Above timetable would be put off forever by crashes, bugs, hackers, spammers and bandwidth being stolen by all manner of nefarious Earth cyber-criminals. We win!

Just for the record I am going to compare a challenger 2 and a Leman Russ, with the value for a Leman Russ on the left.

Length(m) - 7.08/8.3
Width(m) - 4.86/3.5
Height(m) - 4.42/2.5

Main Armament - 120mm smothbore battlecannon/120mm rifled L30A1
Secondary Armament - 2 side mounted Gryphonne IV heavy bolters; 1 hull mounted Lucius pattern lascannon/coaxial 7.62 mm L94A1 EX-34 (chain gun); 7.62 mm L37A2 Commander's cupola machine gun

Speed - 29kph/59kph

The Challenger also has advanced targeting equipment, greater angle of elevation for its main barrel and can carry 20 more rounds.

Plus, being shorter, it can hide more easily!

Challenger beats Leman Russ!

I think our tanks' main concerns would be enemy lascannons. Ours are built to withstand blasts - the only weapons we have that can penetrate tanks are blast weapons, so they're built to resist those. Energy weapons would do a number on them.

However someone brought up an interesting point about the technology they had. In classic Hollywood style, this would be their weak point. For example rather than try to kill each marine, we could aim to disable their weapons - a boltgun is half the size of a man. Hitting a bolter or lascannon with an RPG is bound to mess up some part of its inner workings. Even though they can perform maintenance and repairs on equipment, it requires a tech priest to do it. Imagine a 10-man tactical squad tasked with taking an objective somewhere. If they were resisted at all by people knowing this about them, they could see their weapons disabled very quickly, and would require extraction.

Constantly having their weapons in need of repair would dramatically slow down their war.

I'm pretty sure bolters aren't 3 feet long, Battle Sisters would have an awfully difficult time hefting the things. Even if they were, the accuracy required to hit something like that with an RPG (or equivalent) is beyond just about anyone alive, especially in a combat situation where said weapon may be pointing and firing at you. And if we had to use our heavier munitions simply to disable their standard issue weapons, we'd be pretty much screwed anyway.

Put a bolter up against a guardsman model.

And yes, without the strength boost from power armour, no sister of battle would be able to carry one. Look at what the 40k universe calls a "pistol"!

We are such dorks.

Somewhat OT -- please would someone who has a Leman Russ model measure it and post the dimensions?

I would like to work out the true scale of 40K.

The scale of 40k is meant to be 1inch = 5foot but this is nonsense as a battle cannon would be over a foot in diameter, not the 120mm listed in my above post (I got the data from th WD with the armoured companies so it is GW fluff).

A leman russ is 8cm wide(hull) so 8cm=7m or 8cm=700cm so 1.14cm=1m. IMHO though, scale is irrelevant since the ranges for weapons have to be reduced anyway, to fit a game on a tabletop.

I was about to say, don't even try to use "scale" to guess how big a true-life equivalent would be. Space Marines are no taller than Guardsmen on the tabletop. And even if the power-armor boost was required to heft a bolter, have you even tried fire a weapon 3 feet long, whose grips are on opposite ends of the weapon? It makes even less sense than 40k normally does.

And that bolter would have a range of maybe 50 feet, as compared to the model height.

And a transport with an interior space of 8x5 feet can hold ten marines.

George Spiggott wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:...they can take hostages (the Pope, the President of the US, Bono...

With some sort of 'surrender or we'll give them back' deal, right?

Reminds me of a student Rag Week deal by the IIRC City of London Polytechnic back in the early 90's.

Some 'terrorists' with toy AK's stood on a street corner with Ken Livingston in handcuffs, demanding ransom payments or they threatened to release him.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

"OK Mr Tech Priest talk or we turn it back on!"
"No! please! Emperor's mercy do not again subject me to the singing of the one you call Celene!"

You get the idea...

Love it.

WeeHessy wrote:Just for the record I am going to compare a challenger 2 and a Leman Russ, with the value for a Leman Russ on the left.

Length(m) - 7.08/8.3
Width(m) - 4.86/3.5
Height(m) - 4.42/2.5

Main Armament - 120mm smothbore battlecannon/120mm rifled L30A1
Secondary Armament - 2 side mounted Gryphonne IV heavy bolters; 1 hull mounted Lucius pattern lascannon/coaxial 7.62 mm L94A1 EX-34 (chain gun); 7.62 mm L37A2 Commander's cupola machine gun

Speed - 29kph/59kph

The Challenger also has advanced targeting equipment, greater angle of elevation for its main barrel and can carry 20 more rounds.

Plus, being shorter, it can hide more easily!

Challenger beats Leman Russ!

You completely fail to take into account a few pretty serious elements here.

1. The Leman Russ' speed is only 29kpm when it roll off the assembly line. Pretty much every crew in the Imperium quickly bypasses the excessive governing placed on the tank by paranoid Mechanicus craftsmen, bring the tank's speed up in leaps and bounds, up to 79 kpm. In addition, the 'signature move' of the Russ is a full speed 90 degree turn, which it can execute in under a second. Flanking the tank with modern vehicles is a laughable exercise.
2. The Leman Russ is made of plasteel, plasma steel. It's protective qualities are completely unheard of by modern standards, to the point where it'll turn a modern 80mm anti-tank shell at point blank range.
3. The Conquerer, the reduced recoil version of the Russ, produces over a million newtons of force when it fires. The gun's velocity is such that it'll go through a modern battle tank with little to no deflection.
4. The Leman Russ possesses computer uplinks, auto-loaders, laser targeters, and a limited degree of computer intelligence. In addition, inertial dampeners eliminate the possibility of concussion damage to crew or equipment.
5. The Russ is reliable, will run on anything that burns, and can be made on the cheap to a level we can't even comprehend.
6. The Lascannon is a multi-gigawatt weapon. It's going to slag a Challanger in one shot.
7. Heavy Bolter rounds are basically RPG-7 rockets, with more accuracy and explosive power. It'll reduce our light and medium vehicles to scrape in short order.

open_sketchbook wrote:
1. The Leman Russ' speed is only 29kpm when it roll off the assembly line. Pretty much every crew in the Imperium quickly bypasses the excessive governing placed on the tank by paranoid Mechanicus craftsmen, bring the tank's speed up in leaps and bounds, up to 79 kpm. In addition, the 'signature move' of the Russ is a full speed 90 degree turn, which it can execute in under a second. Flanking the tank with modern vehicles is a laughable exercise.

79kpm with a russ
Maybe if transported.Not on its own.
If you want to flip your russ,try your 90° turn.
There could be a reason,why we earthlings have dropped the variants of tracked vehicles looking like the russ.

2. The Leman Russ is made of plasteel, plasma steel. It's protective qualities are completely unheard of by modern standards, to the point where it'll turn a modern 80mm anti-tank shell at point blank range.

Modern ammo will just "meltagun" through plasteel.Old WWI tech in tank-builds won't hold against AT.

4. The Leman Russ possesses computer uplinks, auto-loaders, laser targeters, and a limited degree of computer intelligence. In addition, inertial dampeners eliminate the possibility of concussion damage to crew or equipment.

Human loaders are faster than auto-loaders.To call the commanders lasgun a laser-targeter

7. Heavy Bolter rounds are basically RPG-7 rockets, with more accuracy and explosive power. It'll reduce our light and medium vehicles to scrape in short order.

WS 3 for IG?

Actually, modern ammo will meltagun through steel plate. The Russ likely has armour comparable to that on our own tanks, which will shrug off anything less than an APDS round.
The Russ is armour 14 on the front. This is roughly a 30-40% chance of stopping a damn laser cannon capable of vapourising a man where he stands, or killing a heavily boosted super-soldier instantly.

lord_sutekh wrote:All that tech can't take out guys with AK-47s hiding in the hills of Afghanistan (or hasn't yet, if it can).

Actually if given free reign of the US military and the disbarring of all rules of war the US could feasibly wipe out the entire Middle eastern population to the point of insignificance. The only reason the US is having as many problems as they are is becuase they are restriced to following the rules of war as laid out in the Geneva convention. This has happened to them before. In Vietnam most battlefield wounded were simply shot by the NVA, where as we had to by rules give them the exact same medical treatment as our own wounded. (Total bs if you ask me.)

Though if you want something at a similar scale to a SM invasion I would suggest the Posleen War series by John Ringo, though he also says that once the gravity well is controlled it is game over for the planet side forces.

As to an actual space marine invasion, one chapter probably could destroy the worlds infrastructure. They would simply destroy or cut off all highlevel communication from say state governors, presidents etc. Then all they would really have to do is sitback and wait. Without a central government controlling things you would have a few weeks of rampant looting. Then the individual communities would band for mutual protection. So pretty much we would simply devolve into village sized factions. So all they would have to do is sitback and wait, they wouldn't even have to occupy. They plan on rebuilding the place from the ground up anyways, why not let us do the demolition for them?

Skorpion wrote:Actually, modern ammo will meltagun through steel plate. The Russ likely has armour comparable to that on our own tanks, which will shrug off anything less than an APDS round.
The Russ is armour 14 on the front. This is roughly a 30-40% chance of stopping a damn laser cannon capable of vapourising a man where he stands, or killing a heavily boosted super-soldier instantly.

And again, how many Tanks can we field, how many can the Imperium Field?

Add in the Super Heavies, including Leviathins etc, and we are truly stuffed. We don't have Orbital Bombardments to punch a hole in lines. They do. We don't have anywhere near the number of troops they do. Lasguns, crucially, have a high ammo capacity, and the reloads don't weigh anywhere near as much as convential FMJ ammo we use.

We'd be screwed! Utterly, utterly screwed.

Well, I say we. What would really happen is that Britain would seize it's chance to once again become the dominant World Power, and coerce the Imperium to strap really, really big engines on Britain, so we can sail her across the world, like a massive island of Pirates. Our shock Troops? Geordies. Our sabatoeurs? Scousers.

Well judging by a lot of the fluff actually not that many. Further, I believe we're talking marines here. Thats a minimal number of predators. Of course, the issue is blowing the thunderhawks out of the sky or dropping ordnace on the predators on the ground (as noted unless they drop nearby prepared positions or stay on the ground for some period of time we would not be able to deploy armor against them).

Railguns wrote:And even if the power-armor boost was required to heft a bolter, have you even tried fire a weapon 3 feet long, whose grips are on opposite ends of the weapon? It makes even less sense than 40k normally does.

Yes, actually. It is a 12 guage shotgun with pistol grip. Hurts the wrist a good bit when fired from the hip, but when braced against the shoulder it isn't bad. A standard bolt round is described as being ~.75 caliber, which is conveniently the same size as a 12 guage shotgun slug. We were actually knocking around the idea of converting a semi-auto AK made 12 guage shotgun into a functional bolter, before my buddy who works in a machine shop got a job with less spare time.

Now, don't get me wrong, firing the thing on semi auto from the hip would wreck my wrist, even with the extra weight from the weapon dampening recoil. I have smallish to average wrists though. My brother in law who is built like a truck handles that sort of thing easily.

Also, thinking of penetrating SM armor, I agree that an AK or M16 firing jacketed bullets would be AP6 at best, and AP- more likely. The SAW or .50 cals though, those would rank in at AP5 at worst, and some of the heavier autocannons we mount on things would be AP3. The heavy stubbers would be a decent analogue. The thing to bear in mind though is that while marines can absorb a lot of fire, their armor is not all hard bits. Sooner or later they roll 1's or 2's, so given enough fire volume, marines would drop.

Of course the battle barge still makes it irrelevant.

One thing I haven't seen people mention much is what might happen when "aliens", even 7-8' humanoid aliens, show up. I think there would be two significant movements, one to embrace them and one to resist them, no matter what. It would tie into religion, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see religions evenly split about whether or not they are messengers of gods.

It would be interesting, I would give you that

Also, as a side note, it was mentioned that the world's agri-capacity is maxed out. That is very far from the truth, considering how much fallow land there is everywhere. There is also the fact that modern, cutting edge methods are not used in most small farms due to lack of return on investment in huge machinery, so that cuts down efficiency.

I agree with you, but I was pointing out that if a bolter, which has no buttstock and a foregrip nearly flush with the end of the barrel, was 3 feet long overall it would be an ergonomical nightmare. Warhams figures are not to scale.

And to the people who insist that bolter shells are full size grenades, or rockets or whatnot this is a simple case of hyperbolic 12 year old syndrome. It is indeed a .75 calibur caseless round. Huge relative to normal assault rifle bullets, sure, but hardly a freaking rapid fire rpg. It may have even less recoil than expected, as the shell itself is a self propelled rocket, like the failed gyrojet pistol from a few decades ago.

Well yea, that's the trick. Bolters are very different between model lines. I was thinking of the old bolters I just cut up for some combi weapons in my Inquisitor's retinue, which all have the little folding stock. Most marines just shoot from the hip

For an idea of how hard a Marine actually is, and how difficult it would be to incapictate one, go look at Inquisitor.

And remember, all the time that these giants are shrugging off the best you got...your friends are dying horribly, messy, agonising deaths......Hold your nerve. I dare you.

Is this chapter movie marines or game marines?

Uggh... 1hadhq, what you just pulled is called the perceptions fallacy and it's irritating as hell.

"Hurr, it looks like a WWI tank, so obviously it performs like one!"

The Imperium uses technology so ridiculously beyond our comprehension it's not even funny. The Russ uses a combination of inertial compensation technology and high ground pressure to execute their insane turns.

As for the Russ' speed, what exactly would stop a machine looking like the Russ from going any faster than a modern vehicle? I wasn't aware that aerodynamics particularly matters in tank design, and even if it did, what's stopping the Russ from beating the Challenger with pure power? Especially considering the very high energy density of Imperial fuels, which achieve multi-gigajoule level 'cremation' events when fired from the Hellhound.

As for modern armour 'meltagunning' through plasteel, you are very, very mistaken. The side armour of the Russ can survive impacts from anti-tank weapons that heave the whole tank (all 62 tons) several meters sideways, and survive a low-range triple-digit gigajoule thermal weapons like the lascannon (for comparison, that's roughly two tons of TNT focused on an area as big around as a quarter); there are several other examples in the fluff of similar feats. The Russ is an STC design, heavily bastardized, yes, but the thing is still orders of magnitude better than anything we can construct, it's archaic form notwithstanding.

Finally, Human loaders are faster than modern autoloaders. But considering the above technology, in a tank reknown for simplicity and ease of construction, what makes you think that'll be the case here?

One of the Gaunt's Ghosts books...I think it was Honor Guard...has a series of awesome tank battles which described very well how fast-paced and high-tech fighting with Russes and their derivatives really is.

Of course in the Gaunts ghosts book, a kill team of IG with nothing but a demo charge, an autocannon, and some jungle natives with bows take out a squad of chaos marines. Kind of supports the argument about Earth dealing with marines rather handily...

Gearhead wrote:One of the Gaunt's Ghosts books...I think it was Honor Guard...has a series of awesome tank battles which described very well how fast-paced and high-tech fighting with Russes and their derivatives really is.

That proves we're talking about movie marines, not game marines.

open_sketchbook wrote:Uggh... 1hadhq, what you just pulled is called the perceptions fallacy and it's irritating as hell.

I am irritating?

"Hurr, it looks like a WWI tank, so obviously it performs like one!"

The Imperium uses technology so ridiculously beyond our comprehension it's not even funny. The Russ uses a combination of inertial compensation technology and high ground pressure to execute their insane turns.

terrain doesn't care about pressure and inertial compensation.Turns of 90° go at stable terrain with 20-30 km/h in reality.
Grip at the ground may be not so different in 40k. And we have the russes on earth in this thread! So our physics do count.

As for the Russ' speed, what exactly would stop a machine looking like the Russ from going any faster than a modern vehicle?

Movement 12" perhaps? A equal movement than cavalry Seems not so fast to me.

I wasn't aware that aerodynamics particularly matters in tank design, and even if it did, what's stopping the Russ from beating the Challenger with pure power? Especially considering the very high energy density of Imperial fuels, which achieve multi-gigajoule level 'cremation' events when fired from the Hellhound.

1) We discuss about leman russ,not hellhounds.
2) you mentioned aerodynamics.I would never bring aerodynamics and tracked vehicles together.But the design of this LR is proven to be bad.Worse in terrain and open tracks.Why do you think trackguards were added in C: IG? Because they never break?
3) it doesn't matter which modern tank you believe the russ may beat.Most actual tanks are more or less comparable.
from design,rhino variants and Land raiders,also baneblade variants are far closer to hightech than a crippled-stc Leman russ.
The russ has no machine spirit like a Land raider.The russ has not autotargeters like some baneblades.The russ has crew to field his
guns (all of them.)Why should anyone use more crew than needed? Fluff may be a little "artists freedom" in case of tech.
I would rely on IG codices and Imperial armour for datasheets and descriptions of a Leman russ.

As for modern armour 'meltagunning' through plasteel, you are very, very mistaken. The side armour of the Russ can survive impacts from anti-tank weapons that heave the whole tank (all 62 tons) several meters sideways, and survive a low-range triple-digit gigajoule thermal weapons like the lascannon (for comparison, that's roughly two tons of TNT focused on an area as big around as a quarter); there are several other examples in the fluff of similar feats.

So you speak of "movie"russes,like guardsmen killin everything with a half-empty Lasgun?
I think you just "forgot" any sequence in fluff not agreeing with you.

Finally, Human loaders are faster than modern autoloaders. But considering the above technology, in a tank reknown for simplicity and ease of construction, what makes you think that'll be the case here?

Maybe some weapons doesn't use loaders?(LasC/PlasC/MM/AC) But the battlecannon will not have a auto-fed option.
The gunner and loader are set in 40k for russes.

*looks at / into his L.Russes. Finds none of the features described by open scetchbook*

Open, where do you get this info from? Not knocking you I just think I may be missing some good guard books....

Earth is one giant technology farm. We have people who actually BUILD and INVENT new things. Our technology expands without recovering STCs. That asset, and that asset alone, would make earth's existing population important to the Imperium.

The Adeptus Mechanicus would want earth's entire technological and historical infrastructure in one piece. Once they could determine which assets were useful for technological development and which were not, they would divide Earth down into two groups: hivers and tech-builders. They would farm each for their strengths - new technology developers from the tech-builders and more industrial workers and soldiers from the hivers.

For our part as Earthlings, we wouldn't put up much of a fight. The Space Marines would just have to show up, take off their helmets, and warn us that a Waaagh / Hive Fleet was heading in our direction and we'd never get off-planet at our current level of technology in time to escape. They'd show a vid-clip or two, maybe show a trophy skull and that would be it. We'd be united with the Imperium for our survival against terrible Xenos forces.

The religious and social purges would only set in once the Adeptus Mechanicus managed to secure a process for harvesting our technology builders, since there are no psykers among the Earthlings and no consequence threat of Chaos infestation.

The Gaunt's Ghosts book Honour Guard has a very good, in-depth look at the Russ and it's capabilities, while much quantification is to be had from the Kill Team, Cain and Horus Heresy books.

Also, a must for any vs. debate is the order of canon. Games-Workshop's order of canon is as follows. (Take from an interview a few years back, I believe)
- In-Universe Documents (IE, The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer)
- Black Library Published Novels
- Other Black Library Products (Including the Warhammer 40,000 RPG)
- Forge World Books
- Fluff in GW Sourcebooks (With codex superceeding rulebook, rulebook superceeding other sources)
- Official Comics
- Game Art
- Game Mechanics

Within this is a second hierarchy whereby new fluff overrides older fluff, excepting where a series continues without retconning previous information, so, for example, all Gaunt's Ghosts books have canon status equal to the most recent.

In addition, the Vs. community has generally agreed that, in a case where two recent pieces of fluff, the one most in line with previously stated quantifications is accepted.

Nothing published before 1996 is considered canon.

mlund wrote:Earth is one giant technology farm. We have people who actually BUILD and INVENT new things. Our technology expands without recovering STCs. That asset, and that asset alone, would make earth's existing population important to the Imperium.

The issue of whether or now Imperial tech is better than 21st C Earth tech is a hard one.

One thing to keep in mind is the our tech is optimized for our own planet. Our tanks might be faster than the Imperiums, we have choppers that the IG has nothing like but even on this world they need extensive refits to use in different regions (deserts, arctic) and probably would not function off world. IG tech can be used on anything from Catachan to Valhalla to Cadia with minimal adaptation. Plus IG tech is deliberately held back to limit their ability to rebel. That's why fighters are reserved for the Imperial Navy.

Lasguns work anywhere and can be charged from any power source. M-16s and AK47s are about as good but jam in jungles and need supplies precision engineered ammo.

I think the flexibility of IG gear is their superiority , not necessarily the performance.

But the IG also has stuff that is a whole level beyond ours. For a long time its been established that autocannons are 20/21st C tank cannons. Battlecannons are a level beyond, using high-powered explosives beyond anything we have now. Lascannons, melta guns, and plasma are also well beyond anything we have.

The Adeptus Mechanicus would want earth's entire technological and historical infrastructure in one piece.

I disagree here. The AM are a religious order revering the lost past. Since our tech is home-grown they not only would not want it, they would despise it as heretical. Plus, as noted, our tech is optimal for our world, it needs materials common on Earth, conditions normal on Earth and our infrastructure to maintain.

For our part as Earthlings, we wouldn't put up much of a fight. The Space Marines would just have to show up, take off their helmets, and warn us that a Waaagh / Hive Fleet was heading in our direction and we'd never get off-planet at our current level of technology in time to escape. They'd show a vid-clip or two, maybe show a trophy skull and that would be it. We'd be united with the Imperium for our survival against terrible Xenos forces.

The religious and social purges would only set in once the Adeptus Mechanicus managed to secure a process for harvesting our technology builders, since there are no psykers among the Earthlings and no consequence threat of Chaos infestation.

Obviously the Imperium would have to conceal its true goals as long as possible but some Earth nations would not accept them at all, and more would join as their intentions become more clear. Besides this is a Space Marine chapter vs Earth, not how could the Imperium subvert Earth governments over several decades. This is 1000 angry bald men sent to bring Earth in line pronto.

When reading fluff books and material in codexes and so on, it is important to keep in mind that lots of it could be propaganda.

For example, the Tau codex talks about inviting newly discovered civilizations to join a consensual federation, and reluctantly fighting against those like the Orks who cannot cooperate. Whereas other fluff sources say the Tau simply obliterate all opposition. Which is true, or are there elements of truth in both sides?

Likewise the Imperial sources tell us that there are only about 1,000,000 SMs in the whole galaxy, but real life seems to indicate there are huge numbers more than that and they aren't the bionic supermen depicted in the standard Imperial texts.

Anyway, it comes back to what the Imperium wants to do with Earth. If they simply see it as a habitable planet ripe for settlement, the easiest thing to do would be to obliterate all the major cities with meteroids, wait a few years for the dust to settle, and plant a standard imperial colony.

Believe it or not, the 'colony drop' has been disproven as a tactic and is not performed by the Imperium. So no rocks. They don't need it anyway. Exojoule range weapons on their ships and all.

open_sketchbook wrote:The Gaunt's Ghosts book Honour Guard has a very good, in-depth look at the Russ and it's capabilities, while much quantification is to be had from the Kill Team, Cain and Horus Heresy books.

Also, a must for any vs. debate is the order of canon. Games-Workshop's order of canon is as follows. (Take from an interview a few years back, I believe)
- In-Universe Documents (IE, The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer)
- Black Library Published Novels
- Other Black Library Products (Including the Warhammer 40,000 RPG)
- Forge World Books
- Fluff in GW Sourcebooks (With codex superceeding rulebook, rulebook superceeding other sources)
- Official Comics
- Game Art
- Game Mechanics

Within this is a second hierarchy whereby new fluff overrides older fluff, excepting where a series continues without retconning previous information, so, for example, all Gaunt's Ghosts books have canon status equal to the most recent.

In addition, the Vs. community has generally agreed that, in a case where two recent pieces of fluff, the one most in line with previously stated quantifications is accepted.

Nothing published before 1996 is considered canon.

I'd disagree with this. I would put codexes first in canon, followed by sourcebooks (Sabbat Campaign, Xenology) then other materials.

ChaosDave wrote:

Jive Professor wrote:The space marines would teleport some Vanguard down and assault the United Nations on turn 2.

'WTF the nu books are 2 broken!' the Earth would reply.

'No dude, they are expensive, it balances out.'

Then Poland would, much like they did in WW2, deploy rough riders. They would actually manage to kill a single squad of marines.

'WTF Marines should not be able to die!' the Marines would moan.

'Whatevs, our book is like 15000 years old, GW updates you dickheads every other month. Plus we converted them with cold ones,' the Earth would retort.

'I still think they're lame.' The Marines would moan.

Then there'd be a price hike and the whole war would end in a draw because noone could afford to buy all the new stuff.

Hmm if they knew how completely ineffectual, corrupt and useless the UN is they wouldn't bother touching it with a 10' pole.

What would really happen is they would map the planet from orbit. Once completed they would determine the most industrialized and advanced areas and nuke or heavily bombard those from orbit. When you have the high ground it's just a matter of laying siege. Heck they could cause a nuclear winter(not with nukes but big asteroids impacting the surface. After awhile the communication, transportation, and power networks of the major powers will be in ruin. The industrial and agricultural base of most nations will no longer exist. People will starve and freeze etc. Eventually they would begin negotiations and many nations would surrender. Those that they could get to join the Imperium would be armed and equipped to help conquer the rest.

to be onist the un is less corupt and works beter than america.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

jfrazell wrote:You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Most times I don't have a clue what he's talking about either.

My wife says I generally don't have a clue...does that count?

Clue. Get some now!

Saved by Clue!

All you need is Clue.

Let your Clue flow.

Would a chapter have access to virus bombs? I thought only the Inquisition could call exterminatus?
Also until someone can provide some decent specs on what plasteel, ceramite, adamantium are, we have no idea of what their properties are in regards to our weapons. We have a rough idea of what they can stand up to in the 40K universe, but no idea of how good or bad they are in ours.
Also if we existed in the 40K universe then there will probably be some ancient store of devices that our ancestors left behind. Maybe even a weapon, burried for thousands of years in some forgotten place like Antarctica.
Maybe Area 51 found an intact STC machine but have not yet worked out how to turn it on. Actually if that happened then we could conceiveably build our own armour and weapons to come close to matching those of the Space marines. A few million lasguns and supporting weapons plus new aircraft could make us a tough nut to crack.

America would effectively destroy the enemy with deception. Here's how it goes down.

We get several special forces outfits from around the world, say we want to come onto their ship to negotiate. We promise them data and gak.
After they send a landing ship to pick us up we go on, the SpecOps their as "BodyGuards". When we reach their conference room or whatever we send our troops to the bathroom. They actually head to the engine and plant charges to cripple it. After that is done, we have ourselves a coup de tat. Taking control of the ship we repair the engines and open fire on the enemy ship. We surrender and calim that it was traitors that had done this and that they have been executed. We also baught up prisoners that were slated for death. The space marines board and we give them back control o0f their ship and give them their data. However we had taken palns of everything on the ship.

Returning home we used the plans to make our own ships. Ours are bigger, faster, and better in all respects to theirs. We wall of our country and refuse to take part in the war that occurs everywhere else.

After the war is finished we reveal our ships and say the the Emporer told us to do the things we did. They forgive us cause the mechanicus will leave the imperium if they messus up cause of our tech. We join the imperium.

Everybody else besides america, Well you guys pretty much get boned.

We'd send Tony Blair ... ... ... nuff said


FOR THE EMPORBLAIR!!!!!!! I mean Emperor, I meant emperor, the emperor honest ... ... ... .. dammit!

Golden Eyed Scout wrote:America would effectively destroy the enemy with deception. Here's how it goes down.

We get several special forces outfits from around the world, say we want to come onto their ship to negotiate. We promise them data and gak.
After they send a landing ship to pick us up we go on, the SpecOps their as "BodyGuards". When we reach their conference room or whatever we send our troops to the bathroom. They actually head to the engine and plant charges to cripple it. After that is done, we have ourselves a coup de tat. Taking control of the ship we repair the engines and open fire on the enemy ship. We surrender and calim that it was traitors that had done this and that they have been executed. We also baught up prisoners that were slated for death. The space marines board and we give them back control o0f their ship and give them their data. However we had taken palns of everything on the ship.

Returning home we used the plans to make our own ships. Ours are bigger, faster, and better in all respects to theirs. We wall of our country and refuse to take part in the war that occurs everywhere else.

After the war is finished we reveal our ships and say the the Emporer told us to do the things we did. They forgive us cause the mechanicus will leave the imperium if they messus up cause of our tech. We join the imperium.

Everybody else besides america, Well you guys pretty much get boned.

For some reason I don't think that the worst equipped guardsmen in history would be able to take over a SM ship. I also doubt the whole "easily reverse engineer their ships and trick them because spess marens are total idiots and would fall for our deception"

I think you are all missing the possibly most important bit: how long would it take for earth to unite against the threat. I think that the war would shape up a little bit like the discovery of america shortly after columbus, as I think the technologycal difference is about as high as then. The space marines would make brief alliances with some nations and would with there armed ground forces engage the bigger ones , using there spaceships to take out any nuclear weapons or impregnable fortifications in the way(thou the later could be taken out with drop pod assaults).

The marines would probably attempt to contact the earth as a whole, & demand surrender. One world governments being the norm in 40k. I dont think theyd realise at first that we're a bunch of independent nations with no central authority. Their tactics of 'cut off the head & watch the body die' would work less well when there were multiple 'heads'.

I think theyd start negotiations with countries willing to talk & it would be relatively peaceful. Until someone (possibly some slowed civilian) inevitably tried to assassinate a marine.

following this, talks would break down pretty sharpish & there would be war. Marines would attack in strike forces against what they believed were the most valuable targets (judgements theyd make on what theyve seen of our culture & governments during the talks).

I dont think it would be an easy war to win though. Even though marines are way beyond anything we have, technologically, we still have vastly more armed forces. Assuming a standard issue assault rifle in a generic army is the equivalent of the auto-rifle some guard forces get (S3, Ap - ) There would be marine casualties due to lucky shots & things. Even though individual marine vehicles like thunderhawks & predators are way in advance of our tanks, we have the advantage of being able to field massive numbers of tanks by comparison. Each country fighting will be able to commit tanks to the field by the hundred, & manufacture more to replace losses. Marines cant possibly commit anything like that amount of armour, & they have very limited ability to replace losses.

Also, I think once we realised just how in advance of ours their gear was our top priority would be capturing & reverse engineering marine equipment.

So in a short while we would have some analogues to marine technology. Once this happened the fight would become even more bogged down & protracted. Of course, all this is assuming theyre still intent on 'bringing the planet back into the fold' rather than wiping us out.

I feel that once the conflict had escalated into a full blown 'marinez hurr Vs earth' war, & they started sustaining losses theyd just declare the earth to be a planet of irredeemable heretics & attack us with orbital bombardments before sending in more marines to mop up the survivors

Funny thought, but I can't imagine.

I think a few people are giving the imperium a little to much credit in the technology area. I think alot of the materials they use are more about longevity and ease of production vs uber strength and protection. A leman russ may be built with plastasteel, but a space marine can punch throught the rear armor, a space marines armor may be unlike anything we have here, but fire enough grot blasters at a marine and they drop, and finally I dont think that the battle cannon on leman russ has quite the same punch as an M-1, challanger, or Leopard 2, simply because, stone buildings are armor 13 and an LR's cannon has a hard time bringing that down, where a modern tank can drop it in a single shot, while moving at full speed, in the dark, from a mile away.

dont forget we yanks are always developing new technology to destroy things... future weapons had an episode showcasing SFW (sensor fused weapons) basically a laser guided cluster bomb, filled with EFPs...as well as the MOAB... which has more power than a daisy cutter bomb... its the most powerful bomb in the world, before you get into nuclear arms... not to mention bunker busters, new shoulder-fired rocket weapons, and all sorts of things like that, designed to penetrate hardened targets.

for the SMs, it probably would be like facing a tougher Imperial Guard... i say it that way, because we have numbers, no real modifications like SMs do, some crap equipment... but we'd be tougher since we have airpower..the F-22 would probably dump enough missiles into the rear engine compartment areas of a thunderhawk to bring it down early... and we have those aforementioned "hard weapons"