In a setting where even medium ships can completely raze huge swathes of land, what's the point of many races even putting ground troops down?
Say some IG were besieging some Necron palace thing, and both races were taking a huge interest in the conflict, how would their ships act?
What i'm trying to say is, how on earth do space/star ships interact with the boots on floor, tanks and taking ground of the familiar 40k?
Ground combat is not pointless because nuking a planet from orbit tends to ruin the planet. Despite the Imperium having thousands of worlds, it can't afford to raze them unless it's absolutely necessary, and this is assuming you don't have a person or item on the world that needs retrieving. Other races are usually in a similar boat.
Spacecraft interact with ground forces in a lot of ways: Deploying and supplying them, providing orbital strikes, keeping orbit friendly so they aren't annihilated from space by someone who doesn't care about the world. Space Marines would be a lot less effective without a Battle Barge to send them down via Drop Pod, put it that way.
You also have cases where near-planet space is contested zone and there may not be opportunity for the ships above to take the time to give dedicated fire support to pinpoint targets.
Plus, most of the ground combat, especially against rebel human worlds, would be to take out surface-to-space defense weaponry. Humans tend to surrender when you have a weapon capable of destroying any city on the planet, but only if they don't have a way to retaliate.
Ever watch the intro to Space Marine? One of the first options that is levied is to deploy capital weaponry and raze the Ork forces from orbit. The Forge World declines this request stating that the damage to the factory output would be unacceptable.
I would guess there are many battles where it is nothing more than the ships arriving in orbit and nuking the enemy off the planet, but those don't make interesting stories.
Another possibility is that advanced human/xenos cities are sometimes shielded against orbital bombardment. You could have a hive city with void shields stronger than a battleship (in fact if I was building a hive city, it would be a no-brainer to include those for this exact reason). So even with orbital supremacy, you still need to put boots on the ground to take out their shield generators.
Because it's actually hard to get ships in orbit that aren't equipped with Exterminatus-grade weapons to deliver directed-energy blasts to ground targets when there are ground targets with capital-ship grade weapons shooting back.
Psienesis wrote: Because it's actually hard to get ships in orbit that aren't equipped with Exterminatus-grade weapons to deliver directed-energy blasts to ground targets when there are ground targets with capital-ship grade weapons shooting back.
Exactly, and in some cases a sufficiently armed planet has enough firepower to make the average fleet blush.
Calth's planetary defense systems were sufficient to obliterate moons in no time and cause the local star to go nova with a sustained bombardment.
In the Damnos book the Imperial Navy tries to take out the Necrons from orbit, the Necrons shoot back and the Navy is destroyed. The Marine ship enters orbit just long enough to deploy drop pods then runs (but still takes a kicking).
killed more by grunts than by Elites when you play legendary
Nah... them damn Jackal snipers with particle beam rifles used to one-hit me out of nowhere allll the bloody time. Trial and error gameplay -> reveal their position & die in the process -> outflank and snipe them on respawn... repeat.
A planet particularly well defended against orbital bombardment would also likely make it difficult to land significant numbers of troops and armor(and support) as well.
The thing is, it's a setting, not a reality simulation. The simple out-of-universe answer is the background and the various combat and logistics mechanics are built around the tabletop game.
"kaptin! da enemy have kaptured da kommanda!" "Shoot it for da emprah!" "Targeti-" "NO! We'z gotta save him for da emprah! Start da invashun!" "YESSSS"
Yes, infantry units are completely pointless in an age of technology raining death from the skies.
Just ask the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, and in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. And the French in Algiers and Indochina, and the Dutch in indonesia, and the British in Singapore, and the Germans over Britain. And the soviets in Grozny, and the Germans in Stalingrad.
The best example of this was in 1998. Bill Clinton, from positions the enemy couldn't counterattack, launched tomahawk missiles into the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, which instantly and comprehensively won the war on terrorists, turned Iraq into a peace-loving stabilizer of the region and a paragon of democracy, and solved all of America's problems in the middle east. Without a single infantry soldier.
Yup, the army that can do the most damage from the highest altitude is always the army who wins the war. Infantry units are pointless.
Many black library books address the interaction between orbital bombardment and ground forces... the short explanation is, however, that there are a lot of conflicts which probably end with an orbital bombardment but those aren't the stories that get told in the 40k universe, because they are boring. Even in the game there is an orbital bombardment option. Pinpoint orbital bombardments are extremely hard to aim from orbit to not hit friendly forces. Measures like exterminatus are costly and require that the planet not be worth it or beyond saving... in the case of vital forge worlds, the Imperium cannot afford to just nuke the vital resources there. And on top of that there are city defense void shields and planetside batteries that require ground forces to land in safety out of range, then attack from land.
Ground troops are needed for capturing objectives and wiping out enemies without destroying the whole planet. Plus infantry units are the coolest part of 40kIMHO. I do imagine that most of 40k's battles take place in space though, the tabletop game is just a very small fraction of battles.
Ailaros wrote: Yes, infantry units are completely pointless in an age of technology raining death from the skies.
Just ask the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, and in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. And the French in Algiers and Indochina, and the Dutch in indonesia, and the British in Singapore, and the Germans over Britain. And the soviets in Grozny, and the Germans in Stalingrad.
The best example of this was in 1998. Bill Clinton, from positions the enemy couldn't counterattack, launched tomahawk missiles into the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, which instantly and comprehensively won the war on terrorists, turned Iraq into a peace-loving stabilizer of the region and a paragon of democracy, and solved all of America's problems in the middle east. Without a single infantry soldier.
Yup, the army that can do the most damage from the highest altitude is always the army who wins the war. Infantry units are pointless.
Valid points, but valid in the context of modern warfare, politics, and technology.
The soviet union had a vast nuclear arsenal at its disposal. And it lost the war against Afghanistan.
The Imperium has a vast fleet at its disposal. And they would also lose without ground forces. For all of the same reasons that simply nuking afghanistan wouldn't have won it for the soviets, or nuking vietnam would have won it for the americans.
Support weapons are just that - support. You can't achieve anything with just long-range firepower.
The one exception to this would be the dread exterminatus, but firstly, just how many resources are being diverted to create planet-killing weapons that may or may not actually achieve their intended objective (cf. Tallarn), and secondly, what happens when the Imperium handles every situation by destroying the entire planet? An imperium that controls nothing more than the blasted hulls of former planets won't have the resources to fight off their enemies.
Ailaros wrote: The soviet union had a vast nuclear arsenal at its disposal. And it lost the war against Afghanistan.
The Imperium has a vast fleet at its disposal. And they would also lose without ground forces. For all of the same reasons that simply nuking afghanistan wouldn't have won it for the soviets, or nuking vietnam would have won it for the americans.
Support weapons are just that - support. You can't achieve anything with just long-range firepower.
The one exception to this would be the dread exterminatus, but firstly, just how many resources are being diverted to create planet-killing weapons that may or may not actually achieve their intended objective (cf. Tallarn), and secondly, what happens when the Imperium handles every situation by destroying the entire planet? An imperium that controls nothing more than the blasted hulls of former planets won't have the resources to fight off their enemies.
The decision to deploy weapons like nukes in a setting like 40k would, generally, have much less political weighing involved. In cases where you need to simply completely annihilate a foe(OP mentioned a conflict against necrons), I would expect WMDs to, realistically, have a considerably larger role than they're usually depicted in having.
I also think you're confusing my position as arguing ground combat would have absolutely no place in a more realistic setting - I just think its role would be diminished considerably.
Let's say you're a fleet commander, and you've got a few imperial guard armies tagging along (because they're super cheap to create and maintain. You know what, have three imperial guard armies), and you've also got a giant battlefleet with enough missiles to destroy all life on a planet twice over.
You're in your situation room, and you've got some situations. On Phalax III, your naval base, heretics have risen on the planet and taken over your ports drydocks, and battleship parts factories. On Wargram IV, orks have invaded, and a fierce fight is roiling over your planet-killing missile factories, and there are sketchy reports and rumors of a huge tyranid fleet approaching.
What do you do?
The stupid answer is to say "I've got enough missiles to kill two planets" and completely annihilate Wargram and Phalax. Oops, looks like you don't have any battleships or missiles anymore. Hope the tyranid don't invade.
The smart answer is to send in your guardsmen to kill the orks and heretics without doing any damage to your drydocks and missile factories and save the missiles in case the tyranid show up, and you need to shoot them with a huge quantity of firepower.
Completely ignoring politics, there's plenty of reason why you use infantry to do stuff, rather than NUKE EVARYTHING FROM ORBITZ!!!!!1!!!!eleven!!
While doing nothing but shooting stuff with missiles doesn't work in the real world of 2013, only one, small reason is because of politics. If you could achieve your goals with nothing but missile strikes, then everyone would damn the politics and just use missiles. It turns out, though, that long range support weapons alone are ineffective at achieving your strategic objectives.
Which is why you have infantry. Because you want to actually win wars, not merely throw around a few fireballs and call it a day.
Let's say you're a fleet commander, and you've got a few imperial guard armies tagging along (because they're super cheap to create and maintain. You know what, have three imperial guard armies), and you've also got a giant battlefleet with enough missiles to destroy all life on a planet twice over.
You're in your situation room, and you've got some situations. On Phalax III, your naval base, heretics have risen on the planet and taken over your ports drydocks, and battleship parts factories. On Wargram IV, orks have invaded, and a fierce fight is roiling over your planet-killing missile factories, and there are sketchy reports and rumors of a huge tyranid fleet approaching.
What do you do?
The stupid answer is to say "I've got enough missiles to kill two planets" and completely annihilate Wargram and Phalax. Oops, looks like you don't have any battleships or missiles anymore. Hope the tyranid don't invade.
The smart answer is to send in your guardsmen to kill the orks and heretics without doing any damage to your drydocks and missile factories and save the missiles in case the tyranid show up, and you need to shoot them with a huge quantity of firepower.
Completely ignoring politics, there's plenty of reason why you use infantry to do stuff, rather than NUKE EVARYTHING FROM ORBITZ!!!!!1!!!!eleven!!
While doing nothing but shooting stuff with missiles doesn't work in the real world of 2013, only one, small reason is because of politics. If you could achieve your goals with nothing but missile strikes, then everyone would damn the politics and just use missiles. It turns out, though, that long range support weapons alone are ineffective at achieving your strategic objectives.
Which is why you have infantry. Because you want to actually win wars, not merely throw around a few fireballs and call it a day.
Obviously if you're considering a front on a forge world or similarly valuable location, use of destructive weapons has to be done with caution, but that's not always the case nor can we assume that somehow *all* of the planet is so valuable that deploying super destructive weapons anywhere is unacceptable.
Orks and tyranids come to mind as aggressors these kinds of weapons could be deployed against more often than the background tells of. Certainly that's more logical than facing down hordes of aliens with legions of infantry and tanks.
Vaerros wrote: Orks and tyranids come to mind as aggressors these kinds of weapons could be deployed against more often than the background tells of. Certainly that's more logical than facing down hordes of aliens with legions of infantry and tanks.
That depends on how expensive those WMDs are compared to a regiment of Imperial Guard, and how many WMDs it would take to actually get all of the enemy troops. Just blowing everything up is fast, but if it costs too much you might be better off using cheaper means to secure the planet.
Infantry have a combat range from slapping the wrist of a naughty boy all the way up to deployment of nuclear hand grenades (can you run 3 miles in 10 seconds?). Fleet firepower can only flatten things starting at about city block size.
Ailaros wrote: While doing nothing but shooting stuff with missiles doesn't work in the real world of 2013, only one, small reason is because of politics. If you could achieve your goals with nothing but missile strikes, then everyone would damn the politics and just use missiles. It turns out, though, that long range support weapons alone are ineffective at achieving your strategic objectives.
You're ignoring the fact that in the real world you can't just ignore civilian casualties. A country that used indiscriminate WMDs to win a war at the cost of millions of civilian casualties would find themselves cut off and treated as dangerous extremists like North Korea/Iran/etc. In 40k, on the other hand, civilian casualties are desirable since 99% of the time you're going to exterminate all the civilians anyway once you win the war. It's a nice bonus if the weapons that win the war by instantly vaporizing an entire army also kill some xenos/heretics/whatever civilians and tear down their blasphemous creations. And let's not forget the scorched earth tactics. Why let the enemy conquer a hive city and slaughter all the inhabitants in honor of their heretical god-emperor when you can nuke it yourself and kill the invading army at the same time? Even if you want to capture something intact the enemy is never going to let you do it, so you might as well go straight to indiscriminate WMDs.
Too bad GW will never show what "kill all of the xenos" really means and have a regiment of guardsmen assigned to go through the maternity section of the hospital in a conquered Tau city and execute all of the babies. You could even have a scene of them being thankful that the hospital was collateral damage in a nuclear strike. Not because of any moral issues, of course, but because it means they don't have to waste precious lasgun ammo.
My two cents:
One of the biggest influence on W40k is Robert A Heinlein´s "Starship Troopers". There is an answer in this book for the question asked here.
Spoiler:
“There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time . . . .
We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We're the bloody infantry, the doughboy, the duckfoot, the foot soldier who goes where the enemy is and takes him on in person. We've been doing it, with changes in weapons but very little change in our trade, at least since the time five thousand years ago when the foot sloggers of Sargon the Great forced the Sumerians to cry "Uncle!"
Maybe they'll be able to do without us someday. Maybe some mad genius with myopia, a bulging forehead, and a cybernetic mind will devise a weapon that can go down a hole, pick out the opposition, adn force it to surrender or die--without killing that gang of your own people they've got imprisoned down there. I wouldn't know; I'm not a genius, I'm an M.I. In the meantime, until they build a machine to replace us, my mates can handle that job--and I might be some help on it, too.”
Keep in mind he is talking about sending Space Marines in Power Armour to a planet instead of using orbital bombardments.
Spetulhu wrote: Orks and tyranids come to mind as aggressors these kinds of weapons could be deployed against more often than the background tells of. Certainly that's more logical than facing down hordes of aliens with legions of infantry and tanks.
Actually, Tyrannids lead to exterminatus almost all the friggin' time in fluff sources. Your line of reasoning that tyranids should cause the Imperium to use exterminates more often is true, but it's also true that they already DO that in the fluff anyways. Kryptman destroyed tons of Imperial planets, there's a Space Wolves comic that ends in exterminates, the Daemons vs Tyrannids incident ended in Exterminatus.... really, I think "Exterminatus" gets mentioned more often than not when it comes to Tyrannids.
Your reasoning is flawed regarding the orks, though. They actually take slaves and keep industry forges intact so they can use those things to continue to fuel their war machine. The Imperium would not conduct exterminatus in those cases if it values those lives (or at least, those lives' productivity) and manufactorums more than the infantry set to take it.
Guardsmen are cheap, the production of which happens in mass in the bedrooms/streets of hive worlds, weaponry and its production in the 40k lore is limited by control of the mechanicum and the ignorance of the masses. Loyal factory worlds and forge worlds are limited, as are resources on loyal worlds due to 10k years of total war footing, you do not use weapons that could damage later economic advantages unless its the last option (krieg last stand/no resources or production left/its a hive world on a dead planet (we have enough of them)/tyranids are winning and have turned everything useful to biomass).
One of the reasons that has been mentioned a few times is that destroying worlds is not what they are going for. They need every world they can get as it is so blowing up every one that causes trouble would leave them without anything. Secondly despite what has been said you cannot capture land without infantry. You can make it so that no one gets it but if you want it back you must send in ground forces eventually. In Vietnam Despite having complete air superiority and dropping more bombs then were dropped in all of WWII by all countries the Viet Cong were not defeated and after a while hardly even inconvenienced by this. Air superiority doesn't mean a whole lot without feet on the ground to exploit it. Take into account how many ways there are in the setting to try and stop them from dropping the dooms day bombs or what have you it becomes easier to just land troops a thousand miles away and start marching.
Planets are valuable, and sometimes the things on them. Capturing these things is a good idea now and then, not necessarily obliterating the surface from 1,000 miles away safely in orbit.
White Ninja wrote: In Vietnam Despite having complete air superiority and dropping more bombs then were dropped in all of WWII by all countries the Viet Cong were not defeated and after a while hardly even inconvenienced by this.
Again, that's because in the real world we have to at least pretend to care about civilian casualties. If we were fighting the war by 40k standards we would have just nuked Vietnam off the map with long-range bombers/missiles and ended the war in a day or two. Remember, our goal was to "stop communism", Vietnam itself didn't have anything of value to us. In fact by 40k rules we would have had to kill everyone in South Vietnam anyway because they've been exposed to chaos communism, so indiscriminate use of nuclear weapons would have just made the eventual extermination process a bit easier.
Take into account how many ways there are in the setting to try and stop them from dropping the dooms day bombs or what have you it becomes easier to just land troops a thousand miles away and start marching.
You don't need exotic doomsday bombs, just tactical nuclear weapons. If you're close enough for your Basilisks to shell enemy targets you're close enough for those Basilisks to use nuclear shells instead and wipe out the entire enemy army. If you're calling in air strikes with explosive bombs you can call in air strikes with nuclear bombs. If you're landing drop pods full of marines you can land drop pods full of nukes. Etc.
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da001 wrote: One of the biggest influence on W40k is Robert A Heinlein´s "Starship Troopers". There is an answer in this book for the question asked here.
Except that's a bad example. In 40k you don't worry about killing your own troops that the enemy has captured because even if you "rescue" them you're going to execute them anyway for exposure to xenos heresy/failing to obey orders to fight to the death/etc. Not that anyone in 40k (except maybe the Tau) would actually take prisoners for longer than the time it takes to interrogate and torture them before executing them.
White Ninja wrote: In Vietnam Despite having complete air superiority and dropping more bombs then were dropped in all of WWII by all countries the Viet Cong were not defeated and after a while hardly even inconvenienced by this.
Again, that's because in the real world we have to at least pretend to care about civilian casualties. If we were fighting the war by 40k standards we would have just nuked Vietnam off the map with long-range bombers/missiles and ended the war in a day or two. Remember, our goal was to "stop communism", Vietnam itself didn't have anything of value to us. In fact by 40k rules we would have had to kill everyone in South Vietnam anyway because they've been exposed to chaos communism, so indiscriminate use of nuclear weapons would have just made the eventual extermination process a bit easier.
Most planets that the Imperium were attacking were owned by the Imperium first, unlike Vietnam. America, if they had no moral qualms, could carpet Vietnam into oblivion and be happy with that and leave. For the Imperium, however, carpet bombing something that they used to own is a LOSE because they can't own that thing any more now. It'd be like if America once owned Vietnam, but then Vietnam rebelled against America. In that case, bombing Vietnam would be a lose for America because what they once owned is now not their's anymore (instead, it's now a barren ash wasteland)
When you're the faction that's on the defensive like the Imperium is, Exterminatus basically means you lost..
da001 wrote: My two cents:
One of the biggest influence on W40k is Robert A Heinlein´s "Starship Troopers". There is an answer in this book for the question asked here.
Spoiler:
“There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time . . . .
We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We're the bloody infantry, the doughboy, the duckfoot, the foot soldier who goes where the enemy is and takes him on in person. We've been doing it, with changes in weapons but very little change in our trade, at least since the time five thousand years ago when the foot sloggers of Sargon the Great forced the Sumerians to cry "Uncle!"
Maybe they'll be able to do without us someday. Maybe some mad genius with myopia, a bulging forehead, and a cybernetic mind will devise a weapon that can go down a hole, pick out the opposition, adn force it to surrender or die--without killing that gang of your own people they've got imprisoned down there. I wouldn't know; I'm not a genius, I'm an M.I. In the meantime, until they build a machine to replace us, my mates can handle that job--and I might be some help on it, too.”
Keep in mind he is talking about sending Space Marines in Power Armour to a planet instead of using orbital bombardments.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
What we can easily say though, is 40k opts for to many punches in the nose and not enough coordinate pin point firepower from space or air. I'm reading Fire Caste right now, and there is 0 plausible reason for either side to ever be fighting over the planet they are on (ignoring the ignorance of the fact it's planet nurgle, there is no resource on the planet worth fighting over, for either the Tau or Imperium, not even a strategic one of positioning for some other conflict). It's a total 'glass the enemy from orbit' scenario.
TiamatRoar wrote: For the Imperium, however, carpet bombing something that they used to own is a LOSE because they can't own that thing any more now.
Again, we're playing by 40k rules, not by real-world rules. The enemy almost certainly has a scorched-earth policy in place (unless they're Tyranids, in which case they already ate whatever they took from you) so as soon as you get close to recapturing it the exterminatus bombs go off. Either way you're not going to claim anything of value, so you might as well just kill the enemy efficiently.
The poor bloody infantry are like a scalpel on the average scale of theatres in the 40k universe. They probe, they prod, they do a lot of important and precise work. Even beyond this, they are a far more verifiable way to deal with an emplaced or invading enemy, without doing something like killing every last semblance of life on the agriworld that feeds the rest of the star system, and a half-dozen worlds beyond.
Carnifexes can survive exterminatus attempts using cyclonic torpedoes, living metal seems to be some genuinely durable stuff, and space-elves are some nasty individuals to have hunting you for razing their cradle worlds to the ground. Scorched earth only works if you're not severely damaging your own efforts, supplies, and logistical chain in the process. Contrary to popular belief, it's not the guys on the ground, with the guns that win wars, it's the guys supplying the guys on the ground with food, boot polish, ammo, and pornography. Break your enemy's logistics chain, break your enemy. Simple as that.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
Space Marines.
Seriously. Heinlein did it first. Don't watch the movie, read the book. Power Armored troops descending by drop-ship or jump-packs from orbit to deliver uncompromising total war to the enemy, directly to their faces.
Power Armor? Heinlein created the concept for the genre of science-fiction. Sixty-plus years ago.
da001 wrote: One of the biggest influence on W40k is Robert A Heinlein´s "Starship Troopers". There is an answer in this book for the question asked here.
Except that's a bad example. In 40k you don't worry about killing your own troops that the enemy has captured because even if you "rescue" them you're going to execute them anyway for exposure to xenos heresy/failing to obey orders to fight to the death/etc. Not that anyone in 40k (except maybe the Tau) would actually take prisoners for longer than the time it takes to interrogate and torture them before executing them.
If they want to kill everything, they use exterminatus. That´s OK against nids or demons. But sometimes it is needed a more subtle approach. That´s what infantry is for. By bombing the planet, you render it useless, and lose lots of resources. It is (at best) a phyrric victory. Scorched land tactic, not conquest.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
What we can easily say though, is 40k opts for to many punches in the nose and not enough coordinate pin point firepower from space or air. I'm reading Fire Caste right now, and there is 0 plausible reason for either side to ever be fighting over the planet they are on (ignoring the ignorance of the fact it's planet nurgle, there is no resource on the planet worth fighting over, for either the Tau or Imperium, not even a strategic one of positioning for some other conflict). It's a total 'glass the enemy from orbit' scenario.
Just my opinion, of course, but I think it is a big influence.
MI in movies -> Cadian Imperial Guard (and Bugs -> Tyranids).
MI (aka Space Marines) in the book(s) -> Adeptus Astartes (aka Space Marines).
Even if the planet has nothing of value, it is still a planet. It can be colonized, and turned into a prosperous loyal world.
Carnifexes can survive exterminatus attempts using cyclonic torpedoes, living metal seems to be some genuinely durable stuff, and space-elves are some nasty individuals to have hunting you for razing their cradle worlds to the ground. Scorched earth only works if you're not severely damaging your own efforts, supplies, and logistical chain in the process.
^This. Also, see Istvaan III or Codex: Grey Knights page 17 (Sondheim V) for a brutal orbital bombardment on Astartes. If you want them dead, you need to get close.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
Space Marines.
Seriously. Heinlein did it first. Don't watch the movie, read the book. Power Armored troops descending by drop-ship or jump-packs from orbit to deliver uncompromising total war to the enemy, directly to their faces.
Power Armor? Heinlein created the concept for the genre of science-fiction. Sixty-plus years ago.
da001 wrote: One of the biggest influence on W40k is Robert A Heinlein´s "Starship Troopers". There is an answer in this book for the question asked here.
Except that's a bad example. In 40k you don't worry about killing your own troops that the enemy has captured because even if you "rescue" them you're going to execute them anyway for exposure to xenos heresy/failing to obey orders to fight to the death/etc. Not that anyone in 40k (except maybe the Tau) would actually take prisoners for longer than the time it takes to interrogate and torture them before executing them.
If they want to kill everything, they use exterminatus. That´s OK against nids or demons. But sometimes it is needed a more subtle approach. That´s what infantry is for. By bombing the planet, you render it useless, and lose lots of resources. It is (at best) a phyrric victory. Scorched land tactic, not conquest.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
What we can easily say though, is 40k opts for to many punches in the nose and not enough coordinate pin point firepower from space or air. I'm reading Fire Caste right now, and there is 0 plausible reason for either side to ever be fighting over the planet they are on (ignoring the ignorance of the fact it's planet nurgle, there is no resource on the planet worth fighting over, for either the Tau or Imperium, not even a strategic one of positioning for some other conflict). It's a total 'glass the enemy from orbit' scenario.
Just my opinion, of course, but I think it is a big influence.
MI in movies -> Cadian Imperial Guard (and Bugs -> Tyranids).
MI (aka Space Marines) in the book(s) -> Adeptus Astartes (aka Space Marines).
Even if the planet has nothing of value, it is still a planet. It can be colonized, and turned into a prosperous loyal world.
Carnifexes can survive exterminatus attempts using cyclonic torpedoes, living metal seems to be some genuinely durable stuff, and space-elves are some nasty individuals to have hunting you for razing their cradle worlds to the ground. Scorched earth only works if you're not severely damaging your own efforts, supplies, and logistical chain in the process.
^This. Also, see Istvaan III or Codex: Grey Knights page 17 (Sondheim V) for a brutal orbital bombardment on Astartes. If you want them dead, you need to get close.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
Space Marines.
Seriously. Heinlein did it first. Don't watch the movie, read the book. Power Armored troops descending by drop-ship or jump-packs from orbit to deliver uncompromising total war to the enemy, directly to their faces.
Power Armor? Heinlein created the concept for the genre of science-fiction. Sixty-plus years ago.
^Yes.
The closest thing to the MI are the Tau Farsight Enclaves. They're the only faction to have a heavily jump infantry based army with high firepower. Space Marines, a whole chapter full, isn't worth 10 MI. 10 MI would smoke 1000 marines like a cheap cigar and never break a sweat.
I've read the book, several times. It's one of my favorite pieces of science fiction. Space Marines suck $$$ in comparison. It is a far better written and thought out take on a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.
TiamatRoar wrote: For the Imperium, however, carpet bombing something that they used to own is a LOSE because they can't own that thing any more now.
Again, we're playing by 40k rules, not by real-world rules. The enemy almost certainly has a scorched-earth policy in place (unless they're Tyranids, in which case they already ate whatever they took from you).
They do? Most of the time, Chaos Marines and even Orks want to hold onto the stuff too, and apparently seldom have ways to scorch the earth fast enough once the Imperium comes a knockin' seeing as to how rare they seem to do it in any stories. Usually it's the Imperium that's scorching its earth (hell, exterminatus is basically one big LITERAL scorch earth policy), but other armies usually don't care to or don't have the resources to.
The only factions that really end up destroying everything are daemons and tyrannids (and maybe necrons). And, as is logical, they're usually the factions that result in exterminatus the most (including Necrons, who also usually result in Exterminatus). So basically, the two or three factions most prone to scorching the earth of their own accord (yea, it's not because they WANT to do a scorched earth policy, but the end result of a scorched earth is the same) already result in Exterminatus pretty darn often in the fluff, anyways.
Not that there aren't stories that are flawed, of course. Fire Caste above seems like a good example. Most of the time, however, there's something of value that both parties want and only the Imperium has the resources to destroy everything.
As an aside, at least some writers realize that if the planet holds nothing of value, exterminatus is the way to go. For the Damacles crusade, the Imperium did just that when they came across a Tau ocean planet that they saw no strategic value in owning.
The way I see it is very much like those procedural cop/investigation shows. Most of the time the bad guy is stupid and easily caught OR they never get the evidence/break they need. But neither are dramatic and the shows focus on those cases where there is drama. Likewise I assume there are often times when the rear section of an ork horde is blown to dust by the arriving Imperial fleet, but there's no drama in that, no 28mm scale battle to have. Every battle is that exception, where for some reason you couldn't just nuke it from orbit
Spetulhu wrote: Orks and tyranids come to mind as aggressors these kinds of weapons could be deployed against more often than the background tells of. Certainly that's more logical than facing down hordes of aliens with legions of infantry and tanks.
Actually, Tyrannids lead to exterminatus almost all the friggin' time in fluff sources. Your line of reasoning that tyranids should cause the Imperium to use exterminates more often is true, but it's also true that they already DO that in the fluff anyways. Kryptman destroyed tons of Imperial planets, there's a Space Wolves comic that ends in exterminates, the Daemons vs Tyrannids incident ended in Exterminatus.... really, I think "Exterminatus" gets mentioned more often than not when it comes to Tyrannids.
Your reasoning is flawed regarding the orks, though. They actually take slaves and keep industry forges intact so they can use those things to continue to fuel their war machine. The Imperium would not conduct exterminatus in those cases if it values those lives (or at least, those lives' productivity) and manufactorums more than the infantry set to take it.
That's a fair point regarding the orks. There are, however, instances of Imperial forces marching out to meet ork hordes in force where I think bombardment should've been a factor(or more of one). I'm trying to recall if that was the situation in Dawn of War, with ork investing the planet's jungles.
Let's say you're a fleet commander, and you've got a few imperial guard armies tagging along (because they're super cheap to create and maintain. You know what, have three imperial guard armies), and you've also got a giant battlefleet with enough missiles to destroy all life on a planet twice over.
You're in your situation room, and you've got some situations. On Phalax III, your naval base, heretics have risen on the planet and taken over your ports drydocks, and battleship parts factories. On Wargram IV, orks have invaded, and a fierce fight is roiling over your planet-killing missile factories, and there are sketchy reports and rumors of a huge tyranid fleet approaching.
What do you do?
The stupid answer is to say "I've got enough missiles to kill two planets" and completely annihilate Wargram and Phalax. Oops, looks like you don't have any battleships or missiles anymore. Hope the tyranid don't invade.
The smart answer is to send in your guardsmen to kill the orks and heretics without doing any damage to your drydocks and missile factories and save the missiles in case the tyranid show up, and you need to shoot them with a huge quantity of firepower.
Completely ignoring politics, there's plenty of reason why you use infantry to do stuff, rather than NUKE EVARYTHING FROM ORBITZ!!!!!1!!!!eleven!!
While doing nothing but shooting stuff with missiles doesn't work in the real world of 2013, only one, small reason is because of politics. If you could achieve your goals with nothing but missile strikes, then everyone would damn the politics and just use missiles. It turns out, though, that long range support weapons alone are ineffective at achieving your strategic objectives.
Which is why you have infantry. Because you want to actually win wars, not merely throw around a few fireballs and call it a day.
Good points, but what about races that have no interest in holding land or infrastructure, such as Crons. In IA12 it was shown that they could wipe out large portions of land, yet only used this ability sparingly, despite the fact that it was shown to be nothing out of the ordinary as far as their firepower was concerned.
CalgarsPimpHand wrote: Another possibility is that advanced human/xenos cities are sometimes shielded against orbital bombardment. You could have a hive city with void shields stronger than a battleship (in fact if I was building a hive city, it would be a no-brainer to include those for this exact reason). So even with orbital supremacy, you still need to put boots on the ground to take out their shield generators.
This is untrue. In Necropolis, the city's void shields eventually break to conventional bombardment after a few weeks. It's therefore logical to assume that they would shatter against the far stronger orbital bombardment.
GW has constructed a universe where space power is NOT the supreme be all and end all of the military forces. Arguing how it "should" be in your own personal fan universe has no bearing on the paradigm for the fictional universe that GW as IP holder has constructed.
In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser. These capabilities are all pulled direct from the rulebook and are not a matter of personal opinion. Ground defenses pack equivalent or superior firepower at a much lower points cost (and presumably lower monetary cost) compared to a starship which needs to be mobile and warp capable.
we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress/Kasr might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.
Then we have multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.
Now before anyone tries to mention battleships, the example of the Gothic Sector in BFG showed a sector has on average about 2-3 battleships as part of its fleet. These are limited assets that are not easily replaceable and exposing them to ground fire risks either catastrophic loss or damage sufficient to send them to the dock for a lengthy period of time during which they are out of action.
xruslanx wrote: This is untrue. In Necropolis, the city's void shields eventually break to conventional bombardment after a few weeks. It's therefore logical to assume that they would shatter against the far stronger orbital bombardment.
This is untrue. The city's void shields are deactivated by Salvador Sondar as he finally succumbs to chaos infection.
"Oh look - lots and lots of tyranids are landing on planet to harvest us for biomass, what shall we do?"
"Well we can't fight them off - we don't have any ground forces"
"What?!? Why not???"
"Well when those orks landed for a fight a few years ago we managed to scare them off by pulling silly faces. And remember last year when those dark eldar came to enslave us? We were able to solve it with a game of sharades rather than a silly little ground war."
"But what about that cultist uprising in the subhive last month? Surely we put them down with our ground forces?"
"Don't be silly, we bought them off with chocolate, flowers and bunny rabbits."
Inky wrote: In a setting where even medium ships can completely raze huge swathes of land, what's the point of many races even putting ground troops down?
Say some IG were besieging some Necron palace thing, and both races were taking a huge interest in the conflict, how would their ships act?
What i'm trying to say is, how on earth do space/star ships interact with the boots on floor, tanks and taking ground of the familiar 40k?
40k is objective based.
Imagine there is a priceless relic(STC for something juicy) on the surface of a planet surrounded by a billion chaos cultists who revere it as a god and have built a huge subterrainian complex to house and protect said relic. What are you going to do, bombard it and risk losing the relic?
Or what if there is a renegade preacher spreading lies about the emperor? You could kill him but wouldnt it be better to capture him and force him to publicly repent? Martyrs are not fun.
In fact 2k(today) is objetive based. Why do we still have gound troops when we have aircraft that can raze cities?
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
Just my opinion, of course, but I think it is a big influence.
MI in movies -> Cadian Imperial Guard (and Bugs -> Tyranids).
MI (aka Space Marines) in the book(s) -> Adeptus Astartes (aka Space Marines).
The closest thing to the MI are the Tau Farsight Enclaves. They're the only faction to have a heavily jump infantry based army with high firepower. Space Marines, a whole chapter full, isn't worth 10 MI. 10 MI would smoke 1000 marines like a cheap cigar and never break a sweat.
I've read the book, several times. It's one of my favorite pieces of science fiction. Space Marines suck $$$ in comparison. It is a far better written and thought out take on a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.
Which is a difference: MI are far more powerful than Astares. There are more differences.
For instance, Astartes have heraldic insignias, exactly like knight orders. Knight orders are a clear influence for the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines). Mobile Infantry (also referred as Space Marines) do not use heraldry. And they are jump infantry. And stronger.
However, MI are Space Marines in Power Armour brainwashed by military propaganda and send by Drop Pod to fight aliens and save mankind, in a disturbing Sci-fi setting where humanity has become a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.
There are differences, they are not exactly the same, but they a take on the same concept with very similar results.
Still a matter of interpretation. I am surprised you think Tau are closer to MI than Astartes.
40k is objective based.
Imagine there is a priceless relic(STC for something juicy) on the surface of a planet surrounded by a billion chaos cultists who revere it as a god and have built a huge subterrainian complex to house and protect said relic. What are you going to do, bombard it and risk losing the relic?
Or what if there is a renegade preacher spreading lies about the emperor? You could kill him but wouldnt it be better to capture him and force him to publicly repent? Martyrs are not fun.
In fact 2k(today) is objetive based. Why do we still have gound troops when we have aircraft that can raze cities?
Iracundus wrote: GW has constructed a universe where space power is NOT the supreme be all and end all of the military forces.
No, they really haven't. They've constructed a universe in which space power exists and no faction has any moral objection to using it, and then handwaved it away so they can have WWI trench battles in space.
Ground defenses pack equivalent or superior firepower at a much lower points cost (and presumably lower monetary cost) compared to a starship which needs to be mobile and warp capable.
So how exactly do ground armies (which are composed of WWI-era tanks and screaming idiots with chainswords) ever beat ground defenses? If these defenses are capable of engaging starships with a reasonable expectation of winning they would massacre any 40k ground forces effortlessly. The fact that we don't see this happening implies that either the description of ground defenses is wrong, or that high-end ground defenses are virtually nonexistent.
And of course this still doesn't say anything about ground-based WMDs. For example, if you're shelling a hive city and its defending army with Basilisks why wouldn't you give them nuclear shells?
Then we have multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.
And we have multiple examples of battles happening outside of those defenses. For example, Armageddon had battles in the wastelands outside the hive cities, and every one of those battles should have been resolved in seconds with nuclear weapons.
Exergy wrote: Imagine there is a priceless relic(STC for something juicy) on the surface of a planet surrounded by a billion chaos cultists who revere it as a god and have built a huge subterrainian complex to house and protect said relic. What are you going to do, bombard it and risk losing the relic?
That's exactly what I would do, because if I were the cult leader I'd ensure that the relic is sitting on top of a nuke on a dead man's switch so that if I die I will take my relic and the invading army with me. Since I know that recovery of the relic is impossible there is no reason to spend valuable ground forces to kill those billion cultists.
Or what if there is a renegade preacher spreading lies about the emperor? You could kill him but wouldnt it be better to capture him and force him to publicly repent? Martyrs are not fun.
I would nuke the renegade preacher and their entire city from orbit and broadcast the attack as a warning to anyone with similar ideas. Capturing the preacher is impossible because the preacher knows perfectly well what happens to captured heretics and will fight to the death.
Why do we still have gound troops when we have aircraft that can raze cities?
Because in the real world we don't like it when people raze entire cities to kill a target, and doing so would get the rest of the world to treat you like North Korea. In 40k civilian casualties from indiscriminate use of WMDs are a nice bonus because it means fewer civilians for your ground troops to exterminate once you win the war.
xruslanx wrote: This is untrue. In Necropolis, the city's void shields eventually break to conventional bombardment after a few weeks. It's therefore logical to assume that they would shatter against the far stronger orbital bombardment.
This is untrue. The city's void shields are deactivated by Salvador Sondar as he finally succumbs to chaos infection.
I'm pretty sure the bombardment weakens them almost to the point of collapse, doesn't it? Been a while since I read it mind.
One thing to consider is that if the Imperium's enemies knew every time they set foot on an Imperila planet the Imperium would nuke it! They would do this systematically and get the Imperium to nuke itself into extinction.
Alos destroying your own home does not stop your enemy living happily in his home, and just coming back a year later to try again.
Peregrine wrote: They've constructed a universe in which space power exists and no faction has any moral objection to using it, and then handwaved it away so they can have WWI trench battles in space.
Except that they need no such hand wave. Ground objectives are always valuable, and ground forces are always the most effective, sure-fire method of securing them. Think of our Earth wars. What do we fight over? Land. Wealth, power, etc, etc... but it always comes down to resources. Always. And that means land. All 40K has done is take that land, Terra, and expanded it a thousand fold across the stars. Planets are the new land, they provide all the resources (yes, that includes any and all needed with which to build a super fleet with super lasers and super cannons). Same as always, ground based objectives are the key, therefore ground forces are the key to taking and holding them. There's just simply more (much, much, much more) land to fight over now.
So how exactly do ground armies (which are composed of WWI-era tanks and screaming idiots with chainswords) ever beat ground defenses? If these defenses are capable of engaging starships with a reasonable expectation of winning they would massacre any 40k ground forces effortlessly.
The same way they are/were used in our own Earth wars. The same way WWII paratroopers were used to defeat AA and long distance artillery pieces, yes, those things which could "massacre ground forces effortlessly". The same way SAS were used to take out enemy SCUD missiles, using 4x4s, assault rifles and C4... yes, those missiles which could "massacre ground forces effortlessly". No matter how powerful or sophisticated our own long range delivery systems are for ordnance, be is aircraft, submersible, surface-to-air ICBMs, whatever, there will always be a need for ground forces. 40K is no different.
xruslanx wrote: I'm pretty sure the bombardment weakens them almost to the point of collapse, doesn't it?
Not as far as I can remember, no.
However, it's only one novel written by one author out of dozens, each with their own variations and creative approaches to the setting. You may well be remembering an instance of void shields being broken by ground artillery from another BL novel. Also, just because Vervunhive could withstand the massed ground based guns of Ferrozoica, who's to say the same could be said to a mass, sustained bombardment from a star fleet?
So, although your example was erroneous, your point still may stand.
Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.
Just my opinion, of course, but I think it is a big influence.
MI in movies -> Cadian Imperial Guard (and Bugs -> Tyranids).
MI (aka Space Marines) in the book(s) -> Adeptus Astartes (aka Space Marines).
The closest thing to the MI are the Tau Farsight Enclaves. They're the only faction to have a heavily jump infantry based army with high firepower. Space Marines, a whole chapter full, isn't worth 10 MI. 10 MI would smoke 1000 marines like a cheap cigar and never break a sweat.
I've read the book, several times. It's one of my favorite pieces of science fiction. Space Marines suck $$$ in comparison. It is a far better written and thought out take on a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.
Which is a difference: MI are far more powerful than Astares. There are more differences.
For instance, Astartes have heraldic insignias, exactly like knight orders. Knight orders are a clear influence for the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines). Mobile Infantry (also referred as Space Marines) do not use heraldry. And they are jump infantry. And stronger.
However, MI are Space Marines in Power Armour brainwashed by military propaganda and send by Drop Pod to fight aliens and save mankind, in a disturbing Sci-fi setting where humanity has become a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.
There are differences, they are not exactly the same, but they a take on the same concept with very similar results.
Still a matter of interpretation. I am surprised you think Tau are closer to MI than Astartes.
MI are dispersed from high altitude/low orbit ships which 'launch' them at the planet. The pod never makes the ground, it explodes at high altitude so that the detritus will confuse any land based defense weapons (scattering junk over a large radius, allowing the cap trooper to land safely). This is very similar to descriptions for the Tau and a Manta or Orca based suit insertion.
The MI is also all about mobile warfare, it's in their name 'Mobile Infantry'. Space Marines are generally a more static force. You can 'get mobility' with bikes, skimmers, and the like, but it's move and sit. Crisis suits are move, shoot, move again, which is how the MI tend to operate, hence the phrase 'on the bounce'. IF you could slap jump packs on Tactical Marines, Devestators, and Stern Guard plus let them move again in the assault phase, you might be getting closer.
The Tau, of course, have no psykers, but are more dynamic, willing to change and adapt, technically savy (maybe not superior tech, but they understand their tech and can alter/change it without worrying about committing heresy).
Neither Force is particularly representative of the social/political commentary of SST. Tau could perhaps be argued to be closer, they have 'pleasure' planets, allow 'freer' travel around their domains, and a few other things. The MI does have chaplains though, albeit they not like the SM chaplains outside of guys meant to be interested in the spiritual/emotional well being of their fellow soldiers and that they fight beside cap troopers.
Good points, but what about races that have no interest in holding land or infrastructure, such as Crons. In IA12 it was shown that they could wipe out large portions of land, yet only used this ability sparingly, despite the fact that it was shown to be nothing out of the ordinary as far as their firepower was concerned.
Again, it's pointless to say "These races would make the Imperium use Exterminatus" in some cases because these races ALREADY make the Imperium use Exterminatus.
IA12 specifically ends with Exterminatus being recommended as the only viable solution. Yes, they didn't use it IMMEDIATELY, but that's because they had yet to realize the extent of the enemy's firepower and impossibility of defending the Imperium's assets. Once they DID realize that, exterminatus became the recommended solution. So basically, your point that necrons would cause the Imperium to use Exterminatus is correct, but becomes irrelevant because in the fluff, that's what the Imperium ALREADY DOES in regards to the necrons (not just IA12, but many other Necron battles that the Imperium loses results in Exterminatus, too). If you actually go through the fluff, it becomes clear that Exterminatus gets called in regarding some races more than others (Daemons, Necrons, and Tyrannids), and the reasons for this are pretty obvious.
Also, again, when you're the defending faction, Exterminatus is a Lose. In IA12's case, even after they got done exterminatus'ing the entire Orpheus sector, that's still a loss for them because now they're down one Orpheus sector that's no longer useable to them. There's a reason why Exterminatus is supposed to be reserved as a last resort (which is what it was for the Orpheus sector).
Meanwhile, exterminatus is usually pretty pointless against Eldar and Dark Eldar (they're probably gonna leave, anyways, whether they win or lose) and all the other races generally don't practice Scorched Earth anyways because they want the resources just as much as the Imperium does (well, Chaos Marines are hit-or-miss, but the Imperium usually calls in Exterminatus vs them too in the cases where they leave nothing salvageable).
Every once in a while you see situations in various stories where you do wonder why the Imperium didn't use Exterminatus, but that can just be chalked up to bad writing. In most cases when you look at it, exterminatus would have been a dumb thing to do (except maybe in hindsight, in some situations, but hindsight is hindsight).
And for another interesting thing to note. The US has been fighting an insurgency in Afghanistan, and while there have been soldiers involved, there have also been a huge amount of unmanned drones, missiles from various sources, as well as a huge pile of bullets and shells.
The end result? It has cost the US approximately $50 MILLION per taliban fighter. From an outside observer standpoint, that's insane.
For example, the US could kill the taliban for $0 per indigenous fighter killed by simply enslaving a portion of its population and sending them forward in human waves with improvised weapons. It turns out, though, for political reasons, the US government can't enslave people. Furthermore, once again for political reasons, the US "can't" sustain the levels of casualties required to make a human wave strategy work.
The only reason why the US bothers to attack things from far away with missiles is because it restrains itself. It places limits on the number of casualties and limits on the way it can raise soldiers. With all these limits in place, the US is "forced" to rely on terrible, ineffective, and grossly expensive ways of fighting its wars.
The Imperium, however, has no such restrictions at all. They can go for the smartest, most effective way of clearing off areas that contain vital resources, and in a way that's so efficient, they can do it over the entire galaxy.
Even moreso because there is exactly one main advantage that the Imperium has - its near limitless supply of manpower. Sending in a bunch of smart missiles is just as stupid for the Imperium as it would be for the US to send in a pile of slaves with pointy sticks against the taliban.
Well, except the Imperium would be stupider here. At least an endless pile of slaves will eventually achieve its objective. Definitely not so for long-range strikes.
Good points, but what about races that have no interest in holding land or infrastructure, such as Crons. In IA12 it was shown that they could wipe out large portions of land, yet only used this ability sparingly, despite the fact that it was shown to be nothing out of the ordinary as far as their firepower was concerned.
Again, it's pointless to say "These races would make the Imperium use Exterminatus" in some cases because these races ALREADY make the Imperium use Exterminatus.
IA12 specifically ends with Exterminatus being recommended as the only viable solution. Yes, they didn't use it IMMEDIATELY, but that's because they had yet to realize the extent of the enemy's firepower and impossibility of defending the Imperium's assets. Once they DID realize that, exterminatus became the recommended solution. So basically, your point that necrons would cause the Imperium to use Exterminatus is correct, but becomes irrelevant because in the fluff, that's what the Imperium ALREADY DOES in regards to the necrons (not just IA12, but many other Necron battles that the Imperium loses results in Exterminatus, too). If you actually go through the fluff, it becomes clear that Exterminatus gets called in regarding some races more than others (Daemons, Necrons, and Tyrannids), and the reasons for this are pretty obvious.
Also, again, when you're the defending faction, Exterminatus is a Lose. In IA12's case, even after they got done exterminatus'ing the entire Orpheus sector, that's still a loss for them because now they're down one Orpheus sector that's no longer useable to them. There's a reason why Exterminatus is supposed to be reserved as a last resort (which is what it was for the Orpheus sector).
Meanwhile, exterminatus is usually pretty pointless against Eldar and Dark Eldar (they're probably gonna leave, anyways, whether they win or lose) and all the other races generally don't practice Scorched Earth anyways because they want the resources just as much as the Imperium does (well, Chaos Marines are hit-or-miss, but the Imperium usually calls in Exterminatus vs them too in the cases where they leave nothing salvageable).
Every once in a while you see situations in various stories where you do wonder why the Imperium didn't use Exterminatus, but that can just be chalked up to bad writing. In most cases when you look at it, exterminatus would have been a dumb thing to do (except maybe in hindsight, in some situations, but hindsight is hindsight).
But I'm not talking about the Imperium, I'm talking about races who have no interest in holding land or consolidating their power planet side. Like Crons. Hence why I used then in my OP. In fact, scrolling through replies, i'm not sure than many people actually read the first post.
Then you are mistaken because Necrons do have an interest in planets. They have tomb complexes and outposts on planets. They are interested in rebuilding their individual dynasty's empire and subjecting other races. So they cannot just destroy planets where they may have tomb facilities or still slumbering Necrons, nor can they just blithely wipe out entire planets from orbit if they want slave populations.
Finally as I had mentioned earlier, the ground to space defense facilities in the 40K paradigm pose a significant threat to any starship, Necrons included. While Necron ships may fare better against ground defense installations than Imperial ships due to their superior capabilities, they are also worth more and even less replaceable than Imperial ships.
To try to argue that ground troops are pointless is ignorant about how warfare actually works. War is about resources and logistics. You're either wanting to capture something or go destroy something the enemy doesn't want destroyed. Can you get enough beans, bullets and bodies to where you need them to capture/destroy the objective. Some objectives, sure, you can nuke from orbit. But some are protected against such shenanigans or is hidden underground. If you want to hold territory that means boots on the ground. A fleet in orbit only means you control the skies. It can't weed out insurgencies, hidden troops or clear out facilities you want captured. There's simply no other way to do it. No matter how high tech, there will always be ground troops. The troops maybe high tech thinking robots or superhuman marines or thousands of screaming peasants. No military has infinite resources and using what you have wisely is how you win. So, no. You can't go around razing every planet and city that has trouble because you'd soon run out of planets and cities.
"You can't win a battle by artillery alone, but you can't win a battle without it." You absolutely need troops on the ground but they absolutely need support from on high.
MWHistorian wrote: To try to argue that ground troops are pointless is ignorant about how warfare actually works. War is about resources and logistics. You're either wanting to capture something or go destroy something the enemy doesn't want destroyed. Can you get enough beans, bullets and bodies to where you need them to capture/destroy the objective. Some objectives, sure, you can nuke from orbit. But some are protected against such shenanigans or is hidden underground. If you want to hold territory that means boots on the ground. A fleet in orbit only means you control the skies. It can't weed out insurgencies, hidden troops or clear out facilities you want captured. There's simply no other way to do it. No matter how high tech, there will always be ground troops. The troops maybe high tech thinking robots or superhuman marines or thousands of screaming peasants. No military has infinite resources and using what you have wisely is how you win. So, no. You can't go around razing every planet and city that has trouble because you'd soon run out of planets and cities.
"You can't win a battle by artillery alone, but you can't win a battle without it." You absolutely need troops on the ground but they absolutely need support from on high.
aaAAAAaaaAAAaaargh
I was never trying to say that. Ever. I just wanted to know how continent destroying warships would interact with battles on the ground. I know perfectly well why the IG don't nuke every planet, but I DON'T know why necrons and other xenos who don't care about that sort of thing don't.
and in reply to an earlier poster, half of the fall of orpheus was necrons wiping out entire populations for no other reason than they were there, so they DO do that sort of thing.
MWHistorian wrote: To try to argue that ground troops are pointless is ignorant about how warfare actually works. War is about resources and logistics. You're either wanting to capture something or go destroy something the enemy doesn't want destroyed. Can you get enough beans, bullets and bodies to where you need them to capture/destroy the objective. Some objectives, sure, you can nuke from orbit. But some are protected against such shenanigans or is hidden underground. If you want to hold territory that means boots on the ground. A fleet in orbit only means you control the skies. It can't weed out insurgencies, hidden troops or clear out facilities you want captured. There's simply no other way to do it. No matter how high tech, there will always be ground troops. The troops maybe high tech thinking robots or superhuman marines or thousands of screaming peasants. No military has infinite resources and using what you have wisely is how you win. So, no. You can't go around razing every planet and city that has trouble because you'd soon run out of planets and cities.
"You can't win a battle by artillery alone, but you can't win a battle without it." You absolutely need troops on the ground but they absolutely need support from on high.
aaAAAAaaaAAAaaargh
I was never trying to say that. Ever. I just wanted to know how continent destroying warships would interact with battles on the ground. I know perfectly well why the IG don't nuke every planet, but I DON'T know why necrons and other xenos who don't care about that sort of thing don't.
and in reply to an earlier poster, half of the fall of orpheus was necrons wiping out entire populations for no other reason than they were there, so they DO do that sort of thing.
In that case, look up the use of Battleships during the Vietnam War. Pinpoint artillery strikes from ships is VERY effective.
Let's say you're a fleet commander, and you've got a few imperial guard armies tagging along (because they're super cheap to create and maintain. You know what, have three imperial guard armies), and you've also got a giant battlefleet with enough missiles to destroy all life on a planet twice over.
You're in your situation room, and you've got some situations. On Phalax III, your naval base, heretics have risen on the planet and taken over your ports drydocks, and battleship parts factories. On Wargram IV, orks have invaded, and a fierce fight is roiling over your planet-killing missile factories, and there are sketchy reports and rumors of a huge tyranid fleet approaching.
What do you do?
The stupid answer is to say "I've got enough missiles to kill two planets" and completely annihilate Wargram and Phalax. Oops, looks like you don't have any battleships or missiles anymore. Hope the tyranid don't invade.
The smart answer is to send in your guardsmen to kill the orks and heretics without doing any damage to your drydocks and missile factories and save the missiles in case the tyranid show up, and you need to shoot them with a huge quantity of firepower.
Completely ignoring politics, there's plenty of reason why you use infantry to do stuff, rather than NUKE EVARYTHING FROM ORBITZ!!!!!1!!!!eleven!!
While doing nothing but shooting stuff with missiles doesn't work in the real world of 2013, only one, small reason is because of politics. If you could achieve your goals with nothing but missile strikes, then everyone would damn the politics and just use missiles. It turns out, though, that long range support weapons alone are ineffective at achieving your strategic objectives.
Which is why you have infantry. Because you want to actually win wars, not merely throw around a few fireballs and call it a day.
Obviously if you're considering a front on a forge world or similarly valuable location, use of destructive weapons has to be done with caution, but that's not always the case nor can we assume that somehow *all* of the planet is so valuable that deploying super destructive weapons anywhere is unacceptable.
Orks and tyranids come to mind as aggressors these kinds of weapons could be deployed against more often than the background tells of. Certainly that's more logical than facing down hordes of aliens with legions of infantry and tanks.
The first thing an Ork or Tyranid fleet tends to do is attain orbital superiority. Gazghkull's fleet pretty much steamrolled the Imperial Navy at Armageddon and left the Imperium with no methods of safely using WMDs without immediately being dogpiled in an attempt to run the Ork Blockade.
At Macragge, the Tyranid fleet all but destroyed the defensive armada formed against them before ever setting foot on the planet and was about to overwhelm and destroy an entire Segmentum fleet before the Dominus Astra went Kamikaze.
Well, manticore is marvelous piece of engineering who can deliver capital-level bombardment to any point on the planet and even to exchange fire with navy. Even more, if adeptus mechanicus decides to deploy vortex missiles then you can say goodbye to anything in that doomed region. Also, only most advanced races can intercept these ballistic rockets if Mechanicus decides to go all out on those damn xenos. You see, Imperium have missiles (and even bullets) who makes short-range jumps into warp only to come back at minimum distance from their target to make an impact. So practically, only Eldar and maybe necrons can defend themselves against artifacts or jealously guarded secrets of priesthood. It's sad that we always come back to a same bolter/lasgun porn in most novels.
Low usage of capital weaponary strikes in novels are result of simply authors lacking imagination to use more exotic weaponary of Imperium. It's typical for them to ignore all ''larger picture stuff" and go for grunts and situation from their perspective.
Ailaros wrote: Yes, infantry units are completely pointless in an age of technology raining death from the skies.
Just ask the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, and in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. And the French in Algiers and Indochina, and the Dutch in indonesia, and the British in Singapore, and the Germans over Britain. And the soviets in Grozny, and the Germans in Stalingrad.
The best example of this was in 1998. Bill Clinton, from positions the enemy couldn't counterattack, launched tomahawk missiles into the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, which instantly and comprehensively won the war on terrorists, turned Iraq into a peace-loving stabilizer of the region and a paragon of democracy, and solved all of America's problems in the middle east. Without a single infantry soldier.
Yup, the army that can do the most damage from the highest altitude is always the army who wins the war. Infantry units are pointless.
The Battle of Britain doesn't really fit in here, considering that it was a case of Germany not having the required amount of aerial power to destroy the RAF, meaning it couldn't launch a "boots on the ground" invasion in the first place as the transport ships would be blown out of the water as they tried to cross the English Channel.
They did. They just changed their targetting priorities too early. the switch from military to civilian targets allowed the RAF to recover a bit. Also from memory, the process was that the Luftwaffe needed air superiority to threaten the Royal Navy that was set to trounce any attempt at a landing.
Ernestas wrote: Well, manticore is marvelous piece of engineering who can deliver capital-level bombardment to any point on the planet and even to exchange fire with navy. Even more, if adeptus mechanicus decides to deploy vortex missiles then you can say goodbye to anything in that doomed region. Also, only most advanced races can intercept these ballistic rockets if Mechanicus decides to go all out on those damn xenos. You see, Imperium have missiles (and even bullets) who makes short-range jumps into warp only to come back at minimum distance from their target to make an impact. So practically, only Eldar and maybe necrons can defend themselves against artifacts or jealously guarded secrets of priesthood. It's sad that we always come back to a same bolter/lasgun porn in most novels.
Low usage of capital weaponary strikes in novels are result of simply authors lacking imagination to use more exotic weaponary of Imperium. It's typical for them to ignore all ''larger picture stuff" and go for grunts and situation from their perspective.
Ork Powerfields should intercept the missiles quite nicely as should a Mekboy given some time to think up something. Also, utilizing the shadow in the warp can help befuddle any sort of warp teleportation such as used by teleportation munitions.
And the Necrons are the most advanced species in the galaxy, what with being able to ignite a sun so fiercely that it completely burns every living thing on a day side of a planet, lob near luminal velocity chunks of degenerate matter, send signals that cause virtually all technology that receives it to crash until galvinically purged, create basketball sized devices that can shut off the warp across an entire solar system have space ships that are more or less unbeatable one on one and ton for ton, and even their simplest of tech is beyond the understanding of the most well versed of the adeptus mechanicus. They're definitely going to outsmart the Mechanicus.
Well, I don't know about orks, but I bet that they will not be prepared. They might have some tech in order to stop those missiles, but extreme rarity of such technology would result in orks simply not being prepared for it. In novel it was said and showed that bullets utilizing such technology bypass shields and go right for the armor. Missiles has more "breathing space" to dive out of the warp to small area of space which isn't protected, making shields useless.
I imagine eldars more predicting future more than countering this technology directly. Necrons indeed are extremely advanced, but as Imperium, their tech are prone to degradation (or at least I heard so). Anyways, their advantage doesn't mean that they have ''insta win'' button against mechanicus, especially then science gets mixed up with warp usage where Imperium is far, far more advanced than necrons. Ah, I forgot that tyranids interfere with the warp, BUT, interferences doesn't mean negation of the warp. It's just harder to use it and thus, missiles can theoretically still work depending on how potent their warp rift creation process is. Anyways, good old Nova cannon is an ultimate counter to tyranids to which you can do little to out evolve it
As far as my opinion on this goes from what I've read there are a few reasons why support form space/air plays such a small role in what we see.
The first and most important is propaganda. Call it what you will but nuking a planet from orbit isn't a very interesting read and from a fluff standpoint is doesn't look very good. The average Joe is probably going to rebel if he hears that if any goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.
The second reason is that the majority of battles do have some strategic importance to them that requires the involvement of infantry. There are exceptions to this but if there's really no strategic reason for the battle, why are you there? While it is obvious that the imperium is on a defensive battle and doesn't want to lose resources it doesn't have to many other faction have their own reasons for not just nuking form orbit. For example the necrons are runs by super egotistical leaders and its hard to fuel your ego with no holdings and no slaves.
The third reason is that bringing planet killing starships to bear requires that the AA on the planet be silenced one way or another. Chances are that the people down on the planet aren't stupid and AA defenses are always cheaper than planes to make. So how do you silence AA when you can't get the required dakka in range? Easy, send in the infantry, afterall it's cheaper.
And the final reason I can think of why these things aren't huge parts of ground battles is tactics. If I want a planet but I know that if I take it, and all seems lost, my opponent is just gonna nuke it, how do I fix that? The easy answer is to send my own ships to tie up and destroy my opponents. We see this solution a lot and an excellent example was put up earlier with Ghazzy taking care of space fleets before he landed.
laginess wrote: As far as my opinion on this goes from what I've read there are a few reasons why support form space/air plays such a small role in what we see.
The first and most important is propaganda. Call it what you will but nuking a planet from orbit isn't a very interesting read and from a fluff standpoint is doesn't look very good. The average Joe is probably going to rebel if he hears that if any goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.
The second reason is that the majority of battles do have some strategic importance to them that requires the involvement of infantry. There are exceptions to this but if there's really no strategic reason for the battle, why are you there? While it is obvious that the imperium is on a defensive battle and doesn't want to lose resources it doesn't have to many other faction have their own reasons for not just nuking form orbit. For example the necrons are runs by super egotistical leaders and its hard to fuel your ego with no holdings and no slaves.
The third reason is that bringing planet killing starships to bear requires that the AA on the planet be silenced one way or another. Chances are that the people down on the planet aren't stupid and AA defenses are always cheaper than planes to make. So how do you silence AA when you can't get the required dakka in range? Easy, send in the infantry, afterall it's cheaper.
And the final reason I can think of why these things aren't huge parts of ground battles is tactics. If I want a planet but I know that if I take it, and all seems lost, my opponent is just gonna nuke it, how do I fix that? The easy answer is to send my own ships to tie up and destroy my opponents. We see this solution a lot and an excellent example was put up earlier with Ghazzy taking care of space fleets before he landed.
You're the first person to have properly answered my question instead of passive aggressive snideness.
I thank you so much, you wonderful star being.
Ernestas wrote: Well, I don't know about orks, but I bet that they will not be prepared. They might have some tech in order to stop those missiles, but extreme rarity of such technology would result in orks simply not being prepared for it. In novel it was said and showed that bullets utilizing such technology bypass shields and go right for the armor. Missiles has more "breathing space" to dive out of the warp to small area of space which isn't protected, making shields useless.
I imagine eldars more predicting future more than countering this technology directly. Necrons indeed are extremely advanced, but as Imperium, their tech are prone to degradation (or at least I heard so). Anyways, their advantage doesn't mean that they have ''insta win'' button against mechanicus, especially then science gets mixed up with warp usage where Imperium is far, far more advanced than necrons. Ah, I forgot that tyranids interfere with the warp, BUT, interferences doesn't mean negation of the warp. It's just harder to use it and thus, missiles can theoretically still work depending on how potent their warp rift creation process is. Anyways, good old Nova cannon is an ultimate counter to tyranids to which you can do little to out evolve it
Nope, the Crypteks not only have maintainted Necron technology, they're advancing it and improving it and yet more Necron technology is coming online. The Necrontyr Empire was very, very big, and we've only seen a very, very small amount of what it has to offer.
As for the Nova Cannon, while indeed very powerful, larger hive ships can shrug them off. After all in the word bearers books, a star base took a direct nova cannon hit and still had over half of it's shielding and the Word Bearer fleet wasn't able to get off another shot before the Imperial relief navy overwhelmed it.
The Nova Cannon also did absolutely no damage despite repeated firing on a single Necron Tomb Ship along with the combined fire of thirteen other capital Chaos ships. .
laginess wrote: As far as my opinion on this goes from what I've read there are a few reasons why support form space/air plays such a small role in what we see.
The first and most important is propaganda. Call it what you will but nuking a planet from orbit isn't a very interesting read and from a fluff standpoint is doesn't look very good. The average Joe is probably going to rebel if he hears that if any goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.
The second reason is that the majority of battles do have some strategic importance to them that requires the involvement of infantry. There are exceptions to this but if there's really no strategic reason for the battle, why are you there? While it is obvious that the imperium is on a defensive battle and doesn't want to lose resources it doesn't have to many other faction have their own reasons for not just nuking form orbit. For example the necrons are runs by super egotistical leaders and its hard to fuel your ego with no holdings and no slaves.
The third reason is that bringing planet killing starships to bear requires that the AA on the planet be silenced one way or another. Chances are that the people down on the planet aren't stupid and AA defenses are always cheaper than planes to make. So how do you silence AA when you can't get the required dakka in range? Easy, send in the infantry, afterall it's cheaper.
And the final reason I can think of why these things aren't huge parts of ground battles is tactics. If I want a planet but I know that if I take it, and all seems lost, my opponent is just gonna nuke it, how do I fix that? The easy answer is to send my own ships to tie up and destroy my opponents. We see this solution a lot and an excellent example was put up earlier with Ghazzy taking care of space fleets before he landed.
I agree with 2 and 4.
However for 3 IF they have lots of AA that prevents any air/space support, you aren't likely to be able to get troops to the planet.
The Taros Campaign has some interesting bits on this, where the Raptors basically sneak in 'under radar' to hit some 'aa' posts to allow for a fleet to move into space and disgorge troops. IF you have brought it down enough to allow the dropping of lots of troops (because the IM doesn't seem to use stealth ships or ECM a whole lot, they do have it, just not a lot, i.e. we know the Raven Guard has/had it, but no other legions seemed to use it) you could also run limited precision strikes to soften something in particular up.
See the Space Marine Chapter Master's Orbital Bombardment. It doesn't have to be game breaking, but a shot or two here or there would mesh well with a lot of armies.
Re #1, no one seems to care. The Eldar and Tau might care about PR, but the IM seems perfectly happy with 'obey or die'. So I think this one is week/poor. Willingness to raze a planet can also be a weapon. Many militaries in the history of Earth have obliterated towns/people to develop a reputation of fear so that you don't always have to do it because you can't always be doing it. However, the planet/town you are currently assaulting doesn't know this or if you deem them to be the one that you don't want to raze.
To Maniac_nmt: As far as 3 goes I'm operating under the assumption that it's a lot easier and cheaper to get a smaller troop carrier (or a metric butt-ton of them) to a planet than a battleship. Also you've got the possibility of sending a cloud a space/atmo troop carriers (thunderhawks and equiv). I'm not saying all of them are gonna get there but it's very infrequently talked about how ships deploy landing craft in the early stages of the conflict.
Also as far as 1 is concerned it's not only propaganda in the universe but out of as well. Where every faction displays itself to the player in the best light. Though I admit that the idea that the IoM cares about any of it's subjects as more than numbers is admittedly laughable, I would think the imperials on planet would need a slightly more friendly appearance to their masses. Afterall the easiest way to control a mass population may be through fear, but if you take away all hope your control vanishes, you do need that little bit to feed, even if it is a lie.
laginess wrote: To Maniac_nmt: As far as 3 goes I'm operating under the assumption that it's a lot easier and cheaper to get a smaller troop carrier (or a metric butt-ton of them) to a planet than a battleship. Also you've got the possibility of sending a cloud a space/atmo troop carriers (thunderhawks and equiv). I'm not saying all of them are gonna get there but it's very infrequently talked about how ships deploy landing craft in the early stages of the conflict.
Also as far as 1 is concerned it's not only propaganda in the universe but out of as well. Where every faction displays itself to the player in the best light. Though I admit that the idea that the IoM cares about any of it's subjects as more than numbers is admittedly laughable, I would think the imperials on planet would need a slightly more friendly appearance to their masses. Afterall the easiest way to control a mass population may be through fear, but if you take away all hope your control vanishes, you do need that little bit to feed, even if it is a lie.
It would all depend on how far the 'aa' reaches vs. how well the 'landing' boats work I suppose. A drop pod is going to have to be close to the planet to work, a Thunderhawk not so much. The other being some way to get smaller boats into orbit without triggering a proper defensive response.
It can be just as damaging to loose 80-90% of your landing force as it is to have a battleship shot up. It takes longer to repair the battleship, but given a high enough casualty rate and you accomplish nothing meaning you wasted all of those men and their equipment. Plus, significant casualty rates can be just as detrimental as nuking from orbit.
Who will want to follow you willingly when they see you waste men's lives like nothing? It cuts both ways (not as heavily, but it still makes folks wonder). Hence, why I believe that isn't the prime motivating factor (#1). A general concerned with a captured populace has to also concern himself with having enough troops to actually capture the populace.
Fair points, I guess it depends on how the landing craft work, whether they employ ECM's, how they're used and a ton of other things I really wish were covered better.
It is mentioned in Titanicus and a few other sources that ECM and ECCM is in constant use by all factions in the setting. This is sometimes referred to as "scrapcode" or "invasion spirits", "malignant tech-spirits" and similar wording applied to tailored software attack protocols.
laginess wrote: Fair points, I guess it depends on how the landing craft work, whether they employ ECM's, how they're used and a ton of other things I really wish were covered better.
The horrors of being a logistics nerd....
I don't think it's a horror or unreasonable. I think you brought up some reasonable points.
I know the Man-Kzin Wars and Starship Trooper both talk a little about this, and 40k has a lot more written material then they do (and they were generally written much earlier, well at least SST was). Man-Kzin wars talk about small, inter system craft and the difficulties of hiding even these vessels if you have ships capable of running sensor scans across much of a planetary system. It requires not using your engines much, hiding behind other objects, or making a fast enough run at something to mitigate the risks (and that generally requires something else to help you get near enough to make the run). SST uses a number of counter measures to allow the sling shot boats to hit upper atmosphere and fire their troopers in a hit and run mode. The pods themselves break up scattering material, ecms, etc over something like a mile or more if I remember right.
Halo has the prowlers, which are effectively invisible jump capable ships as well as the 'sling shot boats' for ODSTs.
Nice to have a reasonable discussion on here for a change, thanks!
A main imperial invasion force still probably wouldn't need major ECM cover. When you are landing thousands of drop ships at a time there really isn't much point in jamming incoming fire, blind fire would likely hit just as many as aimed shots.
When you are landing enough ships to disrupt the weather planetwide that's probably enough disruption. Not counting whatever after effects there are from the preliminary bombardment.
Or what if there is a renegade preacher spreading lies about the emperor? You could kill him but wouldnt it be better to capture him and force him to publicly repent? Martyrs are not fun.
I would nuke the renegade preacher and their entire city from orbit and broadcast the attack as a warning to anyone with similar ideas. Capturing the preacher is impossible because the preacher knows perfectly well what happens to captured heretics and will fight to the death.
Why do we still have gound troops when we have aircraft that can raze cities?
Because in the real world we don't like it when people raze entire cities to kill a target, and doing so would get the rest of the world to treat you like North Korea. In 40k civilian casualties from indiscriminate use of WMDs are a nice bonus because it means fewer civilians for your ground troops to exterminate once you win the war.
If you nuked an entire planet for every rogue preacher you would quickly find that you have more rogue preachers.
If you destroy billions of lives to get at one then billions of people on other worlds(there friends/family/people near them) will start to rebel. Imagine if the US nuked iran. Not only would the US have a million iranian americans in the US to contend with but all of the iranians in other countries as well.
If you nuked a planet in 40k, there would be friends, family, people who had trade conections, all angry with you and some of them might turn into cultists leaders or rogue preachers themselves.
Picture yourself as an Imperial Commander. You've got a world to rule, tithes to raise, Imperial Guard regiments to recruit and the Inquisition and the Arbites are sniffing around for even the slightest hint that you're a traitor. Why would you bother with any of this if you believed that should your planet actually be attacked, the Imperium would just use you as bait-and-switch fodder? The Imperium is nothing if not a mutual-defence pact between a million human worlds. They make every effort to save other worlds in recognition that those same worlds will reciprocate one day if the worst happens. Destroy that, and you destroy the Imperium.
Life is cheap in the 41st millennium, planets are not. The Imperium can afford to wage a war for a thousand years and spend fifty billion lives to do it, to protect a world if it means that a thousand and one years later it's still theirs and churning out the weapons, mulchburgers or whatever. A planet that falls is not lost – it can always be retaken by crusade at a later time. A planet destroyed is permanently gone, never to be part of the Imperium again. To talk of sacrificing whole worlds to kill what really amounts to a handful of the Imperium's enemies is defeatist and would have seen the Imperium crumble to dust millennia ago. The Imperium (as an organisation) may be ancient, corrupt, ineffective, ignorant and superstitious, but it has got staying power!
The Imperium exists as much as an idea as it does as a government. Part of the social and feudal contract with Imperial Commanders is that in return for tithes and obeying Imperial laws, they get the protection of the Imperium. If word spreads that this protection is a total lie and they are destroyed at the first opportunity without any attempt at actually helping them, then it will trigger widespread rebellion and secession. Even though the Imperium is a harsh regime, it still must meet some minimum expectations from its subjects for it to still exist.
Similarly the Imperium is interlinked economically. Indiscriminate destruction of production and resource facilities (people being a resource as well) can create cascading effects negatively impairing the military capabilities of other worlds or organizations. It is easy to destroy infrastructure. More difficult to build or rebuild, especially given the kind of ignorance and rote repetition that pervades much of the Imperium.
Picture yourself as an Imperial Commander. You've got a world to rule, tithes to raise, Imperial Guard regiments to recruit and the Inquisition and the Arbites are sniffing around for even the slightest hint that you're a traitor. Why would you bother with any of this if you believed that should your planet actually be attacked, the Imperium would just use you as bait-and-switch fodder? The Imperium is nothing if not a mutual-defence pact between a million human worlds. They make every effort to save other worlds in recognition that those same worlds will reciprocate one day if the worst happens. Destroy that, and you destroy the Imperium.
Life is cheap in the 41st millennium, planets are not. The Imperium can afford to wage a war for a thousand years and spend fifty billion lives to do it, to protect a world if it means that a thousand and one years later it's still theirs and churning out the weapons, mulchburgers or whatever. A planet that falls is not lost – it can always be retaken by crusade at a later time. A planet destroyed is permanently gone, never to be part of the Imperium again. To talk of sacrificing whole worlds to kill what really amounts to a handful of the Imperium's enemies is defeatist and would have seen the Imperium crumble to dust millennia ago. The Imperium (as an organisation) may be ancient, corrupt, ineffective, ignorant and superstitious, but it has got staying power!
The Imperium exists as much as an idea as it does as a government. Part of the social and feudal contract with Imperial Commanders is that in return for tithes and obeying Imperial laws, they get the protection of the Imperium. If word spreads that this protection is a total lie and they are destroyed at the first opportunity without any attempt at actually helping them, then it will trigger widespread rebellion and secession. Even though the Imperium is a harsh regime, it still must meet some minimum expectations from its subjects for it to still exist.
Similarly the Imperium is interlinked economically. Indiscriminate destruction of production and resource facilities (people being a resource as well) can create cascading effects negatively impairing the military capabilities of other worlds or organizations. It is easy to destroy infrastructure. More difficult to build or rebuild, especially given the kind of ignorance and rote repetition that pervades much of the Imperium.
This is true on a certain level and not so true on other levels. The Imperium is loosely based on Dark Age/Medieval feudal society. The occasional example is necessary to keep the rest in line. You don't burn all towns down, but occasionally doing it, or doing it to places that refuse terms would be acceptable practice.
If you do run 1 million worlds, and can live/exist on planets that shouldn't support life, then obliterating a few cities or even 1000 planets is a drop in the bucket and helps toe the line.
However, that doesn't negate orbital support. Orbital support does not have to level cities or waste continents. A drone missile can take out a building, or a tank, or whatever localized target you need. It is also cheaper and easier than the fighter craft which needs all of the ground support staff and logistics to get it going. Similarly, having deployable satellites or munitions from a battleship or gun boat could potentially be cheaper than needing to utilize lots of air cover if you want to provide pure ground support. No need to setup the air base, ferry in planes, men, ground crew, food, fuel, parts, etc. if you can launch something from space to get the same effect.
Not that it negates the need for airpower, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing or even ludicrously expensive. The AC130 isn't meant to level a city, but it does a damn good job of leveling an enemy advance. It isn't so expensive that it is never used.
It costs a lot to have a logistical supply line for the 'hordes of bodies' to throw at something. All of those lasguns add up in cost. This is why the Soviets would often arm only one out of 5 or 6 guys. They couldn't afford to equip all of the troopers, so the rest of the guys would get a clip of ammo to pick up the rifle after the first guy died to fight. In the end it cost them ~25 million people during the war. Yet they still had to build tanks, planes, artillery, etc and field them. The concept that a single missile is so expensive it doesn't get used or produced in quantity is ludicrous when you talk about the amount of troops that had to be armed, equipped, fed, housed, medically supported, transported, etc. Yes, expensive enough that it isn't used like candy, but no on life is so cheap we cannot risk a single orbital support vessel for help. Plus, if you are saying the IG can go through ~25 million guys to die on every world, it suddenly isn't a case of life is so cheap, life suddenly starts getting very expensive. Casualty rates that high all of the time would get ludicrously impossible to replace for a realm in perpetual war.
Picture yourself as an Imperial Commander. You've got a world to rule, tithes to raise, Imperial Guard regiments to recruit and the Inquisition and the Arbites are sniffing around for even the slightest hint that you're a traitor. Why would you bother with any of this if you believed that should your planet actually be attacked, the Imperium would just use you as bait-and-switch fodder? The Imperium is nothing if not a mutual-defence pact between a million human worlds. They make every effort to save other worlds in recognition that those same worlds will reciprocate one day if the worst happens. Destroy that, and you destroy the Imperium.
Life is cheap in the 41st millennium, planets are not. The Imperium can afford to wage a war for a thousand years and spend fifty billion lives to do it, to protect a world if it means that a thousand and one years later it's still theirs and churning out the weapons, mulchburgers or whatever. A planet that falls is not lost – it can always be retaken by crusade at a later time. A planet destroyed is permanently gone, never to be part of the Imperium again. To talk of sacrificing whole worlds to kill what really amounts to a handful of the Imperium's enemies is defeatist and would have seen the Imperium crumble to dust millennia ago. The Imperium (as an organisation) may be ancient, corrupt, ineffective, ignorant and superstitious, but it has got staying power!
The Imperium exists as much as an idea as it does as a government. Part of the social and feudal contract with Imperial Commanders is that in return for tithes and obeying Imperial laws, they get the protection of the Imperium. If word spreads that this protection is a total lie and they are destroyed at the first opportunity without any attempt at actually helping them, then it will trigger widespread rebellion and secession. Even though the Imperium is a harsh regime, it still must meet some minimum expectations from its subjects for it to still exist.
Similarly the Imperium is interlinked economically. Indiscriminate destruction of production and resource facilities (people being a resource as well) can create cascading effects negatively impairing the military capabilities of other worlds or organizations. It is easy to destroy infrastructure. More difficult to build or rebuild, especially given the kind of ignorance and rote repetition that pervades much of the Imperium.
This is true on a certain level and not so true on other levels. The Imperium is loosely based on Dark Age/Medieval feudal society. The occasional example is necessary to keep the rest in line. You don't burn all towns down, but occasionally doing it, or doing it to places that refuse terms would be acceptable practice.
If you do run 1 million worlds, and can live/exist on planets that shouldn't support life, then obliterating a few cities or even 1000 planets is a drop in the bucket and helps toe the line.
However, that doesn't negate orbital support. Orbital support does not have to level cities or waste continents. A drone missile can take out a building, or a tank, or whatever localized target you need. It is also cheaper and easier than the fighter craft which needs all of the ground support staff and logistics to get it going. Similarly, having deployable satellites or munitions from a battleship or gun boat could potentially be cheaper than needing to utilize lots of air cover if you want to provide pure ground support. No need to setup the air base, ferry in planes, men, ground crew, food, fuel, parts, etc. if you can launch something from space to get the same effect.
Not that it negates the need for airpower, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing or even ludicrously expensive. The AC130 isn't meant to level a city, but it does a damn good job of leveling an enemy advance. It isn't so expensive that it is never used.
It costs a lot to have a logistical supply line for the 'hordes of bodies' to throw at something. All of those lasguns add up in cost. This is why the Soviets would often arm only one out of 5 or 6 guys. They couldn't afford to equip all of the troopers, so the rest of the guys would get a clip of ammo to pick up the rifle after the first guy died to fight. In the end it cost them ~25 million people during the war. Yet they still had to build tanks, planes, artillery, etc and field them. The concept that a single missile is so expensive it doesn't get used or produced in quantity is ludicrous when you talk about the amount of troops that had to be armed, equipped, fed, housed, medically supported, transported, etc. Yes, expensive enough that it isn't used like candy, but no on life is so cheap we cannot risk a single orbital support vessel for help. Plus, if you are saying the IG can go through ~25 million guys to die on every world, it suddenly isn't a case of life is so cheap, life suddenly starts getting very expensive. Casualty rates that high all of the time would get ludicrously impossible to replace for a realm in perpetual war.
Did you seriously just state that Enemy at the gates spouted piece of "LolRussians" propaganda as fact? The Soviet Army only had serious supply issues with getting guns to it's soldiers in the very early stages of world war 2, and afterwards the Soviet Army actually had a fairly grotesque materiel advantage over the Axis. I'm sorry, this is off topic but I cannot allow that to go unpunished, not after Relic released it's motherland bashing piece of garbage in CoH 2 which spouted virtually all the same lies propagated by Enemy at the Gates.
This is just really my berserk button. My apologies.
If you do run 1 million worlds, and can live/exist on planets that shouldn't support life, then obliterating a few cities or even 1000 planets is a drop in the bucket and helps toe the line.
Unless that one planet you're going to blow up is the one planet in your Imperium that produces some widget that allows your plasma guns to fire, your spaceships to fly or your power armor to operate.
Worlds in the Imperium are often very precious things, and a trillion lives can be spent in saving it, because you can *always* get more people.
Picture yourself as an Imperial Commander. You've got a world to rule, tithes to raise, Imperial Guard regiments to recruit and the Inquisition and the Arbites are sniffing around for even the slightest hint that you're a traitor. Why would you bother with any of this if you believed that should your planet actually be attacked, the Imperium would just use you as bait-and-switch fodder? The Imperium is nothing if not a mutual-defence pact between a million human worlds. They make every effort to save other worlds in recognition that those same worlds will reciprocate one day if the worst happens. Destroy that, and you destroy the Imperium.
Life is cheap in the 41st millennium, planets are not. The Imperium can afford to wage a war for a thousand years and spend fifty billion lives to do it, to protect a world if it means that a thousand and one years later it's still theirs and churning out the weapons, mulchburgers or whatever. A planet that falls is not lost – it can always be retaken by crusade at a later time. A planet destroyed is permanently gone, never to be part of the Imperium again. To talk of sacrificing whole worlds to kill what really amounts to a handful of the Imperium's enemies is defeatist and would have seen the Imperium crumble to dust millennia ago. The Imperium (as an organisation) may be ancient, corrupt, ineffective, ignorant and superstitious, but it has got staying power!
The Imperium exists as much as an idea as it does as a government. Part of the social and feudal contract with Imperial Commanders is that in return for tithes and obeying Imperial laws, they get the protection of the Imperium. If word spreads that this protection is a total lie and they are destroyed at the first opportunity without any attempt at actually helping them, then it will trigger widespread rebellion and secession. Even though the Imperium is a harsh regime, it still must meet some minimum expectations from its subjects for it to still exist.
Similarly the Imperium is interlinked economically. Indiscriminate destruction of production and resource facilities (people being a resource as well) can create cascading effects negatively impairing the military capabilities of other worlds or organizations. It is easy to destroy infrastructure. More difficult to build or rebuild, especially given the kind of ignorance and rote repetition that pervades much of the Imperium.
This is true on a certain level and not so true on other levels. The Imperium is loosely based on Dark Age/Medieval feudal society. The occasional example is necessary to keep the rest in line. You don't burn all towns down, but occasionally doing it, or doing it to places that refuse terms would be acceptable practice.
If you do run 1 million worlds, and can live/exist on planets that shouldn't support life, then obliterating a few cities or even 1000 planets is a drop in the bucket and helps toe the line.
However, that doesn't negate orbital support. Orbital support does not have to level cities or waste continents. A drone missile can take out a building, or a tank, or whatever localized target you need. It is also cheaper and easier than the fighter craft which needs all of the ground support staff and logistics to get it going. Similarly, having deployable satellites or munitions from a battleship or gun boat could potentially be cheaper than needing to utilize lots of air cover if you want to provide pure ground support. No need to setup the air base, ferry in planes, men, ground crew, food, fuel, parts, etc. if you can launch something from space to get the same effect.
Not that it negates the need for airpower, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing or even ludicrously expensive. The AC130 isn't meant to level a city, but it does a damn good job of leveling an enemy advance. It isn't so expensive that it is never used.
It costs a lot to have a logistical supply line for the 'hordes of bodies' to throw at something. All of those lasguns add up in cost. This is why the Soviets would often arm only one out of 5 or 6 guys. They couldn't afford to equip all of the troopers, so the rest of the guys would get a clip of ammo to pick up the rifle after the first guy died to fight. In the end it cost them ~25 million people during the war. Yet they still had to build tanks, planes, artillery, etc and field them. The concept that a single missile is so expensive it doesn't get used or produced in quantity is ludicrous when you talk about the amount of troops that had to be armed, equipped, fed, housed, medically supported, transported, etc. Yes, expensive enough that it isn't used like candy, but no on life is so cheap we cannot risk a single orbital support vessel for help. Plus, if you are saying the IG can go through ~25 million guys to die on every world, it suddenly isn't a case of life is so cheap, life suddenly starts getting very expensive. Casualty rates that high all of the time would get ludicrously impossible to replace for a realm in perpetual war.
Did you seriously just state that Enemy at the gates spouted piece of "LolRussians" propaganda as fact? The Soviet Army only had serious supply issues with getting guns to it's soldiers in the very early stages of world war 2, and afterwards the Soviet Army actually had a fairly grotesque materiel advantage over the Axis. I'm sorry, this is off topic but I cannot allow that to go unpunished, not after Relic released it's motherland bashing piece of garbage in CoH 2 which spouted virtually all the same lies propagated by Enemy at the Gates.
This is just really my berserk button. My apologies.
Actually, that's from a Russian supported historical exhibit that toured the US about, oh, 13-15 years back. They talked about the glorious nature of their people fighting with no supplies for the early part of the war (I didn't say the whole war, you really are an over reactionary person you know that right, time to lay off the caffeine). I hadn't even thought of CoD. It was actually a pretty good exhibit.
It still underlines, guns are cheap, lots of guns are not cheap. Trillions of guns even less cheap. It takes ammo, factories, food for those factories, food for those troops, etc. It isn't intrinsically just the cost of the rifle itself.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So, using some rough approximations merely as an illustration (because 40k would work a little different, but just to illustrate):
Say a M-16 costs $800 (lowest figure I could find, several sites quoted about $2000 a rifle). Now, the figure tossed out most recently was One Trillion. At $800 per rifle that is $800 Trillion dollars.
We'll also lowball the cost of an aircraft carrier, to be fair. That's $4.6 billion dollars.
That makes the aircraft carrier roughly equivalent to 0.000575% the cost of the rifles.
Now, cost alone isn't the only factor, of course, but you can perhaps start to see what I'm getting at. Orbital support isn't so ludicrously expensive that the Imperium would never field it vs the cost of the men you say the Imperium would happily sacrifice in it's place.
So, using some rough approximations merely as an illustration (because 40k would work a little different, but just to illustrate):
Say a M-16 costs $800 (lowest figure I could find, several sites quoted about $2000 a rifle). Now, the figure tossed out most recently was One Trillion. At $800 per rifle that is $800 Trillion dollars.
We'll also lowball the cost of an aircraft carrier, to be fair. That's $4.6 billion dollars.
That makes the aircraft carrier roughly equivalent to 0.000575% the cost of the rifles.
Now, cost alone isn't the only factor, of course, but you can perhaps start to see what I'm getting at. Orbital support isn't so ludicrously expensive that the Imperium would never field it vs the cost of the men you say the Imperium would happily sacrifice in it's place.
I agree with your core point, but I have a few points of disagreement.
Most of my issue is with scale, if you're going with warhammer 40k scale with the guns you'd need to go warhammer 40k scale with the carriers too.
A Nimitz, for example, is 332 m long, 76 m wide, 11 m tall and has a mass of 101,604 tonnes.
Whereas an Avenger-Class Grand Cruiser is 7500 m long, 1800 m wide and has a mass of 40,000,000 tonnes.
Since we don't have the draft for the Grand Cruiser we can only compare the mass of these 2 vessels. When we run the numbers we find that the Grand Cruiser is 393.6 times the mass of the Carrier. This means we can roughly substitute in about 393 Carriers for the Equivalent capital ship in 40k
My other issue is that the lasgun is stated to be dirt cheap and to me, that sounds exactly like the ak-47 which costs $250 or so to make. Since I used the Nimitz as my carrier i'll use it's manufacturing cost of $4.5 billion.
Now 3 trillion ak-47's cost $750 trillion and 393 carriers cost $1,768.5 billion or $1.8 trillion which comes to the ships being about 00.24% the cost of the guns.
One thing to note is that while the guns cost much more each gun is very easy to replace whereas the Cruiser would obviously require many years to replace. When we talk about the Imperials not wanting to risk their ships it's similar to the big battleships in WW2. They were very rarely used in large conflicts because they simply represented too much money, individually, to warrant risking.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Another thing of note is I'm not saying they will never risk it, it's just not super high on the priority list and so, happens infrequently.
So, using some rough approximations merely as an illustration (because 40k would work a little different, but just to illustrate):
Say a M-16 costs $800 (lowest figure I could find, several sites quoted about $2000 a rifle). Now, the figure tossed out most recently was One Trillion. At $800 per rifle that is $800 Trillion dollars.
We'll also lowball the cost of an aircraft carrier, to be fair. That's $4.6 billion dollars.
That makes the aircraft carrier roughly equivalent to 0.000575% the cost of the rifles.
Now, cost alone isn't the only factor, of course, but you can perhaps start to see what I'm getting at. Orbital support isn't so ludicrously expensive that the Imperium would never field it vs the cost of the men you say the Imperium would happily sacrifice in it's place.
I agree with your core point, but I have a few points of disagreement.
Most of my issue is with scale, if you're going with warhammer 40k scale with the guns you'd need to go warhammer 40k scale with the carriers too.
A Nimitz, for example, is 332 m long, 76 m wide, 11 m tall and has a mass of 101,604 tonnes.
Whereas an Avenger-Class Grand Cruiser is 7500 m long, 1800 m wide and has a mass of 40,000,000 tonnes.
Since we don't have the draft for the Grand Cruiser we can only compare the mass of these 2 vessels. When we run the numbers we find that the Grand Cruiser is 393.6 times the mass of the Carrier. This means we can roughly substitute in about 393 Carriers for the Equivalent capital ship in 40k
My other issue is that the lasgun is stated to be dirt cheap and to me, that sounds exactly like the ak-47 which costs $250 or so to make. Since I used the Nimitz as my carrier i'll use it's manufacturing cost of $4.5 billion.
Now 3 trillion ak-47's cost $750 trillion and 393 carriers cost $1,768.5 billion or $1.8 trillion which comes to the ships being about 00.24% the cost of the guns.
One thing to note is that while the guns cost much more each gun is very easy to replace whereas the Cruiser would obviously require many years to replace. When we talk about the Imperials not wanting to risk their ships it's similar to the big battleships in WW2. They were very rarely used in large conflicts because they simply represented too much money, individually, to warrant risking.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Another thing of note is I'm not saying they will never risk it, it's just not super high on the priority list and so, happens infrequently.
I don't disagree with time to produce vs risk, it's all a factor. However, you don't need a carrier per say to provide orbital support. A few gun boats with purpose designated munitions would be great, deployable satellites, etc. If you drop one trillion guys on a campaign and don't care, that's ~20 years to replace that loss eventually. Casualty levels on that order sound great for grim darkness, but you cannot sustain it.
I've read multiple reports that Japan was willing to sacrifice between 1.5 to 3 million of it's own people in massive land waves to stop a land invasion of Japan. That wasn't sustainable, and they knew it. What it would do, or so they thought, was make victory so unpalatable (low ball estimates are ~500,000 US casualties) that they could sue for something other than total surrender.
What is the typical hive world population (I don't know, I'm asking)? Now, these are known for being massively more populated than most worlds. If I say, 10 trillion people, how many of those are fighting grade material?
Can the IG send 10k guys to their death? Sure, it reads well for fans and to make it 'grim dark', but a million or even a trillion? When that becomes regular or common place all bets are off. Worlds won't follow, whole sectors of space would be able to rebel easily and successfully, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is, yes, soldiers are easily replaceable to the imperium, to a point. They can throw bodies at a problem, or many problems, but at some level since a human still takes ~18 terran years to develop into soldier material, eventually loosing the population of China in every planetary conflict takes it's toll, and refusing to risk all assets to take out that artillery emplacement or battleship becomes a loosing scenario.
In short, I think we're saying similar things, just approaching it from different sides (I'm not one of the nuke it from orbit in all situations crowd. I'm the logical application of force where necessary crowd). I'm just advocating perhaps a 'forward air observer' for the IG or Tau or Eldar or Necrons or whoever (Marines already have it in terms of table top mechanics to some extent).
The Imperium is estimated to have over a quadrillion people at minimum. At normal birth rates, you could literally lose the earth's entire historical population every day and the amount of people reaching military age every day would outweigh any loss by a significant margin. For higher end calculations of Imperial population, you could literally piss away trillions of people on a daily basis and not even notice the dip in population.
Alrighty I see what you're getting at here, and I do agree. Also the typical hive world has roughly 100 billion residents though that number can vary wildly. Also hive world represent roughly 1/30th of the Imperium's worlds. This gives us a rough pop of 3.3 quadrillion so even a 10% fighting force of that is a very silly number (330 trillion).
Though upon looking at things (admittedly on lexicanum) I found that while the imperial guard doesn't have any direct air support that's because the imperial navy covers that. They actually have various sizes of air support craft for different roles, we just don't see them much in our normal play.
So it's not to say that the Imperium sends wave after wave of men at the enemy until they reach their kill limit (like Zapp Brannigan) but they have the duties of support split between different wings of the imperial military. It's entirely possible, and likely, they send destroyers to deal with large threats planetside while they have fighters, bombers and gunships directly support ground troops. In the end though it's still to facilitate the ground troops successfully capturing their objectives.
What is the typical hive world population (I don't know, I'm asking)? Now, these are known for being massively more populated than most worlds. If I say, 10 trillion people, how many of those are fighting grade material?
Anywhere from several billion to hundreds of billions, depending on the planet.
How many are fighting grade? Probably 80%+ if you wanted to mobilize the entire planet. The only ones who would not be viable are the very, very old, the very, very infirm and the very, very young.
Otherwise? Children as young as 8 can carry a lasgun, as can adults as old as 65, maybe even 70 (assuming anyone on a Hive World lives that long).
What is the typical hive world population (I don't know, I'm asking)? Now, these are known for being massively more populated than most worlds. If I say, 10 trillion people, how many of those are fighting grade material?
Anywhere from several billion to hundreds of billions, depending on the planet.
How many are fighting grade? Probably 80%+ if you wanted to mobilize the entire planet. The only ones who would not be viable are the very, very old, the very, very infirm and the very, very young.
Otherwise? Children as young as 8 can carry a lasgun, as can adults as old as 65, maybe even 70 (assuming anyone on a Hive World lives that long).
Secondary edit, misread hive and forge worlds. My mistake. There are at least 3 hundred billion worlds, the others seem to be around 10s of billions. So a quadrillion is possible I suppose. It would still require incredibly huge populations on non hive worlds, far beyond what fluff would indicate, but possible to hit one quadrillion.
However, at least one source I found states 10s of trillions for total galaxy wide population, which seems more likely.
What is interesting is that even if the average population was only around the same as modern day earth(1 million worlds with 7 billion people each) you'd still have a crazy amount of people available to be in the IG even with a tiny population growth rate.
7 billion x 1% growth rate(ludicrously low birth rate) x 1 million worlds = 70,000,000,000,000 new people each year. That's ten thousand times the population of Earth today.
You could lose up to 70 trillion guardsmen a year and not effect your population. And that's only with an average planetary population of 7 billion people, which is really nothing close to what the maximum would be.
Life is not only cheap in the Imperium, its coming out of their ears. Give them all lasguns and retake any damn planet you choose. Choke the enemy in bodies. They will run out of ammunition long before you run out of bodies.
But naturally the Imperium's average population has to be greater than modern day Earth.
Lets say there's an average of a trillion people per planet.
1 trillion x 1% X 1 million worlds = 10,000,000,000,000,000. 10 quadrillion right there, with only an average of 1 trillion people per planet and a 1% growth rate.
Have a larger rate of growth and you could easily get into the Quintillions.
Of course we should recognize that GW could have originally been using the Long Scale names for their numbers. In Long Scale, what is called a Trillion is actually our modern Quintillion(10^18)
So if GW publications are saying mankind numbers in the countless Trillions, they may actually mean countless Quintillions by our measurements.
A billion under Long Scale is actually a Trillion(10^12). So a planet with a stated population of 32 billion might actually be 32 trillion instead.
Well, that's not entirely accurate. I mean, most of the worlds in the Imperium are classified as "Imperial Worlds" which makes them more or less analogs to modern-day Earth. There's a fair number of Hive Worlds and Forge Worlds, which have huge populations, but then you also have Death Worlds, Feral Worlds, Agri Worlds, Shrine Worlds, Paradise Worlds and Cemetery Worlds that have *significantly* lower populations (sometimes not even reaching the low thousands).
Psienesis wrote: Well, that's not entirely accurate. I mean, most of the worlds in the Imperium are classified as "Imperial Worlds" which makes them more or less analogs to modern-day Earth. There's a fair number of Hive Worlds and Forge Worlds, which have huge populations, but then you also have Death Worlds, Feral Worlds, Agri Worlds, Shrine Worlds, Paradise Worlds and Cemetery Worlds that have *significantly* lower populations (sometimes not even reaching the low thousands).
Modern day Earth would fall into the 'hive world' classification for population size, and these are few and far between (in terms of scale, not necessarily land mass coverage). Clearly 1 million worlds of 1 billion is wrong.
I would postulate, and I could be entirely wrong, that adding zeros would be wrong. Given that what we get in fluff is supposed to be pseudo legendary, humanity has a long history of vastly over inflating numbers in terms of military sizes.
Xerxes is said to have led 1 million men into Greece, when in reality this was probably only 100,000 to 150,000. Which in and of itself is a staggeringly ridiculous number for that time period. However, given that is not even a remotely isolated case (but is the norm for many classical up until fairly modern times), it would be a fair assumption to assume that 40k also 'bloats' numbers somewhat.
The rulebook says untold billions if I remember right. 10 Trillion would pretty well do it from that perspective, and that would be much more in keeping with the massively vast ammount of worlds that are probably not even at 100 million people, let alone all the ones below 1 million people.
One billion is 10 to the 9th power. One Trillion is 10 to the 12th, so 1000 millions. That is an incredible step change even if it doesn't sound like that much. A quadrillion is 10^15, which is a million billions, which could be done, but hard to justify given what few numbers we know. So, for my book, based on known numbers, and guessing those are probably already inflated, 10-20 Trillion people sounds about right spread across the Imperium.
A million really wouldn't have been out of the question.
The Persian Empire was really big, one of the largest ever.
100-150 thousand really would have just been an average army for ancient times. Check out numbers for various Roman era battles. You'll find armies numbering in the 200-500 thousand, and thats from areas that wer enot part of unified empires just loose coalitions. A unified empire wouldn't have any trouble getting larger numbers.
The caveat is that that's just how many soldiers there are. Its not a count of the professional standing army, which would have been significantly smaller. Maybe only 20-30% of the total number, the rest would be either mercenaries or conscripts given weapons, some basic training, and some light armor if they were lucky.
So, using some rough approximations merely as an illustration (because 40k would work a little different, but just to illustrate):
Say a M-16 costs $800 (lowest figure I could find, several sites quoted about $2000 a rifle). Now, the figure tossed out most recently was One Trillion. At $800 per rifle that is $800 Trillion dollars.
We'll also lowball the cost of an aircraft carrier, to be fair. That's $4.6 billion dollars.
That makes the aircraft carrier roughly equivalent to 0.000575% the cost of the rifles.
Now, cost alone isn't the only factor, of course, but you can perhaps start to see what I'm getting at. Orbital support isn't so ludicrously expensive that the Imperium would never field it vs the cost of the men you say the Imperium would happily sacrifice in it's place.
Where are these numbers coming from? An aircraft carrier is not nearly large enough to represent a interstellar warship capable of supporting ground operations. The ships in 40k are much much much bigger.
Also a trillion men would find it nearly impossible to feed themselves if deployed. It is likely they would need orbital support just to supply themselves and then significant fleet would be required to protect those supply lines.
I dont buy that any force could be deployed without orbital support, but then both sides of the battle cannot have it at the same time.
In short most battles in 40k probably are one side sitting in space after a short naval battle bombarding the other side into submission. Naval power being far more important than land power. But you will still need to deploy land power, else you be forced to completely destroy every planet that will not bow to your bombardment. Your land forces must be credible, such that once they are deployed they do not need the naval power there to baby them(if they did, that naval power would be tied up for too long assisting the land power and be spread to thin to do what it is supposed to do, counter enemy naval power)
On some theaters of war in 40k there would be decisive land on land combat. There would be some objective that needs capturing or there would be some circumstances preventing naval power from engaging with sufficient force to be a factor.
These land on land battle, special cases that they are, is what we play with Warhammer 40k. If you want naval battle, play Battlefleet Gothic, which gives you a much better idea of how most of the battles in 40k would play out.
If you want naval vs land battle, assemble as many ultramarines as you can on a tournament table. On the next table over put the planet killer. First turn the planet killer destorys the ultramarine tournament table, game over. Next play the exact same mission again but switch armies with your opponent. See if you can do any better than he did. (fun game ay?)
Even then, remember. Military power is used almost only when there are lopsided odds. You dont go into battle with a plan, hey I think this guy is just about as powerful as me, perhaps ill invade/attack him. There is a 50% chance i'll win. Battles are almost always initiated when one side has a clear advantage (either by the side with the advantage, knowing they will win or by the weaker side, knowing it will only get worse if they dont pull some luck now)
The idea that two armies of approximately the same size would come to a planet and fight each other is silly. 2000 points vs 2000 points would never happen, but in 10,000 years on a million different planets it might happen once or twice just by accident. That is what we play because it is fun.
I would postulate, and I could be entirely wrong, that adding zeros would be wrong. Given that what we get in fluff is supposed to be pseudo legendary, humanity has a long history of vastly over inflating numbers in terms of military sizes
The entire Cadian system, not just the planet, the *system* is said to have 260 million people in it.
That's it.
260 million people on 5 planets to defend the Cadian Gate at the entrance/exit to the Eye of Terror.
Grey Templar wrote: A million really wouldn't have been out of the question.
The Persian Empire was really big, one of the largest ever.
100-150 thousand really would have just been an average army for ancient times. Check out numbers for various Roman era battles. You'll find armies numbering in the 200-500 thousand, and thats from areas that wer enot part of unified empires just loose coalitions. A unified empire wouldn't have any trouble getting larger numbers.
The caveat is that that's just how many soldiers there are. Its not a count of the professional standing army, which would have been significantly smaller. Maybe only 20-30% of the total number, the rest would be either mercenaries or conscripts given weapons, some basic training, and some light armor if they were lucky.
100,000 was indeed vast for an army in ancient times. It would be difficult to feed and supply even an army of 30,000 in ancient times. An empire, like Rome, Persia or China could have had numerous armies that totaled 150 thousand all marching towards a general destination but they might never actually all meet up together. If they did, it would likely only be for one day, one battle before they would have to disperse to feed themselves.
In premodern times the largest battles were all naval battles. Lepanto and Salamis in the mediterrainian and Red Cliffs in China. In a naval battle ships from a vast supporting region can all assemble, coming together to make one huge army that can meet another large army.
Even in the napoleonic wars, where you had armies of many hundreds of thousands they often were moving in smaller army groups or cores who would coordinate together to keep fresh troops in battle, arrive all at the same place at the same time at important junctions and cities, and otherwise keep themselves apart so as to feed themselves. Army cores numbered in the tens of thousands. Even the Grande Army that invaded russia(400-600k) was broken up into many parts to make it easier to supply. Of course they could not really supply it fully as we all know how that ended.
The US civil war and the Franco Prussian war proved how much technology had changed. With a railroad you could have much larger armies and not worry too much about feeding them.
I would postulate, and I could be entirely wrong, that adding zeros would be wrong. Given that what we get in fluff is supposed to be pseudo legendary, humanity has a long history of vastly over inflating numbers in terms of military sizes
The entire Cadian system, not just the planet, the *system* is said to have 260 million people in it.
That's it.
260 million people on 5 planets to defend the Cadian Gate at the entrance/exit to the Eye of Terror.
That cannot possibly be right.
and 1000 space marines, super human they might be would not be able to do jack even against todays earth. There are just too dam many people.
So, using some rough approximations merely as an illustration (because 40k would work a little different, but just to illustrate):
Say a M-16 costs $800 (lowest figure I could find, several sites quoted about $2000 a rifle). Now, the figure tossed out most recently was One Trillion. At $800 per rifle that is $800 Trillion dollars.
We'll also lowball the cost of an aircraft carrier, to be fair. That's $4.6 billion dollars.
That makes the aircraft carrier roughly equivalent to 0.000575% the cost of the rifles.
Now, cost alone isn't the only factor, of course, but you can perhaps start to see what I'm getting at. Orbital support isn't so ludicrously expensive that the Imperium would never field it vs the cost of the men you say the Imperium would happily sacrifice in it's place.
Where are these numbers coming from? An aircraft carrier is not nearly large enough to represent a interstellar warship capable of supporting ground operations. The ships in 40k are much much much bigger.
Also a trillion men would find it nearly impossible to feed themselves if deployed. It is likely they would need orbital support just to supply themselves and then significant fleet would be required to protect those supply lines.
I dont buy that any force could be deployed without orbital support, but then both sides of the battle cannot have it at the same time.
In short most battles in 40k probably are one side sitting in space after a short naval battle bombarding the other side into submission. Naval power being far more important than land power. But you will still need to deploy land power, else you be forced to completely destroy every planet that will not bow to your bombardment. Your land forces must be credible, such that once they are deployed they do not need the naval power there to baby them(if they did, that naval power would be tied up for too long assisting the land power and be spread to thin to do what it is supposed to do, counter enemy naval power)
On some theaters of war in 40k there would be decisive land on land combat. There would be some objective that needs capturing or there would be some circumstances preventing naval power from engaging with sufficient force to be a factor.
These land on land battle, special cases that they are, is what we play with Warhammer 40k. If you want naval battle, play Battlefleet Gothic, which gives you a much better idea of how most of the battles in 40k would play out.
If you want naval vs land battle, assemble as many ultramarines as you can on a tournament table. On the next table over put the planet killer. First turn the planet killer destorys the ultramarine tournament table, game over. Next play the exact same mission again but switch armies with your opponent. See if you can do any better than he did. (fun game ay?)
Even then, remember. Military power is used almost only when there are lopsided odds. You dont go into battle with a plan, hey I think this guy is just about as powerful as me, perhaps ill invade/attack him. There is a 50% chance i'll win. Battles are almost always initiated when one side has a clear advantage (either by the side with the advantage, knowing they will win or by the weaker side, knowing it will only get worse if they dont pull some luck now)
The idea that two armies of approximately the same size would come to a planet and fight each other is silly. 2000 points vs 2000 points would never happen, but in 10,000 years on a million different planets it might happen once or twice just by accident. That is what we play because it is fun.
Actually, you are making a lot of my points. I was going off what some were perporting the numbers as. An aircraft carrier sized ship currently houses a crew in the multiple thousands. Yes 40k is bigger, but even extrapolating as someone else did, it pointed to the fact the cost of the starship vs the number of men being suggested would still make the carrier chump change in comparison.
I used a carrier to simulate a 'small' gun boat meant merely for supporting fire. I'm not looking for a naval battle, or naval on land battle. I'm merely saying orbital support wouldn't be so ludicrously expensive and hard to replace as to not be in use, you cannot drop that many guys into one ao, and that it wouldn't require a massive orbital bombardment designed to kill everything to support troops.
Space Marine Chapter Masters and the Grey Knights (at least the old codex, I don't have the new) could take various forms of orbital bombardment that were merely large blast templates. These would be your cruise missile off a b2 or battleship support for ground troops. Meant to hit that artillery that is killing your guys from 12 miles away or that titan that defys the laws of physics that is about to stomp on you.
40k is a lot of hyperbole, but even that has it's limits (feeding a trillion men would require a logistical chain so complex and huge you could spam even 40k battleships at a foe and not loose sleep over it, forget the disease that would acrue with such a massive body...phew, continent sized latrines...).
Exergy wrote: If you destroy billions of lives to get at one then billions of people on other worlds(there friends/family/people near them) will start to rebel. Imagine if the US nuked iran. Not only would the US have a million iranian americans in the US to contend with but all of the iranians in other countries as well.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: 40k is not the real world. Genocide in the real world is a horrifying crime that unites the entire rest of the world against you. Genocide in 40k is the default plan. You don't care how many people you nuke because you're going to execute all of them for heresy anyway once you win the war. Any "civilian" not killed in the war is just one more person your extermination camps have to deal with. The only reason not to nuke a rebelling city is because you want to take the infrastructure intact so that once you've exterminated all the current inhabitants you can move your own people in and turn it into a productive planet. And of course if it's a xenos planet, or the heretics have defiled the buildings, you're going to burn it to the ground and start over anyway, so you might as well nuke the whole thing and kill two birds with one stone.
There's also the fact that there's no "news" in the Imperium that is not state-controlled, and the vast, vast, *VAST* majority of people will never, ever leave the planet on which they were born.
If the Imperium decides to eradicate the population of an entire world via virus bombing... the next system over may never, ever know of it.
There are some Imperial worlds, after all, that have absolutely no means of space travel produced locally. They are at medieval or maybe even steam power levels of technology... once a century, or once a millennia, a space ship arrives to collect its tithe, and then flies away, never to be seen again by any one currently living on the planet, unto five, ten or a hundred generations.
These worlds might even share a system with a Hive World, and never know it. If that Hive World were put to death by the Imperium, the people of this backwards rock will never, ever know that their neighbors have all been slain.
goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.
