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Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 08:51:26


Post by: IandI


In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

An ork Waaagh of 50 million orks. (They can spawn more as normal.)

One chapter of Marines.

An Eldar Craftworld. (Honestly I don't know how many Eldar warriors and vehicles a Craftworld has, but I assume it's a few hundred thousand guys and a couple hundred tanks and planes.)

30 regiments of Imperial Guard.

A splinter fleet of Tyranids numbering about 50 million creatures. (They can make more as normal.)

A Tau expansion fleet. (They are not here to negotiate, just kill)

1000 Chaos Marines. (Limited Daemonic support)

I'm going to say we survive except against Tyranids, Chaos, and maybe Tau because of air power. It doesn't seem like any of these 40k groups would have enough air assets to deal with the thousands and thousands of tactical aircraft that inhabit 2017 Earth. I think they would do solid work on the ground against infantry and tanks, but I doubt power armor and bolters would hold up long against repeated missile barrages from drones flying 30,000 feet up. Tyranids could probably just crash gargoyles into jet engines to silence the threat while happily gobbling up biomass to produce more gribblies. Chaos could subvert huge chunks of the population or riddle them with disease. Tau seem like they would be capable of blasting a lot of planes out of the sky to even up the ground war.

What's your take dakka?



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 09:15:53


Post by: Shadow Walker


We definitely do not have a chance against Tyranids. As to the rest - if we somehow can cripple their starships we can win.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 10:03:09


Post by: tneva82


IandI wrote:
In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

One chapter of Marines.

30 regiments of Imperial Guard.

1000 Chaos Marines. (Limited Daemonic support)



Just one question. Why you limit stuff artificially? Marines wouldn't be invading planet without IG support. Similarly doubtfully chaos marines just go around 1000 strong and invade alone. They too would have support elements. If Imperium would come here it would be IG regiments forming up main bulk, imperial navy for air support and marines for shock troops used to attack say our HQ/missile silos/etc in lightning fast hit&run attacks(drop in, take out, get back to fleet, repeat)


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 10:47:03


Post by: Esmer


With the applied limits, humanity would probably beat all factions through sheer atrition. The combined nations of the Earth can mobilize hundreds of millions of able-bodied men (app. 100 million soldiers fought in WW2, and the global population has almost tripled since then), and I don't think your average Pakistani conscript with a G3 is going to perform much worse than your average Guardsman with a lasgun.

Orks and Tyranids could be tricky, if we don't figure out their multiplying process fast enough.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 11:22:25


Post by: Ynneadwraith


Aside from the Marine factions (too few) and perhaps the Guard depending on how big a regiment is, we don't really have the capability to defend ourselves properly against the other factions you've mentioned.

Craftworlds have billions of eldar. They're a dying race on a galactic scale, but each craftworld has a sizeable population. Certainly enough to mobilise enough forces to capitalise on their technological advantage.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 11:33:54


Post by: Kroem


The established background often has Space Marines at sub-chapter strength pacifying entire worlds of humans, and the disunited nature of the 2017 Earth would make it very easy to play one nation off against one anther and pick off isolated nations. (Remember Space Marines are all incredibly gifting strategists and diplomats by human standards)

They also have other advantages like exploiting our unwillingness to tolerate civilian casualties, reliance on an integrated global economy, clumsiness in redeploying military forces throughout the globe etc.

So whilst I agree with the others that if they all landed in one place we could probably liquidate them (dependant on how good power armour is I suppose), I don't think we would ever get such a chance!


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 11:41:29


Post by: Hollow


Of course not. We would be smashed. Even if we did put up a fight we would end up destroying ourselves and our planet by going nuclear.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 12:15:55


Post by: Ynneadwraith


 Kroem wrote:
The established background often has Space Marines at sub-chapter strength pacifying entire worlds of humans, and the disunited nature of the 2017 Earth would make it very easy to play one nation off against one anther and pick off isolated nations. (Remember Space Marines are all incredibly gifting strategists and diplomats by human standards)

They also have other advantages like exploiting our unwillingness to tolerate civilian casualties, reliance on an integrated global economy, clumsiness in redeploying military forces throughout the globe etc.

So whilst I agree with the others that if they all landed in one place we could probably liquidate them (dependant on how good power armour is I suppose), I don't think we would ever get such a chance!


There's a long-standing debate as to whether the official fluff for Space Marines is in the least way believable as to whether they can pacify any world above a feudal agri-world via military force. I don't want this to devolve into that debate again, but for what it's worth I'm in the 'it's ridiculous to the point of breaking suspension of disbelief' camp.

I do like the idea of them going about it by pitting existing factions against each other. Imagine what Trump would do if supermen from outer space offered to build his mexico-wall...

If it's an out-and-out war, the Marines are hopelessly outmatched. They're a propaganda tool, not an army.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 12:31:16


Post by: fresus


At the moment I don't think any state could protect their leaders from a SM assault: if they dropped a few dropods on the white house and pentagon, they could probably kill everyone on site pretty quickly.
Killing the person in charge and start giving out orders right away is often sufficient to seize control (that's what happens in many coups). That might be a way for a limited number of SM to conquer countries. They wouldn't have the troops to maintain a military ruling by themselves, but if they found a way to have the earth military to work for them (by finding a good puppet to do their bidding), it could work.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 13:01:23


Post by: Elbows


Against what you've listed? Absolutely. Sheer numbers and, if needed, nuclear weapons.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 13:08:35


Post by: OgreChubbs


Nope no chance, we have no way to counter but sit here and yell at the sky.

We have gak tech to get to space and as soon as someone would make one able to get far the other country around here would turn on each other because they are getting ahead of us. Long story short we too dumb to do anything we less then orks. Hell even they can work together.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 15:35:25


Post by: ProwlerPC


Invasions by most of those armies would come in far larger numbers. I mean, 50 million orks? Rofl that's not even enough for them to saturate a single planet before gaining the urge to migrate in a waaaaaagh! Orks migrate in far massive numbers. Let alone Nids. ....

The fluff does say chapters are 1000. Terrible grasp of scale. The 1000 would lose to those other limited invasions let alone Earth. But in their benefit is these same tiny numbers. I imagine they can do quite a bit of damage in localized areas and even operate for quite awhile before we even realize we are being invaded. But at best it would keep us occupied until the true invasion of billions came.

Edit add: whoah wait.....a whole craft world! Like the whole thing came? There's more eldar in those then you realize plus all their best toys. I don't think they'd need to set foot on the planet to win if one of those came close. The gravity problems alone....


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 15:42:43


Post by: sennacherib


Apparently the new GK chapter would struggle taking over El Salvador. Or at least that’s how GK players make them sound. Pretty bad.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 15:52:58


Post by: Bharring


Earth survived after Eldar invaded. We just never noticed. Or rather, that's what we've been lead to believe.

They don't even hang out on Terra itself anymore. They found this place boring. They did their manipulations, and moved on.

Note that a CWE warhost or strikeforce is not typically the entire Craftworld. There are times that happens, but A Craftworld would tend to be involved in many things at any given time.

2017 Earth fighting CWE also wouldn't be humans shooting at space elves. It'd be different factions of Earth pitted against eachother until we destroyed ourselves. If they got desperate, they'd probably send in a few strikeforces to jumpstart thermonuclear war.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 16:07:21


Post by: Galas


Theres no way we can do anything agaisn't any of those forces.

One said that a Guardsmen with a Lasgun isn't better than a random militiaman with an AK or something similar. Thats just wrong.

The Lasgun a Guardsmen carries can be overcharged to destroy one of our tanks in a single shoot. The weapons in warhammer40k are so Overpowered we can't even compete with their most basic weaponry.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 16:20:02


Post by: Vaktathi


To put stuff in context, 40k is a Fantasy setting with a SciFi skin, when you introduce the real world, they all break down quickly.

Barring orbital bombardment, most factions would fare...poorly against modern armies. Space Marines, while powerful, and hilariously limited in number and are vulnerable to common real world weapons as shown countless times in the fluff. For all their technomagic, the Eldar have nothing like long range radsr or GPS guided artillery or BVR anti aircraft weapons. The Guard are incomprehensibly organized and a Russ Tank physically couldnr work in real life (the breech of the gun take up the entire turret, even in FW drawings, theres no room for crew or ammo), etc ad nauseum. A real world tank can roll over rough ground at highway speeds and hit another tank moving at highway speeds at night more than 90% of the time with rounds that can penetrate a meter or more of solid armor, no 40k faction boasts anything like that capability, on the table or in the fluff.

A Space Marine chapter would be quickly isolated and destroyed in detail with a maximum of a thousand warriors. Thirty Regiments of Imperial Guard would be fewer troops than were engaged in the Gulf war and with dramatically less impressive capabilities.

The real world would roll over most 40k factions extremely easily. 40k factions, at their most advanced, work like WW2 armies with SciFi paintjobs, many are far more primitive. They work in a Fantasy universe, but not when the real world is applied.


 Galas wrote:

The Lasgun a Guardsmen carries can be overcharged to destroy one of our tanks in a single shoot. The weapons in warhammer40k are so Overpowered we can't even compete with their most basic weaponry.
...wat? Since when is a Lasgun even remotely capable of such a feat...? Where is this coming from?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 16:39:10


Post by: Galas


Lexicanum wrote:The lasgun uses the same basic technology and operates along the same lines as other laser weapons, emitting a beam of focused light. The high amount of energy in the beam causes the immediate surface area of a target to be vaporized in a small explosion[1]. It is a relatively unimpressive weapon when compared to other weapons in the Imperium, but is still capable of cleanly severing limbs or piercing the power armour of a Space Marine


And it should be noted, thats without overcharging the Lasgun.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/3x1mi9/are_lasguns_underrated/

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/3uxyez/lasgun_strength_and_penetration/

Laser weaponry and Lasguns are better than any Infantry-Weaponry we have today. Much more reliable, "infinite" amunition, much more penetration and explosive power. The basic lasgun has 19 Megathules of power in everyone of their shots as stated by the 3.5 edition Guard Codex. A Megathule is the equivalent of a Megajoule.
To put a real world example:
A similar fate was another innovative project of the Navy: the rail gun, which uses the magnetic field to accelerate a projectile to more than seven times the speed of sound.
Using this technology, it is not necessary to equip the projectiles with explosives, since their kinetic energy would suffice to destroy a ship or a coastal fortification.
The tests achieved a maximum of 32 megajoules of force, which theoretically would allow the destruction of targets at a distance of 200 kilometers.


A Lasgun has nearly 60% of the power of the most advanced Rail Weapon that we have today (Still in developement, of course, and we have much better weaponry. But is to put in context the power of a Lasgun). So yeah. A single, overchared lasgun shoot can explode one of our modern tanks.

Of course this comes down to Warhammer40k authors having no clue about scale. Just like Tyranids go agaisn't the laws of termodinamics and biology, the war-technology of the setting is absurd. But ey, it is what it is. We can't just assume things are less powerfull than what they are written because it interest our interpretation of the lore.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/27 23:29:59


Post by: Eihnlazer


I'm honestly not that afraid of 40k weaponry since the majority of it only has a range of 96 feet. Even the longest range weaponry (120" on tabletop) is a pitiful 480 ft.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 01:03:38


Post by: Infantryman


 Eihnlazer wrote:
I'm honestly not that afraid of 40k weaponry since the majority of it only has a range of 96 feet. Even the longest range weaponry (120" on tabletop) is a pitiful 480 ft.


Isn't the Earthshaker 240"?

Still, though.

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 02:16:00


Post by: argonak


fresus wrote:
At the moment I don't think any state could protect their leaders from a SM assault: if they dropped a few dropods on the white house and pentagon, they could probably kill everyone on site pretty quickly.
Killing the person in charge and start giving out orders right away is often sufficient to seize control (that's what happens in many coups). That might be a way for a limited number of SM to conquer countries. They wouldn't have the troops to maintain a military ruling by themselves, but if they found a way to have the earth military to work for them (by finding a good puppet to do their bidding), it could work.


And then the nearest airbase drops a couple missiles on them and the marines are all dead. The DoD is an enourmous institution and has enough rank structures to easily survive any initial assaults. And that's assuming the Marines could even figure out they needed to target the Pentagon and the White House.

Marines simply aren't tough enough and come in too small numbers to be anything but point of the spear limited use troops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Galas wrote:
Theres no way we can do anything agaisn't any of those forces.

One said that a Guardsmen with a Lasgun isn't better than a random militiaman with an AK or something similar. Thats just wrong.

The Lasgun a Guardsmen carries can be overcharged to destroy one of our tanks in a single shoot. The weapons in warhammer40k are so Overpowered we can't even compete with their most basic weaponry.


Unfortunately the fluff is so variable on that, you can't really be sure. Humans often survive lasgun shots, so they can't be that strong normally. Hell, humans in the fluff survive BOLTER rounds, which sound kill them by hydrostatic shock alone.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 03:19:57


Post by: Eldenfirefly


Depends on how smart the enemy plays it. If Chaos is Alpha legion. They infiltrate our society first. Then form cults. When their fleet finally appear over our atmosphere, the cults will all rise up at the same time proclaiming the dawn of end times, and to glory in the chaos gods.

Then all they have to do, is to use some shock and awe tactics. Hit all the major capitals around the world, have terminators teleport directly into the heart of the white house, etc.

If half the the world's armies tear themselves apart fighting the other half, supported by chaos space marines and some summoned daemons (just to complete the despair and shock and awe campaign). Then there's a good chance earth will fall into anarchy.

We won't go quietly. But in such a situation, its a good chance the planet will still fall to chaos. You have to consider what would happen to people's faith in general if 1000 chaos space marines showed up suddenly out of space and show that they have arcane magic, ancient technology, psychic powers, plus they can summon in real live daemons, and they have Daemon princes too.

If the good side doesn't show up with saints and angels. Humanity may well crumble. Just the hit on all religions may be enough. Imagine half the world turning to chaos worship because daemons are now real. Chaos doesn't need to obliterate us (although they could still have that in mind), they just have to make us fall in chaos.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 09:14:33


Post by: SomeRandomEvilGuy


I am not sure what would happen if the 40K faction destroyed all satellites before deploying but it seems well within their capabilities. I don't know what affect that that would have on military operations but if it isn't much then;

I could see both Orks and Tyranids winning but they'd be relying on replenishing their numbers. An Eldar Craftworld should be able to do it (Psychic powers especially predicting the future combined with superior manoeuvrability would count for a lot). Can't really see the Imperial Guard (insufficient numbers for taking on an entire planet). or the Space Marines (definitely insufficient numbers) actually achieving victory. Tau I don't think have the numbers either. One thousand Chaos Space Marines is likely too limited to do much unless they play the long game and are very subtle and even then I don't seem managing to displace native religions.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 12:21:46


Post by: TarkinLarson


The answer to this, as with many questions is... "it depends".

Tyranids
I don't think we stand a chance, even if one turned up on the planet in anything other than the middle of a military base. They'd be impervious to most citizens small arms fire, and would pick off outlying people. They can multiple, mutate and consume anything. They can also infect local flora and fauna and mutate them too.
If it was genestealers we'd struggle too, as it's more a slow covert change. It could happen anywhere in the world... and once they're in the human looking stage they can migrate across the country and infect lots of people.
When I REALLY think about Tyranids, they truly terrify me. All they want to do is liquidize me and eat me. Everyone gets "infected" with spores and even my house plants would want to eat me eventually.

Chaos
If it's Alpha legion I agree with the cultist theory above. There's lot of places to hide.
If it's something like Nurgle marines, we'd have huge plagues on hand that will just kill or enslave everything before we realized what was going on.
Khorne, would probably struggle a little, as 1,000 marines isn't much and we'd probably kill them through attrition.
Slaanesh, might have a cult following as above, or get drugs into all our cities or something.

Imperial Guard
They'd probably lose, as they're better at defensive actions, unless they're supported with other imperial forces and logistics.
An Autogun or a stubber are analogous to our normal guns aren't they? Lasguns are meant to be comparable to autoguns in power in the game. In the fluff, it might be different, but inconsistently reported.

Orks,
The problem with Orks is due to their fungal natures, they keep coming back. So we might be able to keep them in check, but it would be a really hard slog. Also the harder we fight, the strong they get. So if they couldn't reinforce from elsewhere we might win, but we'd never kill them all!

Space Marines,
1,000 space marines would do a lot of damage... I imagine they have thunderhawk gunships, speeders, drop pods, rhinos etc. They should shrug off small arms fire, but when we start dropping tactical nukes, bunker busters etc on them, we can take them out. They'd be spread too thinly to be of use though.
Would need more space marines for the entire planet. I think the ingame version of space marines are underpowered on an individual basis compared to their reputation, so one or the other has to be wrong.

Eldar
Wouldn't be a craftworld, but if it was more limited, I think we'd struggle. They're fast and can reposition. They also have the webway! We'd be able to kill a lot of them, but I think their enhanced ability to see the future and crush our will with psykers will be hard to resist.

Tau
I don't know that much about them, but I think they'd get a lot of support from human nations. They don't seem that bad really in comparison to the others and we'd probably surrender as they'd gift us technology aslong as we joined them.


I probably think the hardest things for real life humans to fight against will be any psykers. We are just not prepared for them. We don't know how to react, we're not used to it, we have nothing to compare to it and no defences.

What is the agenda of the attacks and would the entire planet Earth resist?

I can see Space Marines and IG would want to subjugate us. They would offer terms of surrender, which many people may accept. We'd have to change worship of our gods for the Emperor. We'd become feudal probably too, but we'd probably be left to govern ourselves as long as we gave the tithe.

Chaos is dependent upon who or what they worship. They would offer slavery or death, but not a degree of freedom underneath their boots. Some might give in to slavery.

Tyranids are an all or nothing affair. We'd fight to the death.

Tau and Eldar might just want to subjugate us. I can't see them wanting to just wipe us out for the hell of it.

Orks are also probably an all or nothing affair, although I can imagine us working as slaves for them if we lose, but we wouldn't choose it.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 12:41:28


Post by: pismakron


We would totally destroy them of course. The longest range weapons in 40k still cannot shoot further than about 300 meters. We would just outrange them with artillery.

Apart from that, Space Marines run around in massive brightly coloured suits, and their pauldrons are so big that they cannot lift their arms. They would be annihilated.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 12:53:31


Post by: Peregrine


 Galas wrote:
The basic lasgun has 19 Megathules of power in everyone of their shots as stated by the 3.5 edition Guard Codex. A Megathule is the equivalent of a Megajoule.


Uh, no. First of all, you have no justification for making that equivalence. The fact that two words sound kind of similar does not mean they are identical in meaning. Second, lasguns do not have bunker-destroying firepower because we have seen the effects of lasguns on unarmored human flesh. They don't vaporize a whole soldier and carve a crater in the hill behind him, they cause wounds roughly on par with real-world rifles. The inescapable conclusion here is that "megathule" and "megajoule" are not equivalent, and lasguns are effectively real-world rifles with much better logistics.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 12:56:38


Post by: nfe


Given the wild variations in terms of fluff, you probably have to rephrase the question along the lines of 'Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by X 40k Faction as presented in Y novel/codex/supplement/whatever?' You'd also have to draw a distinction between fluff and in-game sources - clearly the latter vastly reduces weapon capabilities so we don't have to exclusively play apocalypse games in car parks in order to have them last more than one turn of shooting.

And then depending on the faction and source selected, the answer is going to range from 'almost without noticing' to 'no chance whatsoever'.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 13:01:23


Post by: pismakron


And let us not forget, that the fastest moving ground vehicles in 40k only has a top speed of slightly more that twice the running speed of your average soldier.

And even the fastest aircraft in 40k are no more than about five times as fast as Usain Bolt. They wouldn't stand a chance. Any real life third world militia in Toyota Hiluxes could destroy entire chapters of space marines before tea.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 13:09:10


Post by: Sgt_Smudge


We do have examples of lasguns killing Space Marines and blasting open Dreadnought sarcophagi.

In Gaunt's Ghosts, they can overcharge lasguns to deposit all their energy in one shot, which can take a Space Marine's head off, or literally blast open the casing of a Dreadnought. It's not efficient, but given that lasgun batteries recharge in sunlight or in an open fire, they're incredibly reliable and versatile weapons.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 13:18:36


Post by: kastelen


 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
We do have examples of lasguns killing Space Marines and blasting open Dreadnought sarcophagi.

In Gaunt's Ghosts, they can overcharge lasguns to deposit all their energy in one shot, which can take a Space Marine's head off, or literally blast open the casing of a Dreadnought. It's not efficient, but given that lasgun batteries recharge in sunlight or in an open fire, they're incredibly reliable and versatile weapons.


This could be taken both ways, lasguns are strong or space marines are weak.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 16:08:51


Post by: Galas


 Peregrine wrote:
 Galas wrote:
The basic lasgun has 19 Megathules of power in everyone of their shots as stated by the 3.5 edition Guard Codex. A Megathule is the equivalent of a Megajoule.


Uh, no. First of all, you have no justification for making that equivalence. The fact that two words sound kind of similar does not mean they are identical in meaning. Second, lasguns do not have bunker-destroying firepower because we have seen the effects of lasguns on unarmored human flesh. They don't vaporize a whole soldier and carve a crater in the hill behind him, they cause wounds roughly on par with real-world rifles. The inescapable conclusion here is that "megathule" and "megajoule" are not equivalent, and lasguns are effectively real-world rifles with much better logistics.


Sgt_Smudge has already answered you, and the most consistend wound of a lasgun in a unarmored human flesh is the explosion of entire limbs by overheating the liquid fluids of the body, but that a Megathule is equivalent to a Megajoule was said by a BL author. Of course you can say thats isn't canon. And I'll say, ok. At the end of the day Warhammer40k is very inconsistend and one day a Lasgun explodes a Dreadnought and other day it just stings like a bee.


Now, answering again the first question. I think we can't do anything agaisn't any Warhammer40k force. We have no space defenses and no space offensive capabilities. Any kind of Nuke we can launch will just be stoped by their void shields or equivalents. They can bombard us to death without anything we can do to stop them.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 16:14:33


Post by: Peregrine


 Galas wrote:
Sgt_Smudge has already answered you, and the most consistend wound of a lasgun in a unarmored human flesh is the explosion of entire limbs by overheating the liquid fluids of the body, but that a Megathule is equivalent to a Megajoule was said by a BL author. Of course you can say thats isn't canon. And I'll say, ok. At the end of the day Warhammer40k is very inconsistend and one day a Lasgun explodes a Dreadnought and other day it just stings like a bee.


Even your claim here falls well short of "destroying bunkers with single shots" levels of firepower. And your own links about lasgun firepower include descriptions of a lasgun causing non-fatal wounds that sound very much like the level of wounds a real-world rifle might inflict.


Now, answering again the first question. I think we can't do anything agaisn't any Warhammer40k force. We have no space defenses and no space offensive capabilities. Any kind of Nuke we can launch will just be stoped by their void shields or equivalents. They can bombard us to death without anything we can do to stop them.


The scenario in the OP specifically excludes space assets from shooting.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 16:20:18


Post by: Iron_Captain


Yes, if you take away the biggest advantages that 40k factions have over modern-day militaries than we would stand a chance.
Of course, if a 40k faction would really invade a planet like Earth, then they wouldn't limit themselves like that. Therefore this discussion is moot.

Apart from that, what Vaktathi says also is very true, and it makes this kind of discussion really useless. The 40k universe is a work of fiction and operates on different laws than our world. If the 40k faction invades our world, do they work according to 40k physics or according to real world physics?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 16:56:15


Post by: Galas


 Peregrine wrote:
 Galas wrote:
Sgt_Smudge has already answered you, and the most consistend wound of a lasgun in a unarmored human flesh is the explosion of entire limbs by overheating the liquid fluids of the body, but that a Megathule is equivalent to a Megajoule was said by a BL author. Of course you can say thats isn't canon. And I'll say, ok. At the end of the day Warhammer40k is very inconsistend and one day a Lasgun explodes a Dreadnought and other day it just stings like a bee.


Even your claim here falls well short of "destroying bunkers with single shots" levels of firepower. And your own links about lasgun firepower include descriptions of a lasgun causing non-fatal wounds that sound very much like the level of wounds a real-world rifle might inflict.


Now, answering again the first question. I think we can't do anything agaisn't any Warhammer40k force. We have no space defenses and no space offensive capabilities. Any kind of Nuke we can launch will just be stoped by their void shields or equivalents. They can bombard us to death without anything we can do to stop them.


The scenario in the OP specifically excludes space assets from shooting.


I have never claimed that a lasgun can destroy a bunker with a single shot. I was talking about overcharged shots agaisn't a modern day tank. I'll say that a Dreadnought is probably tougther than a modern day tank.
And yes, just as I said, the inconsistence in warhammer40k does futile this kind of discussion, because for every "One space marine killed 10.000 orks alone!" theres one "A Chaos Cultists killed a Space Marine in power armour with a iron-stick"


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 17:06:25


Post by: Ynneadwraith


 Eihnlazer wrote:
I'm honestly not that afraid of 40k weaponry since the majority of it only has a range of 96 feet. Even the longest range weaponry (120" on tabletop) is a pitiful 480 ft.


Reaching back aways for this, but in 40k distance is an abstraction and doesn't scale directly with model size.

Same way that a Rhine can't fit 10 Marines in it.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 18:19:11


Post by: SomeRandomEvilGuy


 Iron_Captain wrote:

Of course, if a 40k faction would really invade a planet like Earth, then they wouldn't limit themselves like that. Therefore this discussion is moot.

The weaponry on their ships has been disabled due to prior combat but they proceed with their mission to conquer earth.

Just go with the query rather than try to poke holes in it.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 19:17:10


Post by: godking


IandI wrote:
In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

An ork Waaagh of 50 million orks. (They can spawn more as normal.)

One chapter of Marines.

An Eldar Craftworld. (Honestly I don't know how many Eldar warriors and vehicles a Craftworld has, but I assume it's a few hundred thousand guys and a couple hundred tanks and planes.)

30 regiments of Imperial Guard.

A splinter fleet of Tyranids numbering about 50 million creatures. (They can make more as normal.)

A Tau expansion fleet. (They are not here to negotiate, just kill)

1000 Chaos Marines. (Limited Daemonic support)

I'm going to say we survive except against Tyranids, Chaos, and maybe Tau because of air power. It doesn't seem like any of these 40k groups would have enough air assets to deal with the thousands and thousands of tactical aircraft that inhabit 2017 Earth. I think they would do solid work on the ground against infantry and tanks, but I doubt power armor and bolters would hold up long against repeated missile barrages from drones flying 30,000 feet up. Tyranids could probably just crash gargoyles into jet engines to silence the threat while happily gobbling up biomass to produce more gribblies. Chaos could subvert huge chunks of the population or riddle them with disease. Tau seem like they would be capable of blasting a lot of planes out of the sky to even up the ground war.

What's your take dakka?

We survive against and win against them all except Tyranids and the Tau Expansion fleet.

No 1 chapter or a 1000 space marines is conquering the world.

Orks can be outsmarted and eventually contained.

An eldar craft world + 30 regiments of imperial guard are not high enough in numbers to conquer every inch of the planet


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 19:40:44


Post by: Formosa


Adamantium, by today's understanding it's indestructible, im going off another universes interpretation of it as it exists in the "modern" world where "modern" weapons simply do nothing to it, it's a stretch but if 40k adamantium is the same stuff, then by extension nothing we have can even hurt it.

Space marine armour uses it, so do there tanks, so if the above statement is true, we literally have nothing that can destroy them. That's a big advantage.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 19:52:19


Post by: Vaktathi


 Formosa wrote:
Adamantium, by today's understanding it's indestructible, im going off another universes interpretation of it as it exists in the "modern" world where "modern" weapons simply do nothing to it, it's a stretch but if 40k adamantium is the same stuff, then by extension nothing we have can even hurt it.

Space marine armour uses it, so do there tanks, so if the above statement is true, we literally have nothing that can destroy them. That's a big advantage.
the problem is we have ample evidence and examples of it being defeated by stuff that has very real modern day equivalents. Stuff like large Choppas wielded with enough force, autocannons, stubbers, mortars, grenades, etc.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 19:54:12


Post by: Grumblewartz


People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 20:27:28


Post by: Infantryman


Orbital superiority isn't. Void shields might make an issue, though...no idea how they hold up against missiles.

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 20:52:42


Post by: Xenomancers


The reality is that 40k space assets make even 40k ground battles pointless. So taking them out of the equation is only natural in the discussion.

Ground elements of modern war are actually far superior to 40k setting ground elelments. Our tanks for example don't lose accuracy by moving. We are perfectly happy to let all of our boys throw as many grenades as we like and we also prefer to use guns even if someone is trying to slash us with a sword. Shooting over the horizon is no problem with satellite guided munitions with basically a 100% kill rate if they are on target.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 20:56:27


Post by: SomeRandomEvilGuy


 Infantryman wrote:
Orbital superiority isn't. Void shields might make an issue, though...no idea how they hold up against missiles.

M.

I think some Battlefleet Gothic stuff had torpedoes and attack craft bypassing void shields but other fluff has them halt it.

Between void shields and defensive fighters I don't really see many missiles from earth hitting 40K space ships even assuming they're in relatively close orbit.

Xenomancers wrote:Shooting over the horizon is no problem with satellite guided munitions with basically a 100% kill rate if they are on target.

In fairness satellites would be fairly easy to shoot down by 40K factions.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 21:05:41


Post by: Formosa


 Vaktathi wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
Adamantium, by today's understanding it's indestructible, im going off another universes interpretation of it as it exists in the "modern" world where "modern" weapons simply do nothing to it, it's a stretch but if 40k adamantium is the same stuff, then by extension nothing we have can even hurt it.

Space marine armour uses it, so do there tanks, so if the above statement is true, we literally have nothing that can destroy them. That's a big advantage.
the problem is we have ample evidence and examples of it being defeated by stuff that has very real modern day equivalents. Stuff like large Choppas wielded with enough force, autocannons, stubbers, mortars, grenades, etc.



What are the auto cannon rounds made from? Stubber ammo? Mortar shells can kill from over pressure, making the armour redundant, same with grenades, what caliber is the mortar ? How do we not know the ork background psychic nature isn't affecting how they fight space marines ? How strong is an actual ork?

We make assumptions on all of this and some claim it as fact, a 40k assault rifle is identical to a modern one because it looks the same and uses bullets, it appears to apply damage in a similar manner, so it must be he same, at least I added the caveat that I was making a stretch.

So no, that "evidence" is just as worthless as my anecdotal statement, I am not claiming it to be a fact though as I understand that we don't have any solid information about it, a good example is bolt rounds, .75 caliber and yet can be stopped by guard flak armour that looks similar to modern body armour.

So I suppose we get to my point or lack of one anyway, we don't know what sci fi space wizardry goes into the creation of these weapons, they may seem primitive by modern standards but still be eons ahead of us in every way, like an arrow that can destroy a challenger, we look at it and laugh, it's so primitive and we have seen what arrows can do, but somehow this super magic space arrow took it out clean, because that's the story, that's the setting.

So no, modern earth could not stand up to any 40k army, because space magic and wizards off camera!


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 21:11:59


Post by: Insectum7


Without the normal orbital support they bring, we'd probably be ok. Except maybe Tyranids and depending on your fluff, Necrons. We'd win against Orks, but we'd never really get rid of them. Orks and Tyranids can multiply quickly, and some fiction indicates Necrons don't need a spacecraft to supply reinforcements.

But in "reality" most factions will also have a spacecraft, and in that case we pretty much auto-lose.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 21:44:11


Post by: Bharring


Also, this assumes meeting in the field like 1700s line infantry - much like the tabletop game.

For many of the threats, we wouldn't even necessarily know they're there.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 23:17:10


Post by: Ynneadwraith


 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.


Not that I'm being all 'humanity...feth yeah!', but it might be worth reading up on guerilla fighters such as the Viet-cong and a little about the generations-long conflicts still raging in the Middle East before you decide how far peoples' will to resist will take them.

An alien force zapping in and assassinating leadership is likely to do little other than martyr them. It's a viable tactic when you're talking strategic generals, but fails miserably when it comes to charismatic politica leaders.

Only way would be to use their influence to goad locals into fighting for them.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/28 23:29:16


Post by: Formosa


 Ynneadwraith wrote:
 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.


Not that I'm being all 'humanity...feth yeah!', but it might be worth reading up on guerilla fighters such as the Viet-cong and a little about the generations-long conflicts still raging in the Middle East before you decide how far peoples' will to resist will take them.

An alien force zapping in and assassinating leadership is likely to do little other than martyr them. It's a viable tactic when you're talking strategic generals, but fails miserably when it comes to charismatic politica leaders.

Only way would be to use their influence to goad locals into fighting for them.


are you mad, Zap into the white house, kill everyone, zap into the senate and wipe them out, watch as Merica rips itself apart, move on to next planet and Earth enters its first Nuke war, guard arrive on a planet that is covered in Rad mutants, wipes them out, no one left to remember the "real" world, world is resettled and everyone wonders why its named after dirt.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 16:36:18


Post by: Iron_Captain


Also, it really matters whether one of the Space Marines, Orks or whatever other 40k faction is invading is the main character of the story, or if one of the people on earth is the main character.
Realistically speaking, the side with the main character wins. That is the most important law deciding conflicts involving 40k factions.
Basically, to predict the outcome of a conflict, you only need to know in which codex or book the story is going to be printed. All other details are fun but ultimately irrelevant.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 16:50:03


Post by: Bharring


Zapping in and killing central leadership would send us into disarray. They could keep it going for a very, very long time with superior mobility.

Some of the factions could do much better. Start a Genestealer cult. Replace leadership. Push terrestrial powers into a war with each other. Run a puppet for president.

Some factions can do this better than others.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 17:11:26


Post by: Tyran


Any of them can defeat us by simply targeting and destroying the infrastructure we need. Feeding 7 billion people isn't easy.

In addition, Tau, Tyranids and Eldar have more than enough numbers to crush us the old fashioned way.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 17:26:19


Post by: Vaktathi


 Formosa wrote:
 Vaktathi wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
Adamantium, by today's understanding it's indestructible, im going off another universes interpretation of it as it exists in the "modern" world where "modern" weapons simply do nothing to it, it's a stretch but if 40k adamantium is the same stuff, then by extension nothing we have can even hurt it.

Space marine armour uses it, so do there tanks, so if the above statement is true, we literally have nothing that can destroy them. That's a big advantage.
the problem is we have ample evidence and examples of it being defeated by stuff that has very real modern day equivalents. Stuff like large Choppas wielded with enough force, autocannons, stubbers, mortars, grenades, etc.



What are the auto cannon rounds made from?
Seemingly explosive shells largely analagous to modern day ones by every account GW has ever given that I can find, they arent described as using particularly interesting materials or having exceptional armor penetration ability.

Stubber ammo?
By all accounts I can find, the same stuff modern bullets are made from, or worse. They are described, portrayed, and represented as identical to modern day weaponry.

Ork Shootas and Underhive gangers probably arnet using tungsten carbide adamantium wundermetals


Mortar shells can kill from over pressure,
two things here.

First, if marines are still vulnerable to overpessure this way, then any modern explosive will be perfectly effective against them, and they'll die to bombs, rockets, artillery, tank shells, etc that are form the majority of killing power on modern battlefields.

Second, at least in Storm of Iron, an IG infantry mortar is portrayed killing an Iron Warriors siege engineer and penetrating his armor with a direct hit.

How do we not know the ork background psychic nature isn't affecting how they fight space marines ? How strong is an actual ork?
By every account and every rule system and fluff description I have available, ork psychic background stuff has no bearing on the power of the weapon, rather its operation (e.g. they tend to go "click" and not "bang" in non Ork hands) and Ork strength is portrayed as above normal human level but not beyond match by the strongest of normal humans.



We make assumptions on all of this and some claim it as fact, a 40k assault rifle is identical to a modern one because it looks the same and uses bullets, it appears to apply damage in a similar manner, so it must be he same, at least I added the caveat that I was making a stretch.
looking over the old 2E Wargear book, FW books detailing things like Vraksian renegade stubbers, the FFG RPG books, etc, there appears to be no particular mention of exotic stubber ammo materials or the like being in common use (such ammo is available but is represented as being special and rare), but lots of commentary about how such weapons are ancient and tried and true designs popping up in the most remote, underdeveloped, material poor, last ditch, etc situations and places like underhive gangs and underdeveloped planets and the like.


So no, that "evidence" is just as worthless as my anecdotal statement
aside from the fact that most of the weapons ive listed are never described as using exotic materials for projectiles and in fact are represented as very similar to modern weapons by GW.

I am not claiming it to be a fact though as I understand that we don't have any solid information about it, a good example is bolt rounds, .75 caliber and yet can be stopped by guard flak armour that looks similar to modern body armour
caliber alone doesnt tell us squat about its ability to defeat armor. In fact, what you generally want to defeat armor is a small buller going very fast, concentrating a lot of force over a small surface area. A 7.62mm Tokarev round will sail through a Level IIIA vest like butter, but that same vest will stop a larger and more powerful 9x19mm round every time. There's a video on Youtube (by Iraqveteran8888, a ridiculous gun channel) where they shoot an actual cannon at a modern body armor vest and it doesnt penetrate (though youd still be dead from the kinetic impact ).

More to the point, however, a bolter rounds killing power in this instance comes from the explosive, not the size of the shell, which something like Flak armor could be effective against if the shot were not dead on. A bolter round hitting the pillar 6" away from you might injure an unarmored person bad enough to pull them out of a fight or even kill if shrapnel found the right spot, but flak armor might save them. Blast concussion would probably kill on a direct hit no matter what.


So I suppose we get to my point or lack of one anyway, we don't know what sci fi space wizardry goes into the creation of these weapons, they may seem primitive by modern standards but still be eons ahead of us in every way,
So much of 40k is primitive however. Thats part of the setting. They have starships that turn gun turrets by having chain gangs of slaves literally turning giant cogwheels. Even the technowizardry of the Eldar and Tau has nothing like a modern beyond-visual-range anti aircraft missile capable of engaging a target over a hundred miles away, or stuff like radar guided counterbattery artillery fire, AWACS, GPS guided artillery, hell even Night Vision equipment that is available to every vehicle and soldier in the US military is relatively rare in 40k. Laser guided ordnance thats been available for decades in the real world appears to be in use with only one faction in 40k. Again, a modern MBT can move at highway speeds over rough ground at night and hit another tank also moving at speed over a thousand meters away more than 90% of the time, find me a faction in 40k that can do that

like an arrow that can destroy a challenger, we look at it and laugh, it's so primitive and we have seen what arrows can do, but somehow this super magic space arrow took it out clean, because that's the story, that's the setting.
what you've just described is a modern APFSDS armor piercing round that we are very familiar with in the real world


So no, modern earth could not stand up to any 40k army, because space magic and wizards off camera!
which makes the discussion impossible to have though


 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet.
Hence why we're setting aside space assets as it makes the conversation pointless otherwise, and even in 40k they almost never use space assets the way people talk about them being used in this situation (makes for a much more boring tabletop ground based game )

Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders.
How to they know who the leaders are, and where they are, and is there enough space to teleport Terminators in? (A teleporting Terminator squad is probably not going to fit into an office building or something like the Pentagon without rematerializing halfway into an office door, cubicle wall, a desk, etc)

This is something usually overlooked in 40k. In most stories, the enemy is magically known in full detail ahead of time, as is seemingly location information, orders of battle, etc without any reason why they'd actually know of of that.


Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.
how do the psykers know who these leaders are, get within range, and do their stuff? How are they going to prevent safeguards or advisors from stopping what would probably appear to be irrational and sudden insane actions? A Librarian cant just sit in orbit, divine exactlt who the enemy leaders are, and magically find exactly who they need and control them like a puppet from there...thats not been a thing in any 40k fluff ever as far as I can recall.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 17:32:50


Post by: Iron_Captain


 Vaktathi wrote:


This is something usually overlooked in 40k. In most stories, the enemy is magically known in full detail ahead of time, as is seemingly location information, orders of battle, etc without any reason why they'd actually know of of that.


Presumably the factions in 40k have ways of gathering intelligence. Of course, precisely what and how will probably never get shown because 'there is only war' and pretty much everything is focused on combat only. Same reason we have little idea what food or toilets look like in 40k.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 18:13:30


Post by: oldravenman3025


 Peregrine wrote:
 Galas wrote:
The basic lasgun has 19 Megathules of power in everyone of their shots as stated by the 3.5 edition Guard Codex. A Megathule is the equivalent of a Megajoule.


Uh, no. First of all, you have no justification for making that equivalence. The fact that two words sound kind of similar does not mean they are identical in meaning. Second, lasguns do not have bunker-destroying firepower because we have seen the effects of lasguns on unarmored human flesh. They don't vaporize a whole soldier and carve a crater in the hill behind him, they cause wounds roughly on par with real-world rifles. The inescapable conclusion here is that "megathule" and "megajoule" are not equivalent, and lasguns are effectively real-world rifles with much better logistics.




This. If anything, autoguns, like bolters, are superior tactically because of their versatility. But on a grand scale and logistically, the lasgun is a better choice.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 18:18:53


Post by: Ynneadwraith


 Formosa wrote:
 Ynneadwraith wrote:
 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.


Not that I'm being all 'humanity...feth yeah!', but it might be worth reading up on guerilla fighters such as the Viet-cong and a little about the generations-long conflicts still raging in the Middle East before you decide how far peoples' will to resist will take them.

An alien force zapping in and assassinating leadership is likely to do little other than martyr them. It's a viable tactic when you're talking strategic generals, but fails miserably when it comes to charismatic politica leaders.

Only way would be to use their influence to goad locals into fighting for them.


are you mad, Zap into the white house, kill everyone, zap into the senate and wipe them out, watch as Merica rips itself apart, move on to next planet and Earth enters its first Nuke war, guard arrive on a planet that is covered in Rad mutants, wipes them out, no one left to remember the "real" world, world is resettled and everyone wonders why its named after dirt.


Precisely the assumption the Americans have made every single time they've gone into the middle east (with a similarly great technological advantage over the local forces).

Don't see the middle east being particularly 'pacified', even after those 'lighting strikes to cut the head off the snake' have devolved into prolonged years-long conflicts with decentralised guerilla forces.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 20:13:45


Post by: godking


 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.
You are underestimating humanities will too fight out of 7 Billion + people there are simply too many stubborn bastards who will never stop fighting regardless if you assasinate their leaders.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 20:43:43


Post by: SomeRandomEvilGuy


 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Precisely the assumption the Americans have made every single time they've gone into the middle east (with a similarly great technological advantage over the local forces).

Don't see the middle east being particularly 'pacified', even after those 'lighting strikes to cut the head off the snake' have devolved into prolonged years-long conflicts with decentralised guerilla forces.

To be fair it'd be a lot easier with a 'scorch the earth if you resist us' policy. You do need numbers for that though.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 20:50:59


Post by: endlesswaltz123


In regards to marines, I'm still and always will be of the opinion that all they need to do is get one techmarine on a major US military installation, and the same for Russia and they will have IT technology so advanced they will be in full control of the majority nuclear arsenal in not a lot of time.

Another factor is how modern technology relies on being guided to targets. Yeah, the fleet assets cannot fire on the ground, but the thunderhawks don't have to even enter the atmosphere to cripple us. They can just spend a few hours sweeping satellites that are in orbit.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 21:05:17


Post by: Pacific


We have many dozens of examples in the lore of one species conquering the world of another. Be it Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks. Tyranids would obviously be the most direct (and have been evolved to this purpose), you can imagine Eldar or Tau being more surreptitious (using espionage or soft power) but the effect would be the same.

As for our technology level - again you have many examples given during the background books of worlds with extreme technology being conquered by the great crusade and the like. One particular example of background was the Mechanicum re-directing an asteroid to wipe out a planet where the technology was simply too advanced to overcome. We were never given an example of what exactly, but it must have been awesome if the combined might of Titan Legions, orbital strikes, Astartes etc. could not defeat them.

So, in short, within the game universe we would have no chance. Unless it was some Dark Eldar raiders come to collect slaves or some such like.

If we are talking about away from the science-fantasy that is 40k, then of course we would win, as they wouldn't exist


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 21:12:41


Post by: RedCommander


If they are non-Imperial, we, the humanity, can beat them easily. No matter who they are.

Imperium is a different story because it's humanity plus about 38,000 years of improvements that are geared towards warfare.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 21:15:56


Post by: leopard


a 1,000 marines would kill themselves in minor accidents long before they could take over the world.

They certainly couldn't carry enough ammunition.

They could decapitate political and military leadership before they ended up in zoos though.

Orks go a bit day of the triffids with the whole fungus thing, Still I'm sure monsanto would enjoy the business


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 21:16:50


Post by: Vaktathi


endlesswaltz123 wrote:
In regards to marines, I'm still and always will be of the opinion that all they need to do is get one techmarine on a major US military installation, and the same for Russia and they will have IT technology so advanced they will be in full control of the majority nuclear arsenal in not a lot of time.
Given how superstitious the 40k universe is about technology and the fact that such capabilities have never (as far as Im aware) been displayed by Techmarines or Techpriests really, I would be very surprised. Techmarines are much more field engineer and spanner monkey than elite hacker.


Another factor is how modern technology relies on being guided to targets. Yeah, the fleet assets cannot fire on the ground, but the thunderhawks don't have to even enter the atmosphere to cripple us. They can just spend a few hours sweeping satellites that are in orbit.
there are tens of thousands of satellites in orbit, most of them are junk, and theyre spread over many different orbital levels, most being dozens, hundreds or thousands of miles from the closest satellite. A chapter of Space Marines would only have 2-4 dozen Thunderhawks, that would take far more time than just a few hours to detect, identify, track, travel to, engage and destroy all of those. Likewise, if they're engaging satellites, they're in range of terrestrial weapons systems that can threaten and destroy them.

Such sweeps also hasn't generally been portrayed as something SM's typically engage in, seems an awful waste for genetically engineered super soldiers flying around in giant attack dropships to be doing what normal humans could do from far less valuable craft or even from the ground.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 22:29:28


Post by: Formosa


 Vaktathi wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 Vaktathi wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
Adamantium, by today's understanding it's indestructible, im going off another universes interpretation of it as it exists in the "modern" world where "modern" weapons simply do nothing to it, it's a stretch but if 40k adamantium is the same stuff, then by extension nothing we have can even hurt it.

Space marine armour uses it, so do there tanks, so if the above statement is true, we literally have nothing that can destroy them. That's a big advantage.
the problem is we have ample evidence and examples of it being defeated by stuff that has very real modern day equivalents. Stuff like large Choppas wielded with enough force, autocannons, stubbers, mortars, grenades, etc.



What are the auto cannon rounds made from?
Seemingly explosive shells largely analagous to modern day ones by every account GW has ever given that I can find, they arent described as using particularly interesting materials or having exceptional armor penetration ability.

Stubber ammo?
By all accounts I can find, the same stuff modern bullets are made from, or worse. They are described, portrayed, and represented as identical to modern day weaponry.

Ork Shootas and Underhive gangers probably arnet using tungsten carbide adamantium wundermetals


Mortar shells can kill from over pressure,
two things here.

First, if marines are still vulnerable to overpessure this way, then any modern explosive will be perfectly effective against them, and they'll die to bombs, rockets, artillery, tank shells, etc that are form the majority of killing power on modern battlefields.

Second, at least in Storm of Iron, an IG infantry mortar is portrayed killing an Iron Warriors siege engineer and penetrating his armor with a direct hit.

How do we not know the ork background psychic nature isn't affecting how they fight space marines ? How strong is an actual ork?
By every account and every rule system and fluff description I have available, ork psychic background stuff has no bearing on the power of the weapon, rather its operation (e.g. they tend to go "click" and not "bang" in non Ork hands) and Ork strength is portrayed as above normal human level but not beyond match by the strongest of normal humans.



We make assumptions on all of this and some claim it as fact, a 40k assault rifle is identical to a modern one because it looks the same and uses bullets, it appears to apply damage in a similar manner, so it must be he same, at least I added the caveat that I was making a stretch.
looking over the old 2E Wargear book, FW books detailing things like Vraksian renegade stubbers, the FFG RPG books, etc, there appears to be no particular mention of exotic stubber ammo materials or the like being in common use (such ammo is available but is represented as being special and rare), but lots of commentary about how such weapons are ancient and tried and true designs popping up in the most remote, underdeveloped, material poor, last ditch, etc situations and places like underhive gangs and underdeveloped planets and the like.


So no, that "evidence" is just as worthless as my anecdotal statement
aside from the fact that most of the weapons ive listed are never described as using exotic materials for projectiles and in fact are represented as very similar to modern weapons by GW.

I am not claiming it to be a fact though as I understand that we don't have any solid information about it, a good example is bolt rounds, .75 caliber and yet can be stopped by guard flak armour that looks similar to modern body armour
caliber alone doesnt tell us squat about its ability to defeat armor. In fact, what you generally want to defeat armor is a small buller going very fast, concentrating a lot of force over a small surface area. A 7.62mm Tokarev round will sail through a Level IIIA vest like butter, but that same vest will stop a larger and more powerful 9x19mm round every time. There's a video on Youtube (by Iraqveteran8888, a ridiculous gun channel) where they shoot an actual cannon at a modern body armor vest and it doesnt penetrate (though youd still be dead from the kinetic impact ).

More to the point, however, a bolter rounds killing power in this instance comes from the explosive, not the size of the shell, which something like Flak armor could be effective against if the shot were not dead on. A bolter round hitting the pillar 6" away from you might injure an unarmored person bad enough to pull them out of a fight or even kill if shrapnel found the right spot, but flak armor might save them. Blast concussion would probably kill on a direct hit no matter what.


So I suppose we get to my point or lack of one anyway, we don't know what sci fi space wizardry goes into the creation of these weapons, they may seem primitive by modern standards but still be eons ahead of us in every way,
So much of 40k is primitive however. Thats part of the setting. They have starships that turn gun turrets by having chain gangs of slaves literally turning giant cogwheels. Even the technowizardry of the Eldar and Tau has nothing like a modern beyond-visual-range anti aircraft missile capable of engaging a target over a hundred miles away, or stuff like radar guided counterbattery artillery fire, AWACS, GPS guided artillery, hell even Night Vision equipment that is available to every vehicle and soldier in the US military is relatively rare in 40k. Laser guided ordnance thats been available for decades in the real world appears to be in use with only one faction in 40k. Again, a modern MBT can move at highway speeds over rough ground at night and hit another tank also moving at speed over a thousand meters away more than 90% of the time, find me a faction in 40k that can do that

like an arrow that can destroy a challenger, we look at it and laugh, it's so primitive and we have seen what arrows can do, but somehow this super magic space arrow took it out clean, because that's the story, that's the setting.
what you've just described is a modern APFSDS armor piercing round that we are very familiar with in the real world


So no, modern earth could not stand up to any 40k army, because space magic and wizards off camera!
which makes the discussion impossible to have though


 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet.
Hence why we're setting aside space assets as it makes the conversation pointless otherwise, and even in 40k they almost never use space assets the way people talk about them being used in this situation (makes for a much more boring tabletop ground based game )

Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders.
How to they know who the leaders are, and where they are, and is there enough space to teleport Terminators in? (A teleporting Terminator squad is probably not going to fit into an office building or something like the Pentagon without rematerializing halfway into an office door, cubicle wall, a desk, etc)

This is something usually overlooked in 40k. In most stories, the enemy is magically known in full detail ahead of time, as is seemingly location information, orders of battle, etc without any reason why they'd actually know of of that.


Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.
how do the psykers know who these leaders are, get within range, and do their stuff? How are they going to prevent safeguards or advisors from stopping what would probably appear to be irrational and sudden insane actions? A Librarian cant just sit in orbit, divine exactlt who the enemy leaders are, and magically find exactly who they need and control them like a puppet from there...thats not been a thing in any 40k fluff ever as far as I can recall.


Ok my Quote foo isnt as good as yours but bare with me.

1: No they are not portrayed the same as modern weapons, other than they make a bang and stuff in front of them die, this is an assumption you are making based on information, not a fact, which isnt to say its a bad thing.

2: of course marines are still vunerable to overpressure, it just takes a hell of a lot more than standard humans due to the armour they are in, apparently it has some magic lining or some such that helps, and a direct mortor hit killed him, what was the size of the shell? 60mm? 120mm, 300mm? its still conjecture your working with here.

3: sorry your just flat wrong here, Orks are much stronger than humans, sadly not in the crapy D6 system but in all the RPG's they are much stronger, not quite as strong as a marine though, also the background Ork psy field absolutely does affect an Orks strength, its what makes them get bigger and stronger in a Waaaagh.

4: Yeah thats my take too, too little information, remember that just because its not mentioned, doesnt mean its not there, at least thats GW's point of view, hence centurians etc. its stupid but its tried and tested GW.

5: again just because its looks the same and sounds the same, doesnt mean its the same, thats an assumption.

6: all that blah blah, this is GW were talking about remember, they dont know gak about balistics and penetration, they have bolt rounds going through power armour and yet its stopped by flak armour, but I agree that blast concussion and shrapnel from that fully auto grenade launcher would be the biggest killer.

7: assumptions and more assumptions, every faction is capable of all of what you have said in the fluff, the Taros campaign had tau engaging from at least a K to stay out of the way of the standard russ range, but the Vanquisher could hit back, so there is that example, every marine has NVG, every marine tank, every tau battlesuit and infantry soldier they also have target designation systems, so do marines and guard, how else do you think that HK missile has unlimited range, its funny bit this game plays very differently to how its portrayed, the TT ranges are not accurate and should be utterly ignored.

8: no, its an arrow fired from a bow, but a magic arrow!!!!!!!!! lol

9: and thats basically my point, 40k doesnt have enough detail to make these comparisons and pass them off as fact, so dont do it

BTW to get all our info all any race would need to do is log into our internet, but if there is a password... we will be fine.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 23:04:19


Post by: Flinty


Auto weapons are noted in rogue trader and the 2nd ed background stuff as being equivalent to modern day military weapons except using caseless ammo. The Necromunda auto 's for Esher were AKs. It's impossible to quote fact as this is all fictional, but there are references abounding on the equivalence of weapon effectiveness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also just remembered that Rogue Trader also had black powder weapons included at S2 I think, so S3 for modern firearms sounds about right.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 23:22:32


Post by: JohnHwangDD


IandI wrote:
One chapter of Marines.


Have them drop them in the middle east, where so much of the earth's energy resources are generated...

As none of them fire weapons that outrange blackpowder, that'll be 1000 dead Marines in short order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kroem wrote:
The established background often has Space Marines at sub-chapter strength pacifying entire worlds of humans,


And yet, they couldn't even defeat the weedy Tau...

Space Marines only beat pre-agricultural armies.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/29 23:45:07


Post by: Formosa


 Flinty wrote:
Auto weapons are noted in rogue trader and the 2nd ed background stuff as being equivalent to modern day military weapons except using caseless ammo. The Necromunda auto 's for Esher were AKs. It's impossible to quote fact as this is all fictional, but there are references abounding on the equivalence of weapon effectiveness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also just remembered that Rogue Trader also had black powder weapons included at S2 I think, so S3 for modern firearms sounds about right.


well thats been retconned since they clearly dont use caseless ammunition lol, some might do but not a single model I have seen does, they always have little ammo links and spent ammo on the floor, like bolters, they are supposed to be caseless too, but clearly are not (models)


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 07:53:58


Post by: Flinty


It's never been explicitly reconnect, so some autoweapon's will still be caaseless. But that's irrelevant as the strength characteristic system has never been changed and auto weapons have always had the same strength as lasguns.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 10:54:25


Post by: Ynneadwraith


Yeah my understanding is that autoguns translate pretty much to present-day assault rifles, and are roughly equivalent to lasguns in stopping power.

For me, I tend to look to the crunch over narrative-based novels and such for hard comparisons between weapon potency. While you have the limits of a D6 system and game balance to wade through, it's a more reliable measure than BL novels where a lasgun's power is directly proportional to the plot-significance of the shot.

So, as both Lasguns and Autoguns are S3, they're both roughly comparable, at least in the limitations of a base-10 strength system.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 13:39:39


Post by: usmcmidn


Wasn’t there rules for Eldar Craftworlds in BFG? A little off topic but kinda relevant if you squint from far away and tilt your head...

Craft worlds have to fight in someone’s head fluff. And that’s the beauty of 40k your mind is your limitation. If you want a craft world to assault a planet why not! Realistically we would likely die though, if a whole craftworld invaded even a minor one, hundreds of millions of far technological superior space elves vs earth.... Elves win.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 20:55:36


Post by: oldravenman3025


 Flinty wrote:
It's never been explicitly reconnect, so some autoweapon's will still be caaseless. But that's irrelevant as the strength characteristic system has never been changed and auto weapons have always had the same strength as lasguns.



In the RPGs, there was ammo variety for autoguns, some of which made them hit harder than lasguns (HE ammo turns the autogun into a poor man's bolter, to name an example). But yeah, the basic ammo for autoguns is on par with lasguns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah my understanding is that autoguns translate pretty much to present-day assault rifles, and are roughly equivalent to lasguns in stopping power.

For me, I tend to look to the crunch over narrative-based novels and such for hard comparisons between weapon potency. While you have the limits of a D6 system and game balance to wade through, it's a more reliable measure than BL novels where a lasgun's power is directly proportional to the plot-significance of the shot.

So, as both Lasguns and Autoguns are S3, they're both roughly comparable, at least in the limitations of a base-10 strength system.





They are similar to modern military firearms, enough that many assume that they are just modern firearm analogues that use caseless ammo. But autoguns are actually more advanced (but still simple compared to lasguns).


Modern, real-world firearms would be considered "stubbers" or "stubguns" in 40k.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 21:02:35


Post by: Tyran


One the other hand, lasguns are usually described in novels as dismembering humans, blowing up limbs, melting faces. Which is more than what you would get from most modern firearms.

In addition, thermal weaponry has different implications than kinetic one and will interact differently to targets (for example, lasers should have terrible penetration, and will require greater energy to inflict similar damage).

And the fact that lasguns also have the ability to regulate their firepower doesn't help.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 21:53:29


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Tyran wrote:
One the other hand, lasguns are usually described in novels as dismembering humans, blowing up limbs, melting faces. Which is more than what you would get from most modern firearms.


Most modern firearms are developed to shoot at relatively unarmored humans and/or unarmored beasts. If we found ourselves having to shoot at armored gorillas, we would be using different weaponry.

For example:



Yeah, that's an machine shotgun!


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 22:20:48


Post by: Luciferian


A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/11/30 22:45:31


Post by: Infantryman


Spoiler:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Tyran wrote:
One the other hand, lasguns are usually described in novels as dismembering humans, blowing up limbs, melting faces. Which is more than what you would get from most modern firearms.


Most modern firearms are developed to shoot at relatively unarmored humans and/or unarmored beasts. If we found ourselves having to shoot at armored gorillas, we would be using different weaponry.

For example:



Yeah, that's an machine shotgun!


To go with Lucifarian, yeah, a shotgun is a terrible choice against armored targets. A modern 2A vest will stop buck, and slugs don't go far or fast. Up close they'll bring more energy than a service rifle, but unless you're using a steel slug, you're going to have poor terminal performance against even modern III type body armors.

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 00:43:23


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Luciferian wrote:
A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


If that shotgun is loaded with slugs, or saboted with DU cores, it's going to do (comparatively) very well against armored targets, such as a SM who managed to get in close. Given that a fair number of SMs have Jump Packs, having a close-in solution like the Pancor Jackhammer is a good idea.

And it's not like we lack AMRs & ATRs to comfortably deal with SMs at range.

But yes, a M107 would be a good choice.


Notionally, this is in the context of where we've gotten past initial contact and understand what we're up against. We've seen 5.56 or 7.62 ball ammo, and typical of SM tactics of mindlessly charging into blackpowder range, so we would recognize heavier weapons would be generally required along with very heavy close-in weapons like shotguns.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 02:01:50


Post by: John Prins


Any army that brings spaceships pretty much automatically wins. Almost every faction has orbital bombardment capability and Earth has basically zero means of clearing orbit of hostiles. So the opening engagement of any invasion would be to destroy any military bases/vehicles visible from orbit. Following that, you broadcast surrender orders or continue bombarding stuff you don't like.

Tactics change for some races, but the Tyranids invade in sufficient force to overwhelm any world that's not a fortress planet to begin with (we are not one of these).

And the arguments about tabletop ranges isn't really valid - the fluff isn't the rules.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 03:39:36


Post by: Tyran


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Luciferian wrote:
A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


If that shotgun is loaded with slugs, or saboted with DU cores, it's going to do (comparatively) very well against armored targets, such as a SM who managed to get in close. Given that a fair number of SMs have Jump Packs, having a close-in solution like the Pancor Jackhammer is a good idea.

And it's not like we lack AMRs & ATRs to comfortably deal with SMs at range.

But yes, a M107 would be a good choice.


Notionally, this is in the context of where we've gotten past initial contact and understand what we're up against. We've seen 5.56 or 7.62 ball ammo, and typical of SM tactics of mindlessly charging into blackpowder range, so we would recognize heavier weapons would be generally required along with very heavy close-in weapons like shotguns.


If shotguns had the power to penetrate power armor, it would rip off the arm of the poor guy firing it.

We don't have handheld weapons that could hope to penetrate power armor, because recoil and weight are an issue to humans.

But that's why we have airstrikes and artillery, although we would need direct hits.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 03:50:39


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


IandI wrote:
In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

What's your take dakka?



With your parameters I actually feel sorry for those opponents - they are going to learn what real war is from the folks who invented it. The surviving Orks and Nids might be saved by a Facebook campaign. The rest? Sorry about your luck.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 04:01:16


Post by: Tyran


TangoTwoBravo wrote:
IandI wrote:
In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

What's your take dakka?



With your parameters I actually feel sorry for those opponents - they are going to learn what real war is from the folks who invented it. The surviving Orks and Nids might be saved by a Facebook campaign. The rest? Sorry about your luck.

I'm interested in how you imagine we could defeat Tyranids, whose basic strategy is to flood the planet with a few billion gants as first wave while also poisoning the planet.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 04:06:51


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Luciferian wrote:
A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


If that shotgun is loaded with slugs, or saboted with DU cores, it's going to do (comparatively) very well against armored targets, such as a SM who managed to get in close. Given that a fair number of SMs have Jump Packs, having a close-in solution like the Pancor Jackhammer is a good idea.

And it's not like we lack AMRs & ATRs to comfortably deal with SMs at range.

But yes, a M107 would be a good choice.


Notionally, this is in the context of where we've gotten past initial contact and understand what we're up against. We've seen 5.56 or 7.62 ball ammo, and typical of SM tactics of mindlessly charging into blackpowder range, so we would recognize heavier weapons would be generally required along with very heavy close-in weapons like shotguns.


If shotguns had the power to penetrate power armor, it would rip off the arm of the poor guy firing it.

We don't have handheld weapons that could hope to penetrate power armor, because recoil and weight are an issue to humans.


That is flatly untrue. The force experienced by the firer is spread out over a larger area over a longer period of time, whereas the target receives a concentrated strike in an instant.

Is a BAR, 0.50 sniper rifle or AMR considered a handheld weapon? What about an ATR?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 04:19:48


Post by: Tyran


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Luciferian wrote:
A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


If that shotgun is loaded with slugs, or saboted with DU cores, it's going to do (comparatively) very well against armored targets, such as a SM who managed to get in close. Given that a fair number of SMs have Jump Packs, having a close-in solution like the Pancor Jackhammer is a good idea.

And it's not like we lack AMRs & ATRs to comfortably deal with SMs at range.

But yes, a M107 would be a good choice.


Notionally, this is in the context of where we've gotten past initial contact and understand what we're up against. We've seen 5.56 or 7.62 ball ammo, and typical of SM tactics of mindlessly charging into blackpowder range, so we would recognize heavier weapons would be generally required along with very heavy close-in weapons like shotguns.


If shotguns had the power to penetrate power armor, it would rip off the arm of the poor guy firing it.

We don't have handheld weapons that could hope to penetrate power armor, because recoil and weight are an issue to humans.


That is flatly untrue. The force experienced by the firer is spread out over a larger area over a longer period of time, whereas the target receives a concentrated strike in an instant.

Is a BAR, 0.50 sniper rifle or AMR considered a handheld weapon? What about an ATR?


You need a tripod or a surface to support it to use those with any degree of success, and I'm doubtful they would penetrate power armor, as bolters are considerably larger weapons and those still need sustained fire to penetrate it.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 04:25:43


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


Tyran wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
IandI wrote:
In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

What's your take dakka?



With your parameters I actually feel sorry for those opponents - they are going to learn what real war is from the folks who invented it. The surviving Orks and Nids might be saved by a Facebook campaign. The rest? Sorry about your luck.

I'm interested in how you imagine we could defeat Tyranids, whose basic strategy is to flood the planet with a few billion gants as first wave while also poisoning the planet.


We have guns and weapons that do really well against "hordes."

As an aside, we don't need help if the aim is to actually destroy the world. We are fully capable of doing that without assistance.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 04:39:43


Post by: Tyran


TangoTwoBravo wrote:


We have guns and weapons that do really well against "hordes."

As an aside, we don't need help if the aim is to actually destroy the world. We are fully capable of doing that without assistance.


Correction, less than 1% of the global population has guns and weapons. The other 99% is cattle for slaughter.

And our weapons suck against hordes, it just that no human force ever brought billions to a battlefield.

And what the hell does the second sentence even means?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 06:44:15


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Luciferian wrote:
A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


If that shotgun is loaded with slugs, or saboted with DU cores, it's going to do (comparatively) very well against armored targets, such as a SM who managed to get in close. Given that a fair number of SMs have Jump Packs, having a close-in solution like the Pancor Jackhammer is a good idea.

And it's not like we lack AMRs & ATRs to comfortably deal with SMs at range.

But yes, a M107 would be a good choice.


Notionally, this is in the context of where we've gotten past initial contact and understand what we're up against. We've seen 5.56 or 7.62 ball ammo, and typical of SM tactics of mindlessly charging into blackpowder range, so we would recognize heavier weapons would be generally required along with very heavy close-in weapons like shotguns.


If shotguns had the power to penetrate power armor, it would rip off the arm of the poor guy firing it.

We don't have handheld weapons that could hope to penetrate power armor, because recoil and weight are an issue to humans.


That is flatly untrue. The force experienced by the firer is spread out over a larger area over a longer period of time, whereas the target receives a concentrated strike in an instant.

Is a BAR, 0.50 sniper rifle or AMR considered a handheld weapon? What about an ATR?


You need a tripod or a surface to support it to use those with any degree of success, and I'm doubtful they would penetrate power armor, as bolters are considerably larger weapons and those still need sustained fire to penetrate it.


40k military technology appears to be comparable to late-WW1 Earth technology, and their firearms are comparable to early Renaissance technology. SM power armor is probably only mild steel, which is why a standard Earth shotgun fitted with a "krak" slug would have good odds against it.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 06:59:45


Post by: Infantryman


John Prins wrote:Any army that brings spaceships pretty much automatically wins. Almost every faction has orbital bombardment capability and Earth has basically zero means of clearing orbit of hostiles.


We have missiles that can get there pretty readily.

Orbital superiority isn't all that hot. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/planetaryattack.php

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 12:09:02


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


Tyran wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:


We have guns and weapons that do really well against "hordes."

As an aside, we don't need help if the aim is to actually destroy the world. We are fully capable of doing that without assistance.


Correction, less than 1% of the global population has guns and weapons. The other 99% is cattle for slaughter.

And our weapons suck against hordes, it just that no human force ever brought billions to a battlefield.

And what the hell does the second sentence even means?


You mentioned poisoning the planet - so I mentioned that we don't need help in that regard (if the enemy is trying to destroy the planet).

I think that you should calm down a little.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 21:28:04


Post by: Albino Squirrel


We would win. Pretty easily. Just look how short ranged all their weapons are. Even the Space Marines and hordes of Tyranids would get slaughtered while they were running up to try and engage people in close combat.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 21:30:12


Post by: Iracundus


 Albino Squirrel wrote:
We would win. Pretty easily. Just look how short ranged all their weapons are. Even the Space Marines and hordes of Tyranids would get slaughtered while they were running up to try and engage people in close combat.


The problem with Tyranids is you run out of bullets before they run out of bodies. Termagants for example are described as being expended on purpose to exhaust the enemy's ammunition.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 21:53:57


Post by: oldravenman3025


 Formosa wrote:
 Flinty wrote:
Auto weapons are noted in rogue trader and the 2nd ed background stuff as being equivalent to modern day military weapons except using caseless ammo. The Necromunda auto 's for Esher were AKs. It's impossible to quote fact as this is all fictional, but there are references abounding on the equivalence of weapon effectiveness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also just remembered that Rogue Trader also had black powder weapons included at S2 I think, so S3 for modern firearms sounds about right.


well thats been retconned since they clearly dont use caseless ammunition lol, some might do but not a single model I have seen does, they always have little ammo links and spent ammo on the floor, like bolters, they are supposed to be caseless too, but clearly are not (models)




You might be thinking of heavy stubbers, which are basically HMGs in SPHESS. Heavy stubbers do use metallic cased ammo.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/01 23:25:33


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Albino Squirrel wrote:
We would win. Pretty easily. Just look how short ranged all their weapons are. Even the Space Marines and hordes of Tyranids would get slaughtered while they were running up to try and engage people in close combat.


Space Marines are a gimme - their weapons are blackpowder and their armor is mild steel. And there's only 1,000 of them. As long as you don't have to fight them 1:1 in HtH, the SMs auto-lose.

Tyranids are an auto-loss, as one bug gets into the world, and it's game over for the entire world. Same with the fungus men. Auto-loss.

But Space Marines are a Worf army that only sounds scary but gets curbstomped without any trouble.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 01:58:37


Post by: Infantryman


Pretty sure we could kill a lone Tyranid without issue.

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 02:29:19


Post by: John Prins


 Infantryman wrote:
John Prins wrote:Any army that brings spaceships pretty much automatically wins. Almost every faction has orbital bombardment capability and Earth has basically zero means of clearing orbit of hostiles.


We have missiles that can get there pretty readily.


We have ballistic nukes. I'm not sure any of them can reach geosynch (citation needed), and even if they could, space platforms make really good use of lasers, because it takes missiles quite a while to get to that level of orbit. You could try retrofitting proper space launch missile with nukes, but that would probably take too long for it to matter (and your launch facilities are the first targets).


Orbital superiority isn't all that hot. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/planetaryattack.php

M.


Actually, that article pretty much supports my position. Shooting up the gravity well sucks.

Not all races would do this, of course - Nids and Orks would drop to ground immediately because they have their own reasons, but IG/Marines/Eldar/Necrons have literally no reason to try to take the ground by force rather than using orbital superiority to force surrender or annihilate us.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 15:23:12


Post by: Tyran


JohnHwangDD wrote:
Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Luciferian wrote:
A shotgun would have poor penetration against an armored target, and would require its operator to get into the optimum range for most of a Space Marine's weapons. Something like an M107 would probably do the trick a bit more efficiently and safely, but indirect fire support would be best.


If that shotgun is loaded with slugs, or saboted with DU cores, it's going to do (comparatively) very well against armored targets, such as a SM who managed to get in close. Given that a fair number of SMs have Jump Packs, having a close-in solution like the Pancor Jackhammer is a good idea.

And it's not like we lack AMRs & ATRs to comfortably deal with SMs at range.

But yes, a M107 would be a good choice.


Notionally, this is in the context of where we've gotten past initial contact and understand what we're up against. We've seen 5.56 or 7.62 ball ammo, and typical of SM tactics of mindlessly charging into blackpowder range, so we would recognize heavier weapons would be generally required along with very heavy close-in weapons like shotguns.


If shotguns had the power to penetrate power armor, it would rip off the arm of the poor guy firing it.

We don't have handheld weapons that could hope to penetrate power armor, because recoil and weight are an issue to humans.


That is flatly untrue. The force experienced by the firer is spread out over a larger area over a longer period of time, whereas the target receives a concentrated strike in an instant.

Is a BAR, 0.50 sniper rifle or AMR considered a handheld weapon? What about an ATR?


You need a tripod or a surface to support it to use those with any degree of success, and I'm doubtful they would penetrate power armor, as bolters are considerably larger weapons and those still need sustained fire to penetrate it.


40k military technology appears to be comparable to late-WW1 Earth technology, and their firearms are comparable to early Renaissance technology. SM power armor is probably only mild steel, which is why a standard Earth shotgun fitted with a "krak" slug would have good odds against it.

You are confusing design with material technology. 40k weapons are terribly bad designed, but you don't get kilometer long spaceships without insanely good material technology.
And the bolters are still a .75 rocket launcher and would still have an insane punch even if built with Renaissance technology (if such thing was possible).


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 19:06:17


Post by: JohnHwangDD


A bolter hits like a lead ball from a musket. Which is bad, sure, but it's nowhere near as efficient as a 5.56 or 7.62 against unarmored infantry. It's fine against other guys wearing mild steel as well.

But at longer range? Harmless. You get a couple HMMVs with 0.50s, and those SM will get cut to ribbons before they their first shell scratches the paint.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 19:22:44


Post by: Tyran


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A bolter hits like a lead ball from a musket. Which is bad, sure, but it's nowhere near as efficient as a 5.56 or 7.62 against unarmored infantry. It's fine against other guys wearing mild steel as well.

But at longer range? Harmless. You get a couple HMMVs with 0.50s, and those SM will get cut to ribbons before they their first shell scratches the paint.


Actually, a bolter hits like a grenade launcher.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 20:26:40


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Maybe a M203, if you cut the propellant by a factor of 3 or 4.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 22:16:52


Post by: Ynneadwraith


Tyran wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A bolter hits like a lead ball from a musket. Which is bad, sure, but it's nowhere near as efficient as a 5.56 or 7.62 against unarmored infantry. It's fine against other guys wearing mild steel as well.

But at longer range? Harmless. You get a couple HMMVs with 0.50s, and those SM will get cut to ribbons before they their first shell scratches the paint.


Actually, a bolter hits like a grenade launcher.


This.

I don't quite buy the 'IoM used renaissance-grade technology'. Neat headcanon if that's what you like, but too much doesn't stack up.

Bolters are to all intents miniature RPGs.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 22:55:17


Post by: Luciferian


Which does mean they would be terribly inaccurate and travel at a low velocity compared to a projectile which is propelled through a barrel. If you took the canonical technology involved in bolter weapons and applied it to an actual, real-world model the results would be less than stellar.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/02 23:01:32


Post by: Tyran


Oh yes as a gyrojet the bolter should be hilariously inaccurate unless it packs a good steering system.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/03 00:05:56


Post by: oldravenman3025


Tyran wrote:
Oh yes as a gyrojet the bolter should be hilariously inaccurate unless it packs a good steering system.




True. But fortunately for the bolt gun, it's not a true gyrojet. And bolts have a mini gyrostabiliser that prevents them from flying off wildly.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 15:22:58


Post by: Albino Squirrel


Iracundus wrote:
 Albino Squirrel wrote:
We would win. Pretty easily. Just look how short ranged all their weapons are. Even the Space Marines and hordes of Tyranids would get slaughtered while they were running up to try and engage people in close combat.


The problem with Tyranids is you run out of bullets before they run out of bodies. Termagants for example are described as being expended on purpose to exhaust the enemy's ammunition.


Well, the original post mentioned a fleet of 50 million Tyranid creatures. There's no danger of running out of ammunition against that many. In fact, if all 50 million Tyranids dropped into the United States, the number of civilian owned firearms would outnumber them several times. They'd even be outnumbered by private gun owners. I'm sure there are many militaries that have enough bullets for that many Tyranids.

I guess I don't have a great sense for how quickly they can add to their numbers once they're on the ground. Or how quickly Orks can reproduce, for that matter. I guess that is the important thing. But if many Imperial worlds can handle Tyranid invasions, we should be able to. I mean, if a company of Ultramarines can demolish a major hive fleet, they can't be that impressive.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 15:48:48


Post by: SomeRandomEvilGuy


 Albino Squirrel wrote:


Well, the original post mentioned a fleet of 50 million Tyranid creatures. There's no danger of running out of ammunition against that many. In fact, if all 50 million Tyranids dropped into the United States, the number of civilian owned firearms would outnumber them several times. They'd even be outnumbered by private gun owners. I'm sure there are many militaries that have enough bullets for that many Tyranids.

In fairness most bullets don't hit their target, many Tyranids will take more than one hit and Tyranids are great at rapidly replacing their losses. Plus there's the issue of getting that ammunition to where it's needed.

Not to mention the spores etc choking defenders and mutating local fauna and flora which would be highly difficult to contain.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 15:50:01


Post by: Tyran


 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
 Albino Squirrel wrote:
We would win. Pretty easily. Just look how short ranged all their weapons are. Even the Space Marines and hordes of Tyranids would get slaughtered while they were running up to try and engage people in close combat.


The problem with Tyranids is you run out of bullets before they run out of bodies. Termagants for example are described as being expended on purpose to exhaust the enemy's ammunition.


Well, the original post mentioned a fleet of 50 million Tyranid creatures. There's no danger of running out of ammunition against that many. In fact, if all 50 million Tyranids dropped into the United States, the number of civilian owned firearms would outnumber them several times. They'd even be outnumbered by private gun owners. I'm sure there are many militaries that have enough bullets for that many Tyranids.

I guess I don't have a great sense for how quickly they can add to their numbers once they're on the ground. Or how quickly Orks can reproduce, for that matter. I guess that is the important thing. But if many Imperial worlds can handle Tyranid invasions, we should be able to. I mean, if a company of Ultramarines can demolish a major hive fleet, they can't be that impressive.


The starting number of Tyranids is irrelevant, as the Tyranid ships are capable of producing far more. A single hive ship can produce billions of Tyranids, and splinter fleets are composed of dozens of hive ships.

And a company of Ultramarines is nothing more than lunch to a Hive Fleet. If you meant Macragge, what defeated Behemoth was two segmentum Battle Fleets.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 16:01:46


Post by: TarkinLarson


Space Marine armour is mild steel? Really?

I thought it was all "ceramite" or something... like a mix between ceramic and steel or something? Plas-steel?

I know that probably sounded impressive in 1980s when it was written, is there anything better now? We have that chobham (sp?) ceramic armor on some NATO tanks now. That's meant to be pretty good.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 16:27:47


Post by: Iron_Captain


Power armour is made of ceramite, a non-existant material that has whatever properties and strenght the plot demands it to have. It is in the same category as plasteel, armaplas and adamantium.

It is also why we will never know if we will be able to fight Space Marines. We can't possibly know if our weapons can penetrate their armour if we don't know what their armour is made of in the first place. Comparisons with autoguns and stubguns and such are not realistic, because those are made from the same mysterious far-future materials, unlike our own weapons and ammo which is made from boring real-life stuff.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 16:30:25


Post by: Formosa


TarkinLarson wrote:
Space Marine armour is mild steel? Really?

I thought it was all "ceramite" or something... like a mix between ceramic and steel or something? Plas-steel?

I know that probably sounded impressive in 1980s when it was written, is there anything better now? We have that chobham (sp?) ceramic armor on some NATO tanks now. That's meant to be pretty good.


Adamantine, Ceramite, Plas Steel, Fibre bundels, black carapace, redundant organs, ultra fast congealing blood, fused ribcage etc. etc.

Apparently a 5.56mm will take this down, or magically reorging the military and handing out "special anti marine" bullets/missiles etc. would happen everywhere, as someone who works with a lot of different militaries on a regular basis, this is pure dreaming, "admin up there arse" is a common phrase lol


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 16:48:37


Post by: Grumblewartz


Spoiler:
 Ynneadwraith wrote:
 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.


Not that I'm being all 'humanity...feth yeah!', but it might be worth reading up on guerilla fighters such as the Viet-cong and a little about the generations-long conflicts still raging in the Middle East before you decide how far peoples' will to resist will take them.

An alien force zapping in and assassinating leadership is likely to do little other than martyr them. It's a viable tactic when you're talking strategic generals, but fails miserably when it comes to charismatic politica leaders.

Only way would be to use their influence to goad locals into fighting for them.

The shock alone would have an immense effect. Plus, who cares if there are resistance movements? Losing central coordination and intelligence means the effectiveness of the military's combat effectiveness would plummet. They could also easily destroy satellites, communication towers, electrical grid, etc. People are assuming they just mass up for a battle and wait in a field for a set-piece battle. Again, that doesn't even account for psykers, Ork Rocks plummeting to the planet, Tyranid mass micro-spores blanketing the planet, etc., etc., etc.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 17:22:29


Post by: John Prins


 Albino Squirrel wrote:
[
Well, the original post mentioned a fleet of 50 million Tyranid creatures. There's no danger of running out of ammunition against that many. In fact, if all 50 million Tyranids dropped into the United States, the number of civilian owned firearms would outnumber them several times. They'd even be outnumbered by private gun owners. I'm sure there are many militaries that have enough bullets for that many Tyranids.


Look at the number of bullets fired to casualty (not even kill) ratio of most military forces. Tyranids (and orks) you have to kill or they keep coming. Discipline in the face of a horde of alien death bio-machines is going to suck pretty badly.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 17:42:20


Post by: Bharring


Also, lots of sweet sweet, biomass to convert into more Nids.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 17:48:34


Post by: Vaktathi


 Grumblewartz wrote:
Spoiler:
 Ynneadwraith wrote:
 Grumblewartz wrote:
People who don't think a space marine chapter could conquer earth are vastly overestimating our will to resist and never account for the more esoteric weapons and tools at their disposal. Their fleet assets would annihilate the planet. Even without using the guns, they could use the teleportation bays to jump in, assassinate leaders. Rinse and repeat. Or Psykers using mind control could just force world leaders to launch nukes at each other. Etc., etc.


Not that I'm being all 'humanity...feth yeah!', but it might be worth reading up on guerilla fighters such as the Viet-cong and a little about the generations-long conflicts still raging in the Middle East before you decide how far peoples' will to resist will take them.

An alien force zapping in and assassinating leadership is likely to do little other than martyr them. It's a viable tactic when you're talking strategic generals, but fails miserably when it comes to charismatic politica leaders.

Only way would be to use their influence to goad locals into fighting for them.

The shock alone would have an immense effect. Plus, who cares if there are resistance movements? Losing central coordination and intelligence means the effectiveness of the military's combat effectiveness would plummet.
Again, this assumes that some sort of off-world force would have the information available to them to know where and how to attack command and control centers, particularly right off the bat, which probably wouldn't be the case. Pyskers can't just sit up in orbit and divine everything or mind control people, teleporting Terminators into an office building where they're too big to fight is likely to see them rematerialize into a cubicle desk and the ceiling at the same time

Likewise, there are all sorts of examples of invaders being unable to pacify lands or being thrown out by unconventional forces. The US decisively defeated the Iraqi military...twice, and that hasn't pacified the country. Afghanistan never had anything to even remotely rival the US, and resistance movements there have yet to be crushed (as happened to the Soviets before that, and the British before that, and dozens of others before that). The Vietnamese lost every major battle they fought with the US, they never once defeated US forces in the field, and ended up winning in the end.

More to the point, modern states and military forces are extremely difficult to destroy. Little is so centralized that a single strike can utterly cripple them, redundancies are worked in, there are clear lines of succession, etc. If you wiped out Washington DC tomorrow, the US military would not be incapable of fighting by any means.

Even more important, a chapter of marines can hold...almost no ground. The entire assembled chapter could hold a line a few kilometers long at best, they'd essentially have presence nowhere while their foes would be literally everywhere. One can look at examples of the Eastern Front in WW2. Yeah, it's cool that those Tiger battalions racked up huge kill counts. Didn't matter in the end though when there were only a hundred at any given time along a thousand kilometer battle line and the Red Army simply fed them enough to pin them down and just bypassed them and shoved a thousand tanks through the gaps in the line otherwise. Rack that numbers gap up multiple orders of magnitude across the entire planet and the Space Marines would struggle to secure a medium sized town much less the entire planet.


They could also easily destroy satellites, communication towers, electrical grid, etc.
Such things are either possibilities today (satellite destruction) or are longstanding traditions of modern warfare. Nothing new to be expected there.

People are assuming they just mass up for a battle and wait in a field for a set-piece battle.
Except that this is what they do in 40k like...99% of the time.



 John Prins wrote:
 Albino Squirrel wrote:
[
Well, the original post mentioned a fleet of 50 million Tyranid creatures. There's no danger of running out of ammunition against that many. In fact, if all 50 million Tyranids dropped into the United States, the number of civilian owned firearms would outnumber them several times. They'd even be outnumbered by private gun owners. I'm sure there are many militaries that have enough bullets for that many Tyranids.


Look at the number of bullets fired to casualty (not even kill) ratio of most military forces.
Hrm, this needs to be put into context. Most of that is used in suppressing fire, where dozens or hundreds of rounds are expended to make sure someone can cross a street safely, or where a thousand rounds end up being thrown at a single story of a building because one dude shot out of a window. If we're talking about a literal wave of alien bodies advancing without care for their lives, that's going to be much less of an issue.

Tyranids (and orks) you have to kill or they keep coming.
Such forces have existed before. Melee oriented opponents of iron discipline and utter fearlessness.

The machinegun, breech loading artillery, and modern rifles obliterated them utterly. That's how you get 27,000 dead Frenchmen in one day, or Japanese Banzai charges that result in nothing more than a mound of corpses in front of machinegun nests.

Discipline in the face of a horde of alien death bio-machines is going to suck pretty badly.
Not if they're doing their best to run headlong into machinegun fire. We can look at real world examples, Musth-enraged bull Elephants don't do terribly well against poachers with 60 year old Kalashnikovs.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 17:54:01


Post by: Frazzled


OgreChubbs wrote:
Nope no chance, we have no way to counter but sit here and yell at the sky.

We have gak tech to get to space and as soon as someone would make one able to get far the other country around here would turn on each other because they are getting ahead of us. Long story short we too dumb to do anything we less then orks. Hell even they can work together.


Rebels have been able to stop modern armies without recourse to air assets. I'd proffer we would be able to do the same.

Orks: They have no logistics. We would murderize them. The survivors would be a nice addition to our cuisine to supplement truffles. WWI guard beat them all the time.

Nids: Without resources it would be a blood bath but we would win. 50mm is not enough to stop us. They would run out of energy quickly.

Guard: Their tech is primarily the level of the average lower class 3rd world army. We would replicate the few higher tech items and would be an Evilz DAOT level opponent in 10 years. The, being the predators we are, we would go pick a fight with them...

Marines: Without the Holy Guard they would not be able to swoop in and take credit for another victory. They might kill a few leaders but then what? We have a 5,000 year tradition of guerilla movements. They would just piss us off. Then we would steal their tech as above.

Space Elves: Humans don't worry about no steenkin space elves.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
IandI wrote:
One chapter of Marines.


Have them drop them in the middle east, where so much of the earth's energy resources are generated...

As none of them fire weapons that outrange blackpowder, that'll be 1000 dead Marines in short order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kroem wrote:
The established background often has Space Marines at sub-chapter strength pacifying entire worlds of humans,


And yet, they couldn't even defeat the weedy Tau...

Space Marines only beat pre-agricultural armies.


Exactly. They may cause damage but they can't hold anything. If they stay on the ground for any period of time, even your basic peasant with an AK or red state truck driver with an AR is going to shoot the daylights out of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
 Albino Squirrel wrote:
We would win. Pretty easily. Just look how short ranged all their weapons are. Even the Space Marines and hordes of Tyranids would get slaughtered while they were running up to try and engage people in close combat.


The problem with Tyranids is you run out of bullets before they run out of bodies. Termagants for example are described as being expended on purpose to exhaust the enemy's ammunition.


Well, the original post mentioned a fleet of 50 million Tyranid creatures. There's no danger of running out of ammunition against that many. In fact, if all 50 million Tyranids dropped into the United States, the number of civilian owned firearms would outnumber them several times. They'd even be outnumbered by private gun owners. I'm sure there are many militaries that have enough bullets for that many Tyranids.

I guess I don't have a great sense for how quickly they can add to their numbers once they're on the ground. Or how quickly Orks can reproduce, for that matter. I guess that is the important thing. But if many Imperial worlds can handle Tyranid invasions, we should be able to. I mean, if a company of Ultramarines can demolish a major hive fleet, they can't be that impressive.


I have images of good old fashioned Texas snake roundups but with nids. Its a Texan's dream come true.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bharring wrote:
Also, lots of sweet sweet, biomass to convert into more Nids.


Thats only after they've won.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 19:00:55


Post by: Bharring


Only after they've established localized dominance, not wholly won the conflict.

If they drop down on entrenched military, we might stop them. But if they drop down on the midwest pre-harvest? Or Mecca mid-pilgramage? They'll face only token resistance at first, eat everything nearby, and spit out more doods.

Also, they have tools for machinegun nests. Carnifexes, Zoanthropes, Venom Cannonts, etc. 50mil Nids doesn't mean 50mil Gaunts.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 19:06:15


Post by: Frazzled


Bharring wrote:
Only after they've established localized dominance, not wholly won the conflict.

If they drop down on entrenched military, we might stop them. But if they drop down on the midwest pre-harvest? Or Mecca mid-pilgramage? They'll face only token resistance at first, eat everything nearby, and spit out more doods.

Also, they have tools for machinegun nests. Carnifexes, Zoanthropes, Venom Cannonts, etc. 50mil Nids doesn't mean 50mil Gaunts.


Thats not how it works. They don't have digestive systems. Thats only the lattter stage of a Nid harvest. Also hitting mecca would put them in striking distance of 3-4 of the strongest militaries on the globe, not to mention the Rosskies and the US.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 19:52:39


Post by: Big Mac


Most of the replies here are pro modern human dominance against an OP modified 40k invasion; I think we’re on the losing end on most of if not all of the scenarios.
Orks: they’re stronger, everyone is a warrior, multiply quickly; we might find a way to combat their multiplying fungal ways but would still have to deal with all the warriors already present.
Necrons: every regular warrior is a ‘terminator’ or better, good luck!
Tyranids/gsc: we die from terror alone
Eldar/dark Eldar: out teched, terror would subjugate everyone
Tau: watch gundam cartoons, suits would dominate, out teched and sly by the ethereal propaganda
IG: might be able to compete, scavenge enemy weaponry and develop tech might give us a chance, i’d give us no better than 40% chance
Marines: no chance even against their limited numbers, they can kill us with their bare fists, every marine beyond the first is a cumulative effect vs their opposition
Chaos marines: same as above with even more terror and unpredictability
Renegades: if there was a bet where modern earth have the best chance, it’s chaos renegades; earth have better equipment for once
IK/titan: no chance, we might stretch out the fighting, but no chance of winning
Skitari/mech: out teched, not as much like by the Eldar, but we still lose.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 20:05:56


Post by: Flinty


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A bolter hits like a lead ball from a musket. Which is bad, sure, but it's nowhere near as efficient as a 5.56 or 7.62 against unarmored infantry. It's fine against other guys wearing mild steel as well.

But at longer range? Harmless. You get a couple HMMVs with 0.50s, and those SM will get cut to ribbons before they their first shell scratches the paint.


Nope. Rogue Trader has muskets and black powder pistols at S3, so bolter hit with 33.3% more power than a musket ball


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 20:09:53


Post by: Formosa


 Frazzled wrote:
Bharring wrote:
Only after they've established localized dominance, not wholly won the conflict.

If they drop down on entrenched military, we might stop them. But if they drop down on the midwest pre-harvest? Or Mecca mid-pilgramage? They'll face only token resistance at first, eat everything nearby, and spit out more doods.

Also, they have tools for machinegun nests. Carnifexes, Zoanthropes, Venom Cannonts, etc. 50mil Nids doesn't mean 50mil Gaunts.


Thats not how it works. They don't have digestive systems. Thats only the lattter stage of a Nid harvest. Also hitting mecca would put them in striking distance of 3-4 of the strongest militaries on the globe, not to mention the Rosskies and the US.


Not true, Anphelion Project has nids adapting mega quickly, if they needed Digestive systems they would make them in the second wave, other nid publications also say that they dont have any digestive system because they dont need them and will die and be reabsorbed when the starve, if nids can drop 50 mil bodies on earth, then they would keep pumping them out until we cannot win, we may beat the first few waves, after that they have adapted and were done.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 20:44:02


Post by: Flinty


Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 21:01:50


Post by: Iracundus


 Albino Squirrel wrote:

I guess I don't have a great sense for how quickly they can add to their numbers once they're on the ground. Or how quickly Orks can reproduce, for that matter. I guess that is the important thing. But if many Imperial worlds can handle Tyranid invasions, we should be able to. I mean, if a company of Ultramarines can demolish a major hive fleet, they can't be that impressive.


If you're referring to Tarsis Ultra, you'll need to read the novel carefully. The Ultramarines were supported by the local PDF and Imperial Guard, and the Imperial Navy, and the Imperium was losing. They won only in the end because of plot armor allowing the Ultramarines to pull off a Hail Mary boarding strike at the Norn Queen's hive ship to deliver the toxin that killed the Norn Queen and caused the local fleet to revert to instincts. Before that, the Imperial Navy (and the Ultramarines' fleet) had been defeated after underestimating the ability of the Tyranids to adapt their strategy, the PDF and Guard were losing to attrition, and even the Marines were not turning the tide on the grand scale. All attempts since Tarsis Ultra to replicate or vary that toxin against the Norn Queen have also been failures, presumably because the Tyranids have already adapted to it. If one looks at the background, almost every victory against the Tyranids has been due to taking out the Norn Queen and hive ships, not actually prevailing against the main swarms.

The consumption of the planet as described in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex starts from the moment the Tyranids land. They start using the biomass of the planet to produce more cannon fodder. So Tyranids landing in any wilderness area will rapidly swell their forces from processing any local flora and fauna.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 21:12:24


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Iracundus wrote:
The consumption of the planet as described in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex starts from the moment the Tyranids land. They start using the biomass of the planet to produce more cannon fodder. So Tyranids landing in any wilderness area will rapidly swell their forces from processing any local flora and fauna.


Agreed. That is why the Nids landing on Mecca is among Earth's better results - it's in the middle of a frickin' desert with minimal biomass to absorb. Plus, there's at least one exceedingly heavily-armed and grumpy neighbor who would like nothing better than an excuse to glass the place.

OTOH, if they start in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, we're in exceedingly deep kimchee.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 21:24:55


Post by: Vaktathi


 Big Mac wrote:
Most of the replies here are pro modern human dominance against an OP modified 40k invasion; I think we’re on the losing end on most of if not all of the scenarios.
Orks: they’re stronger, everyone is a warrior, multiply quickly; we might find a way to combat their multiplying fungal ways but would still have to deal with all the warriors already present.
Sure they're strong, they also fight in ways are *really* easy to stop with modern small arms and are absolute cake for crew served weapons/artillery/aircraft/etc. It's also not like the modern world doesn't have tons of tools for dealing with fungus.


Necrons: every regular warrior is a ‘terminator’ or better, good luck!
They die just fine to all sorts of stuff. Heavily resistant to small arms fire, but not wholly immune, and small arms fire isn't what kills most things on real battlefields anyway.

Tyranids/gsc: we die from terror alone
Given all the things humanity has seen and endured, mostly inflicted on itself...probably not.


Eldar/dark Eldar: out teched, terror would subjugate everyone
Call me when Eldar tanks can match the feats of MBT's approaching 40 years old, call me, as thus far they have displayed no such capabilities. The Eldar's most advanced anti-aircraft systems that have ever been shown have basically been WW2 guns with laser beam skins, certainly nothing like modern BVR systems that can engage and destroy aircraft over a hundred miles away. Artillery is something almost completely foreign to the Eldar, especially proper long range artillery, which is what inflicts most casualties in ground based warfare.


Tau: watch gundam cartoons, suits would dominate, out teched and sly by the ethereal propaganda
Gundams are hilariously overcomplicated robots meant for rule of cool, with all sorts of (often inconsistent) hand-wavium as to why such humongous targets aren't easily taken out by long range weapons and why they need monstrously expensive legs and arms over much cheaper turrets and tracks (and why their pilots aren't turned into tomato paste when performing the maneuvers they are portrayed as engaging in, in real life their pilots would be killed instantly in half the melee engagements they're shown in from the G-forces ). Like the Eldar, they also don't really appear to have anything like modern artillery, BVR capabilities, etc.

IG: might be able to compete, scavenge enemy weaponry and develop tech might give us a chance, i’d give us no better than 40% chance
When you can actually fit into the turret and load a shell into a Leman Russ breach, let me know.

Marines: no chance even against their limited numbers, they can kill us with their bare fists, every marine beyond the first is a cumulative effect vs their opposition
Lots of things can kill a human with their bare fists, including other humans. Marines outside of infantry combat aren't all that impressive, marine tanks vs non-marine tanks aren't really at much of an advantage for instance (being an 8ft tall super soldier doesn't mean much for crewing a tank except that you probably cannot actually fit inside one). A chapter of 1000 marines could hold a small town and nothing else. You could maneuver entire armies around them and they simply couldn't be in enough places at once to stop that. They'd be surrounded, isolated, and destroyed in short order.


Chaos marines: same as above with even more terror and unpredictability
Renegades: if there was a bet where modern earth have the best chance, it’s chaos renegades; earth have better equipment for once
Chaos is about the only thing that would really have any standing here, and that's got nothing to do with battlefield capabilities.
IK/titan: no chance, we might stretch out the fighting, but no chance of winning
They'd be targeted by cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away or struck by aircraft and obliterated before they got to anything. They're big, easily seen targets that can't hide and will have gobs of ordnance thrown at them, and they're big enough that really big weapons can actually land relatively precision shots from long distances, engaging a knee joint to knock it over would be fairly trivial for tank guns or aircraft delivered munitions or even some cruise missiles. Simply *landing* a titan would be a monstrous task that could be easily engaged by all sorts of heavy ordnance.


Skitari/mech: out teched, not as much like by the Eldar, but we still lose.
Again, much like the Eldar, most of their stuff is basically re-skinned WW2 in terms of actual capabilities. Their infantry might have snazzier, more powerful guns than modern infantry, but they aren't displaying capabilities modern militaries have.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 21:28:34


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Of course, the biggest problem for SMs is that they're uniformly dumber than rocks.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 21:28:54


Post by: Albino Squirrel


Even though it's not something we presumably look out for, I think we'd notice 50 million alien creatures landing anywhere on earth. If they land in the middle of the wilderness somewhere sure, they can eat lots of stuff and make more Tyranids, but they're also easier to bomb without as much collateral damage.

Like I said, it's really hard to put into context how fast Tyranids or Orks can replenish losses, and I'm sure it varies in every story based on what makes for a better story. But at the end of the day, if an Imperial world can hold off a Tyranid or Ork invasion, I think we could.

And yeah, we don't know how good Power Armor is. But I can't imagine an autogun could possibly be all that different than any rifle we have now, and those can take down space marines.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 21:45:19


Post by: Infantryman


So, I get that Orks might crash-land on Earth and, somehow, hit somewhere of merit (not a pole, not an ocean). Where do the new Orks get guns to fight us with?

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 22:02:12


Post by: Bharring


Sum gubbins, if it looks like a gun, it's a gun, ya git!


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/04 22:07:06


Post by: Formosa


 Vaktathi wrote:
 Big Mac wrote:
Most of the replies here are pro modern human dominance against an OP modified 40k invasion; I think we’re on the losing end on most of if not all of the scenarios.
Orks: they’re stronger, everyone is a warrior, multiply quickly; we might find a way to combat their multiplying fungal ways but would still have to deal with all the warriors already present.
Sure they're strong, they also fight in ways are *really* easy to stop with modern small arms and are absolute cake for crew served weapons/artillery/aircraft/etc. It's also not like the modern world doesn't have tons of tools for dealing with fungus.


Necrons: every regular warrior is a ‘terminator’ or better, good luck!
1: They die just fine to all sorts of stuff. Heavily resistant to small arms fire, but not wholly immune, and small arms fire isn't what kills most things on real battlefields anyway.

Tyranids/gsc: we die from terror alone
2: Given all the things humanity has seen and endured, mostly inflicted on itself...probably not.


Eldar/dark Eldar: out teched, terror would subjugate everyone
3: Call me when Eldar tanks can match the feats of MBT's approaching 40 years old, call me, as thus far they have displayed no such capabilities. The Eldar's most advanced anti-aircraft systems that have ever been shown have basically been WW2 guns with laser beam skins, certainly nothing like modern BVR systems that can engage and destroy aircraft over a hundred miles away. Artillery is something almost completely foreign to the Eldar, especially proper long range artillery, which is what inflicts most casualties in ground based warfare.


Tau: watch gundam cartoons, suits would dominate, out teched and sly by the ethereal propaganda
4: Gundams are hilariously overcomplicated robots meant for rule of cool, with all sorts of (often inconsistent) hand-wavium as to why such humongous targets aren't easily taken out by long range weapons and why they need monstrously expensive legs and arms over much cheaper turrets and tracks (and why their pilots aren't turned into tomato paste when performing the maneuvers they are portrayed as engaging in, in real life their pilots would be killed instantly in half the melee engagements they're shown in from the G-forces ). Like the Eldar, they also don't really appear to have anything like modern artillery, BVR capabilities, etc.

IG: might be able to compete, scavenge enemy weaponry and develop tech might give us a chance, i’d give us no better than 40% chance
5: When you can actually fit into the turret and load a shell into a Leman Russ breach, let me know.

Marines: no chance even against their limited numbers, they can kill us with their bare fists, every marine beyond the first is a cumulative effect vs their opposition
6: Lots of things can kill a human with their bare fists, including other humans. Marines outside of infantry combat aren't all that impressive, marine tanks vs non-marine tanks aren't really at much of an advantage for instance (being an 8ft tall super soldier doesn't mean much for crewing a tank except that you probably cannot actually fit inside one). A chapter of 1000 marines could hold a small town and nothing else. You could maneuver entire armies around them and they simply couldn't be in enough places at once to stop that. They'd be surrounded, isolated, and destroyed in short order.


Chaos marines: same as above with even more terror and unpredictability
Renegades: if there was a bet where modern earth have the best chance, it’s chaos renegades; earth have better equipment for once
Chaos is about the only thing that would really have any standing here, and that's got nothing to do with battlefield capabilities.
IK/titan: no chance, we might stretch out the fighting, but no chance of winning
7: They'd be targeted by cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away or struck by aircraft and obliterated before they got to anything. They're big, easily seen targets that can't hide and will have gobs of ordnance thrown at them, and they're big enough that really big weapons can actually land relatively precision shots from long distances, engaging a knee joint to knock it over would be fairly trivial for tank guns or aircraft delivered munitions or even some cruise missiles. Simply *landing* a titan would be a monstrous task that could be easily engaged by all sorts of heavy ordnance.


Skitari/mech: out teched, not as much like by the Eldar, but we still lose.
8: Again, much like the Eldar, most of their stuff is basically re-skinned WW2 in terms of actual capabilities. Their infantry might have snazzier, more powerful guns than modern infantry, but they aren't displaying capabilities modern militaries have.


1:They dont die, at all, they are made of living metal if you damage them enough they teleport away, rinse and repeat, they can also completely reform from tremendous amounts of damage, and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.

2: I think he is talking about the shadow in the warp, which we have absolutely no modern or historical comparison to, if its a hive fleet then we really do stand no chance, if its a splinter fleet, then it comes down to where they land and how they choose to come at us.

3: Ring Ring, they can FLY, not just hover and have a top speed of 800 KPH and weapons that make an utter mockery of even the heaviest armour, fluff wise Eldar anti air weapons are both insanely deadly and extremely long ranged, the TT stats really dont show this, shock there right, as for artillery, its on a falcon Chassis, so artillery that can fire on the move (up to 800KPH) and deny entire areas of land with monofillement weapons.... yep, they may not have our range, but they are better than our artilley in manuevrebility, durabilty and targeting.

4: um... yes they do have artillery the Tau'una, and G forces, one would assume they have inercial dampeners like most other races would for similar reasons, but on the whole I agree that mecha suits are pretty dumb.

5: So blame GW for not knowing how real tanks work, in universe they work and most likely dont look much like the stylized ones we have on the tabletop, other than that pedantic point the guard out tech us, can easily outnumber us if they wanted to, hell even if we killed 10 of there tanks for every one of ours, they would still win in pure numbers, we have millions of soldiers theoretically, they have trillions, we lose again.

6: so much wrong with this, marines run stupidly fast, are immune to our small arms mostly, barely need to eat, sleep etc. and are an elite strike force, they drop into important places without warning, level it before a real response (tank and air support) and get out, they could teleport a few termies outside whatever goverment building they wanted and level it, teleport away and suddenly were in disarray as people start to panic, rinse and repeat in several places in the world and move on for the guard to finish a weakened foe.

7: this is utterly laughable, void shields can withstand a nuke, missiles, constant bombardment, titans can also withstand A PLANET BEING ON FIRE around it and survive, these things are some of the most OP things in an OP universe, landing them may be an issue sure, but we dont know enough about the landers to know if they have void shields or not, if they do, cant stop it either.

8: I cant really comment on this one as I dont really know enough about Ad mech, Dark mech could release the scrap code into our internet though and that would cripple the world without a shot being fired.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 01:07:06


Post by: Vaktathi


 Formosa wrote:

1:They dont die, at all, they are made of living metal if you damage them enough they teleport away, rinse and repeat, they can also completely reform from tremendous amounts of damage,
Do they still always teleport away? I thought they mucked about with a bunch of that with the 2011 Retcon, I was under the impression they couldn't always necessarily do that. Regardless, it's possible to destroy them enough to consider them casualties, both in the fluff and in the game. If lasguns, Choppas, big monster fists, or tank treads can do it, then I see no reason why a modern high velocity cannon, 500lb aircraft dropped high explosive bomb, etc could not.

and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.
Yeah so are the Eldar, and they both still be killed by humans with bayonets.

2: I think he is talking about the shadow in the warp, which we have absolutely no modern or historical comparison to, if its a hive fleet then we really do stand no chance, if its a splinter fleet, then it comes down to where they land and how they choose to come at us.
The number stated at the beginning of the thread was 50 million Tyranids, In the face of that, humanity would survive without too much problem. That would be a very quickly contained threat, if by nothing else than through the liberal use of nuclear weapons. An entire hive fleet, sure, that would overwhelm earth, but then, it's pretty much overwhelmed everything in 40k too.


3: Ring Ring, they can FLY, not just hover and have a top speed of 800 KPH and weapons that make an utter mockery of even the heaviest armour,
They can fly, but they can't generally fight at altitude (that's always been portrayed as a limited/non-standard ability that does things like preclude firing or whatnot) nor operate at such speeds when in combat (though yes, they'd be faster than modern ground tanks). That said, their own armor has never been anything spectacular, modern weapons can track fast moving targets, and modern weapons can cut through enough armor that I don't feel uncomfortable assuming that they wouldn't have trouble if they hit an Eldar vehicle, unless we want to argue that Eldar vehicle armor (represented formerly as AV12 and currently as T7 3+) is so powerful that a full literal meter thick hardened steel plate isn't possibly comparable. Modern tanks can move and fire without any meaningful effect on accuracy, in 40k this is shown to be a relatively rare ability (this has been represented in different ways in different editions) that is not typically present on Eldar vehicles.

fluff wise Eldar anti air weapons are both insanely deadly and extremely long ranged, the TT stats really dont show this, shock there right,
Looking at the AA weapons portrayed, they're typically something along the lines of a jazzed up scatterlaser or bright lance. These are weapons that require line of sight, and have finite effective ranges. One may be able to make the case that they could be more effective than a 20mm vulcan fighter cannon, I might buy that. Eldar missiles however have never been portrayed as spectacularly long ranged or anything like that, they've been broadly similar to their human Imperial counterparts. There has been nothing ever portrayed for them that would match modern anti-aircraft networks. Like most stuff in 40k, they pretty much take WW2 imagery and reskin it, it's much more thematic and dynamic than computer systems talking to each other to hit something in another time zone.

as for artillery, its on a falcon Chassis, so artillery that can fire on the move (up to 800KPH) and deny entire areas of land with monofillement weapons.... yep, they may not have our range, but they are better than our artilley in manuevrebility, durabilty and targeting.
Hrm, the Night Spinner is really more of a fire support vehicle than real artillery, it's akin to a Wyvern in role and weapons range than something like a Basilisk which would be more akin to modern artillery (albeit dramatically more primitive than modern equivalents).

Even if we want to take that comparison however, ok, they have speed...on a platform that doesn't need tremendous amounts of speed (just enough to relocate and keep up). Could they make greater use of that speed? Absolutely, but not directly in support of its role as an artillery platform (more in a strategic sense of moving as a cohesive fighting force at high speed). Given that modern artillery can fire GPS or laser guided shells that will put a 70lb shell through a window at 25 miles, and or can drop an unguided indirect fire round (with a 35 meter kill radius) within a cars length of the target 15km away, I'm not too worried about accuracy. Modern artillery can also fire a wide variety of different rounds for different purposes. As for durability, Eldar vehicles seem to go down to artillery shellfire just fine, big explosions with shockwaves would do very nasty things to stuff flying around at high speed even without direct hits.


4: um... yes they do have artillery the Tau'una
If their only artillery is a variant of an astoundingly valuable and very rare superheavy monster suit, that is going to be hard to hide high priority target, I'm going to feel safe in assuming that their artillery is not going to be a consistent concern.

and G forces, one would assume they have inercial dampeners like most other races would for similar reasons, but on the whole I agree that mecha suits are pretty dumb.
Yeah they're pretty silly.


5: So blame GW for not knowing how real tanks work, in universe they work and most likely dont look much like the stylized ones we have on the tabletop,
Sure, but that sort of thing was even in their "faux realistic" technical drawings of the Leman Russ. If we're going to have to assume everything about the tank is different from how it is consistently portrayed, I'd argue that we're ultimately having to accept my point here

other than that pedantic point the guard out tech us,
It's not just that, the vehicles as a whole are built around WW1 paradigms. Sponson and hull guns? that's just another weak point and another dude in the tank that's doing nothing 99.99% of the time except taking up space and fuel. They appear to have little or no functional suspension. Armor sloping is atrocious (materials shouldn't matter here really). The center of gravity is super high and liable to tip over easy. Night vision equipment that's been standard for decades in real world armies is not on Guard vehicles. Russ weapons are fired through WW2 style optical sights and there has never been any description (that I can recall) of sophisticated computerized fire control systems that do things like measure barrel wear and humidity and whatnot to compute a firing solution. The real world shows tremendously larger capabilities in such light.

can easily outnumber us if they wanted to, hell even if we killed 10 of there tanks for every one of ours, they would still win in pure numbers, we have millions of soldiers theoretically, they have trillions, we lose again.
If we're talking the entirety of the Imperial Guard, sure, but the thread has broadly been considering 30 regiments. I don't think we'd have a problem.


6: so much wrong with this, marines run stupidly fast,
They run fast, they're not Superman fast. Certainly not fast enough in a combat situation for GW to have ever seen fit to differentiate them with rules from normal human combat troops (though they have for races like Eldar and Orks).

are immune to our small arms mostly
So's a Humvee, those die plenty.

barely need to eat, sleep etc. and are an elite strike force,
I'm not denying that they would have dramatically superior operating parameters in these regards.

they drop into important places without warning
Radar is a thing, we detect all sorts of stuff into the atmosphere travelling as fast or far faster than Drop Pods have been described as going, usually much smaller than a drop pod by orders of magnitude.

More to the point, how do they know where they need to be?

level it before a real response (tank and air support) and get out
So we're going to assume that the Space Marines somehow know exactly where they're foes are and their entire order of battle showing them whats what, are able to evade the myriad of electromagnetic detection devices in use and don't see them coming, land with a veritable air armada of transports bearing heavy armor, no response is ever formulated on the ground, no anti-aircraft weapons are brought to bear from ranges of potentially several hundred miles away and the many literal *thousands* of fighter aircraft that exist on this planet (compared to what, a few dozen aircraft available to a Space Marine chapter?) and which often are in the sky patrolling constantly can't possibly intercept, that there's no fire support available and nobody can call in artillery or airstrikes, and they're going to successfully repeat that for thousands of military installations worldwide over and over with just a thousand dudes? A JROTC team could probably win under those conditions

they could teleport a few termies outside whatever goverment building they wanted and level it
Ok, how do they know which building to teleport to? How many thousands of buildings across hundreds of governments and their associated militaries are they going to have to hit this way with a few dozen teleporting warriors?


7: this is utterly laughable, void shields can withstand a nuke
A direct hit? What's the reference there (can't remember everything ) Either way, we have many thousands of nukes, we could try again

, missiles, constant bombardment,
We have ample evidence of Titans being destroyed, often by exactly these kinds of weapons. Yeah, it's not just one and done, they take wearing down, but they do go down, and void shields do degrade and fail.



8: I cant really comment on this one as I dont really know enough about Ad mech, Dark mech could release the scrap code into our internet though and that would cripple the world without a shot being fired.
I'd consider that basically more Chaos-ey stuff in general. By definition it's a dimension of unreality so it can basically break whatever it wants and military comparisons become meaningless.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 01:36:17


Post by: Iron_Captain


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Of course, the biggest problem for SMs is that they're uniformly dumber than rocks.

Why be smart when you have plot armour?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 01:39:41


Post by: Peregrine


Small nitpick: Tau actually have demonstrated BVR/artillery capabilities with things like pathfinders designating targets for over-the-horizon seeker missile shots. And they're specifically stated to use modern-style targeting systems, have the ability to fire on the move with railguns from miles away, etc. If they don't do it regularly it's probably because such things are beyond the scope of a normal 40k tabletop game, and are left for the background rather than given rules and prominence in the fluff.

And in general the Tau would probably be the biggest threat, as essentially a modern-style force with better hardware. The giant anime robots (which shouldn't even exist, crisis suits are power armor, not giant robots FFS) would probably suck and fail hilariously, but the tanks and infantry and aircraft would be dangerous. How do you deal with invisible stealth suits/Remora drones/etc that can kill you without ever letting you shoot back, or call in cruise missile strikes on anything within line of sight? How do you deal with airborne units that can threaten anything on the planet within minutes? Sheer numbers would help, but we'd be fighting an enemy that has the ability to pick every fight and slaughter us at will.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 02:20:01


Post by: Infantryman


 Peregrine wrote:
How do you deal with invisible stealth suits/Remora drones/etc that can kill you without ever letting you shoot back


Thermals, probably. You can get them on your cell phone, now.

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 03:32:15


Post by: Bharring


I think too much is being read into the tabletop rules.

CWE vehicles are Wraithbone, which is really, really strong. It's one of those not-physically-possible materials, even in-universe.

All ranges are screwy on the tabletop.

Also, the 50mil number is not 50mil Gaunts. How many soldiers, do you think, some Venom Cannon Warriors can walk through? How many Tervigons could a real-world brigade survive? How many humans could push back on a Zoanthropes will?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 07:03:30


Post by: Peregrine


 Infantryman wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:
How do you deal with invisible stealth suits/Remora drones/etc that can kill you without ever letting you shoot back


Thermals, probably. You can get them on your cell phone, now.


Assuming the same stealth field that stops visible light doesn't stop the IR spectrum as well. Given the fact that even 40k has IR targeting and Tau stealth fields are still effective, I think that's a poor assumption to make.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 08:41:25


Post by: An Actual Englishman


We would be slaughtered, of course.

Both marine flavours should be obvious. Giants in mega advanced armour and with mega advanced weapons s vs men. No thanks.

Orks and Nids are too hardy and suicidal to fight effectively with our current weapons.

Fighting Eldar and Tau would be similar to fighting the aliens from independence day but without the convenient virus upload. Flying tanks?! Rail guns?!

This is assuming humanity (for some reason) does something it's never done before and actually bands together as a cohesive group rather than (the more likely) infighting and defensive posturing around key resources.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 08:49:45


Post by: Peregrine


 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Both marine flavours should be obvious. Giants in mega advanced armour and with mega advanced weapons s vs men. No thanks.


Until they run out of ammunition and are overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Real-world weapons can hurt marines, and when you have millions of anti-tank missiles for every marine eventually they're going to die. TBH you could probably drop that chapter into a real-world war and nobody would even notice, they're just too few in number to have any effect.

Orks and Nids are too hardy and suicidal to fight effectively with our current weapons.


I don't think you appreciate the levels of destruction real-world weapons can inflict. Real-world artillery against a horde is going to mow them down by the thousands, not inflict a casualty here and there like on the tabletop. Real-world heavy machine guns in defensive emplacements (minefields, barbed wire, etc) will slaughter them as they try to run across open fields. Real-world air strikes will cripple their logistics (a factor 40k tends to ignore), so those hordes will be fighting on starvation rations with limited ammunition. And that's without considering tactical nuclear weapons, the perfect solution to an enemy that depends on sheer numbers and mindlessly running towards melee combat.

Fighting Eldar and Tau would be similar to fighting the aliens from independence day but without the convenient virus upload. Flying tanks?! Rail guns?!


Remember that these advanced armies are beaten in canon by WWI-era tanks and human wave infantry attacks.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 09:01:42


Post by: hippyjr


Does the modern military have an answer to terminator armour? I understand it is supposed to be stupidly durable, but I'm not sure of any fluff examples other than the whole "walking through a nuclear reactor" thing

Orks would actually benefit from our resistance. Depending on where they land, small arms fire from angry/scared civilians and police would create more orks than it kills, as every non-fatal bullet would spread spores for more crazy space gorrila soldiers. If the heavily reinforced world of Armageddon cannot fully remove the orks, no way are we shifting them.

As for chaos, halfs of the legions (depending on which one invades) would pose a interesting problem, due to their unconventional methods of warfare. DG, TS, AL, WB and NL all use forms of warfare that are a tad smarter than WW2 bum rush. How durable is a rubric marine, and what does a warp flame bolter actually do? What is our response when the WB summons a bloodthirster? How do you fight an army composed of soldiers akin to batman? Surely all typhus has to do is teleport onto the planet, wait a few seconds for the various creeping deaths to fall out of his orifices and infect the poor bastards he landed next to, teleport back to the ship and wait for most of the plane to fall. What is stopping the TS and their many sorcerers from carrying out some crazy doomsday ritual/spell?

I think in most situations we can kiss the planet goodbye, there are too many skew tactics in the 40k universe for our TAC planet to not get tabled.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 09:10:20


Post by: Sgt. Cortez


I'd say a chapter of Space Marines is the weakest foe we could face, as it's still ridiculous that they are only 1000 Marines. They couldn't hold any region, even if they dropped one drop pod onto every larger parliament in the world and killed the governments, the following riots and existing military would simply mow them down. Same for a renegade chapter. A Legion would be more interesting. The plagues of the death guard/ Nurgle Daemon invasion would probably create a pandemy killing the population in a short time. Tzeentch could start the world revolution and I'd probably join in. Khorne followers are too stupid and with their CC focus no danger and far too slow. Slaanesh... well, capitalism rules the world so obviousely Slaanesh controls earth already.

We have no chance against any Xenos but Dark Eldar, as they are pretty stupid with all their stabbing, poisoning and taking people for torture. Same with Harlequins probably.
Tau fight like we do, but with better tech in anything, so even though they don't have the numbers like Orks or tyranids, their technological advantage and being the only reasonable faction that wouldn't cause riots against their rule immediately, I can still see them win.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 13:26:41


Post by: Frazzled


 Infantryman wrote:
So, I get that Orks might crash-land on Earth and, somehow, hit somewhere of merit (not a pole, not an ocean). Where do the new Orks get guns to fight us with?

M.


Exactly. They only have the logistics they brought with them. Without a supply tail they're just angry bears.

I would think the IG would bring more.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 13:30:58


Post by: hippyjr


Any mek worth his salt could simply take the raw materials that "da umies" possess and make a dakka gizmo out of it.

One things orks won't run out of: weapons


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 14:13:51


Post by: Tyran


 Peregrine wrote:

I don't think you appreciate the levels of destruction real-world weapons can inflict. Real-world artillery against a horde is going to mow them down by the thousands, not inflict a casualty here and there like on the tabletop. Real-world heavy machine guns in defensive emplacements (minefields, barbed wire, etc) will slaughter them as they try to run across open fields. Real-world air strikes will cripple their logistics (a factor 40k tends to ignore), so those hordes will be fighting on starvation rations with limited ammunition. And that's without considering tactical nuclear weapons, the perfect solution to an enemy that depends on sheer numbers and mindlessly running towards melee combat.

We cannot cripple space logistics. What are we going to do, shoot anti-satellite missiles against their spaceships? even nukes are near useless against space targets.

Similarly, our logistics are very exposed from space. Our entire concept depth defense is useless against orbital assaults. Refineries, industry, agriculture, bases, fleets, cities, etc. all very vulnerable to having an army dropped on them.

And artillery and nukes are a thing in 40k. That has never stopped Orks or Tyranids.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 14:45:29


Post by: Bharring


Orkz wouldn't need a Mek to make their guns. If it looks like a gun and feels like a gun, it fires like a gun.

Although, the newborn's understanding of guns would be mostly of modern weaponry. So after the first WAAAGH gets blunted, their Shootas will be the equivelent of modern weapons.

But their numbers would continue to swell for as long as there' something to fight. We'd lose eventually.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 14:53:29


Post by: Frazzled


Bharring wrote:
Orkz wouldn't need a Mek to make their guns. If it looks like a gun and feels like a gun, it fires like a gun.

Although, the newborn's understanding of guns would be mostly of modern weaponry. So after the first WAAAGH gets blunted, their Shootas will be the equivelent of modern weapons.

But their numbers would continue to swell for as long as there' something to fight. We'd lose eventually.


Their manufacturing ability would be minimal. You're talking cottage level industry vs. mass production.
Its the problem with the whole 40K invading worlds thing. You would need vastly larger numbers of orks than presented. Who's going to mine ore, refine fuels, make the steels?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 15:19:41


Post by: hippyjr


 Frazzled wrote:
Bharring wrote:
Orkz wouldn't need a Mek to make their guns. If it looks like a gun and feels like a gun, it fires like a gun.

Although, the newborn's understanding of guns would be mostly of modern weaponry. So after the first WAAAGH gets blunted, their Shootas will be the equivelent of modern weapons.

But their numbers would continue to swell for as long as there' something to fight. We'd lose eventually.


Their manufacturing ability would be minimal. You're talking cottage level industry vs. mass production.
Its the problem with the whole 40K invading worlds thing. You would need vastly larger numbers of orks than presented. Who's going to mine ore, refine fuels, make the steels?


I feel like you're seriously underestimating ork ingenuity. Who needs industry when you can pillage and loot the nearest developed area for scrap? Why even bother, when orks are perfectly dangerous with primitive spears and sharp stones (ala snakebites)? Orks fight through aggression and numbers, the latter of which swells with conflict. The only way to remove them is conflict, so no matter what you do there will always be more orks.

And that's if they LOSE the fight. Mork/gork help you if they win


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 16:09:22


Post by: Bharring


They don't need to build Kalishnakovs to have a working gun. They just need to bang bits of scrap together into something that *looks* like a gun. Their 'tech' is mostly nonfunctional as is.

But the big thing that'd hose us is that, every time we fight them, there'll then be more of them. And not fighting them won't be an option.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 16:14:07


Post by: oldravenman3025


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Of course, the biggest problem for SMs is that they're uniformly dumber than rocks.





Unless they are the Raptors Chapter. Those dudes are basically USSOCOM in powered armor.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 17:19:34


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Vaktathi wrote:
and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.
Yeah so are the Eldar, and they both still be killed by humans with bayonets.


The same also holds for humans with clubs vs Space Marines.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 18:02:32


Post by: Bharring


Eldar can be killed by bayonets, but why would the Eldar "take the field"?

In the 40k era, CWE are hard pressed to even survive. Even with being able to read the future, there are almost no viable paths to survival. So they usually have to pick the best of their bad options - which in turn involves fighting pitched battles with lesser races.

In the modern era, what would force the CWE to meet mankind on the field? Especially a field of mankind's choosing, where all their forces are united and deployed?

A bayonet could kill an Eldar. A pitched battle between a Craftworld and Mankind could be argued:
Earth has ~7 billion, Eldar have billions.

Human militia is ws/bs2, well-trained troops are ws/bs3. CWE militia is ws/bs4. CWE basic weapons are stronger than human basic weapons. Even just assuming Guardian Warhost-style forces (CWE Guardian infantry with emplaced weapons, artillery, scout vehicles and some tank support), they aren't significantly outnumbered, and are a lot more skilled.

Craftworlds have a central authority, Earth does not. So they can more readily leverage their entire population than Earth.

Craftworlds manifest the resources they need from the Warp. So they have no supply deficiency.

CWE have much faster transit. Webway access. Holofields. Faster reactions. Telepathy. Their logistics are way beyond mankinds. We wouldn't be able to meaningfully degrade their logistics.

CWE is virtually free to do whatever it wants to mankind's supply chain (holofields, much faster speeds, reading minds, etc).

CWE could nab anyone who knew anything (launch codes, deployment plans, locations) and read their mind.

Lets stipulate that Craftworlders still need to fear She Who Thirsts, and can't be assisted by this-timeframe forces (Eldar were in the Sol system pre-fall, all their gods are still alive and healthy, the Empire still exists, etc).

The only thing humans have going for them is they number about twice as many. But in every category, they'll be outperformed by at least twice as much.

I don't see even a pitched battle going in Mankind's favor.

But why would they fight a pitched battle? They have the supply advantage. They don't need to just fight one big battle and take the earth. They can play the long game. They could convince some powers to serve them. They could nuke a few areas at a time to force people to capitulate. They could play the part of benelovent visitors while taking over. I think they'd conquer Earth by diplomacy, not warfare. Fewer Eldar dead that way.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 18:25:05


Post by: Frazzled


Bharring wrote:
They don't need to build Kalishnakovs to have a working gun. They just need to bang bits of scrap together into something that *looks* like a gun. Their 'tech' is mostly nonfunctional as is.

But the big thing that'd hose us is that, every time we fight them, there'll then be more of them. And not fighting them won't be an option.


Thats what antifungal herbicide is for.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 19:37:10


Post by: Bharring


What are the odds we're advanced enough a species to produce a herbicide that is hostile enough to Ork spores to kill them, when they survive in so many wretched and horrid environments without issue?

If we could produce such a herbicide, why couldn't the Eldar or Necrons or Renegades or Cawl or Nids, or even the Emperor?

And then, if we do produce it, how do we disperse it sufficiently? We haven't been able to kill off mosquetoes. We might be able to spread enough over a small engagement, but at great cost. We couldn't coat our planet.

Also, it'd have to be toxic enough for Orkz, but not toxic to humans.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 19:53:27


Post by: hippyjr


Bharring wrote:
What are the odds we're advanced enough a species to produce a herbicide that is hostile enough to Ork spores to kill them, when they survive in so many wretched and horrid environments without issue?

If we could produce such a herbicide, why couldn't the Eldar or Necrons or Renegades or Cawl or Nids, or even the Emperor?

And then, if we do produce it, how do we disperse it sufficiently? We haven't been able to kill off mosquetoes. We might be able to spread enough over a small engagement, but at great cost. We couldn't coat our planet.

Also, it'd have to be toxic enough for Orkz, but not toxic to humans.


Also worth considering, during the octarius war the ork spores and tyranid phage cells literally fought each other. So good luck to any herbicide that wants to 'av a piece


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 20:09:22


Post by: Formosa


 Vaktathi wrote:
 Formosa wrote:

1:They dont die, at all, they are made of living metal if you damage them enough they teleport away, rinse and repeat, they can also completely reform from tremendous amounts of damage,
Do they still always teleport away? I thought they mucked about with a bunch of that with the 2011 Retcon, I was under the impression they couldn't always necessarily do that. Regardless, it's possible to destroy them enough to consider them casualties, both in the fluff and in the game. If lasguns, Choppas, big monster fists, or tank treads can do it, then I see no reason why a modern high velocity cannon, 500lb aircraft dropped high explosive bomb, etc could not.

and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.
Yeah so are the Eldar, and they both still be killed by humans with bayonets.

2: I think he is talking about the shadow in the warp, which we have absolutely no modern or historical comparison to, if its a hive fleet then we really do stand no chance, if its a splinter fleet, then it comes down to where they land and how they choose to come at us.
The number stated at the beginning of the thread was 50 million Tyranids, In the face of that, humanity would survive without too much problem. That would be a very quickly contained threat, if by nothing else than through the liberal use of nuclear weapons. An entire hive fleet, sure, that would overwhelm earth, but then, it's pretty much overwhelmed everything in 40k too.


3: Ring Ring, they can FLY, not just hover and have a top speed of 800 KPH and weapons that make an utter mockery of even the heaviest armour,
They can fly, but they can't generally fight at altitude (that's always been portrayed as a limited/non-standard ability that does things like preclude firing or whatnot) nor operate at such speeds when in combat (though yes, they'd be faster than modern ground tanks). That said, their own armor has never been anything spectacular, modern weapons can track fast moving targets, and modern weapons can cut through enough armor that I don't feel uncomfortable assuming that they wouldn't have trouble if they hit an Eldar vehicle, unless we want to argue that Eldar vehicle armor (represented formerly as AV12 and currently as T7 3+) is so powerful that a full literal meter thick hardened steel plate isn't possibly comparable. Modern tanks can move and fire without any meaningful effect on accuracy, in 40k this is shown to be a relatively rare ability (this has been represented in different ways in different editions) that is not typically present on Eldar vehicles.

fluff wise Eldar anti air weapons are both insanely deadly and extremely long ranged, the TT stats really dont show this, shock there right,
Looking at the AA weapons portrayed, they're typically something along the lines of a jazzed up scatterlaser or bright lance. These are weapons that require line of sight, and have finite effective ranges. One may be able to make the case that they could be more effective than a 20mm vulcan fighter cannon, I might buy that. Eldar missiles however have never been portrayed as spectacularly long ranged or anything like that, they've been broadly similar to their human Imperial counterparts. There has been nothing ever portrayed for them that would match modern anti-aircraft networks. Like most stuff in 40k, they pretty much take WW2 imagery and reskin it, it's much more thematic and dynamic than computer systems talking to each other to hit something in another time zone.

as for artillery, its on a falcon Chassis, so artillery that can fire on the move (up to 800KPH) and deny entire areas of land with monofillement weapons.... yep, they may not have our range, but they are better than our artilley in manuevrebility, durabilty and targeting.
Hrm, the Night Spinner is really more of a fire support vehicle than real artillery, it's akin to a Wyvern in role and weapons range than something like a Basilisk which would be more akin to modern artillery (albeit dramatically more primitive than modern equivalents).

Even if we want to take that comparison however, ok, they have speed...on a platform that doesn't need tremendous amounts of speed (just enough to relocate and keep up). Could they make greater use of that speed? Absolutely, but not directly in support of its role as an artillery platform (more in a strategic sense of moving as a cohesive fighting force at high speed). Given that modern artillery can fire GPS or laser guided shells that will put a 70lb shell through a window at 25 miles, and or can drop an unguided indirect fire round (with a 35 meter kill radius) within a cars length of the target 15km away, I'm not too worried about accuracy. Modern artillery can also fire a wide variety of different rounds for different purposes. As for durability, Eldar vehicles seem to go down to artillery shellfire just fine, big explosions with shockwaves would do very nasty things to stuff flying around at high speed even without direct hits.


4: um... yes they do have artillery the Tau'una
If their only artillery is a variant of an astoundingly valuable and very rare superheavy monster suit, that is going to be hard to hide high priority target, I'm going to feel safe in assuming that their artillery is not going to be a consistent concern.

and G forces, one would assume they have inercial dampeners like most other races would for similar reasons, but on the whole I agree that mecha suits are pretty dumb.
Yeah they're pretty silly.


5: So blame GW for not knowing how real tanks work, in universe they work and most likely dont look much like the stylized ones we have on the tabletop,
Sure, but that sort of thing was even in their "faux realistic" technical drawings of the Leman Russ. If we're going to have to assume everything about the tank is different from how it is consistently portrayed, I'd argue that we're ultimately having to accept my point here

other than that pedantic point the guard out tech us,
It's not just that, the vehicles as a whole are built around WW1 paradigms. Sponson and hull guns? that's just another weak point and another dude in the tank that's doing nothing 99.99% of the time except taking up space and fuel. They appear to have little or no functional suspension. Armor sloping is atrocious (materials shouldn't matter here really). The center of gravity is super high and liable to tip over easy. Night vision equipment that's been standard for decades in real world armies is not on Guard vehicles. Russ weapons are fired through WW2 style optical sights and there has never been any description (that I can recall) of sophisticated computerized fire control systems that do things like measure barrel wear and humidity and whatnot to compute a firing solution. The real world shows tremendously larger capabilities in such light.

can easily outnumber us if they wanted to, hell even if we killed 10 of there tanks for every one of ours, they would still win in pure numbers, we have millions of soldiers theoretically, they have trillions, we lose again.
If we're talking the entirety of the Imperial Guard, sure, but the thread has broadly been considering 30 regiments. I don't think we'd have a problem.


6: so much wrong with this, marines run stupidly fast,
They run fast, they're not Superman fast. Certainly not fast enough in a combat situation for GW to have ever seen fit to differentiate them with rules from normal human combat troops (though they have for races like Eldar and Orks).

are immune to our small arms mostly
So's a Humvee, those die plenty.

barely need to eat, sleep etc. and are an elite strike force,
I'm not denying that they would have dramatically superior operating parameters in these regards.

they drop into important places without warning
Radar is a thing, we detect all sorts of stuff into the atmosphere travelling as fast or far faster than Drop Pods have been described as going, usually much smaller than a drop pod by orders of magnitude.

More to the point, how do they know where they need to be?

level it before a real response (tank and air support) and get out
So we're going to assume that the Space Marines somehow know exactly where they're foes are and their entire order of battle showing them whats what, are able to evade the myriad of electromagnetic detection devices in use and don't see them coming, land with a veritable air armada of transports bearing heavy armor, no response is ever formulated on the ground, no anti-aircraft weapons are brought to bear from ranges of potentially several hundred miles away and the many literal *thousands* of fighter aircraft that exist on this planet (compared to what, a few dozen aircraft available to a Space Marine chapter?) and which often are in the sky patrolling constantly can't possibly intercept, that there's no fire support available and nobody can call in artillery or airstrikes, and they're going to successfully repeat that for thousands of military installations worldwide over and over with just a thousand dudes? A JROTC team could probably win under those conditions

they could teleport a few termies outside whatever goverment building they wanted and level it
Ok, how do they know which building to teleport to? How many thousands of buildings across hundreds of governments and their associated militaries are they going to have to hit this way with a few dozen teleporting warriors?


7: this is utterly laughable, void shields can withstand a nuke
A direct hit? What's the reference there (can't remember everything ) Either way, we have many thousands of nukes, we could try again

, missiles, constant bombardment,
We have ample evidence of Titans being destroyed, often by exactly these kinds of weapons. Yeah, it's not just one and done, they take wearing down, but they do go down, and void shields do degrade and fail.



8: I cant really comment on this one as I dont really know enough about Ad mech, Dark mech could release the scrap code into our internet though and that would cripple the world without a shot being fired.
I'd consider that basically more Chaos-ey stuff in general. By definition it's a dimension of unreality so it can basically break whatever it wants and military comparisons become meaningless.


God damn I wish I knew how to use multi quote.....


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 20:27:49


Post by: Iracundus


 Vaktathi wrote:

The number stated at the beginning of the thread was 50 million Tyranids, In the face of that, humanity would survive without too much problem. That would be a very quickly contained threat, if by nothing else than through the liberal use of nuclear weapons. An entire hive fleet, sure, that would overwhelm earth, but then, it's pretty much overwhelmed everything in 40k too.


Not sure about 50 million Tyranids being that easily brushed off. The Hive Mind can be subtle and bide its time when it wants to, such as the case on Ghorala. It's never stated that all 50 million have to land in one spot. If they are seeded around the world, the ones in wildernesses could keep a relatively low profile and grow their numbers first. There may not be an easily bombed or nuked concentration of Tyranid forces. Wildlife being consumed and isolated villages going quiet might not be immediately noticed. The proposed scenario doesn't state whether the world is aware of the invasion, so if it isn't, the Tyranids could grow their numbers immensely before anyone realizes and understands what is happening and its magnitude. Without such understanding, no government is going to drop a nuke on a forest where 50 Hormagaunts landed.

Tyranids have also survived the firestorms of Exterminatus before, either by burrowing, or by being so tough they survived and started to regenerate. Use of nuclear weapons would kill many, but the question is whether you really get them all, or are you just selecting for radiation resistant survivors? If any Rippers survive, they can regenerate the Tyranid consumption ecosystem. The Anphelion Project showed the full range of Tyranid forms appearing despite initially starting from only a few basic forms.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 20:40:47


Post by: Big Mac


Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'd say a chapter of Space Marines is the weakest foe we could face, as it's still ridiculous that they are only 1000 Marines. They couldn't hold any region, even if they dropped one drop pod onto every larger parliament in the world and killed the governments, the following riots and existing military would simply mow them down. Same for a renegade chapter. A Legion would be more interesting. The plagues of the death guard/ Nurgle Daemon invasion would probably create a pandemy killing the population in a short time. Tzeentch could start the world revolution and I'd probably join in. Khorne followers are too stupid and with their CC focus no danger and far too slow. Slaanesh... well, capitalism rules the world so obviousely Slaanesh controls earth already.

We have no chance against any Xenos but Dark Eldar, as they are pretty stupid with all their stabbing, poisoning and taking people for torture. Same with Harlequins probably.
Tau fight like we do, but with better tech in anything, so even though they don't have the numbers like Orks or tyranids, their technological advantage and being the only reasonable faction that wouldn't cause riots against their rule immediately, I can still see them win.


I think the dark eldar are the most dangerous of all the 40k factions the OP listed, as much as I like to think that the modern human psych is strong and unmovable, after listening to the 'carrion throne',
Spoiler:
where the antagonist is a single haemoculus, created absolute havoc after landing, made grotesques out of the local population, made it to the throne room of the big E.
I think we vastly underestimate the weapon of terror as well as many other 40k opposition, modern arty>mobile eldar/tau disposition is a laughter of a argument; not to mention how tough the orks are to rid of in local vicinity, which many other posters have made in detail.

I can see the twisted haemoculus stitching together the most outspoken world leaders among the world and their families together and make a mockery of them and vid pic them all across the world to terrorize all opposition, we lose before we even track down where the dark eldar are operating from.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 20:59:36


Post by: Peregrine


Tyran wrote:
We cannot cripple space logistics. What are we going to do, shoot anti-satellite missiles against their spaceships? even nukes are near useless against space targets.


Having space logistics doesn't negate the need for ground logistics. A horde of billions of orks/tyranids/whatever still has to eat and get ammunition, you can't have spacecraft coming down to feed each individual soldier a hand-delivered meal. You have to deliver mass quantities of food/ammunition/etc to a central location, and that target can be destroyed.

Similarly, our logistics are very exposed from space. Our entire concept depth defense is useless against orbital assaults. Refineries, industry, agriculture, bases, fleets, cities, etc. all very vulnerable to having an army dropped on them.


And yet in 40k this rarely happens. Space marines and their drop pod assaults are portrayed as an incredibly rare exception to the general rule of fighting WWI trench warfare in space. Only the Tau and maybe the Eldar make a habit of hitting weak points and logistics, everyone else generally prefers to run screaming at the enemy with a chainsaw.

And artillery and nukes are a thing in 40k. That has never stopped Orks or Tyranids.


They are, but only in a very scaled-down form, because GW doesn't understand how much damage these weapons can actually do. A Manticore on the tabletop kills maybe five models per turn, if you roll well. A Manticore's real-life equivalent kills everything on the entire 6x4 table in one salvo of rockets. Massing up millions of horde infantry just means more casualties every time the artillery fires.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 21:08:01


Post by: Bharring


That last point is one of the reasons I don't think the concept of Earth's armies lining up on the battlefield opposite the opponent is what should be looked at. A centralized force is easier to destroy for most of the factions listed.

Some factions are more vulnerable to logisitics problems. As far as I know, a Necron Warrior doesn't care. Nobody is handing him his next meal. He doesn't use replacement parts - his form fixes itself. I don't know about ammo, but I doubt they swap out clips the way we do.

An IG or even SM force, on the other hand, always needs to be concerned about where it's supply chain is. Boltguns run out of ammo. Guardsmen degrade if they miss meals.

Orkz would be more resistant to supply chain breakages. Worst case, they'll crack some heads with whatever's handy (or get shot and spread their spores, who will then crack heads with whatever's handy - or get shot and spread their spores...).

Nids would have some sort of supply chain after a fashion. They would move biomass - either raw or as constructs such as creates - from where they find it to where they're still being resisted.

Eldar would be very reliant on supply chains, as the average Guardian shouldn't be unleashing enough psychic power to make stuff, is not currently walking a craftsman's path, and still need to eat. But there'll be no way to do anything about their supply chains. Dark Eldar are similar, but don't use Wraithbone, and are adept at raiding and taking what they need.

Each faction is different, but I think Earth only has a logistical advantage over SM and IG options.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 21:28:47


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Bharring wrote:
What are the odds we're advanced enough a species to produce a herbicide that is hostile enough to Ork spores to kill them, when they survive in so many wretched and horrid environments without issue?

Also, it'd have to be toxic enough for Orkz, but not toxic to humans.


Please. We'd just restart production of Agent Orange. It worked great in Vietnam, it'll work great on Orkz.

Things like spinal bifidia and cancer only matter if there's going to be a next generation or old age. If hardly anybody lives past 40, those side effects can be ignored.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 21:45:09


Post by: Big Mac


About chapter that's only a 1k strong, they do have support staff in the menials/tech, its where all the surviving failed aspirants go, something like 100-1 ratio, so a 1k chapter have around 100k support staff.

Logistics:
orks need none, they eat the dead or alive, including their own smaller cousins, they hodgepatch together parts that looks like a gun and trukk, and it works because they believe it does.

SM: they can supply drop from orbit, many of their cruisers have their own manufactorum, they can last very long(yrs) without supply too behind enemy lines based on fluff.

dark eldar: they feed on pain, and there will be plenty for them, its like a all you can eat buffet here.

nids: plenty of biomass here, most desolate regions are probably the desert and the poles.

IG: they do need supplies, the las clip are rechargeable over heat, they can scavenge our ballistic weaponry.

skitari/mech: minimal food substance needed, plenty of oil here.

chaos: they just eat and desecrate our bodies.

tau: sushi?! lol!

I'm not sure about necrons or eldar, don't know what kind of nutrition they need if any.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 21:57:43


Post by: Bharring


Name: Big Mac
Post topic: Mass consumption of food

Thank you.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 22:17:34


Post by: Frazzled


 Big Mac wrote:
About chapter that's only a 1k strong, they do have support staff in the menials/tech, its where all the surviving failed aspirants go, something like 100-1 ratio, so a 1k chapter have around 100k support staff.

Logistics:
orks need none, they eat the dead or alive, including their own smaller cousins, they hodgepatch together parts that looks like a gun and trukk, and it works because they believe it does.

SM: they can supply drop from orbit, many of their cruisers have their own manufactorum, they can last very long(yrs) without supply too behind enemy lines based on fluff.

dark eldar: they feed on pain, and there will be plenty for them, its like a all you can eat buffet here.

nids: plenty of biomass here, most desolate regions are probably the desert and the poles.

IG: they do need supplies, the las clip are rechargeable over heat, they can scavenge our ballistic weaponry.

skitari/mech: minimal food substance needed, plenty of oil here.

chaos: they just eat and desecrate our bodies.

tau: sushi?! lol!

I'm not sure about necrons or eldar, don't know what kind of nutrition they need if any.


Orks still need bullets and gas. Gas is a complex process with hard to find metal catalysts. No grot is going to just spin that up.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 22:20:27


Post by: Bharring


They could just loot what they fight.

And they don't need bullets or gas. Upthread, there are some posts pointing out that even pointy sticks work.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 22:40:33


Post by: Frazzled


Bharring wrote:
They could just loot what they fight.

And they don't need bullets or gas. Upthread, there are some posts pointing out that even pointy sticks work.


No, pointy sticks don't work in the Real World (TM). They would never even see a modern army before being wiped out.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 22:46:44


Post by: Bharring


That's because in the real world, killing a guy doesn't make more of him. With Orkz, killing Orkz makes more Orkz.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 22:54:28


Post by: Frazzled


Bharring wrote:
That's because in the real world, killing a guy doesn't make more of him. With Orkz, killing Orkz makes more Orkz.

You know that spewing spores doesn't mean they all grow right? Can't spew spores in the middle of an atomic cloud, herbicide (2nd ed baby) or napalm strike. Wipe them out, spray the area.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 22:55:41


Post by: Bharring


So it depends on if they all come down in 1 spot, or they show up everywhere. If they show up everywhere, we don't have the resources (or necessarily a strong enough herbicide) to kill em all.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 23:01:17


Post by: Tyran


 Peregrine wrote:

Having space logistics doesn't negate the need for ground logistics. A horde of billions of orks/tyranids/whatever still has to eat and get ammunition, you can't have spacecraft coming down to feed each individual soldier a hand-delivered meal. You have to deliver mass quantities of food/ammunition/etc to a central location, and that target can be destroyed.


That would be true for Orks, but Tyranid creatures eat whatever they find. Humans, animals, trees, fungi, etc. They moment they run out of food is because the planet is a lifeless, waterless and airless rock.


And yet in 40k this rarely happens. Space marines and their drop pod assaults are portrayed as an incredibly rare exception to the general rule of fighting WWI trench warfare in space. Only the Tau and maybe the Eldar make a habit of hitting weak points and logistics, everyone else generally prefers to run screaming at the enemy with a chainsaw.

Everyone else prefers to do planet wide assaults. It is literally impossible to miss our weak spots and logistics. Our cities are mostly unprotected and completely unprepared to warfare, our industry is to spread out and impossible to defend. The reason 40k is WW1 trench warfare in space is because everyone fortificates their planets to insane degrees, every city is a potential fortress capable of enduring siege for months, there are planets were every square meter is either a trench, a fortification, a minefield or a gun emplacement.


They are, but only in a very scaled-down form, because GW doesn't understand how much damage these weapons can actually do. A Manticore on the tabletop kills maybe five models per turn, if you roll well. A Manticore's real-life equivalent kills everything on the entire 6x4 table in one salvo of rockets. Massing up millions of horde infantry just means more casualties every time the artillery fires.

The tabletop is a gross simplification to have a game. That's like saying that COD is a realistic representation of modern warfare.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 23:01:59


Post by: Frazzled


Bharring wrote:
So it depends on if they all come down in 1 spot, or they show up everywhere. If they show up everywhere, we don't have the resources (or necessarily a strong enough herbicide) to kill em all.


How would they show up everywhere?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/05 23:41:40


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Tyran wrote:
The reason 40k is WW1 trench warfare in space is because everyone fortificates their planets to insane degrees, every city is a potential fortress capable of enduring siege for months, there are planets were every square meter is either a trench, a fortification, a minefield or a gun emplacement.


Nope, not every planet is The Cage on a continental scale. Not even Cadia or Armageddon.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 00:03:57


Post by: HuskyWarhammer


Ignore me, I did a dumb


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 03:18:32


Post by: Tygre


If a squad of SM with meltabombs drop on Cheyenne Mountain, what are we going to do. Lose Cheyenne Mountain I guess.
If a squad drops on the pentagon, what do you think is going to happen. Assuming they don't level it from orbit.
Most American precision weapons use GPS. Do you think a Techmarine, or any techpriest, will leave the satellite network intact.
Do you think that our internet infrastructure, phone lines, satellite infrastructure, or power networks will be safe.
How can we coordinate our forces, in time, when the command facilities are gone and rapid communications is gone.
We cannot defend everything with armoured divisions. There are too many things to defend.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 03:25:43


Post by: Frazzled


Tygre wrote:
If a squad of SM with meltabombs drop on Cheyenne Mountain, what are we going to do. Lose Cheyenne Mountain I guess.
If a squad drops on the pentagon, what do you think is going to happen. Assuming they don't level it from orbit.
Most American precision weapons use GPS. Do you think a Techmarine, or any techpriest, will leave the satellite network intact.
Do you think that our internet infrastructure, phone lines, satellite infrastructure, or power networks will be safe.
How can we coordinate our forces, in time, when the command facilities are gone and rapid communications is gone.
We cannot defend everything with armoured divisions. There are too many things to defend.


Then what. As the US has found, that just stirs up the hornet's nest.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 03:31:59


Post by: Tyran


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Tyran wrote:
The reason 40k is WW1 trench warfare in space is because everyone fortificates their planets to insane degrees, every city is a potential fortress capable of enduring siege for months, there are planets were every square meter is either a trench, a fortification, a minefield or a gun emplacement.


Nope, not every planet is The Cage on a continental scale. Not even Cadia or Armageddon.


I said that there are planets, not all the planets.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 03:34:10


Post by: Grumblewartz


Spoiler:
Not that I'm being all 'humanity...feth yeah!', but it might be worth reading up on guerilla fighters such as the Viet-cong and a little about the generations-long conflicts still raging in the Middle East before you decide how far peoples' will to resist will take them.

An alien force zapping in and assassinating leadership is likely to do little other than martyr them. It's a viable tactic when you're talking strategic generals, but fails miserably when it comes to charismatic politica leaders.


Let me see - So they are incapable of recon? Why couldn't they teleport outside of the the White House then walk in? They are god damn tanks. Or are you just choosing to ignore the in-world 40k fluff, despite writing on a forum about the in-game fluff? High enough level psykers can kill people on a planet from the comfort from their space ship (Eisenhorn series, etc.) Or, again, are we ignoring the fluff on a fluff thread? Because the US can't eliminate resistance movements in wars that they are fighting according to international law, attempting to limit civilian casualties, etc., 40k armies couldn't crush resistance without any such restrictions? Ehh...why bother. Either you accept the fluff as is and our planet would be crushed, or you reject the obvious absurdities of 40k (space magic, problems of scale, etc.) and assume Earth could resist. We are on either ends of the spectrum - no biggy!


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 06:05:38


Post by: Infantryman


Kinda hard to beat a fictional force when you can just handwave in whatever you want that fictional force to have.

By the by, there's much more to our guided weapons than just orbital GPS but that's enough of that.

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 06:20:45


Post by: doktor_g


An ork Waaagh of 50 million orks. (They can spawn more as normal.) - EARTH IS FOREVER INFESTED

One chapter of Marines. - TOSS UP BUT LIKELY CAPITULATION WITHOUT WAR

An Eldar Craftworld. - WHOLE CRAFTWORLD? EARTH LOSES BIG TIME

30 regiments of Imperial Guard - EARTH WINS.

A splinter fleet of Tyranids numbering about 50 million creatures. - EARTH LOSES. OUR ONLY EXPERIENCE IN FIGHTING THEM WOULD BE THE MOVIES "TREMORS" AND "ALIENS." WE'RE SCREWED

A Tau expansion fleet. - EARTH WINS

1000 Chaos Marines. - EARTH IS CORRUPTED. ASPIRING CHAMPION ELECTED PRESIDENT.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 08:21:57


Post by: Jorim


 doktor_g wrote:



A Tau expansion fleet. - EARTH WINS



IMO we wouldn't win against them simply because they would talk first and we would just give up (using mind controlling allies in your negotiations is quite handy). They could just promise a few politicians to fullfil their biggest wish and they wouldn't fight.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 09:10:12


Post by: doktor_g


Jorim wrote:
 doktor_g wrote:



A Tau expansion fleet. - EARTH WINS



IMO we wouldn't win against them simply because they would talk first and we would just give up (using mind controlling allies in your negotiations is quite handy). They could just promise a few politicians to fullfil their biggest wish and they wouldn't fight.


Mind control? Wha-whaaaa? Have I been skipping Tau's Psychic Phase?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 10:59:55


Post by: hippyjr


 doktor_g wrote:
Jorim wrote:
 doktor_g wrote:



A Tau expansion fleet. - EARTH WINS



IMO we wouldn't win against them simply because they would talk first and we would just give up (using mind controlling allies in your negotiations is quite handy). They could just promise a few politicians to fullfil their biggest wish and they wouldn't fight.


Mind control? Wha-whaaaa? Have I been skipping Tau's Psychic Phase?

Pretty sure they're referring to the ethereal pheromone theory. Send in a water caste ethereal to negotiate and his "agree with me" pheromones do the heavy lifting.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 12:25:55


Post by: SomeRandomEvilGuy


 hippyjr wrote:

Pretty sure they're referring to the ethereal pheromone theory. Send in a water caste ethereal to negotiate and his "agree with me" pheromones do the heavy lifting.

One of the newer Codexes mentioned the Nagi; a worm-like race with mind-control capabilities which joined the Tau and often advise Ethereals..


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 13:49:50


Post by: UncleThomson


Well. The main question is, if we assume that the 40k universe has physical laws equal to our universe and if the technology in this universe follows these laws.

If we say no, and if we assume that the silly things and numbers written in novels and books are actually true, you can argue all day.

Since false may imply true or false then both sides are right. Your conclusion just depends on your confirmation bias.

However, if we assume that the 40k universe has consistent physical laws, our puny earth forces even if combined wouldn't stand a chance against one single thunderbolt/razorwing/ork attak/pick whatever fighter.

The simple fact that these things on their own power can reach orbit, do stuff there and go back without booster rockets and a crapton of support shows that these things are marvels of technology completely incomprehensible to us.

It would be the same thing as an F-22 facing World War I Biplane Fighters (well not really the same, our aircraft would be even more obsolete)


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 14:01:12


Post by: Formosa


Tyran wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:

Having space logistics doesn't negate the need for ground logistics. A horde of billions of orks/tyranids/whatever still has to eat and get ammunition, you can't have spacecraft coming down to feed each individual soldier a hand-delivered meal. You have to deliver mass quantities of food/ammunition/etc to a central location, and that target can be destroyed.


That would be true for Orks, but Tyranid creatures eat whatever they find. Humans, animals, trees, fungi, etc. They moment they run out of food is because the planet is a lifeless, waterless and airless rock.


And yet in 40k this rarely happens. Space marines and their drop pod assaults are portrayed as an incredibly rare exception to the general rule of fighting WWI trench warfare in space. Only the Tau and maybe the Eldar make a habit of hitting weak points and logistics, everyone else generally prefers to run screaming at the enemy with a chainsaw.

Everyone else prefers to do planet wide assaults. It is literally impossible to miss our weak spots and logistics. Our cities are mostly unprotected and completely unprepared to warfare, our industry is to spread out and impossible to defend. The reason 40k is WW1 trench warfare in space is because everyone fortificates their planets to insane degrees, every city is a potential fortress capable of enduring siege for months, there are planets were every square meter is either a trench, a fortification, a minefield or a gun emplacement.


They are, but only in a very scaled-down form, because GW doesn't understand how much damage these weapons can actually do. A Manticore on the tabletop kills maybe five models per turn, if you roll well. A Manticore's real-life equivalent kills everything on the entire 6x4 table in one salvo of rockets. Massing up millions of horde infantry just means more casualties every time the artillery fires.

The tabletop is a gross simplification to have a game. That's like saying that COD is a realistic representation of modern warfare.



Remember that Soul Drinkers book where the techmarine basically used his brain as a processor to hack into a computer and download all its information, now imagine our internet that is completely unsecured, or our TV that broadcasts on a daily basis important information coming from our various capitals, also showing where our various government buildings are, then you have movies broadcast into space showing our marital prowess at killing aliens, and each other etc. etc.

If any alien force wanted to know anything about us, all they would need to do is sit in orbit for a few HOURS and know our weaknesses, its not rocket science.

So the "how would they know" argument is pure nonsense.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 18:20:59


Post by: Vaktathi


Such an ability to just brainhack stuff does not appear to be particularly widespread, thats not something that is presented as a typical Techmarine ability, nor are the Soul Drinkers a typical chapter. There is also a huge difference between breaking one system that you already know has what you want (and im assuming have physical access to) and retrieving its information, and doing so remotely to hundreds of millions of interconnected systems, finding the ones you need (they wont be advertising themselves, youd have to do that through analysis of traffic patterns), understanding the principles they operate on and the structure they are built around, with gobs of varied security mechanics from gobs of different designers, and then actually sorting and analyzing the retrieved data.

One can look at something like Wikileaks, they get huge amounts of data all in one lump sum, but take weeks and months and years to actually piece together what they have. And thats with people who live and breathe this worlds subjective nuances, and even huge amounts of that data isnt always decipherable.

More to the point, when you look at hacking, what actually typically works? Hacking the people, not the systems. Trying to defeat the systems is, in most instances, impossible or near enough so, simply because understanding them from without is often impossible without insane resources and huge time investments. Looking at simply our product information databases here at work, assuming you could gain access and knew that the servers existed and could be found here and could differentiate them from other servers that make the business run, you wouldnt know data is or how its organized or how its interconnected and linked or how its used, making it largely useless. I could just give the raw data to 99.999% of people and they'd never figure out what any of it is or means, and thats without any additional encryption or attempts to mask the data at all.

How do large, competently secured systems get broken into? Typically by getting someone familiar with the systems to introduce something from the back end, behind security, knowingly or unknowingly (phishing, etc) and then either spending gobs of time analyzing the data or having someone who is familiar with it do so.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 18:23:59


Post by: Bharring


Most of modern crypto is based on asymetric calculations. Most crypto knows that if you vastly outscale the processing capabilities of the system, you can crack it trivially.

So if they have any goolgle-htz processors, they don't need any fancy hacking to break into stuff. They can just brute-force decrypt it.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 19:03:41


Post by: Vaktathi


Bharring wrote:
Most of modern crypto is based on asymetric calculations. Most crypto knows that if you vastly outscale the processing capabilities of the system, you can crack it trivially.
there are often safeguards against this, account lockouts (e.g. after 3 failed attempts) for example being the most trivial. One might be able to overwhelm and shut such systems down, but there are highly effective methods of preventing brute force attacks form gaining access to data.



So if they have any goolgle-htz processors, they don't need any fancy hacking to break into stuff. They can just brute-force decrypt it.
Assuming no other safeguards? Sure, but at the same time 40k is not presented as a setting where computers are often used in such a manner, the setting often deliberatley keeps them simple, and mass hacking of planetary electronic networks isnt something ever displayed by a faction in 40k really that I can recall, particularly as any sort of information acquisition technique as opposed to simply attempting to break stuff and sow confusion (e.g. scrapcode infections).


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 19:15:41


Post by: JohnHwangDD


40k doesn't even use targeting computers.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 19:44:43


Post by: Bharring


Lockouts don't work for decrypting files that have been transmitted, for example - you have no control over their attempt count. Lockouts can stop them from gaining control of systems directly, but they can't stop anything.

Also:

"Crystal Targetting Matrix".

Anything that "locks on" or tracks (SM Stalker, was it?) is a computer.

Tau drones.

40k does use computers, they just aren't used as often as a realistic situation would, and aren't as preeminent even when used.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 20:19:08


Post by: Formosa


 Vaktathi wrote:
Such an ability to just brainhack stuff does not appear to be particularly widespread, thats not something that is presented as a typical Techmarine ability, nor are the Soul Drinkers a typical chapter. There is also a huge difference between breaking one system that you already know has what you want (and im assuming have physical access to) and retrieving its information, and doing so remotely to hundreds of millions of interconnected systems, finding the ones you need (they wont be advertising themselves, youd have to do that through analysis of traffic patterns), understanding the principles they operate on and the structure they are built around, with gobs of varied security mechanics from gobs of different designers, and then actually sorting and analyzing the retrieved data.

One can look at something like Wikileaks, they get huge amounts of data all in one lump sum, but take weeks and months and years to actually piece together what they have. And thats with people who live and breathe this worlds subjective nuances, and even huge amounts of that data isnt always decipherable.

More to the point, when you look at hacking, what actually typically works? Hacking the people, not the systems. Trying to defeat the systems is, in most instances, impossible or near enough so, simply because understanding them from without is often impossible without insane resources and huge time investments. Looking at simply our product information databases here at work, assuming you could gain access and knew that the servers existed and could be found here and could differentiate them from other servers that make the business run, you wouldnt know data is or how its organized or how its interconnected and linked or how its used, making it largely useless. I could just give the raw data to 99.999% of people and they'd never figure out what any of it is or means, and thats without any additional encryption or attempts to mask the data at all.

How do large, competently secured systems get broken into? Typically by getting someone familiar with the systems to introduce something from the back end, behind security, knowingly or unknowingly (phishing, etc) and then either spending gobs of time analyzing the data or having someone who is familiar with it do so.


what makes you think its not a normal Techmarine ability, my FFG Deathwatch book seems to think it is, any Techmarine can access it, also up to that point the Soul Drinkers were basically a Codex compliant chapter, so what makes you think there techmarines have any special abilities outside the norm?

Fact is that they have been shown to have the ability to wire themselves into a system and use psudo science mumbo jumbo to hack it using there brains as a super computer, that means.... the can hack it, what they do with the info after is up for debate sure, but they can do it, that is not up for debate, you may not like it but its there, not to mention like i said before, this planet is not secure when it comes to letting others know where all our gucci stuff is, like capital buildings and govermental structure, we literally advertise it to the whole universe, one only needs to listen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
40k doesn't even use targeting computers.


Yes it does, they are shown very often in many novels, so what on earth are you talking about???

Space marine helmets have them

So do the tanks, or do you think the Machine spirit just fires blindly?

Tau

NECRONS ARE LITERALLY TARGETING COMPUTERS... haha, that actually makes me laugh.

Jesus even ORKS have been shown to have them.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Vaktathi wrote:
Bharring wrote:
Most of modern crypto is based on asymetric calculations. Most crypto knows that if you vastly outscale the processing capabilities of the system, you can crack it trivially.
there are often safeguards against this, account lockouts (e.g. after 3 failed attempts) for example being the most trivial. One might be able to overwhelm and shut such systems down, but there are highly effective methods of preventing brute force attacks form gaining access to data.



So if they have any goolgle-htz processors, they don't need any fancy hacking to break into stuff. They can just brute-force decrypt it.
Assuming no other safeguards? Sure, but at the same time 40k is not presented as a setting where computers are often used in such a manner, the setting often deliberatley keeps them simple, and mass hacking of planetary electronic networks isnt something ever displayed by a faction in 40k really that I can recall, particularly as any sort of information acquisition technique as opposed to simply attempting to break stuff and sow confusion (e.g. scrapcode infections).


Vanus Temple of the Imperial Assassins.

Vanus Temple - Almost nothing of the Vanus Temple is known beyond its name and the fact of its existence (though the High Gothic word "Vanus" means "Empty"). The Vanus Assassins are primarily used as intelligence-gatherers and in matters of grand strategy and intelligence tactics they are without peer, their political insight unparalleled by the savants of the Imperium. The Vanus Temple works to engineer their mark's doom via their consummate command of information. The Vanus Temple wages a far more complex war, taking the art of the stealth kill to the next level. Their modus operandi is to learn everything possible about not only their target but also those closest to him, then to tacitly manipulate circumstances so that their mark's death is brought about by his own folly or -- preferably -- by the hand of a once-trusted friend or comrade. It is the Vanus Temple that the Imperium employs when the revelation of a prominent figure's heresy would cause more damage than the knowledge of the resultant retribution. Many a shining saint or vaunted figurehead has met with premature martyrdom after some secret heresy has reached the ears of the Vanus. Perhaps the best summary of the Vanus Temple's philosophy was stated by Fon Tariel, an infocyte of Clade Vanus, the Vanus Temple's precursor, during the terrible civil war and intrigues of the Horus Heresy: "the cleanest kill is one that another performs in your stead with no knowledge of your incitement."

They have been known to use Nanomachines as information warfare tech, one even described hacking the elevator system to kill an target so it looked like an accident, they are pretty cool.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 21:35:06


Post by: 123ply


 Vaktathi wrote:
To put stuff in context, 40k is a Fantasy setting with a SciFi skin, when you introduce the real world, they all break down quickly.

Barring orbital bombardment, most factions would fare...poorly against modern armies. Space Marines, while powerful, and hilariously limited in number and are vulnerable to common real world weapons as shown countless times in the fluff. For all their technomagic, the Eldar have nothing like long range radsr or GPS guided artillery or BVR anti aircraft weapons. The Guard are incomprehensibly organized and a Russ Tank physically couldnr work in real life (the breech of the gun take up the entire turret, even in FW drawings, theres no room for crew or ammo), etc ad nauseum. A real world tank can roll over rough ground at highway speeds and hit another tank moving at highway speeds at night more than 90% of the time with rounds that can penetrate a meter or more of solid armor, no 40k faction boasts anything like that capability, on the table or in the fluff.

A Space Marine chapter would be quickly isolated and destroyed in detail with a maximum of a thousand warriors. Thirty Regiments of Imperial Guard would be fewer troops than were engaged in the Gulf war and with dramatically less impressive capabilities.

The real world would roll over most 40k factions extremely easily. 40k factions, at their most advanced, work like WW2 armies with SciFi paintjobs, many are far more primitive. They work in a Fantasy universe, but not when the real world is applied.


 Galas wrote:

The Lasgun a Guardsmen carries can be overcharged to destroy one of our tanks in a single shoot. The weapons in warhammer40k are so Overpowered we can't even compete with their most basic weaponry.
...wat? Since when is a Lasgun even remotely capable of such a feat...? Where is this coming from?


Just because youve never heard of it in the fluff, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. How did the eldar become an intergalactic empire without ever having any GPS equicalent either in the past or the present? RADAR wouldnt hope to detect any of their stealthcraft.

... why do you even read about Scifi or 40k with such close-mindedness?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I dont understand how this thread got so large... we dont stand any chance


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, modern day Earth would just be one of the million worlds in the Imperium. Its no different from any other planet Guard Regiments fight to squash a rebellion in every other day or a random world in the path of a hive fleet. Its seriously mind boggling to me that people think major 40k factions have no effective counter against our modern arsenal, etc


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 22:16:22


Post by: Vaktathi


Bharring wrote:
Lockouts don't work for decrypting files that have been transmitted, for example - you have no control over their attempt count.
Sure, but then you run into issues that billions of devices are transmitting, you dont know what is sending what, and even if you break any encryption, you don't necessarily have any idea of what youre actually seeing. Just because you can intercept a digital television signal for instance doesnt mean you can automatically make sense of it to display audio and video (thats why we have things like codecs), or even necessarily know that it *is* audio/visual information.



 Formosa wrote:


what makes you think its not a normal Techmarine ability
the fact that its not displayed or represented in the overwhelming majority of GW fluff or rules?

my FFG Deathwatch book seems to think it is, any Techmarine can access it,
Yeah, they also started out making basic SM bolters more powerful than vehicle mounted IG heavy bolters, and a basic Astartes character is literally 100% totally immune to most small arms without making use of horde mechanics

Which ability are we referring to specifically here? I dont have my book on me to check on stuff.

That said, in general FFG's RPG's rolls a huge number of wildly disparate things into a couple of skills that apply for everything for the sake of playability. Everything from fixing a space heater or restringing a crossbow to reengineering a voidships Gellar fields is just a "tech use" roll with a different difficulty modifier. Picking a doorlock in a hab complex and bypassing the cogitator-sentinels of a forbidden Mechanicus weapons lab are both just "security" rolls


also up to that point the Soul Drinkers were basically a Codex compliant chapter, so what makes you think there techmarines have any special abilities outside the norm?
the fact that its displayed almost nowhere else.


Fact is that they have been shown to have the ability to wire themselves into a system and use psudo science mumbo jumbo to hack it using there brains as a super computer, that means.... the can hack it, what they do with the info after is up for debate sure, but they can do it, that is not up for debate,
only if we cherry pick out of the ordinary examples that dont appear to be apparent in thousands of other situations where such could have been utilized to great effect. It does not appear to be something routinely and widely available in most instances.


you may not like it but its there, not to mention like i said before, this planet is not secure when it comes to letting others know where all our gucci stuff is, like capital buildings and govermental structure, we literally advertise it to the whole universe, one only needs to listen.
Even if we accept that, you'd need years of education and learning to decipher that information.

Thats why just to be considered a barely functioning member of society in developed nations we put even the lowest common denominators through a dozen or more years of school and training simply to exist and sustain oneself in a culture and civilization we're already immersed in 24/7. Even then, how many people are challenged by the most trivial of history, geography, politics, and science questions? What do you do when you dont know what a China is or when Microsofts are or how a Rasputin works or who Tubes your You?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
40k doesn't even use targeting computers.


Yes it does, they are shown very often in many novels, so what on earth are you talking about???

Space marine helmets have them
sort of? Rather frustratinglt these are depicted as being everything from basically just simple night vision to almost Irom Man style digital assistants and everything in between.


So do the tanks, or do you think the Machine spirit just fires blindly?
such are rare enough to be restricted to only the most valuable and rare of vehicles like Land Raiders. Firing computers of the kind seen on a modern MBT are extremely rare in 40k.



Jesus even ORKS have been shown to have them.....
not as any sort of common and widely deployed kit on things like tank guns.





Vanus Temple of the Imperial Assassins.

Vanus Temple - Almost nothing of the Vanus Temple is known beyond its name and the fact of its existence (though the High Gothic word "Vanus" means "Empty"). The Vanus Assassins are primarily used as intelligence-gatherers and in matters of grand strategy and intelligence tactics they are without peer, their political insight unparalleled by the savants of the Imperium. The Vanus Temple works to engineer their mark's doom via their consummate command of information. The Vanus Temple wages a far more complex war, taking the art of the stealth kill to the next level. Their modus operandi is to learn everything possible about not only their target but also those closest to him, then to tacitly manipulate circumstances so that their mark's death is brought about by his own folly or -- preferably -- by the hand of a once-trusted friend or comrade. It is the Vanus Temple that the Imperium employs when the revelation of a prominent figure's heresy would cause more damage than the knowledge of the resultant retribution. Many a shining saint or vaunted figurehead has met with premature martyrdom after some secret heresy has reached the ears of the Vanus. Perhaps the best summary of the Vanus Temple's philosophy was stated by Fon Tariel, an infocyte of Clade Vanus, the Vanus Temple's precursor, during the terrible civil war and intrigues of the Horus Heresy: "the cleanest kill is one that another performs in your stead with no knowledge of your incitement."

They have been known to use Nanomachines as information warfare tech, one even described hacking the elevator system to kill an target so it looked like an accident, they are pretty cool.
that sounds like something far more appropriate and applicable to these situations to be sure. That said, they appear to be mentioned only very rarely in 40k fluff, I wasnt even aware of their existence beyond a single brief mention and Ive been in this hobby for many many years and editions

123ply wrote:

Just because youve never heard of it in the fluff, doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
it doesn't mean it does either. We cant debate something if it hasnt been shown to exist in the universe. We certainly cannot assume its existence.


How did the eldar become an intergalactic empire without ever having any GPS equicalent either in the past or the present?
who knows, its part of why 40k breaks down rapidly once realism is brought in (as would be necessary in any comparison to the real world). Again, 40k is a Tolkienesque fantasy universe with a Scifi texture pack far more than it is real scifi.

RADAR wouldnt hope to detect any of their stealthcraft.
what stealthcraft are the Eldar running around in? Wave Serpents, Nightwings, Crimsom Hunters, Vampires, Falcons, etc are not stealth aircraft/vehicles.


... why do you even read about Scifi or 40k with such close-mindedness?
Because im not constantly comparing it to the real world all the time?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I dont understand how this thread got so large... we dont stand any chance
I would argue you are not paying attention to the arguments in that case


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, modern day Earth would just be one of the million worlds in the Imperium. Its no different from any other planet Guard Regiments fight to squash a rebellion in every other day or a random world in the path of a hive fleet. Its seriously mind boggling to me that people think major 40k factions have no effective counter against our modern arsenal, etc
Again, this is mostly because 40k is primarily a fantasy universe. Even the more advanced stuff like aircraft typically fights much more along the lines of WW2 era counterparts than modern day equivalents. We were also given specific forces by the OP to judge, and not broadly considering the full massed might of something like all the billions of IG regiments combined or the like.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/06 23:16:14


Post by: Formosa


 Vaktathi wrote:
Bharring wrote:
Lockouts don't work for decrypting files that have been transmitted, for example - you have no control over their attempt count.
Sure, but then you run into issues that billions of devices are transmitting, you dont know what is sending what, and even if you break any encryption, you don't necessarily have any idea of what youre actually seeing. Just because you can intercept a digital television signal for instance doesnt mean you can automatically make sense of it to display audio and video (thats why we have things like codecs), or even necessarily know that it *is* audio/visual information.



 Formosa wrote:


what makes you think its not a normal Techmarine ability
the fact that its not displayed or represented in the overwhelming majority of GW fluff or rules?

my FFG Deathwatch book seems to think it is, any Techmarine can access it,
Yeah, they also started out making basic SM bolters more powerful than vehicle mounted IG heavy bolters, and a basic Astartes character is literally 100% totally immune to most small arms without making use of horde mechanics

Which ability are we referring to specifically here? I dont have my book on me to check on stuff.

That said, in general FFG's RPG's rolls a huge number of wildly disparate things into a couple of skills that apply for everything for the sake of playability. Everything from fixing a space heater or restringing a crossbow to reengineering a voidships Gellar fields is just a "tech use" roll with a different difficulty modifier. Picking a doorlock in a hab complex and bypassing the cogitator-sentinels of a forbidden Mechanicus weapons lab are both just "security" rolls


also up to that point the Soul Drinkers were basically a Codex compliant chapter, so what makes you think there techmarines have any special abilities outside the norm?
the fact that its displayed almost nowhere else.


Fact is that they have been shown to have the ability to wire themselves into a system and use psudo science mumbo jumbo to hack it using there brains as a super computer, that means.... the can hack it, what they do with the info after is up for debate sure, but they can do it, that is not up for debate,
only if we cherry pick out of the ordinary examples that dont appear to be apparent in thousands of other situations where such could have been utilized to great effect. It does not appear to be something routinely and widely available in most instances.


you may not like it but its there, not to mention like i said before, this planet is not secure when it comes to letting others know where all our gucci stuff is, like capital buildings and govermental structure, we literally advertise it to the whole universe, one only needs to listen.
Even if we accept that, you'd need years of education and learning to decipher that information.

Thats why just to be considered a barely functioning member of society in developed nations we put even the lowest common denominators through a dozen or more years of school and training simply to exist and sustain oneself in a culture and civilization we're already immersed in 24/7. Even then, how many people are challenged by the most trivial of history, geography, politics, and science questions? What do you do when you dont know what a China is or when Microsofts are or how a Rasputin works or who Tubes your You?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
40k doesn't even use targeting computers.


Yes it does, they are shown very often in many novels, so what on earth are you talking about???

Space marine helmets have them
sort of? Rather frustratinglt these are depicted as being everything from basically just simple night vision to almost Irom Man style digital assistants and everything in between.


So do the tanks, or do you think the Machine spirit just fires blindly?
such are rare enough to be restricted to only the most valuable and rare of vehicles like Land Raiders. Firing computers of the kind seen on a modern MBT are extremely rare in 40k.



Jesus even ORKS have been shown to have them.....
not as any sort of common and widely deployed kit on things like tank guns.





Vanus Temple of the Imperial Assassins.

Vanus Temple - Almost nothing of the Vanus Temple is known beyond its name and the fact of its existence (though the High Gothic word "Vanus" means "Empty"). The Vanus Assassins are primarily used as intelligence-gatherers and in matters of grand strategy and intelligence tactics they are without peer, their political insight unparalleled by the savants of the Imperium. The Vanus Temple works to engineer their mark's doom via their consummate command of information. The Vanus Temple wages a far more complex war, taking the art of the stealth kill to the next level. Their modus operandi is to learn everything possible about not only their target but also those closest to him, then to tacitly manipulate circumstances so that their mark's death is brought about by his own folly or -- preferably -- by the hand of a once-trusted friend or comrade. It is the Vanus Temple that the Imperium employs when the revelation of a prominent figure's heresy would cause more damage than the knowledge of the resultant retribution. Many a shining saint or vaunted figurehead has met with premature martyrdom after some secret heresy has reached the ears of the Vanus. Perhaps the best summary of the Vanus Temple's philosophy was stated by Fon Tariel, an infocyte of Clade Vanus, the Vanus Temple's precursor, during the terrible civil war and intrigues of the Horus Heresy: "the cleanest kill is one that another performs in your stead with no knowledge of your incitement."

They have been known to use Nanomachines as information warfare tech, one even described hacking the elevator system to kill an target so it looked like an accident, they are pretty cool.
that sounds like something far more appropriate and applicable to these situations to be sure. That said, they appear to be mentioned only very rarely in 40k fluff, I wasnt even aware of their existence beyond a single brief mention and Ive been in this hobby for many many years and editions

123ply wrote:

Just because youve never heard of it in the fluff, doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
it doesn't mean it does either. We cant debate something if it hasnt been shown to exist in the universe. We certainly cannot assume its existence.


How did the eldar become an intergalactic empire without ever having any GPS equicalent either in the past or the present?
who knows, its part of why 40k breaks down rapidly once realism is brought in (as would be necessary in any comparison to the real world). Again, 40k is a Tolkienesque fantasy universe with a Scifi texture pack far more than it is real scifi.

RADAR wouldnt hope to detect any of their stealthcraft.
what stealthcraft are the Eldar running around in? Wave Serpents, Nightwings, Crimsom Hunters, Vampires, Falcons, etc are not stealth aircraft/vehicles.


... why do you even read about Scifi or 40k with such close-mindedness?
Because im not constantly comparing it to the real world all the time?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I dont understand how this thread got so large... we dont stand any chance
I would argue you are not paying attention to the arguments in that case


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, modern day Earth would just be one of the million worlds in the Imperium. Its no different from any other planet Guard Regiments fight to squash a rebellion in every other day or a random world in the path of a hive fleet. Its seriously mind boggling to me that people think major 40k factions have no effective counter against our modern arsenal, etc
Again, this is mostly because 40k is primarily a fantasy universe. Even the more advanced stuff like aircraft typically fights much more along the lines of WW2 era counterparts than modern day equivalents. We were also given specific forces by the OP to judge, and not broadly considering the full massed might of something like all the billions of IG regiments combined or the like.


Still not sure how you are debating the techmarine thing, they have the ability thats a fact, all that other stuff is simply a role play mechanic, the chance at hacking a door is utterly different than the chance of fix a gellar field, the "skill" and how it is used is down to the situation, not to mention the skills of saving data techmarines get etc. its all there, like it or not.

as for the soul drinkers stuff, it is displayed elsewhere, your just not aware of it, which brings us to

The Vanus temple, by your logic so far because you were not aware of it, means it doesnt exist.

My example of a land raider was just an example, every marine tank and likely imperial tank has targeting equipment, as others have told you, just because you dont hear about it, doenst mean its not there, for example did you know some chapters literally hard wire themselves into said tanks? in addition, honestly do you also think that the STC wouldnt have given them night fighting and targeting computer technology? thats quite some leap of logic. In addition, they may not be as common to the TEEMING TRILLIONS OF ORKS, but that gear outnumbers our planets population many times over.

yet another asumption you have made that doesnt gell with the 40k fluff, it would not take years to learn our systems of government, they have similar or identical ones in 40k, this planet is nothing special in that universe, and yes the Vanus temple has been mentioned rarely since 2nd but there is a book that shows a lot of what they can do, Nemesis, if you havent read it, its pretty decent, not amazing, but worth the read, anyway, its just another example of "just because its not mentioned"

Yes, yes we can assume somethings existence "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" that debate however has been going on forever, you see here is where you are breaking down, not the setting, if we bring our world into theres, then all there rules apply, no matter how much you dont like it or claim "it dont work", a marine is walking tank that DOES shrug off small arms fire like rain, but on the flip side, if we bring them into our world, then all the same real world rules also apply, thus they would have encountered the same or similar real world problems and adapted as needed, so beyond line of sight targeting etc. you need to decide which your talking about and let us know.

All Eldar vehicles are stealthcraft, several novels have small scale eldar craft having somthing similar to holo fields, this part is conjecture based on a couple of novels, but I think that Wraithbone has some sort of natural radar disruption, god knows how that works.

Also you need to drop the WW1/WW2 nonsense, just because we have seen some guard fight like this, doesnt mean they all do, Taros campaign for example had them behaving pretty much identically to a modern day force (best part of that book was the after action reports... amazing book), even had vanquishers engaging hammerheads beyond the horizan and whilst moving.... a flying tank that does 160 KPH, got to at least admit thats cool, oh and before you say "yeah but thats like that one time" STC remember, all guard tanks are built the same, then likely modified after by the crews.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 00:52:05


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Bharring wrote:
Lockouts don't work for decrypting files that have been transmitted, for example - you have no control over their attempt count. Lockouts can stop them from gaining control of systems directly, but they can't stop anything.

Also:

"Crystal Targetting Matrix".

Anything that "locks on" or tracks (SM Stalker, was it?) is a computer.

Tau drones.

40k does use computers, they just aren't used as often as a realistic situation would, and aren't as preeminent even when used.


You're aware that, to a 40k Space Marine, a $10 laser sight is a "targeting computer".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Formosa wrote:
a marine is walking tank that DOES shrug off small arms fire like rain,


A Marine is a dude in heavy, but crappy, armor who drops dead to 3 Human-fired Shotgun hits.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 01:08:40


Post by: oldravenman3025


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
40k doesn't even use targeting computers.




They do. They just use archaic sounding names for them. "Logic engine", "Augury", "Auspex", "Machine Spirit" etc. Imperial tanks, like the Baneblade, also have laser rangefinders and neural interfaces. On some machines, Servitors counts as a type of biological targeting computer (i.e. Stalker, Hunter, etc).


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 01:42:59


Post by: Formosa


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Bharring wrote:
Lockouts don't work for decrypting files that have been transmitted, for example - you have no control over their attempt count. Lockouts can stop them from gaining control of systems directly, but they can't stop anything.

Also:

"Crystal Targetting Matrix".

Anything that "locks on" or tracks (SM Stalker, was it?) is a computer.

Tau drones.

40k does use computers, they just aren't used as often as a realistic situation would, and aren't as preeminent even when used.


You're aware that, to a 40k Space Marine, a $10 laser sight is a "targeting computer".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Formosa wrote:
a marine is walking tank that DOES shrug off small arms fire like rain,


A Marine is a dude in heavy, but crappy, armor who drops dead to 3 Human-fired Shotgun hits.


Nope, fluff says he does not, very rare cases occur, for example a marine took a spear in the neck and died, by your logic all we need is spears to win!!!!

If you are talking about TT, then leave it out of this FLUFF discussion....

As for the marines helm:

Auto-senses - A Space Marine's helmet contains most of his armour's combat systems, all of which are referred to by one title -- Auto-senses.
These include thought-activated comm-augers and audio-filters, targeting reticules and range finders, tactical displays and Auspex-links, and a host of other features that further enhance the Space Marine's already superhuman senses.
Photolenses -

The photolenses are the reinforced eye guards in the helmet that protect the Space Marine from dazzling light bursts. They also allow him to see into the infrared and ultraviolet ranges, as well as enabling vision in low-light conditions.

Respirator Vox Grill - The Vox grill can amplify a Space Marine's battle cries to deafening volumes. It also contains a respirator to filter out toxins and can be shut off with a thought, drawing instead upon an internal oxygen supply.

And its armour:

MARK VII POWER ARMOUR - The Space Marine depicted to the right wears a suit of Mark VII Power Armour, sometimes called "Armorum Impetor" or "Aquila Armour", although with this particular set depicted here the Chapter Artificers have replaced the breastplate with one converted to fit from an older suit of Mark V Heresy Pattern armour, with the reintegration of the chest Aquila and the suit's power cables relocated to the interior. All of the marks of Space Marine Power Armour have many variants. Some do not contain all of the original features of that design, while others, as in this case, utilise parts recovered from older marks of armour. Power Armour is usually personalised by each Space Marine who wears it and is always revered as a sacred relic of the Chapter. Suits or parts of suits can be ancient, dating all the way back to the time of the Great Crusade or the Horus Heresy, and are often reused many times. Like all Power Armour, the suit depicted here contains an exoskeletal array of actuators and fibre bundles which replicate the muscular commands via a cybernetic neuronal interface that literally plugs into the wearer's spinal column through the Astartes gene-seed organ implant known as the Black Carapace to his central nervous system. Through this interface, the heavy armour becomes a literal part of the wearer and responds to his movements and mind-impulse controls without adding any encumbrance, despite the armour's weight when inert. Whilst appearing heavy and unwieldy, this Space Marine will experience little weight gain and retains almost his full array of unarmoured movement and agility. The muscle fibre bundles and actuators actually increase the already considerable genetically-enhanced strength of the wearer, allowing him to lift heavier loads or jump greater distances than when not wearing the suit. The outer, armoured layer of this armour consists of shaped Adamantium and Plasteel plates, encased in a Ceramite ablative layer. The armour is shaped to deflect as well as to absorb the energy of incoming blows. The shoulder plates of this suit contain small, auto-responsive plates which burst outwards in a micro-explosion to counteract the energy of an incoming attack and prevent penetration. Beneath the armoured protection lies the internal workings of the suit's life support and combat systems. The armour contains numerous life support systems. The lower back holds a liquid high-protein food store, which when combined with the Space Marine's genetically-enhanced metabolism produces no waste and keeps a Space Marine's body functioning without the need for any other nourishment. During combat, there is no need for this Astartes to stop to eat or drink as the suit provides all of his needed nutrition and hydration. The suit also has its own back-up power supply and a solar array to recharge this supply, meaning the suit can continue to operate for a short time without its backpack. The suit contains a de-tox injector with five doses and a biomedical Cogitator system that can determine when the injector's potent cocktail of stimulants and cellular regenerators is needed. These will counteract the effects of most common poisons and other toxins. The injector can also be used for stimulants and, in contravention of Codex Astartes proscriptions, some Chapters have used it to administer combat drugs. The palm of the gauntlets contain sensors to read information from the weapons held in the hands and to pass genetic identification codes to the weapons. Without the proper code, a Space Marine's Bolter or other weapon will not function. The soles of the boots are magnetic, as well as being constructed of a micropore adherent compound, meaning a Space Marine will not slip on even the slickest of surfaces or in zero-gravity. The magnetic function can be turned off or on as needed by the Astartes through his mind-impulse link with the suit.

BACKPACK - The main power source for the suit of Power Armour is located in the suit's backpack. This highly-efficient sub-atomic microfusion reactor core provides the power for all internal systems. The suit does contain a reserve power supply and a back-up micro-solar panel array in case of emergencies. The reserve power source can be recharged via the solar panel, and when fully charged should provide enough power to last for a standard month (as long as all non-vital systems are disabled) without the need for major maintenance or resupply. Thermal waste dissipators form the characteristic nozzles on either side of the backpack. This thermal waste can also be used for limited maneuvering in zero-gravity. The backpack also contains the suit's supply of oxygen and air purification system that allows the wearer to breath in toxic or vacuum environments. Combined with the Space Marine's own Multi-lung organ implant, the wearer can operate unhindered in any atmosphere, as well as underwater and in hard vacuum. Air intakes are also located on the backpack. The lower part of the backpack is the armour's temperature regulation system. In combat, with the suit functioning at maximum capacity, heat can build up quite rapidly. Settings for heat control can be adjusted depending upon the environment the suit is operating in, obviously retaining more heat in frigid conditions or the -278 degrees centigrade environment of deep space than in tropical or desert conditions. In planetary environments, the suit's internal Cogitator will always optimise conditions to match the world's mean average temperature. Within the armour, the wearer will experience only minor temperature fluctuations as the suit maintains the correct temperature to keep the Space Marine operating at peak physical efficiency in any environment.

And again its Helm

HELMET - This Space Marine's upgraded Mark VII helmet contains most of the suit's actual combat-related systems. All of these helmet Augur and Auspex sensor and diagnostic systems are referred to by a single term -- Auto-senses. Features include the primary, thought-activated, Vox-link. This Space Marine's helmet also has an additional Vox-booster and scrambler attachment, intended to block enemy attempts to intercept Imperial communications channels. The right eye also includes a range-finder, targeter and target recognition friend or foe upgrade to the helmet's basic suite of Auto-senses. Such equipment is most common in Devastator Squads, but is not limited to them. The visor displays tactical information. This includes maps of a given area, waypoint markers, a compass, as well as called-up data on the Astartes' own weapon, passed through the weapon's grip and the palm of the gauntlet. Primarily this data would include an ammunition counter display, but also gives emergency warnings about overheating and weapon jams. This helmet also incorporates visual magnification up to x4, which when combined with the wearer's Occulobe organ implant means a Space Marine can see clearly in most combat conditions. The visor also includes basic infrared scanning and night vision capabilities. Through his Auto-senses, the Space Marine can access full diagnostic information on the armour's operating status and absorb data about the external environment, such as atmospheric composition, barometric pressure, the presence of harmful chemicals and toxins, etc. Diagnostic sensors are positioned in various places on the suit to scan for such information. The helmet can also display biological information about the Space Marine himself, including heart rate (for both hearts as Astartes possess two), blood pressure, toxin levels, the workings of the Larraman's Organ or Oolitic Kidney implants, and assessments of the degree of physiological damage caused by wounds. These bio-status read-outs can also be broadcast via Vox to Space Marine command units for monitoring during battle and training. As well as containing the suit's communications array, the helmet's ear pieces screen the wearer from sonic attacks and includes amplifiers to the Space Marine's Lyman's Ear implant, giving sharper hearing and allowing the Space Marine to filter out or enhance specific sounds. The Lyman's Ear also means a Space Marine is unlikely to become dizzy or disorientated, even when hit by strong blast waves. The grill on the helmet contains a microphone, allowing the wearer to talk normally through the helmet or amplify his voice over a short distance, which is sometimes useful during the din of battle. If the external environment is conducive to human life, the grill can open to allow the wearer to breath the ambient atmosphere rather than use the air purification equipment or the suit's internal air supply. Finally, the helmet visor incorporates an auto-reactive photochromatic visor that protects the wearer from light level changes, dimming or blacking out completely should the wearer be exposed to sudden, dazzling light.

All Official publication material, so you are flat wrong in regards to a marines targeting equipment, survivability and durability,


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 02:20:19


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Formosa wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:

A Marine is a dude in heavy, but crappy, armor who drops dead to 3 Human-fired Shotgun hits.


Nope, fluff says he does not,

If you are talking about TT, then leave it out of this FLUFF discussion....


According to the Fluff, SMs can't even beat the Tau, who have no HtH capability whatsoever. And the Fists were stupid enough to die to a man in the Iron Cage. SMs are dumb as rocks and useless against fishmen who can't even use a stick.

SMs are a Worf army, and would be auto-curbstomped by Earth's current Dark Age of Technology weaponry.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 02:40:39


Post by: Infantryman


All those targeting do-dads and they still hit about as well as a Veteran Guardsman

M.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 07:17:59


Post by: JohnHwangDD


 Infantryman wrote:
All those targeting do-dads and they still hit about as well as a Veteran Guardsman

M.


That's why I say that a 40k "targeting computer" is nothing more than a laser dot.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 11:54:24


Post by: agurus1


According to the Deathwing game, you don't even need tech-marines to hack, the average Terminator can do it remotely with the tech in their armor.

Also seems like a ton of these folks talking crap about 40k tech aren't really looking at the actually fluff, more at the table top stats and extrapolating from them. I mean the deathstrike is an ICBM with a nuke attached according to the fluff but when you look at the tabletop stats they are severely underwhelming.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 12:01:21


Post by: Formosa


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:

A Marine is a dude in heavy, but crappy, armor who drops dead to 3 Human-fired Shotgun hits.


Nope, fluff says he does not,

If you are talking about TT, then leave it out of this FLUFF discussion....


According to the Fluff, SMs can't even beat the Tau, who have no HtH capability whatsoever. And the Fists were stupid enough to die to a man in the Iron Cage. SMs are dumb as rocks and useless against fishmen who can't even use a stick.

SMs are a Worf army, and would be auto-curbstomped by Earth's current Dark Age of Technology weaponry.



Can't even beat tau? I've read fluff where they spindly beat tau but are driven off, I've read fluff where they win outright, I've also read fluff where tau win, so what's your point exactly?

And the fists were not stupid enough to die in the iron cage, do you even know the fluff that you are referring to? Dorn was enraged by what happened to the emperor and peturabo baited him, so completely out of character for him (this is explicitly stated) he attacked, and of course his fists came with him, they fought in battles that would easy shred a conventional army and still came out the other end, so no they were not dumb as rocks, learn your fluff as you are just coming across as an irrational marine hater.

Earth does not have dark age tech, or are you aware of our interstellar travel, ability to create stars , sentient AI ETC.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 12:07:39


Post by: Iron_Captain


 Formosa wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:

A Marine is a dude in heavy, but crappy, armor who drops dead to 3 Human-fired Shotgun hits.


Nope, fluff says he does not,

If you are talking about TT, then leave it out of this FLUFF discussion....


According to the Fluff, SMs can't even beat the Tau, who have no HtH capability whatsoever. And the Fists were stupid enough to die to a man in the Iron Cage. SMs are dumb as rocks and useless against fishmen who can't even use a stick.

SMs are a Worf army, and would be auto-curbstomped by Earth's current Dark Age of Technology weaponry.



Can't even beat tau? I've read fluff where they spindly beat tau but are driven off, I've read fluff where they win outright, I've also read fluff where tau win, so what's your point exactly?

And the fists were not stupid enough to die in the iron cage, do you even know the fluff that you are referring to? Dorn was enraged by what happened to the emperor and peturabo baited him, so completely out of character for him (this is explicitly stated) he attacked, and of course his fists came with him, they fought in battles that would easy shred a conventional army and still came out the other end, so no they were not dumb as rocks, learn your fluff as you are just coming across as an irrational marine hater.

Earth does not have dark age tech, or are you aware of our interstellar travel, ability to create stars , sentient AI ETC.

Isn't an obvious troll obvious? But never mind me, please go on. I am really enjoying the show *eats popcorn*.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 13:14:06


Post by: Formosa


 Iron_Captain wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 Formosa wrote:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:

A Marine is a dude in heavy, but crappy, armor who drops dead to 3 Human-fired Shotgun hits.


Nope, fluff says he does not,

If you are talking about TT, then leave it out of this FLUFF discussion....


According to the Fluff, SMs can't even beat the Tau, who have no HtH capability whatsoever. And the Fists were stupid enough to die to a man in the Iron Cage. SMs are dumb as rocks and useless against fishmen who can't even use a stick.

SMs are a Worf army, and would be auto-curbstomped by Earth's current Dark Age of Technology weaponry.



Can't even beat tau? I've read fluff where they spindly beat tau but are driven off, I've read fluff where they win outright, I've also read fluff where tau win, so what's your point exactly?

And the fists were not stupid enough to die in the iron cage, do you even know the fluff that you are referring to? Dorn was enraged by what happened to the emperor and peturabo baited him, so completely out of character for him (this is explicitly stated) he attacked, and of course his fists came with him, they fought in battles that would easy shred a conventional army and still came out the other end, so no they were not dumb as rocks, learn your fluff as you are just coming across as an irrational marine hater.

Earth does not have dark age tech, or are you aware of our interstellar travel, ability to create stars , sentient AI ETC.

Isn't an obvious troll obvious? But never mind me, please go on. I am really enjoying the show *eats popcorn*.


Yep I was thinking that, but he is always like that lol, its hard to tell when he is trolling or not.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 17:14:22


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Just how serious are you expecting me to get over a fantasy game with fungus men and fishmen?

40k is one of the silliest game universes out there, and it's obvious that the Fluff is pure spin and propaganda.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 17:34:17


Post by: Ratius


Also seems like a ton of these folks talking crap about 40k tech aren't really looking at the actually fluff, more at the table top stats and extrapolating from them.


Yeah noticed that too. A good indication of 40k lethality usually lies within the old FW IA series of books. Whilst still far from a technically legitimate review of war they are streets ahead of the BL pulp and codices.
Im firmly in the Earth would be curb stomped camp by the way


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 18:47:22


Post by: Frazzled


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Just how serious are you expecting me to get over a fantasy game with fungus men and fishmen?

40k is one of the silliest game universes out there, and it's obvious that the Fluff is pure spin and propaganda.


Of course its silly. Thats the fun of it.

If it were serious the game would consist of Battle Fleet Gothic. There would be no ground game because ground forces would just be nuked from orbit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Ratius wrote:
Also seems like a ton of these folks talking crap about 40k tech aren't really looking at the actually fluff, more at the table top stats and extrapolating from them.


Yeah noticed that too. A good indication of 40k lethality usually lies within the old FW IA series of books. Whilst still far from a technically legitimate review of war they are streets ahead of the BL pulp and codices.
Im firmly in the Earth would be curb stomped camp by the way


That doesn't support your argument. The old FW manuals had Leman Russ armor in rolled steel comparables, and those comparables were equal to about a mid WWII tank. T55s and Centurions would go through them like gak through a goose.

Now there were some nice campaign books, but the real legality is fleet bombardments (pics where it changed the crust fo the planets they were hitting). Now that is cool.

Armeggedon is a high city fighting with WWII tech against orks and its one of the biggest campaigns until the 13th crusade.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 20:38:46


Post by: Ratius


I wasnt talking about the fluff re: vehicle stats and that, its been noted several times that GW built the leman russ modelled on old ww2 stuff etc.

I was more getting at the tactics that the the races use.
Most Earth defenders in this thread seem to think the Orks and Nids would simply line up in a mile long front and charge nilly willy into Earths artillary, bombs and nukes.
Its peurile nonsense =/

And as another poster pointed out, about 1% of Earths population is armed. Thats about 99% less than whatever would invade us.



Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/07 20:48:02


Post by: Frazzled


 Ratius wrote:
I wasnt talking about the fluff re: vehicle stats and that, its been noted several times that GW built the leman russ modelled on old ww2 stuff etc.

I was more getting at the tactics that the the races use.
Most Earth defenders in this thread seem to think the Orks and Nids would simply line up in a mile long front and charge nilly willy into Earths artillary, bombs and nukes.
Its peurile nonsense =/

And as another poster pointed out, about 1% of Earths population is armed. Thats about 99% less than whatever would invade us.


1. That's exactly what the orks do once they land. Again, see Armageddon. The iron Warriors use 16th century siege tactics...

2. In WW2 forces we're typically 10%or more in the military or military industries. That's 600mm.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 00:29:28


Post by: Formosa


 Frazzled wrote:
 Ratius wrote:
I wasnt talking about the fluff re: vehicle stats and that, its been noted several times that GW built the leman russ modelled on old ww2 stuff etc.

I was more getting at the tactics that the the races use.
Most Earth defenders in this thread seem to think the Orks and Nids would simply line up in a mile long front and charge nilly willy into Earths artillary, bombs and nukes.
Its peurile nonsense =/

And as another poster pointed out, about 1% of Earths population is armed. Thats about 99% less than whatever would invade us.


1. That's exactly what the orks do once they land. Again, see Armageddon. The iron Warriors use 16th century siege tactics...

2. In WW2 forces we're typically 10%or more in the military or military industries. That's 600mm.


No thats what SOME orks do, Orks do use conventional tactics in warfare like scouting and infiltration, as well as armoured assaults and the classic Zerg rush, even different clans use different tactics, they also bring there own eco system with them similar to nids, Oil squigs are a thing, as well as food stuffs and general livestock in the form of various squigs, etc.

All Orkoid races are symbiotic with species of fungus. In fact, all of them grow from the same spores - depending on conditions the same spore may grow to a mighty Warboss or a harmless fungi. In this way, Orkoids are not just a race, but a whole ecosystem in itself. When Orks invade new worlds, this ecosystem grows. It is widely known that once a world is invaded by Orks, it is never entirely free from them again. Ork spores grow in the wilderness, giving birth to a new forms of Orkoid life. Different forms of Orkoid Fungus play essential roles in Ork society. Ork Settlements are surrounded by great patches of the fungi. Cultivated by Snotlings, they are a primal source of food in Ork society.

Also Orks are extremely adaptable and will ape tactics they see, have tech knowledge on a genetic level that while seeming low tech, is on par with even Necrons in some areas, tis bonkers.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 02:03:14


Post by: Vaktathi


I apologize, I don't have enough time to properly respond to a lot of posts right now, but wanted to address this real quick.

agurus1 wrote:
According to the Deathwing game, you don't even need tech-marines to hack, the average Terminator can do it remotely with the tech in their armor.
That's rather amusing given that in literally every other version of Space Hulk, there is only one way to open a locked door...


Also seems like a ton of these folks talking crap about 40k tech aren't really looking at the actually fluff, more at the table top stats and extrapolating from them. I mean the deathstrike is an ICBM with a nuke attached according to the fluff but when you look at the tabletop stats they are severely underwhelming.
That's not correct, a Deathstrike is not firing a nuclear weapon in a 40k game. They are described as having a wide array of warheads, from anti-titan warheads, plasma warheads, and vortex missiles. I don't recall them ever having been described as having specifically nuclear warheads.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 04:20:11


Post by: Iron_Captain


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Just how serious are you expecting me to get over a fantasy game with fungus men and fishmen?

40k is one of the silliest game universes out there, and it's obvious that the Fluff is pure spin and propaganda.

Agreed, and I think GW have summed it up themselves very nicely in the Regimental Standard:
While the Sherman superficially resembles Imperial designs, it has several disadvantages compared to the Leman Russ. Sloped plating is likely to deflect small arms munitions into nearby soldiers while proving ineffective at dispersing las-fire. Attacking the enemy with a cavalry sabre from the turret hatch would be all but impossible due to its awkward position, even if the crew drove the officer very close.

How do you compare a universe where hitting people with swords from atop a tank is a viable combat tactic to the real world where we wage war by lobbing missiles at each other from beyond the horizon (not to mention the tank in question is physically impossible)? That is how silly 40k is. 40k functions by completely different rules from the real world, and comparing them is as silly as hitting someone with a sword instead of just shooting him (which isn't to say that hitting people with swords isn't way cooler than shooting them).


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 07:47:41


Post by: R0bcrt


IandI wrote:
In order to make it even remotely fair, assume the 40k faction cannot just obliterate us all from space. Their fleet assets can deliver ground troops and equipment only. The 40k faction does have access to all the inter atmosphere aircraft and vehicles a force of their size would normally have plus a few superheavies.

An ork Waaagh of 50 million orks. (They can spawn more as normal.)

One chapter of Marines.

An Eldar Craftworld. (Honestly I don't know how many Eldar warriors and vehicles a Craftworld has, but I assume it's a few hundred thousand guys and a couple hundred tanks and planes.)

30 regiments of Imperial Guard.

A splinter fleet of Tyranids numbering about 50 million creatures. (They can make more as normal.)

A Tau expansion fleet. (They are not here to negotiate, just kill)

1000 Chaos Marines. (Limited Daemonic support)

I'm going to say we survive except against Tyranids, Chaos, and maybe Tau because of air power. It doesn't seem like any of these 40k groups would have enough air assets to deal with the thousands and thousands of tactical aircraft that inhabit 2017 Earth. I think they would do solid work on the ground against infantry and tanks, but I doubt power armor and bolters would hold up long against repeated missile barrages from drones flying 30,000 feet up. Tyranids could probably just crash gargoyles into jet engines to silence the threat while happily gobbling up biomass to produce more gribblies. Chaos could subvert huge chunks of the population or riddle them with disease. Tau seem like they would be capable of blasting a lot of planes out of the sky to even up the ground war.

What's your take dakka?



I think the first thing that would have to be decided on is where to get the data to calculate 40k force strength, which is something already discussed pretty heavily here. Honestly I think it depends from person to person, as the BL and all 40k background really can have a lot of conflicting information. There are books where guard can’t touch a SM, and in others where the SM get killed pretty easily to well aimed shots or mass fire. Ultimately I don’t think we have enough hard data in that regard to make a decision. Now we could use tabletop stats since in theory they’d be reflective of relative balance. In that regard the Earth would win easily every time because conscript spam and horrendous distances their weapons can shoot XD. But really I don’t take much stock in that metric either so your mileage may vary.

Something else that can effect things are how the forces get deployed- for example do the orks deploy in a single spot initially or can they spread around, and also can we meta game since we know what the 40k forces are like. It’d be easy to nuke a single large green skin LZ day 1 if they deployed together and call it a day since it would also get rid of the spores, you’d lose a lot of land but it stops the orks from using their real advantage of their fungus. Stuff like that.

For me personally I think we’d be able to win often enough to give us a good chance, but it’d make WW I and II look like skirmishes for sure.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 16:12:48


Post by: UncleThomson


R0bcrt wrote:

I think the first thing that would have to be decided on is where to get the data to calculate 40k force strength, which is something already discussed pretty heavily here.

And will be never solved. As I stated about 1 page before, your conclusion just depends on your confirmation bias (ie. you come to the conclusion you want to, since any conclusion possible is backed by some silly stuff released by GW/Forge World)

However if you want to be remotely realistic any 40k military unit would squash the entire armed forces of the earth like a bug.

The oh so primitive and outdated Imperium can hold itself vs million year old AI super robots and a similar old race of uber psykers.





Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 18:57:26


Post by: Insectum7


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
40k doesn't even use targeting computers.


In 2nd Ed every marine with a heavy weapon had a targeter giving a +1 to hit. Same with all Terminators.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 18:59:54


Post by: R0bcrt


UncleThomson wrote:
R0bcrt wrote:

I think the first thing that would have to be decided on is where to get the data to calculate 40k force strength, which is something already discussed pretty heavily here.

And will be never solved. As I stated about 1 page before, your conclusion just depends on your confirmation bias (ie. you come to the conclusion you want to, since any conclusion possible is backed by some silly stuff released by GW/Forge World)

However if you want to be remotely realistic any 40k military unit would squash the entire armed forces of the earth like a bug.

The oh so primitive and outdated Imperium can hold itself vs million year old AI super robots and a similar old race of uber psykers.





I agree it's an impossible endeavor to have an exact idea, but I really disagree on the absolute that we'd be squashed like a bug (this assumes we are using the metric the OP uses, because if an entire faction comes then yeah probably we'd be dead). For example take the siege of Vraks, where 14 million guardsmen were lost to the 8 million population (that was everyone, and most of them probably weren't using much more than autoguns) on Vraks. The fact that the planet had 8 million yet was considered a major siege rings alarm bells in my mind. 8 million to 7 billion is a substantial jump in size, to say the least, and easily covers the gap if we do accept 40k gear is better than ours. Also remember war isn't in a vacuum in that equipment will change sides and with 7 billion people to fight against you don't need that many captured 40k guns to suddenly start a viable guerilla warfare if 40k tech truly is so far advanced of ours (which in my opinion some things are but some are decidedly not). Heck lasguns can be charged by fires so you wouldn't even have to raid their supplies continuously in the case against the imperials.

I mean the Imperium can hold their own easily, but it's not because any individual regiment is going to crush worlds or anything, it's numbers more than anything else for the IG, and with the OP scenario we as Earth have that advantage in spades. Sure they have good tech, but their understanding of it is extremely poor also, so we also stand a much better chance at adapting which shouldn't be under-estimated. Also another interesting question would the psykers be all that helpful? For all we know we are all blanks today haha. Really though psykers are a wild card, they may help alot or do nothing, there's no way to know that until it actually happens since we have no precedent for them in our universe and how they'd interact. would there even be a warp for them to use?

Now if we wanted to be realistic about it we would stomp them because most their tech is impractical at best, and impossible at worst when using our sets of physics, which they'd have to operate under if they were to invade our Earth XD.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/08 20:00:45


Post by: Formosa


See this is why I said earlier in the thread that we need to establish which universe this is in, if it's in ours then all the real world issues would apply and all the 40k armies would look slightly different, if it's the 40k universe then all there rules apply, however silly and op, and we get curb stomped.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/12 13:43:24


Post by: Mickmann


Of course earth would win. As 40k is mostly matched play, we would have the same points, thus same army strenght. So we are basically imperial guard :-)

Then we would steal the initiative, roll a few lucky die on turn1 and wreck a land raider or two (or hive tyrants or whatever). Then our opponent (the invading marines / tyranids or whatever) would just quit the game because "he can never win with that much point difference even before his first turn".

Easy as pie ;-)


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/12 19:28:37


Post by: Frazzled


Mickmann wins the thread.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/12 20:02:19


Post by: JohnHwangDD


Yeah, but what happens when the surly SM player flips the table?


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/12 21:20:34


Post by: Iron_Captain


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, but what happens when the surly SM player flips the table?

Ah, the age old tactic of mutually assured destruction. Also know as MAD.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2017/12/18 02:20:06


Post by: Hatachi


I'm going to give this a gigantic NOPE.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2018/01/03 06:26:30


Post by: Eldenfirefly


Something to add:

What would current earth's technology be considered relative to the various factions. With the baseline being imperial guard. I believe current earth's technology is at least the equivalent, if not more advanced than imperial guard technology. So, trying to conquer earth would be similar to a Siege of Vracks situation, except worse, because I see current earth's technology as being superior to imperial guard tech.

Some of the fluff we read about where a lone space marine chapter (usually chaos), can massacre billions are just fluff. But generally only possible if the level of technology is far lower.

I mean, if we are talking about earth when the natives were using mostly swords and bows, then a company of space marines who never ever get tired could spend months or years, but they would essentially be unstoppable, and they could mow down whoever they faced and depopulate earth. But if we are talking about modern twentieth century earth, with our missiles and such, then we would be considered more advanced than imperial guard. Then that would make it an almost impossible task for just one mere chapter of space marines.

During the great expansion, space marines operated in legions, not the one thousand man chapters. And they were supported by Mars, imperial guard, etc. It wasn't just one lone chapter of marines here and there. Now, the imperium is just trying to hold on to what it has and fighting fires, so having many chapters spread out all over space so that each can quickly flit over to put out a local incursion is a lot more efficient.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2018/01/03 17:33:31


Post by: Insectum7


It's hard to make a comparison because 40K tech is such a mishmash. Earth doesn't have directed energy weapons like the Imperium does, nor do we have spacecraft anything near the capability of the imperium. But the IG ground forces seem pretty crude at the same time.

Technically, the Imperium has a much higher technological level. But they use it in incredibly backwards ways most of the time.


Could 2017 Earth Survive an invasion by a 40k Faction? @ 2018/01/03 22:16:56


Post by: Earth127


Guys the answer is obvious I wouldn't survive an invasion by the regimental standard let alone a proper 40k faction.