General question: how does the worlds modern military tech/soldiers stack up against those from 40k?
Personally I think a modern us or Russian or Chinese soldier would be more than a match for any infantry the ig can bring to bear, basically the equivalent of tempestus. Though they’d start to have trouble against bigger targets (m16 being the classic autogun) they do have access to better equipment, for example both Russians and the us have stockpiles of semi and full auto rifles in full rifle calibers with ap ammunition. Probably the equivalent of hotshot lasguns. But overall better training (because hey we don’t have a tyrranid fleet over us)
In terms of main battle tank, despite the look the Abrams/leopard2/chally2 all have the same caliber of gun as the lrbt 120 smoothbore , and what’s more the vanquishers description sounds super similar to our modern version. Armor wise I don’t know much about the russ but outside of the Abrams most mbt have active protection systems designed to stop missiles
Overall I’d say we actually have better equipment and tactics than the imperium at large. Maybe even space marines. The same I think can be said for most scifi and fantasy worlds because most writers simply do not fully comprehend the full breadth of the power of modern weapons nor are they trained in tactics.
Also let’s not forget things in 40k that are near direct ports from our world
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Almost certainly a negative. You're making the mistake of thinking that a modern AP ammo is the same this as "this gun would have an AP modifier", which isn't necessarily the case. A lasgun in the game may be a pitifully weak weapon, but in real-world terms it likely is more potent than any conventional rifle existing in the world today. On top of that, the lasgun is of far tougher make (pretty much never jams, can be used as a club and still works afterwards, works after dirt and grim and mud, works in freezing cold and boiling heat), and doesn't require nearly the same amount of logistical support. The humble lasgun is, indeed, a mighty weapon. It's just that in a game of 40k, it's laughably bad, because everything else in that universe is dialled up to 11, and the had the knob ripped off because you'd need to bring it over 9000 to properly define it.
Against an average Astra Militarum force, our only advantage would be the familiarity of the terrain, allowing us to engage in guerrilla warfare, and hope to steal some of their stuff. But in a conventional battle, the Astra Militarum would mop the floor with us. Their aerial superiority would devastate the air force and navies of any nation in the world. And god help us if the Space Marines got involved. At very best, our most powerful conventional tank-based weapons would be the equivalent of 1-shot Autocannons. At worst, we might as well be grots.
Except here’s where your wrong about the lasgun, the lasgun and autogun are give precisely the same stats. The auto guy is quite literally just an assault rifle. Sure the lasgun has logistical advantages but in terms of damage gw has decreed in various rule sets they are roughly equivalent
As for our tank guns being 1 shot autocannon that’s also wrong because our autocannons are their autocannons
If I remember rightly the Imperium has autoguns which are basically our weaponry +1 and they're the low quality junk to hand out to frontiers and third wave members of the PDF which is another way of saying you give it to Tim whose job is literally to take as long as possible to die.
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gendoikari87 wrote: Except here’s where your wrong about the lasgun, the lasgun and autogun are give precisely the same stats. The auto guy is quite literally just an assault rifle. Sure the lasgun has logistical advantages but in terms of damage gw has decreed in various rule sets they are roughly equivalent
pm713 wrote: If I remember rightly the Imperium has autoguns which are basically our weaponry +1 and they're the low quality junk to hand out to frontiers and third wave members of the PDF which is another way of saying you give it to Tim whose job is literally to take as long as possible to die.
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gendoikari87 wrote: Except here’s where your wrong about the lasgun, the lasgun and autogun are give precisely the same stats. The auto guy is quite literally just an assault rifle. Sure the lasgun has logistical advantages but in terms of damage gw has decreed in various rule sets they are roughly equivalent
Game stats do not equal lore.
The only difference is autoguns use caseless ammunition. A g11 basically. Which is no more or less powerful than 5.56
Automatically Appended Next Post: And unfortunately you can’t just say “well their projectile tech is superior” because here’s a hard limit scientifically speaking with chemical projectile weapons that we hit about 30-40 years ago.
pm713 wrote: If I remember rightly the Imperium has autoguns which are basically our weaponry +1 and they're the low quality junk to hand out to frontiers and third wave members of the PDF which is another way of saying you give it to Tim whose job is literally to take as long as possible to die.
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gendoikari87 wrote: Except here’s where your wrong about the lasgun, the lasgun and autogun are give precisely the same stats. The auto guy is quite literally just an assault rifle. Sure the lasgun has logistical advantages but in terms of damage gw has decreed in various rule sets they are roughly equivalent
Game stats do not equal lore.
The only difference is autoguns use caseless ammunition. A g11 basically. Which is no more or less powerful than 5.56
Automatically Appended Next Post: And unfortunately you can’t just say “well their projectile tech is superior” because here’s a hard limit scientifically speaking with chemical projectile weapons that we hit about 30-40 years ago.
When a civilisation has technology that ignores science that argument isn't very good. The Imperiums main method of travel is making a bubble of reality around a ship and entering what is basically hell.
That "hard limit" is defined by material science. The Imperium surpassed that hard limit literal millennia ago. Sure they may understand how they surpassed it, but they have Plasteel and Ceramite, which as "magic" Steel and "magic" concrete/ceramic compared to our current material sciences. As such, it's practically impossible to say for sure what their upper limit on projectile speed and explosive force is, but we can be confident that it's "better than ours". If I was the Game Theory team, I'd try to gauge Plasteel and Ceramite's strengths versus our current building materials by looking at the 40k universe's architectural feats (which are insane from a structural engineering perspective), and plot the relative material strengths onto a graph for a rough approximation of these weapons' ability to handle the forces placed on them. If they are significantly higher than today's current materials tech, then we could safely assume that even the Autogun is a superior weapon to today's rifles. Considering there are Hive Cities built like mountains, the strengths of these materials are sufficiently "nutso" that I am 99% confident such an analysis would put an autogun's possible strength at the scientific level of "stupidly powerful".
I think the point is that due to the Imperium's massively stretched resources, a standard Guardsman is completely equivalent to a standard modern soldier. I don't see a lasgun or autogun as being any different to a high quality modern weapon.
The only issue is the massive freakin' spaceship that brought them to the planet, and the fact that the Imperium has so many men, they can subjugate entire planets.
It's all completely unrealistic of course. See how hard it is to control a small region of a planet like Iraq or Afghanistan without the native populace going to ground and dragging you out into a massive guerilla war. Trying to do this to an entire planet would be crazy.
Bolter rounds are NASTY. They are solid rocket fuel propelled, .75 caliber, delayed fuse (waits until it enters a structure or body), explosive rounds. They are solid rocket fuel propelled to make the actual projectile as big as it can be to produce the biggest bang.
I think the Impy Guard would be on a different level than a lot of our armed forces. There's a description in the BRB of the different levels of lasgun wound. The trauma they produce is massive. On a level with a hollow point 50 calibre round. And that's just the line infantry carrying around stuff like that.
The Guard are also heavily indoctrinated and possess limitless numbers. Not to mention the air support they have available. Supersonic jets that can ground attack in hover mode? We've nothing like that.
Militarily, I think most of our conventional armed forces would be mopped up, pretty easily. What's in question is whether Earth could be pacified without resorting to Exterminatus. As the British found in Ireland, the US in Vietnam, Iraq etc and the USSR found in Afghanistan, local populations don't really like to roll over and have their bellies tickled by interloping powers.
Banville wrote: I think the Impy Guard would be on a different level than a lot of our armed forces. There's a description in the BRB of the different levels of lasgun wound. The trauma they produce is massive. On a level with a hollow point 50 calibre round. And that's just the line infantry carrying around stuff like that.
The Guard are also heavily indoctrinated and possess limitless numbers. Not to mention the air support they have available. Supersonic jets that can ground attack in hover mode? We've nothing like that.
Militarily, I think most of our conventional armed forces would be mopped up, pretty easily. What's in question is whether Earth could be pacified without resorting to Exterminatus. As the British found in Ireland, the US in Vietnam, Iraq etc and the USSR found in Afghanistan, local populations don't really like to roll over and have their bellies tickled by interloping powers.
We have never faced a serious existential threat though. Even the height of WW2 and the Nazi genocides are not on the scale of “surrender or we will annihilate all life on your planet, because while we’d love to have your land we will absolutely not tolerate a world nothing owing to our rule”. I don’t think it’s too unlikely that after a sufficiently nasty stomping our world simply make rolls over and plays nice. Sure, they might need to glass a continent to prove it, but that’s SOP isn’t it?
gendoikari87 wrote: Except here’s where your wrong about the lasgun, the lasgun and autogun are give precisely the same stats. The auto guy is quite literally just an assault rifle. Sure the lasgun has logistical advantages but in terms of damage gw has decreed in various rule sets they are roughly equivalent
As for our tank guns being 1 shot autocannon that’s also wrong because our autocannons are their autocannons
The autogun is not just an assault rifle. It is an assault rifle that shoots .50 cal. Autoguns have a ridiculously large bore and fire ridiculously heavy ammunition, which is why they have that heavy weight underneath the barrel, to balance out the crazy recoil somewhat.
A soldier today could take a light machine gun and shoot at a guardsmen and I'd bet you that his 5+ save would pass. The guardsmen would point back with his lasgun and shoot the guy and it'd be over. I mean, c'mon. The guardsmen fights aliens in a world that is 38 thousand years ahead of us. We can only recall roughly 6-8 thousand years of our own history.
I'll bet you a US Marine could beat a Guardsmen in an arm wrestle, but would have an incredibly difficult time finding 21st century ammunition that could pierce that flak armor. Of course, a guardsmen can easily be shot in the face and killed, but the modern soldiers' flak jacket and other equipment would not protect him in the least for a lasgun shot.
Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Elbows wrote: Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Some guard regiments do use full body armour, I wonder if the Astra militarum still exist in 40k ?
Anyway, yep I pretty much agree with you, a DU round would likely destroy a guard tank, but in my mind it tigers vs Sherman’s, we have the tigers.
Silentz wrote: I think the point is that due to the Imperium's massively stretched resources, a standard Guardsman is completely equivalent to a standard modern soldier. I don't see a lasgun or autogun as being any different to a high quality modern weapon.
The only issue is the massive freakin' spaceship that brought them to the planet, and the fact that the Imperium has so many men, they can subjugate entire planets.
It's all completely unrealistic of course. See how hard it is to control a small region of a planet like Iraq or Afghanistan without the native populace going to ground and dragging you out into a massive guerilla war. Trying to do this to an entire planet would be crazy.
Well, I guess that explains all the atrocities the Imperium commits on a daily basis. The Imperium thinks nothing of just massacring every single person on a planet. Life is extremely cheap, they can just ship in some new colonists and that will be cheaper than spending military materiel on an occupation effort.
Elbows wrote: Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Some guard regiments do use full body armour, I wonder if the Astra militarum still exist in 40k ?
Anyway, yep I pretty much agree with you, a DU round would likely destroy a guard tank, but in my mind it tigers vs Sherman’s, we have the tigers.
I disagree, it would be more like Tigers vs T-90s. And the Imperium has the t-90s
Elbows wrote: Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Some guard regiments do use full body armour, I wonder if the Astra militarum still exist in 40k ?
Anyway, yep I pretty much agree with you, a DU round would likely destroy a guard tank, but in my mind it tigers vs Sherman’s, we have the tigers.
I disagree, it would be more like Tigers vs T-90s. And the Imperium has the t-90s
Nah, guard tanks are tough but crap when it comes to design, simply because the mook that designed it knows nothing about tanks, look at the large flat sides, low ground clearance, high profile, going off the assumption that we could pop them from range on the move, we would have the advantage.
I am also using the Taros campaign as a good signifier of how good they are in that kind of war, also Vervunhive (necropolis) show they can shoot on the move with targeting software, but the range is very limited.
When it comes to targeting equipment, we have them soundly beaten, but they have a lot more tanks.
Elbows wrote: Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Some guard regiments do use full body armour, I wonder if the Astra militarum still exist in 40k ?
Anyway, yep I pretty much agree with you, a DU round would likely destroy a guard tank, but in my mind it tigers vs Sherman’s, we have the tigers.
I disagree, it would be more like Tigers vs T-90s. And the Imperium has the t-90s
Nah, guard tanks are tough but crap when it comes to design, simply because the mook that designed it knows nothing about tanks, look at the large flat sides, low ground clearance, high profile, going off the assumption that we could pop them from range on the move, we would have the advantage.
I am also using the Taros campaign as a good signifier of how good they are in that kind of war, also Vervunhive (necropolis) show they can shoot on the move with targeting software, but the range is very limited.
When it comes to targeting equipment, we have them soundly beaten, but they have a lot more tanks.
Who cares about flat sides if your tank is made from magical space stuff? Imperial Guard tanks are made out of a material that (doesn't exist) is unknown to us, so we can't know how their tanks compare to ours.
The LRBT is a terrible combat tank, but a perfect strategic tank for the imperium. The imperium uses it because its cheap to produce, easy to repair (once you wash the blood out), and has an engine designed to run on just about anything combustible.
All of its combat weaknesses are strengths in the imperium's eyes.
1. It has a stupidly large main gun. The gun is so large the tank clearly can't store much in the way of ammo. Doesn't matter, the tank won't survive combat anyway, so less ammo is wasted when the tank is destroyed.
2. No suspension. Doesn't matter, the tank will be transported to the combat site on dropships. And then it will be destroyed.
3. Large profile. Lets the tank get off more accurate shots and provides cover for other units. Before it is destroyed.
Really its a suicide box. The imperium just doesn't give a gakk.
The argument is made messy by the fact that the Imperium visual design is inspired heavily by WW1 designs. It's not that the tanks are badly designed, its that they are designed with tank theory of WW1/2 era mixed with fantasy.
Heck the original Land Raider is very much a trench warfare designed tank with tracks that go over the top and side mounted guns.
Antiquated designs by our modern theories, but then again our modern military is based upon the idea of fewer elite units; whilst the Imperium is based on sheer weight of numbers.
Which is the other aspect. Even if you could find a way to argue modern weapons could stand a chance (light armour on at least the infantry would give us a standing chance at hurting them, it would be more if you could snipe or survive being hurt back); even if modern armies could steal weapons from falling Imperium soldiers; the weight of numbers that the Imperium of Man could bring upon one planet is insane. Forget D-Day, the kind of size of force that could be mobilized, landed and in use in a single day would be enough to overwhelm whatever heavy defence we could muster.
In short they've a technological advantage; they've a numbers advantage and they've the fact that they'd come from space so they'd have logistical advantages.
Basically the Imperium would hold practically every card.
Nuclear weapons that we have are also not a huge trump card; in fact our forces would likely have more reservations against using such weapons than the Imperium; who could repair the damage and not care about it; meanwhile we'd have a vested interest in not wanting to win by irradiating the entire planet (sure we might drive off invaders, and render the only world we can live on a wasteland).
Elbows wrote: Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Some guard regiments do use full body armour, I wonder if the Astra militarum still exist in 40k ?
Anyway, yep I pretty much agree with you, a DU round would likely destroy a guard tank, but in my mind it tigers vs Sherman’s, we have the tigers.
I disagree, it would be more like Tigers vs T-90s. And the Imperium has the t-90s
Nah, guard tanks are tough but crap when it comes to design, simply because the mook that designed it knows nothing about tanks, look at the large flat sides, low ground clearance, high profile, going off the assumption that we could pop them from range on the move, we would have the advantage.
I am also using the Taros campaign as a good signifier of how good they are in that kind of war, also Vervunhive (necropolis) show they can shoot on the move with targeting software, but the range is very limited.
When it comes to targeting equipment, we have them soundly beaten, but they have a lot more tanks.
The designs are only crap because we are basing them off our experience/technology. For all we know, heavy bolsters could smash modern MBTs
From a real life Engineering stand point coupled with being an actually infantrymen myself, I can attest that the Astra Militarum tech is pretty bad is comparison to current US Army tech.
The humble Lasgun can be defeated with smoke.
The humble Lascannon can be defeated with smoke.
The Chimera has a better chance of killing its passengers than any enemy shooting at it, due to its lack of suspension. The constant vibration and jarring impacts from even relatively moderate terrain will concuss and rupture internal organs.
The Leman Russ is a death trap. Same issues with the Chimera, only magnified by the horrible turret design of the main weapon. Just firing the Battlecannon should kill or concuss the crew.
Baneblades are too big to be effective in modern warfare. They are huge targets that can’t cross a river or a bridge or even drive on a road. They can’t even enter an urban area without worrying about falling through the surface into a basement, sub level, or sinkhole.
40k fighter craft are not even remotely aerodynamic, and should be out maneuvered and out gunned by 3rd gen fighters, let alone 4th gen.
Now let’s look at our tech:
The humble assault rifle doesn’t give an F about smoke. And modern Infantry are trained to advanced under supporting in skirmish level combat rather than trench warfare as seen in 40k. Modern Infantry are also trained to dig in with hasty fighting positions, ready foxholes, and given a little time even sandbag bunkers. And every modern Infantryman can throw a grenade.
Modern tanks have a bevy of defensive measures ranging from rolled homogeneous armor, spaced armor, reactive armor, appliqué armor, composite, metal foam, and even automated defensive platforms. They also have suspension, properly design fighting compartments, Nuclear-Biological-Chemical protection systems, electromagnetic plus protection, and most likely importantly, ballistic targeting computers.
And as such, anti-tank weaponry exists to punch out almost every form of defense, including High Explosive Squash Head rounds that defeat armor via plasma, which is countered by explosively reactive armor. Which means plasma weapons aren’t very effective against most modern main battle tanks.
And we have wet navies with extremely long range missile systems, cannons, aircraft, and nukes.
The only things the Imperium have over our modern military is the high ground (space), and stupidly overpowered transhuman Marines. Thankfully, a shoulder launched anti-tank rocket will F up an Astartes.
jeffersonian000 wrote: From a real life Engineering stand point coupled with being an actually infantrymen myself, I can attest that the Astra Militarum tech is pretty bad is comparison to current US Army tech.
The humble Lasgun can be defeated with smoke.
The humble Lascannon can be defeated with smoke.
The Chimera has a better chance of killing its passengers than any enemy shooting at it, due to its lack of suspension. The constant vibration and jarring impacts from even relatively moderate terrain will concuss and rupture internal organs.
The Leman Russ is a death trap. Same issues with the Chimera, only magnified by the horrible turret design of the main weapon. Just firing the Battlecannon should kill or concuss the crew.
Baneblades are too big to be effective in modern warfare. They are huge targets that can’t cross a river or a bridge or even drive on a road. They can’t even enter an urban area without worrying about falling through the surface into a basement, sub level, or sinkhole.
40k fighter craft are not even remotely aerodynamic, and should be out maneuvered and out gunned by 3rd gen fighters, let alone 4th gen.
Now let’s look at our tech:
The humble assault rifle doesn’t give an F about smoke. And modern Infantry are trained to advanced under supporting in skirmish level combat rather than trench warfare as seen in 40k. Modern Infantry are also trained to dig in with hasty fighting positions, ready foxholes, and given a little time even sandbag bunkers. And every modern Infantryman can throw a grenade.
Modern tanks have a bevy of defensive measures ranging from rolled homogeneous armor, spaced armor, reactive armor, appliqué armor, composite, metal foam, and even automated defensive platforms. They also have suspension, properly design fighting compartments, Nuclear-Biological-Chemical protection systems, electromagnetic plus protection, and most likely importantly, ballistic targeting computers.
And as such, anti-tank weaponry exists to punch out almost every form of defense, including High Explosive Squash Head rounds that defeat armor via plasma, which is countered by explosively reactive armor. Which means plasma weapons aren’t very effective against most modern main battle tanks.
And we have wet navies with extremely long range missile systems, cannons, aircraft, and nukes.
The only things the Imperium have over our modern military is the high ground (space), and stupidly overpowered transhuman Marines. Thankfully, a shoulder launched anti-tank rocket will F up an Astartes.
SJ
There you go, trying the use our worlds physics.
You'll have to show me some sources in the fluff of smoke stopping a lascannon. Our worlds physics is not the same as 40k. If the LRBT and Lasgun were good enough to combat multiple alien empires and all sorts of different tec, then sure it will be good enough to utterly crush Modern earth.
The Imperium has giant robots that can stand on our tanks. Looking at lower end Imperium tech vs our high end stuff is reasonable comparison. Our high end vs. theirs? No contest. Titans with shields that can absorb punishment that's hard to imagine outside of nuclear weaponry. Drop pods that can be deployed into anywhere with a line of sight from above that open and have a stack of guns inside or superhuman killing machines. Aircraft that can come in from space and fly comfortably above our modern fighter jets. The list goes on.
40k is Fantasy in space with a scifi skin. The real world is, practically speaking, light years beyond 40k, and, barring orbital bombardment by ships that have no right to function, would obliterate most 40k forces with ease, including Space Marines.
Stuff like smartphones, the internet, radar guided counterbattry artillery fire, GPS guided munitions, in depth SAM air defenses, BVR engagement, etc are all common standard things in the modern world that have few or no 40k equivalents, especially beyond rare relics. Most 40k stuff, even highly advanced Eldar war machines and Necron technosorcery, basically operates around a 20th century paradigm of warfare. Most 40k vehicles couldnt work in real life even if they wanted to, you get stuff like Russ tanks that dont have enough room for a crew and a gun breach that blocks the one hatch, Land Raiders that would get stuck on a grocery store parking lot speed bump, and Space Marines that never carry more than one magazine of ammunition
Even aircraft and space fighters, most wouldnt fly, of those that do, they rely on a WW2 combat paradigm of dogfighting with direct fire, fixed forward mounted guns.
40k doesnt make sense when you try to compare it to the real world, it all falls apart very quickly.
There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.
Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.
Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.
Blacksails wrote: The Imperial Navy is busy laughing in high orbit at the ground pounders squabbling.
imperial navy is banned from all vs discussions because imperial navy always wins. Period.
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jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.
Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.
Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.
SJ
hi actual physicist here. Smoke won’t block a laser as powerful as a lasgun, but they will greatly reduce range. All lasers have a scattering effect they are neve exactly parallel beams. Air quality amplifies this. How much of an effect this would have? Fiik
They aren't using New Millennium lasers they are using 70-80s pew-pew lasers! In fact whilst they might be called and based on some of the same principles as what we might consider a laser to be, they could be some totally new area of physics that we've yet to discover.
All this talk of smoke has me thinking: Is there any lore that actually has lasers interacting with smoke in 40k?
Although in general terms I think modern Earth would be pretty much guaranteed to lose against everyone except Guard and maybe Tau. The rest have space magics or other things that push them over the edge.
pm713 wrote: All this talk of smoke has me thinking: Is there any lore that actually has lasers interacting with smoke in 40k?
Tyranid Invasions are said to come with a thick smog as the Tyranids pump spores and microbes into the atmosphere to convert it into a hostile wasteland. So chances are any major Tyranid invasion would have a thick smog element by default.
pm713 wrote: Well Lasguns work on Tyranids so they seem to work in smog and such.
Eh...Russ tanks appear to work too, despite there being no room in the turret for a crew and no way to actually access the top hatch as the gun breech is in the way (even in cutaway illustrations). Doesnt mean they would in real life though
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”
The Imperium has a gun that shoots a beam of energy at lightspeed, used to create artificial black holes at arbitrary points in space. The singularities themselves create a vast void-spanning shockwave that pushes anything stuck a moment backwards in time such that it spontaneously explodes due to its own paradoxical nature.
It was used to shoot at space elves who might have avoided a lesser weapon on account of having seen the future and chosen to be where it isn't going to have had been.
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”
The Imperium has a gun that shoots a beam of energy at lightspeed, used to create artificial black holes at arbitrary points in space. The singularities themselves create a vast void-spanning shockwave that pushes anything stuck a moment backwards in time such that it spontaneously explodes due to its own paradoxical nature.
It was used to shoot at space elves who might have avoided a lesser weapon on account of having seen the future and chosen to be where it isn't going to have had been.
And even when they could manufacture weapons like that humanity wasn't even a threat to the space elf empire. Physics isn't just gone in 40k. It ran in terror from the handwavium.
pm713 wrote: All this talk of smoke has me thinking: Is there any lore that actually has lasers interacting with smoke in 40k?
Although in general terms I think modern Earth would be pretty much guaranteed to lose against everyone except Guard and maybe Tau. The rest have space magics or other things that push them over the edge.
Off the top of my head the only reference to lasweapons being notably affected by things that would impact lasers is an ancient White Dwarf article with some bizarre hostile-environment rules (smoke/debris impeding lasweapons and crystal formations that could be used to scatter lasfire and hit more things).
The problem I have with this whole discussion is that a man-to-man or unit-to-unit comparison puts both the real-world military and a 40k military in an out-of-context situation they're not really prepared for. Real-world armour is optimized to deal with real-world projectile weapons; it's hard to say, energy weapons being mostly theoretical, but I suspect armour designed to defeat plasma weapons or high-energy lasers doesn't work exactly the same way. Similarly the Imperium's entire methodology for fighting wars is built around leveraging immense logistical superiority; we today would regard their tactical decisions as an immense waste of material, but they can loose a million men and regard it as little more than a rounding error, and "wasting material" tends to be an effective use of the tools they've got.
If you teleported a random division of modern soldiers from a nation packing reasonably modern weaponry and a random division-level Guard formation into a neutral alternate dimension and told them to slug it out without any kind of preparation you'd get an asymmetrical fight where the Guard have a massive advantage in weaponry but the real-world troops are vastly more tactically competent and better at using their resources efficiently. I don't know who would win but I don't think arguing about whose rifles/body armour is cooler gets you more than a tiny fraction of an answer. That said the modern troops are definitely going to have a better shot at fighting Guard rather than someone bigger/scarier/faster/sneakier; I'd expect modern-day troops fighting Space Marines to look more like that one Stargate episode where the SGC tries to take on one of Anubis' Kull than anything else.
(Though if you want to argue about the rifles more I will point out that modern-day infantry squads tend to carry a light machine gun firing the same calibre ammunition as the rifles faster/from a larger magazine to provide better suppressive fire (e.g. Russian RPK, American M249) whereas in the 41st Millennium this isn't the case, so we may at least be able to conclude that a lasgun is a better full-auto suppressive fire tool than an M16 or an AK. Though funnily enough according to the sources I've found the actual amount of ammunition carried isn't that different (both ~210-240 rounds), even if according to Dark Heresy a lasgun/ammo is quite a lot lighter.)
Elbows wrote: Even with the fluff and lore, it's pretty likely that the IG would be on par with a modern military. They don't wear full composite suits of armour and thus their soft fleshy human bodies would be just as vulnerable to small arms fire, explosions, fragmentation, etc. While they may have "magic" plasteel, etc...it's a bit at odds with how they describe their weaponry (much of which is described in pretty normal human/terran terms). It's very likely that a modern anti-tank weapon would be effective against a Leman Russ etc. There's nothing in the fluff which would make me think a modern MBT sabot round would fail to damage a Chimera or a Russ, etc.
Now, comparing it to fancy Eldar stuff or Space Marines would be much more difficult. We could wreck some Ork stuff without issue, but their sheer numbers would be impossible to defeat.
Some guard regiments do use full body armour, I wonder if the Astra militarum still exist in 40k ?
Anyway, yep I pretty much agree with you, a DU round would likely destroy a guard tank, but in my mind it tigers vs Sherman’s, we have the tigers.
I disagree, it would be more like Tigers vs T-90s. And the Imperium has the t-90s
Nah, guard tanks are tough but crap when it comes to design, simply because the mook that designed it knows nothing about tanks, look at the large flat sides, low ground clearance, high profile, going off the assumption that we could pop them from range on the move, we would have the advantage.
I am also using the Taros campaign as a good signifier of how good they are in that kind of war, also Vervunhive (necropolis) show they can shoot on the move with targeting software, but the range is very limited.
When it comes to targeting equipment, we have them soundly beaten, but they have a lot more tanks.
The designs are only crap because we are basing them off our experience/technology. For all we know, heavy bolsters could smash modern MBTs
Sorry dude were this in the fluff forum I would agree with you, I would only use fluff logic and reasoning, this is in Gen discussion, so its open night on how we see these designs.
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”
The Imperium has a gun that shoots a beam of energy at lightspeed, used to create artificial black holes at arbitrary points in space. The singularities themselves create a vast void-spanning shockwave that pushes anything stuck a moment backwards in time such that it spontaneously explodes due to its own paradoxical nature.
It was used to shoot at space elves who might have avoided a lesser weapon on account of having seen the future and chosen to be where it isn't going to have had been.
Is that the one on the Ark Mechanicum starship? sure I read that in a book recently ?
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.
Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.
Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.
SJ
hi actual physicist here. Smoke won’t block a laser as powerful as a lasgun, but they will greatly reduce range. All lasers have a scattering effect they are neve exactly parallel beams. Air quality amplifies this. How much of an effect this would have? Fiik
Heavy carbon smoke is opaque to infrared, and therefore blocks IR range lasers.
Aluminum based aerosols are opaque to microwave range lasers. And are cancerous.
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.
Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.
Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.
SJ
hi actual physicist here. Smoke won’t block a laser as powerful as a lasgun, but they will greatly reduce range. All lasers have a scattering effect they are neve exactly parallel beams. Air quality amplifies this. How much of an effect this would have? Fiik
Heavy carbon smoke is opaque to infrared, and therefore blocks IR range lasers.
Aluminum based aerosols are opaque to microwave range lasers. And are cancerous.
What branch of physics do you study?
SJ
Opaqueness doesn’t apply the same at these energy levels.....
My specialty is thermodynamics dealing with firearms.
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?
For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?
When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.
From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .
I'm not confident that modern earth would ever get a chance to shoot a gun at a Guardsman. We don't have orbital defenses, or planetary shields. We would just get lanced from space until we gave up.
rhinoceraids wrote: Their tanks dont really have active counter measures. No talk about EW and jamming capabilities. No drones for recce.
Thats a popular misconception, the guard and space marines use drones, little flying servitors to be precise, they drop thousands on a planet for recce purposes, but being the imperium not everyone does this all the time.
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.
Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.
Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.
SJ
hi actual physicist here. Smoke won’t block a laser as powerful as a lasgun, but they will greatly reduce range. All lasers have a scattering effect they are neve exactly parallel beams. Air quality amplifies this. How much of an effect this would have? Fiik
Heavy carbon smoke is opaque to infrared, and therefore blocks IR range lasers.
Aluminum based aerosols are opaque to microwave range lasers. And are cancerous.
What branch of physics do you study?
SJ
Opaqueness doesn’t apply the same at these energy levels.....
My specialty is thermodynamics dealing with firearms.
The Leman Russ would crap it's pants when faced by modern MBTs. The low profile and agile Russian tanks would literally run circles around the Imperiums armored vehicles.
Yes, if a Leman Russ actually hit a T-90 or Abrams, they would likely be destroyed. But honeslty I put money on American and Russian tanks getting first hit.
The Leman Russ is a terrible tank as has already been mentioned. And the Imperium is still limited by simple economics. The Leman Russ has to be affordable. It isn't made out of stardust. A 120/125mm APFSDS DU round is going to at minimum disable it. And then the Abrams or T-90 is going to out maneuver it until it's dead.
People seem to be forgetting how backwards the Imperium is. IG soldiers are most likely less capable than modern soldiers of first world armies today. The Lasgun however is something else. But again, better technology means nothing in the hands of poorly trained troops.
True IG veterans would be formidable though. But again at the attrition of the guard, I would put money on America's troops to be consistently better trained.
Airpower, yeah thats a tough one. But the Imperium has zero stealth tech and most leading Air Forces are starting to field some level of stealth in their mainline fighters. But, we rely on missles. No lascannons for us (yet).
I think if you take out certain things (Imperial Navy, Space Marines, vortex missles) it would be a very interesting fight between modern earth and the IG. Obviously the IG would ultimately win on numbers alone, but if you capped each side, out would be interesting.
they mention that sloped armor is less effective s laser fire, which does raise an intreasting point, we talk about sloped armor like the be all end all but maybe it's less effective vs some 40k weapons? *shrugs*
SickSix wrote: The Leman Russ has to be affordable. It isn't made out of stardust.
Well you say that, but the armour is expected to give at least some limited protection against weapons described as turning bunkers into puddles.
And also you have this for the slightly bigger tanks:
Suddenly I had a sense of something badly wrong. Glancing around I could see one of those massive guns was pointing directly at us. I felt the urge to slam the treads of the Indomitable into reverse. It was too late. Time seemed to slow as it sometimes does in moments of maximum danger. I swear I saw the distant muzzle of that enormous gun flash and something huge blur towards us. A moment later the Baneblade rocked under a massive impact. Somebody somewhere in the cockpit screamed. ...‘Move us back a couple of hundred metres, Lemuel,’ the lieutenant ordered. ‘Straight back, front facing the enemy at all times.’ As if he had to tell me that. It seemed that even the lieutenant preferred not to have a repeat of another direct hit. A few seconds later another shell landed where we had been. It blasted a crater a hundred metres wide in the earth but we were not there to enjoy it. ... As we moved the gunner got the distance once again. Another mighty blow smashed into us. Such was its force that the front of the Indomitable rose into the air a metre or so and then fell back to earth. - "Angel of Fire"
they mention that sloped armor is less effective s laser fire, which does raise an intreasting point, we talk about sloped armor like the be all end all but maybe it's less effective vs some 40k weapons? *shrugs*
well, against something like a laser against nonreflective armor, I imagine deflection would not factor in the way it does with a kinetic projectile (I believe, anyone with a greater background in physics feel free to correct me), but the armor thickness change that angling brings would still come into play. If the laser intends to kill by heating the target instead of punching through the armor, I could see a case for sloped armor not offering anything, but I'm not really aware of any 40k weapons like that.
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?
For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?
When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.
From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .
Your strength argument makes no sense. A guardsmen with a lasgun club is strength 3. You're saying they can club harder than a modern assault rifle can shoot a bullet?
SickSix wrote: The Leman Russ would crap it's pants when faced by modern MBTs. The low profile and agile Russian tanks would literally run circles around the Imperiums armored vehicles.
Yes, if a Leman Russ actually hit a T-90 or Abrams, they would likely be destroyed. But honeslty I put money on American and Russian tanks getting first hit.
The Leman Russ is a terrible tank as has already been mentioned. And the Imperium is still limited by simple economics. The Leman Russ has to be affordable. It isn't made out of stardust. A 120/125mm APFSDS DU round is going to at minimum disable it. And then the Abrams or T-90 is going to out maneuver it until it's dead.
People seem to be forgetting how backwards the Imperium is. IG soldiers are most likely less capable than modern soldiers of first world armies today. The Lasgun however is something else. But again, better technology means nothing in the hands of poorly trained troops.
True IG veterans would be formidable though. But again at the attrition of the guard, I would put money on America's troops to be consistently better trained.
Airpower, yeah thats a tough one. But the Imperium has zero stealth tech and most leading Air Forces are starting to field some level of stealth in their mainline fighters. But, we rely on missles. No lascannons for us (yet).
I think if you take out certain things (Imperial Navy, Space Marines, vortex missles) it would be a very interesting fight between modern earth and the IG. Obviously the IG would ultimately win on numbers alone, but if you capped each side, out would be interesting.
Guard are actually well trained aren't they? They come from the best of PDF regiments which are probably equal to things like the US army seeing as they have to defend a whole planet.
they mention that sloped armor is less effective s laser fire, which does raise an intreasting point, we talk about sloped armor like the be all end all but maybe it's less effective vs some 40k weapons? *shrugs*
Why would anyone even reference that piece? It's obviously tongue in cheek propaganda. It literally had zero credibility in this discussion.
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?
For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?
When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.
From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .
I'm not sure where these stats are coming from. The game has modern firearms in it, Autoguns and pistols, and theyre S3. Heavy Stubbers have been described as being 8mm and 12mm machineguns, theyre S4 and we absolutely have those. We have 40mm grenade launchers that act and look very much like Heavy Bolters that fit in at S5. Most stuff in the 40k universe isnt using Adamantoum or wondermaterials, Ork armor and Guard autocannons are made from relatively mundane materials. Most RL weapons should transfer relatively straight into 40k, we have modern equivalents for many, from what technical details we have modern weapons are equally good or wayyyyyyy better than their 40k counterparts.
Other things that are direct ports: shotguns, grenade launchers, fists. To say that a lasgun is the equivalent of a .50 is ludicrous in the extreme. I don’t care if it’s cannon, cannon says warhounds and reavers have people in their legs to prevent boarding actions. Their legs aren’t even wide enough to fit a person in. So fluff has to go out the window as mistranslation. You can only call mpare the stuff ported directly such as heavy stubbers ,missile launchers, shotguns, auto cannons, ect
The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?
Vaktathi wrote: The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?
The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.
age of sail with multi Km long vessels being called frigates
the Imperium if they had a "need" to launch a raid, e.g. to capture something would use teleport technology to land, grab and leave before we could react.
anything other than that and they would obliterate us from orbit
we would quite literally never see the faces of those who annihilated us.
some of our equipment, and likely tactics, would out match them (thinking tactical air power for one), as a result no Imperial commander would even engage, they would simply stand beyond range of our weapons and use theirs to better effect.
e.g. we have some super secret lab with some super secret bit of kit they want, in go a group of Terminators via teleport to secure the area before we can react, secure what needs securing then teleport the lot out.
Its more likely they would simply destroy any orbital equipment we have and just monitor from orbit, issue demands to surrender and then subjugate if they wanted the manpower, if it looked too much trouble they would use a firestorm to wipe us out then re-populate.
Terminators get rolled irl by usmc as badly as terminators get rolled table top just sayin. Hard armor does not protect against concussive blast pressure. And I don’t want to know what effects hesh would have on terminators as I’m currently eating
leopard wrote: We would get rolled, almost without a doubt.
the Imperium if they had a "need" to launch a raid, e.g. to capture something would use teleport technology to land, grab and leave before we could react.
anything other than that and they would obliterate us from orbit
we would quite literally never see the faces of those who annihilated us.
some of our equipment, and likely tactics, would out match them (thinking tactical air power for one), as a result no Imperial commander would even engage, they would simply stand beyond range of our weapons and use theirs to better effect.
e.g. we have some super secret lab with some super secret bit of kit they want, in go a group of Terminators via teleport to secure the area before we can react, secure what needs securing then teleport the lot out.
And how do the Terminators know this lab exists, where it is, what the defenses are, what the internal layout is, or if they'll even fit through the hallways?
This are the sort of real world issues 40k fluff handwaves away that would not work in the real world
Its more likely they would simply destroy any orbital equipment we have and just monitor from orbit, issue demands to surrender and then subjugate if they wanted the manpower, if it looked too much trouble they would use a firestorm to wipe us out then re-populate.
With functional spaceships, sure, but once that 40k vessel has to deal with reality and things like actual physics they stop working rapidly.
That said, basically *any* vesssel capable of manned interstellar flight could do this. The power requirements for even a very primitive vessel mean such a ship could be covered in nuclear bomb machineguns as secondary weapons systems.
However, in 40k, such tactics are almost never used, ground forces are almost always deployed, with large scale orbital bombardment usually reserved for withdrawal actions. Hell, with ships that big you wouldnt even need bombardment, just drop the ship on the planet
Vaktathi wrote: The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?
The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.
age of sail with multi Km long vessels being called frigates
Yeah, I mean it makes for cool visuals and an amazing universe, it just doesnt translate to the real world well
gendoikari87 wrote: Other things that are direct ports: shotguns, grenade launchers, fists. To say that a lasgun is the equivalent of a .50 is ludicrous in the extreme. I don’t care if it’s cannon, cannon says warhounds and reavers have people in their legs to prevent boarding actions. Their legs aren’t even wide enough to fit a person in. So fluff has to go out the window as mistranslation. You can only call mpare the stuff ported directly such as heavy stubbers ,missile launchers, shotguns, auto cannons, ect
Model =/= Fluff
Never seen that a warhound has people in the legs though, thats warlords and Emperor class, not seen it for Reavers either
And given that a Lasguns power is dependent on ... power mode, it can be anything from a light caress to blowing limbs off at 400m and even pentrating power armour (something our STANDARD rounds cannot do).
Somehow it always amuses me how people in these discussions take little pieces from here and there and compare those while disregarding the grander schemes. For an example, how can anyone say "modern soldiers have better tactics and so and so" with a straight face when we know for a fact from the canon that the imperial armies have many, many times triumphed over all sorts of civilizations in their own style? Certainly they have tactics that allow them to at least often enough triumph over all sorts of adversaries both more advanced and more barbaric than ourselves that the Imperium can carry on. Some use them well, some are bad at them, just like in our age, but they are situational and context dependant.
The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians: "this is what happened, this is an account of how it probably went". Just like the codexes are written as faction propaganda, should any other GW fiction be taken with a dosage of understanding towards the fact that the described personae are doing their personal best which the writer might not be able to express in the most convincing manner for a militarily acute reader. The imperial forces wage war much more regularly than any of ours and have a different mind set towards war in many cases, which allows them more easily to use human waves and other tactics modern armed forces consider obsolete. This however does not mean they are less effective: for the imperial war machine, it matters not if the enemy can win local firefights or suffer less casualties per engagement if they will eventually succumb under the relentless slaughter visited upon their world and population. Look at something like Siege of Vraks, surely it could have been done a lot neater but in the end it was won by smothering the place with enough willing bodies.
Our little world has barely started the age of massively mobilized warfare, which hopefully doesn't ever escalate towards the militant hell the Imperium of Man is. We know a lot about warfare and how to apply that effectively, as is evident in many special ops around the globe. That is however peanuts compared to Hammer of the Emperor, should it decide to come crashing down on us and drown us in our own blood and melting cities for resisting too much. They don't have to do it elegantly or as scientifically as we've done for centuries, as long as they do it effectively enough that it won't matter. To begin with, our world would most likely anyway surrender after they'd bomb few larger cities and military bases to dust from orbit as an opening missive from their diplomats. The Imperium isn't entirely stupid and tends to do intel gathering and stuff just as we would when they can (check Gaunt's Ghosts series for an example), which mind you is bloody well easier against our relatively low-tech and likemindedly human world. If they can get intel against teleporting space magic elves who eat dark matter for breakfast, surely they'll get some from us even if the GW writer isn't adequately familiar with the ways of war to describe how.
To reiterate: the Imperium of Man is in constant war. It also wins wars here and there. It conquers planets as business as usual. Ours is not a relatively hard nut to crack. They have tactics that allow them to win elsewhere, they may very well carry them here as well even if it results in losses we consider horrifying but barely register for the imperial expedition. Do not be deceived by GW's writers tendency to favour sillier action stories over the faceless machine's ability to grind on and manage.
If the Emperor wills it, nothing we can do will stop it.
The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians
Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.
The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians
Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.
That is of course correct, but if this question is to have any meaning one must look more at the implications of the setting as intended rather than sometimes inept handwavy technical details that are indeed produced by fiction writers for want of cool stuff. While those of us who care about tanks actually working might cringe a bit when this topic comes up, the relevant part is thinking about it in the inverse way.
1. Okay, so we have a situation where the Imperium clashes with our modern military forces.
2. The Imperium is a galactic super power. Their stuff must work.
3. We know from the canon what sorts of things they can do, so there must be some engineering that makes it so, even if it is exotic or unknown to us. Or written poorly. Let's not fixate on that.
4. Said engineering and tactics used make for interesting what-if-scenarios, but in the end our logistics simply cannot handle anything like a full-blown Imperial attack.
5. We're boned. We should have fixated on their stuff not working to stay alive.
The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians
Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.
That is of course correct, but if this question is to have any meaning one must look more at the implications of the setting as intended rather than sometimes inept handwavy technical details that are indeed produced by fiction writers for want of cool stuff. While those of us who care about tanks actually working might cringe a bit when this topic comes up, the relevant part is thinking about it in the inverse way.
1. Okay, so we have a situation where the Imperium clashes with our modern military forces.
2. The Imperium is a galactic super power. Their stuff must work.
3. We know from the canon what sorts of things they can do, so there must be some engineering that makes it so, even if it is exotic or unknown to us. Or written poorly. Let's not fixate on that.
4. Said engineering and tactics used make for interesting what-if-scenarios, but in the end our logistics simply cannot handle anything like a full-blown Imperial attack.
5. We're boned. We should have fixated on their stuff not working to stay alive.
I dont think anyone would doubt that the full force of the Imperium would utterly obliterate Earth in the blink of an eye if all their stuff worked as as portrayed. Same for the Eldar or Tyranids or Orks or Necrons.
The problem is that fundamentally most of it either doesnt work or is fundamentally just really reskinned old tech that modern stuff is light years beyond. This makes comparing it to the real world, which must labor under the laws of reality, difficult, as one paradigm must fundamentally collapse for the other to exist.
leopard wrote: We would get rolled, almost without a doubt.
the Imperium if they had a "need" to launch a raid, e.g. to capture something would use teleport technology to land, grab and leave before we could react.
anything other than that and they would obliterate us from orbit
we would quite literally never see the faces of those who annihilated us.
some of our equipment, and likely tactics, would out match them (thinking tactical air power for one), as a result no Imperial commander would even engage, they would simply stand beyond range of our weapons and use theirs to better effect.
e.g. we have some super secret lab with some super secret bit of kit they want, in go a group of Terminators via teleport to secure the area before we can react, secure what needs securing then teleport the lot out.
And how do the Terminators know this lab exists, where it is, what the defenses are, what the internal layout is, or if they'll even fit through the hallways?
This are the sort of real world issues 40k fluff handwaves away that would not work in the real world
Well if they don't know the lab exists you are back to they have no reason to come down at all, hence orbital bombardment.
would they fit in the corridors? who knows, but most labs I've seen have decent sized hallways as they have to have equipment moved through them.
We will ignore the way the marine needs his spine broken to get in the armour.
Its more likely they would simply destroy any orbital equipment we have and just monitor from orbit, issue demands to surrender and then subjugate if they wanted the manpower, if it looked too much trouble they would use a firestorm to wipe us out then re-populate.
With functional spaceships, sure, but once that 40k vessel has to deal with reality and things like actual physics they stop working rapidly.
Well yes you can start to say that if you take 40k, drop it lock stock into the real world that none of it works so of course we win!, however what you are then doing is comparing 40k, with all the bits that make it 40k removed. You either assume the tech they have "works" or you may as well not bother.
Any race or faction able to visit us now after crossing interstellar distances is likely to be able to squish us like bugs, there is a decent chance we wouldn't even see them coming.
That said, basically *any* vesssel capable of manned interstellar flight could do this. The power requirements for even a very primitive vessel mean such a ship could be covered in nuclear bomb machineguns as secondary weapons systems.
However, in 40k, such tactics are almost never used, ground forces are almost always deployed, with large scale orbital bombardment usually reserved for withdrawal actions. Hell, with ships that big you wouldnt even need bombardment, just drop the ship on the planet
Vaktathi wrote: The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?
The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.
age of sail with multi Km long vessels being called frigates
Yeah, I mean it makes for cool visuals and an amazing universe, it just doesnt translate to the real world well
I think the shear level of coolness would overwhelm us anyway
One thing worth noting is "what would the IoM find of VALUE in earth" we're a primitive world, chances are we'd be valued for our resources and our labor, nothing more. all of which is avaliable in large quanities in the third world. they'd proably just obliterate north america and europe from orbit and focus their efforts on africa and asia. both with a high population density and less sophisticated armed forces
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?
For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?
When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.
From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .
Your strength argument makes no sense. A guardsmen with a lasgun club is strength 3. You're saying they can club harder than a modern assault rifle can shoot a bullet?
S3 could also mean Arnold Swarzenegger with a giant axe lopping limbs off people. Aka a human with a CC weapon. A single bracket of Strength covers A LOT of ground.
jeffersonian000 wrote: There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.
Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.
Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.
SJ
hi actual physicist here. Smoke won’t block a laser as powerful as a lasgun, but they will greatly reduce range. All lasers have a scattering effect they are neve exactly parallel beams. Air quality amplifies this. How much of an effect this would have? Fiik
Heavy carbon smoke is opaque to infrared, and therefore blocks IR range lasers.
Aluminum based aerosols are opaque to microwave range lasers. And are cancerous.
What branch of physics do you study?
SJ
What you're describing is parts of an old school "Blind Grenade", a multi spectral blocking cloud, which was distinctly different than a "Smoke Grenade". I'm not sure we know what frequencies Lascannons operate on other than "the really neato ones."
I remember once in a white dwarf (in the early 2000's I think) that descibed the Heavy Bolter as like the cannon on a Apache gunship.
And the Imperium uses it as a GPMG. Also this means the M230 Chaingun can only just cause glancing damage to a Leman Russes weakest armour.
The Leman Russ model is over exaggerated, in my headcannon. Heroic scale gone too far. Yes, it has suspension. Yes, three crew can fit in the turret. Yes, the cannon can recoil and not kill the crew.
Tygre wrote: I remember once in a white dwarf (in the early 2000's I think) that descibed the Heavy Bolter as like the cannon on a Apache gunship.
And the Imperium uses it as a GPMG. Also this means the M230 Chaingun can only just cause glancing damage to a Leman Russes weakest armour.
The Leman Russ model is over exaggerated, in my headcannon. Heroic scale gone too far. Yes, it has suspension. Yes, three crew can fit in the turret. Yes, the cannon can recoil and not kill the crew.
HB is a gyrojet system that means much less mass. Also there are thee distinct categories of irl autocannon. 20mm, 25mm, 30mm.
20mm explosive is the limit for legal ownership. It’s fireable from the shoulder from an anti material rifle, general purposes used in afvs and anti aircraft cannons
25mm is the next step up and generally used for afvs and anti aircraft guns for anti infantry and vehicles
30mm is the big boy on the block and used in a few systems. Unlike 20 and 25 it is not normal used for anti personnel. It is primarily anti material and anti tank as well as aircraft cannons
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?
For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?
When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.
From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .
I mean everyone is entitled to their opinions, mine is that yours on this subject should be discarded. A guardsman flak armor is not light vehicle armor
Setting aside the problem that the fluff doesn't make sense, one can't deny the fluff presents a lot of 40K weapons as extremely powerful. Of course, potency is not always reflected by the in-game stats. For example, space marines are more powerful in the books than on the table top. Nonetheless, I don't understand why anyone would think guardsmen with their lasguns are more potent than modern infantrymen. Feel free to correct me if you have a good example from the books. The fluff makes the lasguns sound about as effective as an assault rifle:
And in the game, an unarmored person who gets hits has 50% chance of continuing to fight. I don't think a person's odds would be better against an AK47.
Vaktathi wrote: 40k is Fantasy in space with a scifi skin. The real world is, practically speaking, light years beyond 40k, and, barring orbital bombardment by ships that have no right to function, would obliterate most 40k forces with ease, including Space Marines.
Exactly. We would lose to the space battleships, aside from the fact that the Imperium likes to engage on the ground. With their swords. LOL.
The Imperial Guard is equivalent to Shogunate / pre-Napoleonic infantry. A US Army platoon could comfortably defeat any Imperial Guard force at the Company level. More, as long as their ammunition holds up. Space Marines are firing larger caliber muskets, but they're still low-grade blackpowder weapons that we comfortably outrange. Space Marine armor is probably barely equal to what SWAT wears. Imperial Armor is laughably bad, comparable to Italy's tanks in WW2 - a typical M2 Bradley would destroy them long before they got close enough to engage.
I'd like to see a swat team arrive in a drop pod. They'd be going home in a mop and bucket. Autogun rounds bounce off space marine armour. A guy taking a bullet while wearing Kevlar sure as hell knows he's been shot.
gendoikari87 wrote: General question: how does the worlds modern military tech/soldiers stack up against those from 40k?
Personally I think a modern us or Russian or Chinese soldier would be more than a match for any infantry the ig can bring to bear, basically the equivalent of tempestus. Though they’d start to have trouble against bigger targets (m16 being the classic autogun) they do have access to better equipment, for example both Russians and the us have stockpiles of semi and full auto rifles in full rifle calibers with ap ammunition. Probably the equivalent of hotshot lasguns. But overall better training (because hey we don’t have a tyrranid fleet over us)
In terms of main battle tank, despite the look the Abrams/leopard2/chally2 all have the same caliber of gun as the lrbt 120 smoothbore , and what’s more the vanquishers description sounds super similar to our modern version. Armor wise I don’t know much about the russ but outside of the Abrams most mbt have active protection systems designed to stop missiles
Overall I’d say we actually have better equipment and tactics than the imperium at large. Maybe even space marines. The same I think can be said for most scifi and fantasy worlds because most writers simply do not fully comprehend the full breadth of the power of modern weapons nor are they trained in tactics.
Also let’s not forget things in 40k that are near direct ports from our world
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
I think understanding the world and resources is one of the main things you need to focus on. We, in all cases, are at war with each other, only making advances to one up modern weaponry. IG weapons are made to one up about 12 different xenos and heretics with varying abilities and armors, I mean think about the chitin of a Tyranid and what we have fought along those lines, the answer is nothing.
Being that the IG is vastly larger than our separated armed forces throughout the world funded by their respective governments, resources are stretched to include as many soldiers as possible. Lasguns may not be all that great in the grand scheme of the 40k universe, but the other option is nothing, which I think the leaders of the IG would honestly prefer, and still demand utmost loyalty while a wraithknight plays hacky sack with your body.
There are few military groups that demand the zealot-like loyalty the IG demands, while having as large a standing force as they do, against the creatures they fight. With this information, if the IG were to invade Earth to recruit citizens for its army, they would beat us, as we have no options for orbital bombardment, we do not have Ogryns to spearhead fortifications and wave off tank shots with their shields, and we do not have highly specialized and biologically engineered soldiers and assassins. We would lose, if not from their insanely advanced weaponry and sensors, but by their sheer numbers, as they have planets worth of soldiers to our single planet, and that is even if we decide to work together.
The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians
Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.
So what your are saying is this conversation is worthless and everyone should move on? I somewhat agree.
phillv85 wrote: I'd like to see a swat team arrive in a drop pod. They'd be going home in a mop and bucket. Autogun rounds bounce off space marine armour. A guy taking a bullet while wearing Kevlar sure as hell knows he's been shot.
Realistically anyone arriving via drop pod would not arrive intact. Even if space marines had the physiology to survive such an impact the pods themselves would be blasted out of the air by whatever local force is controlling the area. That's just one example of how bad an idea space marines are in an actual realistic fight.
As for the power armor it's pretty impressive but 0 stealth means they're easy pickings for forward scouts to radio in air and artillery strikes, or just good old fashioned traps and ambushes. sure autoguns bounce off, but I'd be willing to bet if you actually tested power armor it doesn't do much against Concussive blast waves. Means they're still susceptible to grenades like the M203. and LAW, because even if the HEAT doesn't penetrate the armor (which it probably can) the armor being a hard material will transmit the blast wave through it.
we do not have Ogryns to spearhead fortifications and wave off tank shots with their shields,
Ogryn's are about the dumbest thing in the IG and perfectly exemplify why 40k loses to real armies. Giant dumb brutes walking across the battlefield with explosed heads and a giant gun are what you call bullet magnets. Because contrary to how rules work, a bullet to the brain kills anything without two brains.
That's really the core of the 40k problem. "drive me closer i want to hit them with my sword" while cool. will get you killed. Period. Dead. Deceased, an ex person. Even in urban combat H2H is relatively rare. Things like grenades are vastly more important. In fact the entire game system and plots tend to leave out the most important tactics of warfare Deception, and stealth. Engagements with the enemy are rarely pitched and even. Especially tank battles. the side to locate and identify the other first usually wins. This even extends to things like the Tiger or panther VS M4. the myth of it taking 5 shermans to take out a cat is just that, a myth. 5 shermans vs 5 tigers or much more often panthers was decided by who saw the other first, and who shot first. Everything else was secondary.
Reason for this is simple. if you identify your enemy first you can choose to engage, and if you choose to engage it's going to be from a place of advantage. Moreover if you're opening fire from ambush your shots are going to be calm and collected. The enemies however are going to be going through a significant emotional event. that's how 5 shermans vs 5 panthers can end up with 5 dead panthers and no dead shermans. even though the panther is considered to be a superior tank.
This is all because simply put ranged weaponry eventually overtook armor and kept surpassing it. Explosives mean that won't be reversed until you can field units with 360 degree force fields.
phillv85 wrote: I'd like to see a swat team arrive in a drop pod. They'd be going home in a mop and bucket. Autogun rounds bounce off space marine armour. A guy taking a bullet while wearing Kevlar sure as hell knows he's been shot.
Realistically anyone arriving via drop pod would not arrive intact. Even if space marines had the physiology to survive such an impact the pods themselves would be blasted out of the air by whatever local force is controlling the area. That's just one example of how bad an idea space marines are in an actual realistic fight.
As for the power armor it's pretty impressive but 0 stealth means they're easy pickings for forward scouts to radio in air and artillery strikes, or just good old fashioned traps and ambushes. sure autoguns bounce off, but I'd be willing to bet if you actually tested power armor it doesn't do much against Concussive blast waves. Means they're still susceptible to grenades like the M203. and LAW, because even if the HEAT doesn't penetrate the armor (which it probably can) the armor being a hard material will transmit the blast wave through it.
No, you are right, 38,000 years into the future and they didn't develop blast reactive armor, man what an oversight! Seriously, this entire topic is an exercise in opinion mongering and "if anything in 40k existed in the real world it wouldn't work because of science!" IG is essentially the modern military, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING else is anything we have, or have run into before, ever. We don't fly through space in pockets of insanity to arrive at a planet infested with space locusts to purge them in the name of a man we never met who sits on a toilet on dialysis. We don't fight space elves with angry screaming woman who leap at you with swords. We don't have genetically engineered super soldiers who are decked out in power suits and fire guns with bullets the size of a vitamin bottle.
If you want to compare what the Imperials have in 40k to what the modern military has, there can be no middle ground, no ifs, no ands, no buts. They have superior technology and weaponry, and we have a scattered military force across multiple nations, even if we worked together, if they took too many casualties, they would glass our planet and repopulate it for the resources. If you really think we can just willy nilly whip out a LAW or RPG for every frakking Space Marine or Terminator they TELEPORT down into our battle lines, good for you, you don't understand how teleportation works, or arm mounted gatling cannons.
We haven't even gotten to psykers yet and how they can summon frakking psyonic lightning storms, or pop heads with their power, but we have.....AK-47s? Oh guerrilla tactics? Say hello to the Katachans, special forces? Say hello to the Vindicare, and this is before the IG take enough casualties to call in the Space Marines, which you wholly underestimate.
Even if you compare them to the powersuits in Fallout, that is basically a mobile tank firing weapons you cant even hold without support from a tripod or a tank. They have jetpacks, so good luck leading them into a trap or hole, some of the chapters are well versed in those tactics and will be waiting for you in your hidey holes with flamers and lightning claws while you feebly try to penetrate their armor with an AR15 loaded with NATO 5.56, even with AP rounds that doesn't have much punch, and the person underneath is genetically altered to take a hit or two.
Lets leave the Imperium behind, lets say we get invaded by one of the xenos species, start with the Orks, who would steer asteroids into our planet while they ride on the back of it. Tides of them in the billions WAAAAAAGHing across the planet, sure we have a lot of weapons, and they would work pretty damn well against the unarmored ones, we might even call it a win, until the second wave hits. We would be overrun, chopped to pieces, teeth collected, and eaten.
Last one, Tyranids, what do you possibly think we, in any military arsenal, would have against an alien specifically designed to hunt, kill, and reduce everything to biomass? Man, we have the airforce! They have millions of expendable fodder to slam into anything we put into the air. Man we have superior tactics! They have billions of creatures that will charge your lines and tear you to pieces. Man we can lead them into traps! Cool, they will run over the dead and assimilate your biomass before noon. Dude we can nuke them! Great, you did the job for them, easier to assimilate the biomass of things that are already broken down by large explosions. This isn't including the biological warfare they would use against us, terraforming our planet and releasing deadly spores into the atmosphere, weakening anyone who had the misfortune of being alive.
If you want to compare the modern military to the 40k universe, compare it, don't deny anything because you don't think it makes your argument valid, because the argument isn't to be honest.
No, you are right, 38,000 years into the future and they didn't develop blast reactive armor,
38,000 years also for xenos races to develop better missiles. also even assuming the blast does not destroy the pods, they are still subject to newtons laws of motion, meaning you will knock them off course and wildly out of control.
Contrary to the popular saying, advanced technology does not equal magic. You cannot break the laws of physics. armor can only block so much blast force. Period. Doesn't matter how advanced they are. end of story.
his entire topic is an exercise in opinion mongering and "if anything in 40k existed in the real world it wouldn't work because of science!"
Yes that's the entire point of the thread, nothing in 40k works even remotely as an actual military unit because the writers don't understand tactics or science.
How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
No, you are right, 38,000 years into the future and they didn't develop blast reactive armor,
38,000 years also for xenos races to develop better missiles. also even assuming the blast does not destroy the pods, they are still subject to newtons laws of motion, meaning you will knock them off course and wildly out of control.
Contrary to the popular saying, advanced technology does not equal magic. You cannot break the laws of physics. armor can only block so much blast force. Period. Doesn't matter how advanced they are. end of story.
his entire topic is an exercise in opinion mongering and "if anything in 40k existed in the real world it wouldn't work because of science!"
Yes that's the entire point of the thread, nothing in 40k works even remotely as an actual military unit because the writers don't understand tactics or science.
So basically your title, and your ability to structure any feasible argument is flawed and in the end doesn't matter. You say you want to compare, but at the same time, all you want to do is shove into peoples faces that 40k logic is skewed and doesn't work. So your agenda isn't to actually compare, its to prove something wrong and yourself right by some righteous reasoning only you know.
Well, as long as I know that for a fact, time to exit stage right, you have all the proof you need in my previous post, nitpicking small excerpts from it to try and feebly prove you are right is just building a strawman and you bore me now, bye.
It’s a misnomer to think the IG of 40k has superior technology to our modern day militaries. The IG functionally has WWII level of technology. Yes, they have Lasguns, but the only advantage Lasguns have over modern military grade small arms is the lack of a reliance on ammunition. Most IG weaponry is unguided and short ranged. Most of modern weaponry is designed for high accuracy at extreme ranges.
Flak Armor is the same between both groups, while Carapace Armor is no different than modern ballistic vests. Players of 40k either forget or never bother to learn that Flak vest are not designed to stop bullets, they are designed to stop shrapnel from nearby explosions. Actual ballistic vests are designed to absorb the kinetic energy of small arms fire, while ballistic plate incerts are intended to absorb the energy of higher caliber rounds up to rifle round in some cases; ie, Carapace Armor.
Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40kPA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.
The argument that 40k plasma weaponry is a game changer versus our tech is a bit laughable. Plasma is ionized gas. Sure, it’s hot, but it’s also electrically charged. All modern motor vehicles, even civilian ones, are electrically grounded. A bolt of plasma from a 40k plasma weapon might disable an armored vehicle, but probably not destroy it, and definitely not harm its crew or passengers. Plasma has a very penetration potential versus metal, even thin automotive steel. The electrical discharge would probably act as a localized EMP, which will knock out civilian vehicle, but not a military one. And even if it can be argued that 40k plasma weapons actually do have the energy transfer potential to kill a tank, modern tanks with reactive armor are design to defeat plasma based shaped charge warheads. Also, plywood sheets spaced a few inches apart defeat high explosive warheads, especially if the space is filled with water containers like soda cans. Your 40k dude can through God’s own bolt of lightning, and any modern day Redneck can Redneck the F only of course ignoring it.
So your Space dudes shoot armor piercing explosive rocket grenades? Space plywood defeats it, so does a grid of rebar.
So your Space dudes like to melee with chainsaws and energy swords? Our dudes fall back and just keep shooting.
Oh, so you got tanks! We kill tanks faster than we can build better tanks. In point of fact, our tanks only exist because other tanks exist. Tanks are almost functionally obsolete as a battlefield role given current anti-tank technology. And given the WWI level of IG tank technology, IG tanks are just metal coffins. Any 1st World or 2nd World modern tank should be able to kill any IG tank at range with little effort due to the fact that IG tanks are built to a 1920’s design standard while our tanks are built to 2000’s design standard. AdMech consider WWII tanks to be sophisticated technology bordering on heresy.
Oh, so you think ceramite and adamantium are super tech materials? Adamantium is from the root Adamant, which is diamond, which means Adamantium is carbon enriched iron, is high carbon steel. Which was invented by Arabs just after Roman fell. Ceramite? The modern day term is Composite Metal Foam, invented in the 1920’s but only became popular in the 1960’s, and truly became widely used over the past decade. Recent steel-aluminum foams have been demonstrated to act as very effective radiation shields, very effective thermal shields, and very effective ballistic armor (high caliber armor defeating round literally turn to powder on impact with 1” foam plate). The US Armor is planning on the next gen Abrams MBT to have Metal Foam spaced armor instead of reactive plates, which will save literal tons of weight while boosting overall protection.
Oh, any we use computers. Our cheapest smartphone has more processing power than pretty much anything built by the Imperium and AdMech. Sure, the Imperium can nuke us from orbit, but the ground game is ours.
You're wrong admech doesn't use computers they use cogitators, organic brains harvested to act as computers. Meaing even a servo skull has more processing power than our current day supercomputers. The admech is post robot apocalypse apocalyptic cult with varying degrees of technology.
We know the imperium does not use always traditional carbon based fuel. they have a variety of power scources wich for conveniences sake all have the same result on the tabletop. (Vostroya aside).
Do not underestimate the ground power of an army with air superiority and zero regard for losses.
Power armour is described as not just protecting the space marine but allowing for a host strenght/speed boosting effects. a space marine is described as pretty much Captain america in iron mans suit.
Adamantium is based on wolverine's claws, not adamant.
I can't even remember a recent description of what ceramite is supposed to do.
Plasma weapons are dangerous not for ionizarioon but the pure amount of energy they deliver. Everything depends on just how hot those flames are. And imperial plasma tech has been descriped as " the caged heart of a star."
And that's before we delve into the heart of 40k's handwavium : the warp.
Well, if the imperial guard can fight Tau and Eldar successfully, it can fight us for sure. One Droppod with space marines on every major government of the earth and most militaries won't even know what hit them or what to do. And once the warfare on the ground starts, even if we kill 10 guardsman for every loss we'll still be massively outnumbered (even the Chinese military will be) by a foe that is mostly on par with our military.
The imperium also has computers, even if they don't call them that way. They also have targeting scanners, otherwise the anti-air tanks wouldn't work.
Sorry, but it's hard to fear an army of guys with weapons with a maximum range equal to a snub 22
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sorry, but it's hard to fear an army of guys with weapons with a maximum range equal to a snub 22, and less accurate to boot! On the battlefield, it would be like shooting gophers
pm713 wrote: How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
Simple answer: Imperium as you aren't going to loose a fight from the top of a gravity well unless your opponent seriously outclasses you in technology.
Really though, you can't take two different settings and smash them together and expect them to work without dragging them into the other's setting. Comparing ST vs SW doesn't really work because both operate with different scientific realities. In ST a Federation ship scoffs at laser weapons but in SW planets don't scoff at the Death Star laser. How well would a Federation ship deal with a hit from a laser with enough energy to destroy an entire planet? No matter which way you go, you will likely be favoring one setting or the other.
Now if an IG guardsmen is as strong and tough as a regular human in reality, than an unarmed IG soldier getting shot by a .45 round is going to be having a very bad day and likely won't be doing much of anything else, if anything at all, for the rest of the day. We know that is mechanically possible for an IG soldier to kill a SM in close combat armed only with a lasgun. Now this implies that a real soldier would have a similarly unlikely chance and also implies modern weapons would still work.
Now let's continue from there and say you want to bring SM over to a Rifts RPG. There you have two types of damage, Structural Damage and Mega Damage. 1 point of MDC (Mega Damage Capacity) is equal to 100 SDC but it does not actually mean they are equal. If you have 120 SDC and take 1 MD, you get vaporized. If you unload with an SD weapon into a MDC target and do 120 SD, it takes no damage. Clearly converting a SM over to Rifts would mean they should be SDC characters as they can be beat by unaugmented humans and humans are SD creatures. This means a human in plastic man armor and shooting with a Willks laser pistol (both very basic MD gear) will ruin several SM because the setting mechanics don't mix well. Chances are though, if you are working to port SM to Rifts, they will probably just become MDC so they can still do what GW wanted them to do in Rifts, even if they are now immune to basic humans without MD weapons, because they come from a world with magic/psychics which are MD in Rifts.
Every setting has its own rules quirks that don't mix well with others. Luke Skywalker can pilot an X Wing in combat without any apparent training in space combat because SW was Inspired by pulp serials from a time when a kid who tooled around in the family crop duster could theoretically jump into a p-51 Mustang and be a good pilot. In reality a person who flies private aircraft won't become a modern fighter pilot, space shuttle pilot, or transatmospheric fighter pilot without a lot of training.
Earth127 wrote: You're wrong admech doesn't use computers they use cogitators, organic brains harvested to act as computers. Meaing even a servo skull has more processing power than our current day supercomputers. The admech is post robot apocalypse apocalyptic cult with varying degrees of technology.
While the human brain is the most complex structure in the know universe, it’s neither reliable nor as capable as you seem to think. Can you do high end math and run solfware in your head? Or can you do simple repetitive tasks? We both know the answer to that.
We know the imperium does not use always traditional carbon based fuel. they have a variety of power scources wich for conveniences sake all have the same result on the tabletop. (Vostroya aside).
A non-point. I already stated the Imperium have better power supplies. Restating that they have better power supply either means you missed it or you didn’t understand that the point was already given.
Do not underestimate the ground power of an army with air superiority and zero regard for losses.
Again, a non-point. The Imperium has space, so they win. We have have air and ground superiority, so from just a ground war point of view, we come out ahead.
Power armour is described as not just protecting the space marine but allowing for a host strenght/speed boosting effects. a space marine is described as pretty much Captain america in iron mans suit.
Doesn’t matter, the wearer is still salsa if hit by an Rocket Propelled Grenade.
Adamantium is based on wolverine's claws, not adamant.
Kind of an ignorant statement, since Marvel’s “adamantium” is a rephrasing of Steel, just like “Transparent Aluminum” is Sapphire, and “Dihydrogenoxide” is water.
I can't even remember a recent description of what ceramite is supposed to do.
It’s a ferrous ceramic with near indestructible qualities such as being 33% the weight of steel, being highly resistant to heat and impact damage, being good at blocking radiation, and requiring a special method of casting ... exactly like metal foam!
Plasma weapons are dangerous not for ionizarioon but the pure amount of energy they deliver. Everything depends on just how hot those flames are. And imperial plasma tech has been descriped as " the caged heart of a star."
Which is lightning. Plasma weapons in 40k are particle weapons in real life, which means they are functionally lightning guns. Lightning has been described as containing the heat of the sun, and are electrical discharges. Which are countered by lightning rods, which are simply a grounded conductor. Yes, a lightning strike is extremely destructive, and yes, cars and planes aren’t normally struck by lightning because they are not connected to earth ground, yet are internally grounded. We can create plasma weaponry right now, it’s just not easy to do while being easy to defeat. Unlike projectile weapons, which are easier to make and harder to defeat.
And that's before we delve into the heart of 40k's handwavium : the warp.
Handwavium is BSium, and has no meaning in a comparison between similar technologies when one is based in real life. The “it’s Magic” argument doesn’t even work in religious debates, sure doesn’t work when comparing a M-16 to a Lasgun.
Nacre wrote: Setting aside the problem that the fluff doesn't make sense, one can't deny the fluff presents a lot of 40K weapons as extremely powerful. Of course, potency is not always reflected by the in-game stats. For example, space marines are more powerful in the books than on the table top. Nonetheless, I don't understand why anyone would think guardsmen with their lasguns are more potent than modern infantrymen. Feel free to correct me if you have a good example from the books. The fluff makes the lasguns sound about as effective as an assault rifle:
And in the game, an unarmored person who gets hits has 50% chance of continuing to fight. I don't think a person's odds would be better against an AK47.
Physics of bullet wounds is actually quite interesting. Pistol rounds are extremely ineffective. In addition to having a lethality of only about 15%, often a torso shot doesn't even register with someone whos been shot.
assault rifle wounds vary wildly but typically the hydrostatic shock and tumbling in some cases means rifle and shotgun rounds have about a 50% lethality, and are much more immediately incapacitating.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
pm713 wrote: How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
The US military alone has weapons capable of doing this with smaller ICBM targets. I can only imagine what Eldar or Tau would have. The only thing that keeps marines from losing every battle before it begins is the grace of the emperor.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jeffersonian000 wrote: It’s a misnomer to think the IG of 40k has superior technology to our modern day militaries. The IG functionally has WWII level of technology. Yes, they have Lasguns, but the only advantage Lasguns have over modern military grade small arms is the lack of a reliance on ammunition. Most IG weaponry is unguided and short ranged. Most of modern weaponry is designed for high accuracy at extreme ranges.
one note to think about is the IG doesn't NEED better equipment, tactics would help, but they need numbers and a reliable supply train. The Lasgun might only be equal or lesser than an assault rifle but when you're being shipped off to a planet 3 lightyears away from the from civilization, you need ammunition that recharges itself.
Flak Armor is the same between both groups, while Carapace Armor is no different than modern ballistic vests. Players of 40k either forget or never bother to learn that Flak vest are not designed to stop bullets, they are designed to stop shrapnel from nearby explosions. Actual ballistic vests are designed to absorb the kinetic energy of small arms fire, while ballistic plate incerts are intended to absorb the energy of higher caliber rounds up to rifle round in some cases; ie, Carapace Armor.
SJ
only thing is those ballistics inserts are small. Armor mechanics in 40k are terrible. realistically you have to look at penetration it takes, coverage of the armor, and blast resistance.
Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40kPA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.
SJ
I dont think we will ever see power armor. In fact i can almost guarantee it. I can't legally say how i know that. Just suffice to say logistics are a SOB and infantry need to be able to stand on multiple levels of buildings. Unless a major advancement in lightweight bullet resistant material is introduced, the powered armor is just going to be fantasy. Stealth is more important and more effective.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also here's a hard pill to swallow. a USMC or equivalent sniper with a AP .50BMG will kill just about anything, anyone, including your precious super heroes. Superman included with a kryptonite tip. No superman cannot hear the bullet coming it's moving faster than the speed of sound.
That's the core of why 40k only works in a rule of cool universe. one man with the proper rifle can kill just about any of your favorite characters. hell even daemons since they seem to be equally affected by physical weapons.
It's not pretty, it's not fun, it's not interesting, it's not honorable, but it's damn effective.
The US military alone has weapons capable of doing this with smaller ICBM targets. I can only imagine what Eldar or Tau would have. The only thing that keeps marines from losing every battle before it begins is the grace of the emperor.
Source? My understanding is that ICBM countermeasures are pretty unreliable. Genuine curiosity.
pm713 wrote: How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
The US military alone has weapons capable of doing this with smaller ICBM targets. I can only imagine what Eldar or Tau would have. The only thing that keeps marines from losing every battle before it begins is the grace of the emperor.
Source? My understanding is that ICBM countermeasures are pretty unreliable. Genuine curiosity.
If by unreliable you mean they have a good 50% success rate? sure. And that's against ICBMs that don't have to retrograde before they hit the ground. other large air to surface missiles would work well too once the retroboosters engage. and we have plenty of those, ala the patriot.
It’s not the armor that’s the issue, it’s the power supply. All current exoskeleton designs that require power to work at tethered. Our battery technology is still lagging behind, and we can’t just strap a pocket fission core to our soldiers just to power an exo frame. But we can definitely armor a frame, it just won’t be all that maneuverable, and won’t be able to not be tethered. I’m still seeing them as being a thing in 10-15 years.
jeffersonian000 wrote: It’s not the armor that’s the issue, it’s the power supply. All current exoskeleton designs that require power to work at tethered. Our battery technology is still lagging behind, and we can’t just strap a pocket fission core to our soldiers just to power an exo frame. But we can definitely armor a frame, it just won’t be all that maneuverable, and won’t be able to not be tethered. I’m still seeing them as being a thing in 10-15 years.
SJ
Even a weightless powercore wouldn't solve the issue, the actual armor itself is bulky, motion limiting and clunky. You'd need something akin to medival knight armor that could stop assault rifle rounds.
jeffersonian000 wrote: It’s not the armor that’s the issue, it’s the power supply. All current exoskeleton designs that require power to work at tethered. Our battery technology is still lagging behind, and we can’t just strap a pocket fission core to our soldiers just to power an exo frame. But we can definitely armor a frame, it just won’t be all that maneuverable, and won’t be able to not be tethered. I’m still seeing them as being a thing in 10-15 years.
SJ
Even a weightless powercore wouldn't solve the issue, the actual armor itself is bulky, motion limiting and clunky. You'd need something akin to medival knight armor that could stop assault rifle rounds.
Oh thats easy, you just wave your hand and make the armour out of "trademarkanium" and you have a knight of old who is largely bullet proof, but whom strangely will fall to one in three small stones thrown at him hard enough, though still be able to shrug off one in six nuclear warheads
gendoikari87 wrote: General question: how does the worlds modern military tech/soldiers stack up against those from 40k?
Personally I think a modern us or Russian or Chinese soldier would be more than a match for any infantry the ig can bring to bear, basically the equivalent of tempestus. Though they’d start to have trouble against bigger targets (m16 being the classic autogun) they do have access to better equipment, for example both Russians and the us have stockpiles of semi and full auto rifles in full rifle calibers with ap ammunition. Probably the equivalent of hotshot lasguns. But overall better training (because hey we don’t have a tyrranid fleet over us)
In terms of main battle tank, despite the look the Abrams/leopard2/chally2 all have the same caliber of gun as the lrbt 120 smoothbore , and what’s more the vanquishers description sounds super similar to our modern version. Armor wise I don’t know much about the russ but outside of the Abrams most mbt have active protection systems designed to stop missiles
Overall I’d say we actually have better equipment and tactics than the imperium at large. Maybe even space marines. The same I think can be said for most scifi and fantasy worlds because most writers simply do not fully comprehend the full breadth of the power of modern weapons nor are they trained in tactics.
Also let’s not forget things in 40k that are near direct ports from our world
Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii
Our army/tech is as primitive as a medieval army in comparison to 30k-40k.
jeffersonian000 wrote: You’ve never read anything in 40k if you think we are more primitive.
SJ
i don't even think its about being more primitive. I mean i could pour resources into electromagnetic containment and ultracompressed plasma to make a plasma gun that actually, you know functions as described but those would be mostly wasted resources compared to say rail guns because thermal heat transfer is just... not as efficient and the technology just required to make it work would be immense. and then there's who they use them.... that's another problem
A while back GW released the technical stats for various imperial vehicles. Stuff like gun size, speed, range (aka fuel capacity), armor. The armor was interesting because they listed it as equivalent to tank armor steel aka rolled homogeneous steel (RHS).
They listed the front armor of a LRBT, at the same protection of 20mm of RHS, the LR at 300 mm (edited from my previous state 250mm). An Abrams is sitting there at a minimum of 850mm equivilent, and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection. A modern real world MBT is functionally immune to 40KAT weapons outside of super heavies. Meanwhile, an MBT can shoot and kill another MBT with one shot. This means that even a Land Raider gets canoed by a 105-125mm tank cannon, 25mm bushmasters, and 30mm Avengers. Or infantry portable copperheads, javelins, or even newer model RPG's.
How many shadowswords does the average imperial force carry with it? Because that's what you'd have to use to damage an Abrams reliably. The US has over 8,000 of them. Did the Imperial invaders bring 8K + shadowswords?
I also forgot, in terms of speed, an Abrams with a governor still on it is twice as fast as a LRBT over land, and 2.5x faster on a road. It also (like the LRBT) can use pretty much any combustible liquid as a fuel.
Small arms. M-16. Fun quirk about the M-16. It's actually less powerful then it could be. During development they changed the rifling from a 16" rifle, to an 18" (aka the length of the barrel needed for the groove to do a full circle of the barrel.) At 16" the M-16 can blow limbs off. The reason we changed it is that it loses accuracy in arctic temperatures.
Several of the Auto-guns depicted in 40K are M-16's and AK-47/74's. GW once flat out said the heavy stubber is an M2 machine gun (aka browning .50). So it's safe to assume that RW rifles are str:3, and RW M2's are str 4.
A .75 is roughly a 20mm gun. But a bolter isn't automatically the same as RW cannon. Bolt shells look to be about 3-4 inches long. RW 20mm cannon rounds are closer to 8". All of that extra space is gun powder, which means a more powerful shot. With the longer barrel, such as on vehicle mounted weapons, you also get a longer range, and an even higher muzzle velocity. The latter means even more damage and penetration.
Wich is why SCi-fi writers should never reveal their "numbers". They no sense of scale, or what tech they'd actually need to make some things they describe work.
pm713 wrote: How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
Okay. So they can make the Drop Pod land two streets away from where it was meant to if anything. Still getting your head removed by a giant angry mans fist.
Mmmpi wrote: and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection.
HEAT is not based on heat. HEAT creates a hypersonic jet of semi liquid copper that interacts with metals in a semiplastic state. Effectively it's a giant hypersonic spear.... that once it penetrates breaks up into billions of tiny spears and turns the crew inside to hamburger.
Mmmpi wrote: and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection.
HEAT is not based on heat. HEAT creates a hypersonic jet of semi liquid copper that interacts with metals in a semiplastic state. Effectively it's a giant hypersonic spear.... that once it penetrates breaks up into billions of tiny spears and turns the crew inside to hamburger.
Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
Mmmpi wrote: and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection.
HEAT is not based on heat. HEAT creates a hypersonic jet of semi liquid copper that interacts with metals in a semiplastic state. Effectively it's a giant hypersonic spear.... that once it penetrates breaks up into billions of tiny spears and turns the crew inside to hamburger.
Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
take it from someone who’s PhD is on this effect. Almost nothing you said was true
Mmmpi wrote: Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
WTF? No. None of that is true at all. Please do some basic research on the subject before posting nonsense. HEAT rounds are purely a kinetic weapon, penetrating armor by applying a lot of force to a small surface area and punching a hole in it. HEAT is an acronym and has nothing to do with temperature.
These days modern military's arent equipped to fight the grinding battles of Stalingrad or fall of Berlin the Imperium likes to fight.
Wooop de doo you have 8000 Abrams. They have 80000 Leman Russes.
Ze germans prolly thought, we have 1000 Tigers. Your crappy Shermans. Lol gg.
All the long range missiles we use require a base station which more or less turns them into imperium los weapons or requires some sort of communications with something in space. Which would be the first this taken out.
Pretty sure he was trying to describe a HESH round, not a HEAT round. HESH rounds deform on impact to act like a shaped charge, but they don’t penetrate the armor. Instead, the shockwave caused fragments the inner surface of the armor, which in turn kills the crew if the crew compartment doesn’t have a separate armored shell, or if the HESH round hit spaced armor, it’s charge is disrupted against the second armored surface. Certain composite armors can defeat HESH as well.
HEAT round are designed to bore a hole through armor, by various means. And HEAT rounds are defeated by a combination of reactive explosive plates and/or composite armor plates such as Chobham, or Composite Metal Foam.
Mmmpi wrote: Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
WTF? No. None of that is true at all. Please do some basic research on the subject before posting nonsense. HEAT rounds are purely a kinetic weapon, penetrating armor by applying a lot of force to a small surface area and punching a hole in it. HEAT is an acronym and has nothing to do with temperature.
correct. They get hot because of the extreme pressure applied and in gen 2 shaped charges without copper liners it is a jet of plasma that does the cutting, however note that this is not a heat but a force effect.
There are 4 distinct generations of shaped charges all work on the principals discovered by egon Neumann and a guy named Monroe.
Gen 1 is a flat area of explosive, because explosives explode away perpendicularly to the surface a flat bottom helps concentrate the explosive force. This is much the same as the British and their precious hesh head rounds.
Gen 2 has a conical cavity which due to the effect mentioned above concentrates the force to a single point. This will compress the air to a plasma but this IS NOT A HEAT EFFECT it is a force effect.
Gen 3 uses this effect to invert a copper liner and accelerate it at hypersonic speed. At hypersonic speed it obviously has a lot of kinetic energy and at these speeds metals behave in a semi liquid fashion, however they are not liquids
Gen 4 is the self forging penetrator and effectively turns a dome of copper into a fast but not hypersonic bullet. It is less efficient than gen 3
jeffersonian000 wrote: Pretty sure he was trying to describe a HESH round, not a HEAT round. HESH rounds deform on impact to act like a shaped charge, but they don’t penetrate the armor. Instead, the shockwave caused fragments the inner surface of the armor, which in turn kills the crew if the crew compartment doesn’t have a separate armored shell, or if the HESH round hit spaced armor, it’s charge is disrupted against the second armored surface. Certain composite armors can defeat HESH as well.
HEAT round are designed to bore a hole through armor, by various means. And HEAT rounds are defeated by a combination of reactive explosive plates and/or composite armor plates such as Chobham, or Composite Metal Foam.
SJ
Armor spacing also helps as it allows the plasma jet to spread out between armor layers.
If you're comparing Earth as it is to the Imperial Guard as it is, then we'd lose every time. Imperial Guard could arm a few shiploads of troops with sharpened sticks, and they'd overrun us through sheer numbers. But if you break it down evenly...
Infantry - Ultimately, I think we have a slight advantage here. Flak armor is better than what we have, the trusty lasgun is better than what we have, but we build stubbers with the best of them, and flak armor only protects from the chest up - and doesn't do much to help against explosives. Our real advantage would be through coordination, training, and tactics. Our basic infantry communication systems are better than what they have, and our training is better than the Imperial average (there are outliers, but the general picture painted is of a mass of barely-trained bodies). And the more we win, the more gear we can collect from the fallen, which lessens their technological advantage.
Tanks - I'm going to call this one even. The main armament is pretty similar, and while we don't have a great comparison of armor material strengths, we have the ability to make ablative armor for plasma, and our current armor isn't shabby. We'd also have the advantage of speed and profile - Leman Russ tanks stick up so high, they'd attract way more fire than an Abrams. At the end of the day, you don't have to breach the armor - you just have to limit the mobility or incapacitate the crew.
Super-heavy - We don't really have a good answer to the Baneblade or its ilk. Clear advantage to the Imperial Guard.
Artillery - Clear advantage goes to us. Aside from the old, wobbly, crotchety Deathstrike missiles they drag out of storage now and again, their long-range missile support is negligible. They rely on relatively dumb artillery, and on paper at least, it seems to be around the same level of firepower as our good old batteries here, and guided missile support has the advantage over a Basilisk any day of the week. The Imperial Guard relies more on direct tactics, and we've invested a lot of money into fighting battles from afar. And artillery wins wars.
Air Support - Again, I don't think we have a clear picture of how a Valkyrie compares to, say, an F-22, but we invest a lot in our air superiority strategies, and we have a lot of very effective, very long-range anti-aircraft systems. We also have more direct ground-support tools than the Imperial Guard seems to. Without further Imperial Navy support, I think we have the advantage here.
So, in summation - if you were to drop a single Imperial Guard army with no Navy or Astartes support, and they were fighting against a single NATO army, I think we could eek out a victory. Our supporting tools - air support, artillery - appears to be more advanced than what they typically run with, we have better training, and we can lessen the technological gaps (where they exist) with time.
That being said, once you bring in just about anything else, we're pretty well and truly screwed.
Mmmpi wrote: Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
WTF? No. None of that is true at all. Please do some basic research on the subject before posting nonsense. HEAT rounds are purely a kinetic weapon, penetrating armor by applying a lot of force to a small surface area and punching a hole in it. HEAT is an acronym and has nothing to do with temperature.
No, High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) are not kinetic kill. You are thinking Sabot rounds which are nothing but a hard and very fast dart (ours are made of depleted uranium).
HEAT:
Sabot:
(by the way, I was a tanker on M1A1 and M1A2s and know a bit about the topic).
Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40kPA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.
10th Mountain is going to be testing a legs only eco suit this year. SOCOM has a full body suit they are testing.
The imperium's 'industry standard' militarum regiment is the cadian template.
This is not a bad approximation at a basic infantry level - squad by squad they probably have an edge.
microbead vox are standard personal issue in: tanith, cadian, vostroyan, valhallan regiments. Lacks the non-voice data capability of some modern armies but squad level tactical comms is not uncommon.
The lasgun is pretty much identical to an assault rifle. Comparing the two in the guard RPG, 'only war', their range and basic punch is identical. For point of reference, the accatran pattern autogun in siege of vraks is called out as an 8mm weapon, so assume ak47-esque punch.
Autoguns have the advantage of fully automatic fire, making them good for suppressive fire, whilst lasguns only do 3 round bursts, max.
Lasguns have superior ammo capacity (approx x2 shots per 'clip'), and the option of giving up the higher shot count for harder hitting overcharge shots. The latter aren't quite as nasty as bolt shells, but they're close. Probably not too important in human versus human but good at stopping soft skinned vehicles or chopping up hard cover.
Flak armour is again, superior. Note that it has a small but meaningful chance of stopping a heavy stubber, which is essentially a .50 cal.
The militarum's biggest weaknesses are in tactical comms and the ability to call fire quickly on fleeting targets. But, ultimately they're a product of the wars they fight. You don't need drones and smart missiles to stop a tyranid swarm: you need an artillery park of basic howitzers and the ammo to keep firing whilst you chew through millions of foes that cannot be suppressed or broken.
See John Ringo's posleen saga for a good discussion on this, and what would happen if a tyranid or ork invasion hit us.
Astartes.....its a completely different kettle of fish. Comparing the novels or RPGs, it's like facing captain america in an iron man suit. They have more alert senses than you, faster reflexes than you, total data sharing comms and high-tech sensors, they can kill you with glancing wounds through light cover and you need at least light antitank weaponry to threaten them. Walking across a kilometre-wide open field,theyre as dead as any light armour, but in, say, a close-packed building fight, a combat squad of marines will basically go through contemporary military like the expendables through generic goons.
Mmmpi wrote: Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
WTF? No. None of that is true at all. Please do some basic research on the subject before posting nonsense. HEAT rounds are purely a kinetic weapon, penetrating armor by applying a lot of force to a small surface area and punching a hole in it. HEAT is an acronym and has nothing to do with temperature.
No, High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) are not kinetic kill. You are thinking Sabot rounds which are nothing but a hard and very fast dart (ours are made of depleted uranium).
HEAT:
Sabot:
(by the way, I was a tanker on M1A1 and M1A2s and know a bit about the topic).
Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40kPA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.
10th Mountain is going to be testing a legs only eco suit this year. SOCOM has a full body suit they are testing.
just because you were a tanker doesn’t mean you know jack about the science behind the weapons. HEAT Is a just an acronym. It is a pure kinetic kill weapon that takes advantage of blastwave shaping to deform a copper cone into a hypersonic copper spear. At these pressures and temperatures plasma is created buy has nothing no to do with cuttIng through armor. Do I need to post the us dod documents on the effect?
You're thinking of Discarding Sabot Rounds. (APDS)
HEAT rounds are plasma blowtorches.
HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) rounds work by causing spalling and concussive force through the hull of the vehicle.
Nothing about the HEAT round is a kinetic kill weapon. Seriously, you just had a tanker tell you that, and the US military actually trains their troops in how their weapons work. There might be a kinetic effect at the very end when the super heated internal hull explodes from it flash super heating, but that doesn't happen until after the weapon melts it's way through the armor. And before you mention the Munroe Effect, it's only part of the equation, with part of the high explosive used to create a void in the explosive charge to amplify the effect.
The first two use kinetic force, one via high velocity, the other by transmission of a shock wave. HEAT rounds don't. It's why heat resistant ceramic composites were developed for armor. If it was just a kinetic shot, then they wouldn't need that specialty.
I would consider getting your own facts straight before you accuse others of having a lack of education.
Mmmpi wrote: You're thinking of Discarding Sabot Rounds. (APDS)
HEAT rounds are plasma blowtorches.
HESH (High Explosive Squash Head) rounds work by causing spalling and concussive force through the hull of the vehicle.
Nothing about the HEAT round is a kinetic kill weapon. Seriously, you just had a tanker tell you that, and the US military actually trains their troops in how their weapons work. There might be a kinetic effect at the very end when the super heated internal hull explodes from it flash super heating, but that doesn't happen until after the weapon melts it's way through the armor. And before you mention the Munroe Effect, it's only part of the equation, with part of the high explosive used to create a void in the explosive charge to amplify the effect.
The first two use kinetic force, one via high velocity, the other by transmission of a shock wave. HEAT rounds don't. It's why heat resistant ceramic composites were developed for armor. If it was just a kinetic shot, then they wouldn't need that specialty.
I would consider getting your own facts straight before you accuse others of having a lack of education.
omg you are impervious to facts. I’ll post the us army’s own study when I get home where they specifically call out the effect is not a temperature based effect. I know because this is what I do for a living
For the 2nd document I can't find what I'm supposed to be seeing. I'll admit I'm a bit tired right now, and I'll give it another read through tomorrow.
As for the part on page 5, I need to refresh my knowledge of the effects of high speed and pressure on metal before I comment.
Mmmpi wrote: Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.
WTF? No. None of that is true at all. Please do some basic research on the subject before posting nonsense. HEAT rounds are purely a kinetic weapon, penetrating armor by applying a lot of force to a small surface area and punching a hole in it. HEAT is an acronym and has nothing to do with temperature.
No, High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) are not kinetic kill. You are thinking Sabot rounds which are nothing but a hard and very fast dart (ours are made of depleted uranium).
HEAT:
Sabot:
(by the way, I was a tanker on M1A1 and M1A2s and know a bit about the topic).
Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40kPA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.
10th Mountain is going to be testing a legs only eco suit this year. SOCOM has a full body suit they are testing.
just because you were a tanker doesn’t mean you know jack about the science behind the weapons. HEAT Is a just an acronym. It is a pure kinetic kill weapon that takes advantage of blastwave shaping to deform a copper cone into a hypersonic copper spear. At these pressures and temperatures plasma is created buy has nothing no to do with cuttIng through armor. Do I need to post the us dod documents on the effect?
I know exactly what I am talking about. SABOT kills with kinetic energy, i.e. a kinetic kill. No explosion, pure velocity and mass applied to the target.
HEAT, which I know fething well is an acronym, (I actually spelled it out in my post) uses a a shaped charge (see the pictures), NOT kinetic energy to breach armor.
500 degrees isn't going to do much to steel though.
I thought the point behind the heatwarhead was that an effective kinetic jet can be formed explosively at the target rather than needing to fire the projectile super fast. So its still.a.kinetic effect just caused by the warhead going bang rather than the shell propellant going bang.
I remember reading that every imperial guard world was to tithe 6000 of its best trained troops. These in turn are your basic Imperial Guardsmen.
For planet Earth there must be 100k special forces at least world wide. So take the top 10% of our special forces and tithe them to the Astra Militarium. Give them real war time experience on world after world, Year after Year....We are talking about some bad ass m**therf**kers! Oh and those are the lowest and most insignificant units in the game.
admironheart wrote: I remember reading that every imperial guard world was to tithe 6000 of its best trained troops. These in turn are your basic Imperial Guardsmen.
For planet Earth there must be 100k special forces at least world wide. So take the top 10% of our special forces and tithe them to the Astra Militarium. Give them real war time experience on world after world, Year after Year....We are talking about some bad ass m**therf**kers! Oh and those are the lowest and most insignificant units in the game.
Nuff said.
You are making a poor argument, as the only quality a survivor of fighting on world after world is luck at not dying to any one of millions of potentially mortal accidents. IG grunts are trench warfare experts, not skirmish warfare experts, nor guerrilla warfare experts. IG excell at gunlines and WWI era armored combat, not modern day combined arms mobile combat.
40k universe is wierd. Because of STC. There are some technologies which are supposedly far in advance of our current science, but which the 40k people themselves don't know how it works.
Stuff like lascannons and plasma guns sound pretty amazing, and if thats the basic stuff, and the weapons on the superheavies are far stronger versions on those guns, then that kind of weaponery is more powerful than the guns that the typical army on earth uses these days.
They also have void shields, ion shields, invulnerables saves. Anything that gives invul saves is far better than what our technology can do presently. You could fire off tons of missiles to blanket a whole area, and then those three imperial knights or that warlord titan just shrugs it all off because of their ion shields and void shields.
They have massive starships and battle barges that can perform exterminatus on a planet with planet killing weapons. Which we don't have. Not to mention the ability to travel massive distances via the warp.
But they have no idea how most of these stuff all works.
admironheart wrote: I remember reading that every imperial guard world was to tithe 6000 of its best trained troops. These in turn are your basic Imperial Guardsmen.
For planet Earth there must be 100k special forces at least world wide. So take the top 10% of our special forces and tithe them to the Astra Militarium. Give them real war time experience on world after world, Year after Year....We are talking about some bad ass m**therf**kers! Oh and those are the lowest and most insignificant units in the game.
Nuff said.
You are making a poor argument, as the only quality a survivor of fighting on world after world is luck at not dying to any one of millions of potentially mortal accidents. IG grunts are trench warfare experts, not skirmish warfare experts, nor guerrilla warfare experts. IG excell at gunlines and WWI era armored combat, not modern day combined arms mobile combat.
SJ
That's not necessarily true. Most of the books have them in trenches in grinding combat, but there's plenty of elites who carry out hit and run missions and skirmish battles. You only have to look as far as the Tanith First to see them in all manner of combat situations that involve them sitting in battles of attrition. Then there's Storm Troopers and Scions who are said to handle missions comparable to what modern day special forces deal with. The Imperium will have the full spectrum covered with the size of their forces.
500 degrees isn't going to do much to steel though.
I thought the point behind the heatwarhead was that an effective kinetic jet can be formed explosively at the target rather than needing to fire the projectile super fast. So its still.a.kinetic effect just caused by the warhead going bang rather than the shell propellant going bang.
in essence yes. But it’s much more complicated. Shaped charges literally shape the blastwave and concentrate it. In gen 3 the most common, this force is put into creating a hypersonic copper needle. But the complicated part is that at those forces and velocities metals don’t behave like solids, more like two fluids. So it is a kinetic chemical kill weapon and definitely not a thermal kill.
I think that the IG use WW2 style tactics. Just not on the table top. The basic IG squad is basically a rifle section and a MG section, just like in WW2. From what I have read of the fluff most of the time it is not trench line but fortified WW2 style. I think that WW1 style Guard is more of a meme than anything.
Yeah, DKOK are explicitly a WW1 throwback. Elysians and Harakoni Warhawks are paratroopers a la 'A Bridge Too Far'. Scions are Special Ops. The Imperial Guard are actually quite a varied bunch.
I think the whole attritional trench stuff is a consequence of the enemies they come up against. The Taros Campaign is a pretty decent approximation of how the Guard might work in a real world manner. With Marine support and with orbital superiority I don't think we have anything that could stop them. The Tau win that campaign through ambushing Imperial Fleet assets and deploying never-seen-before Titan-killing weapons.
Even at this, the Raptors' armoured right hook nearly defeats the Tau single handedly, only over stretched supply lines halts it.
I think the bureaucracy that the Guard operates under would be our greatest asset. It literally takes weeks for them to get any operation off the ground.
pm713 wrote: How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
I'm not sure the GAU-12 is going to be hugely useful. A drop pod is likely moving faster than the actual round, and it only has a 3km range. Anti-ballistic missile weaponry is probably a better option, so the most recent versions of the S-400 are relevant. CIWS systems run into a similar problem to the equalizer, as well as a drop-pod being a fairly heavily armoured target in comparison to the targets the latter weapons are targeted at normally. Its also got evasive capability.
I'm not sure the doctrine of Astartes suggests that they wouldn't act to suppress enemy air defences either?
pm713 wrote: How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.
I'm not sure the GAU-12 is going to be hugely useful. A drop pod is likely moving faster than the actual round, and it only has a 3km range. Anti-ballistic missile weaponry is probably a better option, so the most recent versions of the S-400 are relevant. CIWS systems run into a similar problem to the equalizer, as well as a drop-pod being a fairly heavily armoured target in comparison to the targets the latter weapons are targeted at normally. Its also got evasive capability.
I'm not sure the doctrine of Astartes suggests that they wouldn't act to suppress enemy air defences either?
It doesn't matter if the drop pods is moving faster than the round if it's closing. Also if the drop pods is coming I to attack a vital installation, it's more likely to have such a defence system and be within its effective range. It's more that we currently have automated predictive firing systems that can track fast moving things and drop a lot of pointy and/or explosive things directly in their path.
